- Josiah Wedgwood
Josiah Wedgwood (
July 12 ,1730 -January 3 ,1795 , bornBurslem ,Stoke-on-Trent ) was an English potter, credited with the industrialization of the manufacture ofpottery . He was a member of the Darwin-Wedgwood family, most famously including his grandson,Charles Darwin .Biography
Early life
Born the thirteenth and youngest child of Thomas Wedgwood and Mary Wedgwood ("née" Stringer; d. 1766), Josiah was raised within a family of
English Dissenters . He survived a childhood bout ofsmallpox to serve as an apprentice potter under his eldest brotherThomas Wedgwood IV .Smallpox left Josiah with a permanently weakened knee, which made him unable to work the foot pedal of apotter's wheel . As a result, he concentrated from an early age on designing pottery rather than making it.In his early twenties, Wedgwood began working with the most renowned English pottery-maker of his day,
Thomas Whieldon . There he began experimenting with a wide variety of pottery techniques, an experimentation that coincided with the burgeoning early industrial city ofManchester , which was nearby. Inspired, Wedgwood leased theIvy Works in his home town ofBurslem and set to work. Over the course of the next decade, his experimentation (and a considerable injection of capital from his marriage to a richly endowed distant cousin, Sarah Wedgwood) transformed the sleepy artisan works into the first true potteryfactory .Marriage and children
Wedgwood married Sarah Wedgwood (a third cousin). Together, they had seven children:
* Susannah Wedgwood (1765–1817) (married
Robert Darwin , was father of the English naturalistCharles Darwin )
* John Wedgwood (1766–1844)
*Josiah Wedgwood II (1769–1843)
* Thomas Wedgwood (1771–1805) (no children)
* Catherine Wedgwood (1774–1823) (no children)
* Sarah Wedgwood (1776–1856) (no children)
* Mary Anne Wedgwood (1778–1786) (no children)Work
Wedgwood's work was of very high quality: when visiting his workshop, if he saw an offending vessel that failed to meet with his standards, he would smash it with his stick, exclaiming, "This will not do for Josiah Wedgwood!" He was also keenly interested in the scientific advances of his day and it was this interest that underpinned his adoption of its approach and methods to revolutionize the quality of his pottery. His unique glazes began to distinguish Josiah's wares from anything else on the market.
By 1763 he was receiving orders from the highest levels of the British
nobility , including Queen Charlotte. Wedgwood convinced her to let him name the line of pottery she purchased "Queen's Ware", and trumpeted the royal association in his paperwork and stationery. In 1774 theEmpress Catherine of Russia ordered the Green Frog Service from Wedgwood; it can still be seen in theHermitage Museum . [http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/html_En/03/hm3_3_2_4b.html] An even earlier commission from Catherine who was his wife was the Husk Service (1770), now on exhibit inPeterhof . As a burgeoning industrialist, Wedgwood was a major backer of theTrent and Mersey Canal dug between theRiver Trent andRiver Mersey , during which time he became friends withErasmus Darwin .Later that decade, his burgeoning business caused him to move from the smaller Ivy Works to the newly-builtEtruria Works , which would run for 180 years. The factory was so-named after theEtruria district ofItaly , where blackporcelain dating to Etruscan times was being excavated. Wedgwood found this porcelain inspiring, and his first major commercial success was its duplication with what he called "Black Basalt".Not long after the new works opened, continuing trouble with his smallpox-afflicted knee made necessary the
amputation of his right leg.In 1780, his long-time business partnerThomas Bentley died, and Wedgwood turned to Darwin for help in running the business. As a result of the close association that grew up between the Wedgwood and Darwin families, Josiah's eldest daughter would later marry Erasmus' son. One of the children of that marriage,Charles Darwin , would also marry a Wedgwood — Emma, Josiah's granddaughter. Essentially, this double-barreled inheritance of Josiah's money permitted Charles Darwin the life of leisure that allowed him the time to formulate his theory of evolution.In the latter part of his life, Wedgwood's obsession was to duplicate the
Portland Vase , a blue and whiteglass vase dating to the first century BC. For three years he worked on the project, eventually producing what he considered a satisfactory copy in 1789. After passing on his company to his sons, Wedgwood died at home, probably of cancer of the jaw, in 1795. He was buried three days later in the parish church of Stoke-on-Trent. Seven years later a marble memorial tablet commissioned by his sons was installed there.He belonged to the fourth generation of a family of potters whose traditional occupation continued through another five generations. Wedgwood's company is still a famous name in pottery today (as part of Waterford Wedgwood; see
Waterford Crystal ), and "Wedgwood China" is the commonly used term for hisJasperware , the blue (or sometimes green) china with overlaid white decoration, still common throughout the world.He was an active member of the
Lunar Society and is remembered on the Moonstones inBirmingham . He was elected to theRoyal Society in 1783 for the development of apyrometer .He was also a prominent slavery
abolitionist . He mass produced cameos depicting the seal for the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade and had them widely distributed, which thereby became a popular and celebrated image. The actual design of the cameo was probably done by either William Hackwood or Henry Webber who were modellers in his factory. [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2h67.html]Locomotive
A Loco was named after Josiah Wedgwood and ran on the Churnet Valley Railway.Fact|date=July 2008
References
* "Wedgwood: The First Tycoon", Brian Dolan, Viking Adult, 416 pp. (October 7, 2004). ISBN 0-670-03346-4.
External links
* [http://www.wedgwood.com Wedgwood Website]
* [http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ladylever/collections/wedgwood.asp Wedgwood collection] at the [http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ladylever/index.asp Lady Lever Art Gallery]
* [http://www.wedgwoodmuseum.org.uk/ Wedgwood Museum]Persondata
NAME= Wedgwood, Josiah
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DATE OF BIRTH=1730
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DATE OF DEATH=1795
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