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Arnold Bennett

Anna Of the Five Towns - July 2000

Synopsis | The Five Towns | Arnold Bennett

Anna of the Five Towns
Set in the potteries, and filled with Bennett's characteristic detail - the prayer meetings, rent collecting Sunday school and dark interiors. It shows a community as gossipy, myopic and savage in its condemnations as any in late Victorian England.
'The worst tyrannies of her father never dulled the sense of her duty to him; without perhaps being aware of it, she had rather despised love.'
Brought up in the stern tradition of Methodism by her miserly father, Ephraim Tellwright, Anna never dreams of escaping the narrow confines of her world. On coming of age she inherits a fortune, and when later she becomes engaged to the pious and successful Henry Mynors, Anna feels she has found happiness. But when Ephraim drives a local business man to suicide, Anna is thrown into misery and confusion by her desire to protect his son, Willie. In a moment of great courage she risks her engagement and her father's wrath with a defiant act . . .
One of Arnold Bennett's finest novels, Anna of the Five Towns is at once a brilliantly detailed picture of life in the Potteries, and a tightly knit story of the destructive forces of evangelism and industrial expansion in a small community. 

The five towns of Arnold Bennett

BURSLEM (Bursley) - The Mother town of the Potteries, Duck Bank, St. Luke's Square. The seat of pottery manufacturing from the 18th century, birthplace of Josiah Wedgwood. The old Town Hall with its golden angel was completed in 1857. Pottery designer Clarice Cliff was trained at the school of art in Queen Street.
TUNSTALL (Turnhill) - The most northerly of the pottery towns. 200 years ago was called the most pleasant and green village in the Potteries. Producing iron as far back as 1280. Famous sons and daughters included Gertie Gitana born in 1880, who starred in a Royal command performance with songs including Nellie Dean and Sweet Caroline. In 1899 Clarice Cliff was born at 19 Meir Street.
HANLEY (Hanbridge) - Was named Hanlih by early Anglo Saxon settlers in the 1300's. The name means high wood or clearing in the wood. In 1834 it was described as a large modern town, second in Staffordshire to Wolverhampton. Its sense of importance is confirmed in street names such as Piccadilly, Pall Mall and Cheapside. In the 18th Century the town was a collection of dwellings around Upper and Lower Green, two small villages half a mile apart. The composer Elgar was a regular visitor to the Victoria Hall. Hanley was the birthplace of football legend Sir Stanley Matthews, Captain Smith of the ill-fated Titanic and of Arnold Bennett himself. Now the commercial capital of the six towns it boasts a large shopping centre, award winning museum and cultural quarter.
STOKE (Knype) - Stoke station on the Manchester to London Great Western line. The name Stoke comes from the old English Stoc (where there is a church). Since 1086 its parish included Newcastle, Clayton, Seabridge, Whitmore, Burslem, Bagnall, Hanley, Norton-in-the-moors, Bucknall, Lane End, and Fenton. In the late 18th century the pottery industry was becoming established. 1770 saw the Spode factory set up in the centre of the town.
LONGTON is the newest and most isolated of the six towns. It was originally an agricultural area. 1695 recorded mining of coal and iron. Then in late 1750 the pottery industry began to appear in the town. Numerous pot banks started to line the main streets jumbled in and around houses of the workers employed in the ceramic industry. The award winning Gladstone Pottery Museum is based here and Queens Park is the oldest of the Potteries public parks.

Arnold Bennett (1867 - 1931)
by Joyce Holliday
Enoch Arnold Bennett was born in his father's pornbroker's shop in Hanley. Then his father, with the help of a small inheritance, began to study for the law and the family moved to a tiny terraced cottage in Burslem. These places in Burslem were the inspiration for many of his novels: The terraced cottage became the setting for THE CARD, his grandparent's shop for THE OLD WIVES' TALE and the family's later move to a new, large house in Cobridge for parts of CLAYHANGER.
His father, having succeeded in his career, naturally wanted his eldest son to join him in his solicitor's office, but Arnold was determined to be a writer and left for London as soon as he was 21. After some early struggles, he managed to establish himself as a journalist and critic, something he continued with all his life. He wrote some 23 novels plus novellas, numerous short stories and several books of non-fiction. Although nowadays he is best known for his novels, he wrote around 19 plays and these were what produced most of his fortune.
For a while he lived in Paris, but then returned to England where he brought a large country mansion and yacht. 
During the 1914 - 1918 war he moved back to London to work on various War Committees. He always worked tremendously hard, sticking to a punishing writing regime, but during the twenties he also found time to enjoy the high life and became a well known man-about-town. However, in spite of his enormous success, he never forgot his humble origins and was always extremely generous and helpful to his family and to various struggling young writers.

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