Wedgwood is one of those household names that we’ve all come across at some point in our lives. Whether it’s from a love of antiques or simply while out shopping for cups, saucers, and plates, the name Wedgwood crops up every time. 

            Wedgwood is famous for producing innovative, high quality, tasteful pottery and porcelain, and they’ve been doing it non-stop for almost 250 years. It was founded in 1759 by an interesting character called Josiah Wedgwood, who is often referred to as the Father of the Potteries, the Potteries being the area around Staffordshire that became well known the world over as an area synonymous with the making of all sorts of household pottery.

            Josiah was born at Burslem into a family of potters, the youngest of 13 children. After his father died when he was nine, he went to work as a thrower in the pottery of his eldest brother. He served as an apprentice to his brother, but after qualifying and being refused a partnership in the family business, he left to work in other potteries, and at the age of 29 he set up his own business.

            His hard work, great skill, innovations, and superb designs helped him to prosper, and he designed his own purpose-built factory in 1766. In the early years his wife Sally helped him immensely, and he gave great credit to her for the success of the company in letters to friends. 

            Josiah had suffered from smallpox as a boy, leaving him with a disease known as Brodie’s abscess, a painful condition that eventually disabled his right leg. Two years after building his factory, years of suffering came to an end. In 1768, without the aid of anaesthetics, antiseptics, or antibiotics, he had his leg amputated above the knee, thus solving the problem. People were obviously made of sterner stuff in those days, because Josiah made a rapid recovery and was soon back at work, clomping around on his false wooden leg, which had been made by the local cabinetmaker.

            Josiah was the one responsible for inventing the three most famous Wedgwood ceramic bodies. These are: 

            Queens Ware – This is a cream-coloured tableware named after Queen Charlotte, to whom Wedgwood sent a gift of a tea service that obviously went down rather well. She loved his work so much that he was soon established as Potter to Her Majesty.

            Black Basalt – This is extremely finely grained, smooth to the touch, and jet-black in colour. It was used for plaques, cameos, busts, and fine sets of vases. Josiah was particularly proud of this Black Basalt and said that, “The Black is Sterling and will last forever!” He wasn’t wrong there!

            Jasperware – Wedgwood's most famous ware is Jasperware. It is an unglazed stoneware which can be stained in many colours, but the most popular always was and still is blue, with scenes and classical portraits in white. 

            Wedgwood’s client list eventually read like a celebrity roll call of the day. His largest order came from the Empress of Russia. It consisted of nearly 1,000 items of a dinner service, with over 1,200 hand-painted views and scenes of large country mansions, castles, and abbeys of Britain. The cost was £2,700, an unbelievable amount in 1774, but because of the high quality and, in turn, high production cost, this actually gave the company little profit. Wedgwood, though, was an even better businessman than he was a potter, because he saw that the benefits of this most prestigious of orders were inestimable. He cleverly put the whole set on display in his London showroom before it was shipped off to Russia, and it quickly became one of London’s most popular attractions – and orders came flooding in.

            Josiah was also a keen conchologist and the first shell-shaped wares Wedgwood produced were inspired by his own collection. The shell shape became immensely popular in the eighteenth century and even appeared as a decoration within furniture. This must have been where his grandson, the naturalist Charles Darwin, inherited his interests.

            Josiah was also a great campaigner for social reform. He built a village attached to his factory where his workmen and families could live in a comfortable and decent environment. He trained his workforce to a notably high standard and looked after them well, insisting on cleanliness and hygiene for all.

            He never travelled abroad, leaving the so-called grand tour of Europe to his sons John, Josiah, and Thomas, who by then were wealthy young men of some standing – because of Josiah’s hard work.

            He built up a thriving business, and when he died in 1795, he left his factory and fortune to his children, who carried his work into the nineteenth century.

            Wedgwood’s continued to prosper and control remained in family hands. The company was always ahead of the game when it came to designs and innovations, and never turned down an opportunity for business. In the early nineteenth century, for example, the Wedgwood firm even supplied porcelain pastes for the production of artificial teeth to dentists in London and Paris. 

            Also during the nineteenth century, important progress was made at the Wedgwood factory in the use of new machinery, the introduction of new products, and, most importantly, the manufacture of bone china. It wasn’t Wedgwood that invented bone china – that was actually done by one of Wedgwood’s competitors, Spode, ironically located just down the road from Wedgwood and still trading today. 

            Bone china, as the name suggests, is indeed made from bones. Animal bones are stripped of flesh, pulverised, and burned at an extremely high temperature. Then the ash is crushed to a powder, mixed with water, and added to the rest of the porcelain mix. The end result produces the toughest of porcelains – a material that is hard, resilient, and ivory white in colour.

            Wedgwood bone-china tableware was to grace the tables of many famous homes throughout the world. Even the president of the United States ordered his bone-china dinner service from the factory.

            During the 1930s, when many English potteries were forced to close down due to the economic depression, Wedgwood’s success continued, and, in order to increase efficiency, a brand-new, modern-equipped factory was built. 

            Today, Wedgwood is in the same factory, albeit four times bigger, and, thankfully, the Wedgwood traditions of quality, innovative design, modern production methods, and craftsmanship are still alive and kicking. 

Copyright. David Harper. 2008