The Goodwin Ball Mill is located adjacent to the Caldon Canal outside the Etruria Industrial Museum in Etruria.
An information board located in front of the Ball Mill gives the following information;
'The Goodwin Ball Mill
This ball mill was manufactured by J.Rohrbach, Iron Works, Katzhutte, Thuringia, Germany and installed at Goodwin's Westwood mill in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent in 1904. It is reputed to be the first ball mill to be installed in the UK. Afterwards it was employed at Lower Washford Mill in Congleton, Cheshire. When it closed in 2000 Mr John Goodwin donated it to the Etruria Industrial Museum.
Until the late 1800's materials were ground in open pans using wet process patented in 1726 by Thomas Benson. This method may be seen at the steam powered Shirley's Bone and Flint Mill on this site and at the water powered Cheddleton Flint Mill, 15 miles (24km) along the Caldon Canal.
Ball mills were developed in the 1870's as next stage in milling technology. The material to be ground was put into the mill with water and hard balls of a substance such as flint r ceramic. The cylinder was rotated for typically 6 to 8 hours at a speed of 16 revolutions per minute. The action of the hard substance and water produced a fine material in suspension. The tank ran in a channel under the mill and was used to collect the ground material and transport it to settling arks (tanks) and drying beds.
Restored and erected in 2017 supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund'
"George Goodwin & Son, Westwood Mills, Lichfield Street, Hanley
Potters' Millers, Established 1848
Westwood Mill stood alongside the Cauldon Canal, off Lichfield Street, Hanley.
Geo. Goodwin also had mills at Consall and Cheddleton.
Westood Mill closed in 1966 and was replaced by a cement batching plant which closed c.2009
A descriptive account of The Potteries (illustrated)
1893 advertising and trade journal.
Messrs. George Goodwin and Son, Potters' Material Grinders
Westwood Mills, Hanley
"In any attempt to offer a descriptive account of the manufacture of china, porcelain and earthenware, it is necessary to trace the history of the treatment to which the raw materials employed are exposed.
The firm of Messrs. George Goodwin and Son, of Westwood Mills, Hanley, affords a capital exemplification of the preliminary process of grinding the ingredients necessary to the formation of a porcelain or earthenware vessel of superior quality. And here it may be noted that the preparation of these materials for the potter's use is, strictly speaking, a separate trade from that of pottery manufacture, the small houses purchasing the material ready prepared from firms engaged, as are Messrs. George Goodwin and Son, in the grinding department.
The material treated by this firm include flints collected off the English and French coasts and Cornish stone from Cornwall. Of the substance known as flint, we need say but-little, as its leading properties and characteristics are pretty generally known to even the least erudite reader of these pages.
But Cornish stone requires a word of description. It is composed of quartz, partially decomposed felspar, and a talcose material. It is quarried and sent direct to the Potteries in its native state, without any preliminary dressing, or other preparation there, of course, it requires grinding and special treatment before it can be used by the potters in making the many beautiful articles peculiar to their art. At Messrs. George Goodwin and Son's establishment the machinery employed in the grinding of the before-mentioned ingredients is of tho most powerful and modern character, which, considering tho nature of the material to be dealt with, is a fact that will be readily understood, a fine compound engine being required to supply the motor force.
A lengthy period is necessarily occupied in the process of grinding, and the work is very effectively carried out by the most recent appliances. It will assist the reader to an appreciation of the fineness to which the hardest flints and Cornish stones are reduced when we mention that the liquid pulverised mass when thoroughly reduced can be passed through sieves made with about 4,000 meshes to the square inch.
The trade of the firm lies among the various pottery establishments of the district. The business under our notice is one of old and honourable associations. It was founded some forty years ago by the father of the present principal, and by careful administration the business has become the largest of its kind in the neighbourhood of the Potteries. A number of barrel-shaped carts are employed in distributing the prepared material to its various destinations in the Potteries district. The house exemplifies in the most perfect manner the process of grinding preliminary to all porcelain and earthenware manufacture, and its business is an essential adjunct to the staple trade of the district."
SOURCE- Photographs of Westwood Mills can also be seen at the following link: (
visit link)