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/Biography of Josiah Wedgwood:
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.
