Staffordshire: Cultural Contribution

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Tuesday 29th April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Furniss, and a pleasure to see so many of my county neighbours, not least those who border my constituency: my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee), the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner). I say “neighbours” because “everybody needs good neighbours”, as the song from the hit—[Laughter.] Hold on: there is a link. Those words were in fact written by Jackie Trent, who was born in Newcastle-under-Lyme and lived in Stoke-on-Trent. She penned the famous words that were on our television screens for so many of our childhood memories.

That sums up the diversity of cultural and creative activities that we have in Staffordshire. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Leigh Ingham) pointed out, we have a plethora of things to offer. I will not go into the territory of my hon. Friend the Member for Burton and Uttoxeter (Jacob Collier) on breweries, but I will make special mention of Titanic Brewery, a brewery in Stoke-on-Trent with pubs across the area. It is named, of course, because one of the famous sons of Stoke-on-Trent was the captain of the Titanic. We do not necessarily want to parade that around too much, but it is a link to a historic event. More importantly, the tableware on the Titanic was also made in Stoke-on-Trent, and that has a much better story. The backstamps can still be seen at the Spode Museum in Stoke.

It would be remiss of me not to briefly mention ceramics. We in this House talk a lot about ceramics—well, I certainly do—and they are part of who we are. In many parts of the country, if people go to a high-end restaurant or a big hotel—or if Members go to the Tea Room—and turn over the plate, they will probably see something that was made by artisans in Staffordshire, most likely in Stoke-on-Trent, but also in parts of Staffordshire Moorlands, Stone and Stafford.

Those delicate pieces of tableware, the bricks that we see in our buildings, and the tiles on our roofs—indeed, the tiles in the Central Lobby of this Palace—have all been made from the sweat, toil and tears of Staffordshire artisans. It is those things of beauty, made from dirty clay, that I often think demonstrate the power and the ability that we have in-county.

We are more than a city and a county of ceramics, and we are more than just the sum of our parts and our pottery. As was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford, the well-known author Arnold Bennett very pithily and wittily accounted for parts of public life in north Staffordshire through his books. One of his most famous works is “The Card”, which I saw when it was on at the New Vic in a wonderful adaptation. The fact that it had local people in the cast telling the stories of our history made it special.

One of Arnold Bennett’s other most famous works is “Anna of the Five Towns”, but of course everyone knows that Stoke-on-Trent has six towns. I do not want to mislead the House, but it is potentially true—I believe it to be true, so I am comfortable saying it—that Arnold Bennett’s mother-in-law lived in Fenton and apparently he was not a great fan of his mother-in-law, so when he wrote “Anna of the Five Towns”, he left out one of the towns as a long-lasting snub to her. I would not suggest any of us recreate that—I happen to be quite fond of my future mother-in-law—but those small bits of our history permeate through different literary and cultural activities. Many people around the country will not realise that they come from Staffordshire.

I want to talk about a couple of smaller things that are not ceramics. One of the things that I am most proud of relates to a name not well known to history. There was a gentleman called Oliver Lodge. He was from Penkhull, a beautiful part of my constituency, and he was a physicist. Long before it was publicly accepted, and long before Hertz, he discovered electromagnetic radiation. He was a pioneering physicist and scientist who, through his work in north Staffordshire, was able to identify some of the fundamental energy sources of our universe. Sadly, his name is lost to history in a way that Hertz is not. There is a Lodge Road and an Oliver Road in my constituency, which are of course testament to him. He is another Staffordshire-rooted individual who made a rich contribution to our scientific and cultural understanding.

On the other side, we have Thomas Twyford, who was born in Stoke-on-Trent. His contribution to our public life is somewhat more comical, some might say—he invented the first single-piece ceramic flush toilet, which revolutionised public hygiene in this country. It is a toilet, but it revolutionised the way that people lived their lives and the way they looked after themselves. It was a huge contribution to the reduction of unsanitary conditions in public areas and brought down disease rates. Again, it is something that happened in Staffordshire that changed the world, but sadly is now a bit lost to history.

Finally, not to test the patience of the House too much, I want to make a pitch for what comes next. Our contribution has not ended with the history of the things we have done. It is not about the litany of wonderful collective stories that we will all share about the great things that have happened in our county, but about what is coming next.

I want to highlight the fascinating and brilliant work that the University of Staffordshire is doing around gaming and game design. According to The Independent Games Developers Association it is the No.1 destination in the country for students who want to learn game design. I was told that one in five of those who now work in the industry in the UK are graduates of the University of Staffordshire. It is a huge piece of our creative history becoming our creative future, turning real-life ambition into good quality jobs for people, mainly from my city and my county.

While I know there will be more contributions to this debate, the fact that we have been able to come together in the spirit of comradeship and collegiality two days before Staffordshire Day is a wonderful thing. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford on securing a debate that allows us to talk about the place that we love and call home.

[Gill Furniss (in the Chair)]

I will have to limit speeches to three minutes, as so many Members have asked to speak.