Edward Fisher Bodley
Edward Fisher Bodley (1815–1881) was an English businessman, owner of a Staffordshire pottery. It operated on several sites in what is now Stoke-on-Trent. He had been a Congregationalist minister, and retained religious interests. Early life In early life, Bodley was an nonconformist minister. He trained at Highbury College, and ministered at Steeple Bumpstead, Essex, as successor to Ebenezer Temple. He moved south within Essex, to a congregation at Rochford, where he was in 1842. In 1843 he published Three Sermons on Revivals of Religion. Potter Bodley spent time as a commercial traveller. In business on his own account, he was successful as a pottery owner. The pottery company E. F. Bodley & Co. was set up in the early 1860s. A table service used on CSS Alabama was manufactured by it. It was established manufacturing earthenwares at the Scotia Pottery in Burslem in 1862. In 1863–7 its activities or trading are not easily distinguished from those of Bodley & Harrold; Bodley and William Harrold dissolved a partnership in 1865. The parting was not amicable. The business continued to expand, and came to occupy three sites. The Hill Top Pottery in Burslem was a legacy of Samuel Alcock. It came via