Britain Unlimited covers 250 Great British people and what made them famous

Who was Josiah Wedgwood? Master Potter and Unitarian Idealist. Date and Place of Birth: 12th July 1730, Burslem, Staffordshire, England. Family Background: Family were all potters. He was the thirteenth and youngest son. Education: Dame school in Burslem and elementary school in Newcastle-under-Lyme. Chronology: 1730: At the age of nine he left school and was apprenticed to the family firm at Churchyard Works. 1737: Death of his father. Wedgwood now worked for his older brother. 1741: He had an attack of smallpox and work as a potter became difficult. The disease effected his right leg which eventually had to be amputated. Unable to work for some time he spent his time reading and researching about pottery. 1754: He went into a partnership with Thomas Whieldon. Later on he dissolved the partnership and started his own firm based at Burslem. In the early years he experimented quite a lot and his most notable triumph from this period was the green glaze. 1763: He patented his cream coloured pottery. This became known as Queen's Ware as it was very popular with King George the Third's wife Queen Charlotte. Next he turned his attention to Egyptian Black objects such as candlesticks, busts and vases where black basaltes were sometimes decorated with colour or silver or gold. 1762: He met Thomas Bentley in Liverpool and the two became friends. 1766: He joined with the Duke of Bridgewater and James Brindley in a project to build the Trent and Mersey Canal as he quickly saw that canals were very important to his business. 1768: Bentley and Wedgwood became partners in a company producing ornamental vases these quickly became very popular. 1771: With his new found wealth he was able to build a new factory called Etruria where he employed many famous artists such as John Flaxman to paint his new vases. The factory became very efficient due to the Division of Labour theory of Adam Smith and giving specific jobs to a specialist. 1772: Opened a showroom in Westgate Buildings, Bath. 1777: The opening of the Trent and Mersey Canal meant that he could easily bring Cornish china clay to his Etruria works. He also became a Unitarian a religious movement which had social reform at its heart. He supported universal male suffrage and annual parliaments and became friendly with other reformers such as Joseph Priestley. His son Tom was to give an annual grant to the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, himself once a Unitarian preacher. 1787: He helped Thomas Clarkson and Granville Sharpe found the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Wedgwood joined the committee and produced the society's seal in his trademark silhouette style. Wedgwood was to die before slavery was finally abolished. (See WIlliam Wilberforce). Marriage: To Sarah Wedgwood his cousin on 25th Jan 1764 at Astbury, Derbyshire. Places of Interest: BIRMINGHAM: Museum and Art Gallery LONDON: Victoria and Albert Museum STAFFORDSHIRE: The Wedgwood Story, Barlaston, Stoke-on-Trent. Date and Place of Death: 3rd January 1795, Etruria, Staffordshire, England. Age at death: 64. Site of Grave: St. Peter ad Vincula Churchyard, Stoke-on-Trent.