Introduction
Barlaston station, now closed but mothballed, is located on the main ‘Pottery Line’ of the former North Staffordshire Railway (NSR) about 4½ miles to the south of the NSR’s principal station and epicentre at Stokeon-Trent. It was once frequented on a very regular basis by the North Staffordshire Railway’s redoubtable General Manager, William Douglas Phillipps (1839-1932), as he travelled, sometimes twice daily, to and from his office at Stoke station. That was when he lived nearby at Tittensor, about one mile away from the station at Barlaston. In 1894 he might well have been instrumental in changing the station’s name to Barlaston & Tittensor.
W. D. Phillipps
William Douglas Phillipps (WDP) was born at Dewsall in Hertfordshire on 10th May 1839. At a NSR directors’ meeting on 3 February 1882, it was agreed that he should be appointed as Traffic Manager. However, by the time the directors met again during the following March, the company’s General Manager, Martin Smith, had died and it seems that WDP acted in that capacity from the outset of his new appointment, although it was not reflected in his official title until 1890. He initially lived at Hartshill but by 1896 he was living at Tittensor in a property called Grayswood. He purchased the property on the sale of the Barlaston and Sutherland Estates in 1914 but vacated it following his retirement as General Manager in September 1919.1 He went to live at The Lea, Eccleshall, where he died on 11th August 1932, aged 93. His funeral took place at St. Luke’s Church, Tittensor, on 13th August and he is buried in the churchyard.
WDP’s views on punctuality were so strong as to be, in his later years, the cause of a terrible scene at Barlaston, when the station master, seeing the old man approaching late for his regular train to Stoke and knowing that he could not run down the road, held the train out of kindness so he could catch it.2 The unfortunate station master received the full force of one of the General Manager’s best verbal explosions on the subject of delaying trains – no matter for whom! No doubt the station staff at Stoke would be on their mettle as the General Manager arrived and departed. Indeed, the Stoke station master, wearing his top hat, was always on hand to give WDP his personal attention on his return to Barlaston.
The station
Several authorities assert that the original station at Barlaston was opened on 17th April 1848, so witnessing the passage of the inaugural NSR passenger train as it made its way from Stoke to Norton Bridge. I do not think this is the case. The minutes of the NSR Traffic Committee which met at Stone on 30th May 1848 reveal that a petition signed by the inhabitants of Barlaston was laid before the Committee “praying that the level crossing lodge at Barlaston be made into a passenger station for the accommodation of that neighbourhood”. It was ordered that arrangements be made on or after 1st July 1848 for trains to stop at Barlaston Lodge and that bookings for passengers should take place there. So the first date that passengers could . Some four years later, the original station at the Lodge was replaced by a new one on a slightly different location. One of Barlaston’s most notable commuters at that early date was Francis Wedgwood (1800-1888), master potter at the Etruria factory created by his grandfather Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795). The new station, said to have opened on 21st September 1852, was located at 4 miles 48 chains from Stoke on a level stretch of the line. In 1853 it was agreed that a night porter should be employed to attend to the crossing gates. The next station to the north was Trentham and that remained the situation until 1st January 1940, when Wedgwood Halt was opened. The next station to the south was Stone.
