The Charles Dickens Letters Project

To THOMAS BATTAM,1 31 MAY 1852

MS Gavin Adams.

Tavistock House, London | Thirty First May 1852

Dear Sir

Pray accept my very sincere thanks for the elegant present2 you have had the kindness to send me. I am glad you were amused by the Paper3 which my interesting visit to the Works4 over which you preside—and to the Dodo5—suggested. Mr. Wills had brought me such alarming reports of the indignation of the people of Stafford in behalf of their brick, and their town,6 that when I found myself, three weeks ago,7 obliged to wait at the Station there, three hours, I was not without personal apprehensions and a secret resolution never to be taken alive.

Thomas Battam Esquire.

With many thanks | My Dear Sir | Very faithfully Yours

 CHARLES DICKENS

• 1. Thomas Battam (1810-64), the art superintendent at Copeland’s (formerly and later Spode’s) china manufactory, at Herons Cross, Stoke-on-Trent. He claimed to be the originator of Parian Ware, developed at Copeland’s under his direction: see Vega Wilkinson, Spode-Copeland-Spode: The Works and Its People 1770-1970, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2002, pp. 72-4; illustrations pp. 76-84; map of the works, p. 91.
• 2. Presumably a Parian ware figure.
• 3. “A Plated Article”, Household Words, 24 Apr 52, V, 117-21; written with Wills.
• 4. In early April, when visiting Birmingham and Shrewsbury with Wills.
• 5. CD’s name, in “A Plated Article”, for the Swan hotel, Stafford, “the extinct town-inn”.
• 6. The article refers to the Town Hall as a “brick and mortar” private on parade and to Stafford as “dull and dead a town as any one could desire not to see”. The Staffordshire Advertiser, 24 Apr, quoting “A Plated Article” (Household Words, dated 24 Apr, was issued 21 Apr), defended the town against CD’s strictures.
• 7. Presumably on 11 May, when the Guild company of actors was travelling from Shrewsbury to Birmingham.