When Joseph Drayton, the head of the family, refuses to let his sister marry — and, what’s more, sends her suitor packing — he little knows what turmoil he’s creating for the future. For Jessica is pregnant by her lover, and her predicament has far reaching consequences in the close-knit community of the Staffordshire village of Burslem. Joseph Drayton, Master Potter, is immaculate in velvet and lace, narrow-minded in the efficiency with which he runs the family business but untrammelled in his private ambitions. Those ambitions include Meg, the spirited gypsy girl who slaves in his turning sheds, but not Martin, his gifted younger brother. Martin is bound by indentures to work five years in Joseph’s pot bank, but longs for the day when he comes into the Drayton legacy and can express his artistry in a more personal way. In this he is helped by his friend, Simon Kendall, the canal digger, a humble genius who can neither read nor write but whose vision as an architect and engineer transforms the potteries trade…