How 'the cussed lot' made their mark...

THEY'RE a cussed lot,' were the words muttered by one of the negotiators during the Federation hearing in 1909 - 'stubborn and uncooperative.' The 'cussed lot' were the representatives of Fenton Urban District Council, and the remark was directed to its chief negotiators, chairman Philip Elliott, right, and former chairman John Shaw Goddard.

- Fred Hughes - Historian and author

The year 1910 saw the six North Staffordshire towns united as the Borough of Stoke-on-Trent. Four were already borough councils in their own right, each with a mayor, a chain of office, and a civic mace. Fenton and Tunstall failed to meet the qualifying population number to become boroughs in their own right, and they became urban district councils in 1894. As such, they weren't qualified to hold armorials. And this hurt, because historically Fenton and Tunstall were older and more expansive in territory, than either Longton and Hanley.