BURSLEM, a town of England, in the county of Staffordshire, 18 miles south of Macclesfield, and 150 miles from London. It stands on a gentle eminence near the Trent and Mersey canal, and is the principal town of the potteries’ district. It contains a town-hall, erected in 1865, a market-house, a news-room, and a mechanics’ institute; but its most interesting building is the Wedgwood Institute, founded in 1863 in honour of the great manufacturer, who was born in the town in 1730. It comprises a school of art, a free library, and a museum; and the exterior is richly and peculiarly ornamented, to show the progress of fictile art. The tower of the parish church is of some antiquity, though the building itself is of modern date. The town is mentioned in Domesday Book as Baτ-cardeslim, and it appears at an early period as a seat of the pottery trade. Its prosperity was greatly increased in the end of the 18th century by the opening of the Grand Trunk canal. Population of township in 1872, 20,971.