Their tale was a pitiable one: 'At Michaelmas 1745 they found themselves indebted to the said charities and their other creditors 100,000l.; they were liable for present annuities to the extent of 7,620l.; for annuities in expectancy, 1,000l. a year; the whole of their income being 4,100l.' The parliamentary aid amounted, according to Price, to 3,000l. per annum, and thus they were enabled to meet their engagements.
[Watt's Life of Dr. Assheton, London, 1714, Biographia Britannica, ed. Kippis, London. 1747; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iv. 606; General Catalogue, British Museum; Francis's Annals and Anecdotes of Life Assurance, London, 1853; Walford's Insurance Cyclopædia (a full account is to be given under the word 'Mercers' Company,' which has not yet been published); Price on Reversionary Payments, London, 1812.]
ASTBURY, JOHN (1688?–1743), potter, was a clever mechanic, who introduced himself disguised as an idiot to the wworks of two brothers named Elers, of Nürnberg, who had settled at Bradwell, Staffordshire, about 1690. He discovered the secrets of their manufacture of red ware, and, obtaining his discharge on pretence of sickness, set up a rival establishment at Shelton, also in the potteries. He introduced the use of Bideford pipeclay, and in 1720, happening to notice an ostler blowing powder from a red-hot flintstone pulverised into the eyes of a horse as a remedy, hit upon the application of calcined flint in pottery, which greatly improved his ware. He died in 1743, aged 55, as his tombstone in Stoke churchyard testifies, having made a fortune, and leaving several sons. One of these, Thomas, had begun business at Lane Delpli in 1725, and was the first English manufacturer of cream-coloured ware. Samuel Astbury, also a potter, a brother of John Astbury, married Elizabeth, the sister of Thomas Wedgewood, father of Josiah Wedgewood, and was in 1744 one of the witnesses to the deed of Josiah's apprenticeship to potteiy-making. Wedgewood's latest biographer attributes his success to his adoption of the important inventions described above, with which she credits Samuel Astbury. Possibly Samuel Astbury contributed to John's improvements of his art, but there seems no reason for doubting that it was John and not Samuel who was their discoverer.
[Jewitt's Ceramic Art in Great Britain, passim; Eliza Meteyard's Life of Josiah Wedgewood, i. 140-56; Marryatt's History of Pottery, 194-5; Chaffers's Marks on Pottery and Porcelain, pp. 692-3; Shaw's History of Staffordshire Potteries, pp. 119-30, 141.]
ASTELL, MARY (1668–1731), authoress, was the daughter of a merchant at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Her uncle, a clergyman, observing her excellent abilities, undertook to educate her himself. She passed the first twenty years of her life at Newcastle; she then settled in London, and afterwards at Chelsea, where she was a neighbour and acquaintance of Dean Atterbury. She was the intimate friend, to the end of her life, of the excellent Lady Elizabeth Hastings, and the esteemed con-espondent of Norris of Bemerton.
Mary Astell is now chiefly known as the authoress of a 'Serious Proposal to Ladies' (1694). It was published anonymously 'by a Lover of her Sex;' but the authorship appears to have been an open secret. The proposal was, in her own words, 'to erect a monastery, or, if you will (to avoid giving offence to the scrupulous and injudicious by names which, tho' innocent in themselves, have been abus'd by superstitious practices), we will call it a Religious Retirement, and such as shall have a double aspect, being not only a retreat from the world for those who desire that advantage, but likewise an institution and previous discipline to fit us to do the greatest good in it.' There were to be no vows or irrevocable obligations, not so much as the fear of reproach to keep the ladies longer than they desired.' It was to be conducted strictly on the principles of the church of England; the daily services were to be performed 'after the cathedral manner, in the most affecting and elevating way;' the 'Holy Eucharist was to be celebrated every Lord's day and holy day;' there was to be 'a course of solid, instructive preaching and catechizing,' and the inmates were to 'consider it a special part of their duty to observe all the fasts of the church.' But it was intended quite as much for mental as for moral and religious training; or, rather, the two were to go hand in hand, for 'ignorance and a narrow education lay the foundation of vice.' The proposal, she tells us, met with a favourable reception from 'the graver and wiser part of the world,' and therefore she published in 1697 a second part, much longer than the first, 'wherein a method is offered for the improvement of their minds;' and this she dedicated to the Princess of Denmark, afterwards Queen Anne. The proposal, however, met with unmerited obloquy from more than one quarter. 'A certain great lady,' supposed by some to have been the Princess Anne herself, by others the Lady Elizabeth Hastings, was so attracted by the scheme that she purposed giving 10,000l. towards the erection of a 'sort of
