Josiah Wedgwood

Early life

There were several related Wedgwood families in the village of Burslem, which around 1650 was the main centre of Staffordshire Potteries. Each pot-works had one bottle kiln. Thomas Wedgwood set up the Churchyard Works, near St John's parish church. In 1679 the business went to his son of the same name, master potter and churchwarden who bought a family pew, whose son Thomas, born in 1685, married Mary Stringer around 1710. She was the daughter of Josiah Stringer, a dissenting minister whose church had been outlawed by the Corporation Act, but preached occasionally. The young Thomas and Mary moved to a small pot-works for producing moulded ware. After his father died in 1716, they moved back to the Churchyard Works. Their first son, Thomas, was born in 1716, Catherine was born in 1726, and Josiah was their thirteenth and last child.

The children were baptised in the parish church; Josiah was baptised on 12 July 1730, probably his date of birth. Though her husband continued to occupy the pew, Mary brought them up with the values taught by her father, who held that "knowledge based on reason, experience, and experiment was preferable to dogma." Josiah went with the others to dame school then, around 1737 when able to walk to and from Newcastle-under-Lyme about 3 miles (4.8 km) distant, he went with them to the school there of Mr and Mrs Blunt, who were reputably Puritans.

After his father died in June 1739, Josiah finished school then, at about the usual age, began an informal apprenticeship and learnt to "throw" pots on the potter's wheel. When nearly twelve, he suffered a severe bout of smallpox which affected his right knee, but recovered sufficiently to get a formal indenture on 11 November 1744, serving as an apprentice potter under his eldest brother Thomas, who had taken over the Churchyard Works. Josiah resumed potter's wheel work for a year or two until his knee pains returned, causing him to turn to moulded ware and small ornaments. His brother thought his ideas of improvements unnecessary, and turned down his proposed partnership, so in 1751 or 1752 Josiah worked as a partner and manager in a pot-works near Stoke.

Pottery

Wedgwood was keenly interested in the scientific advances of his day and it was this interest that underpinned his adoption of its approach and methods to revolutionise the quality of his pottery. His unique glazes began to distinguish his wares from anything else on the market.

By 1763, he was receiving orders from the highest-ranking people, including Queen Charlotte. Wedgwood convinced her to let him name the line of pottery she had purchased "Queen's Ware", and trumpeted the royal association in his paperwork and stationery. Anything Wedgwood made for the Queen was automatically exhibited before it was delivered. In 1764, he received his first order from abroad. Wedgwood marketed his Queen's Ware at affordable prices, everywhere in the world British trading ships sailed. In 1767 he wrote, "The demand for this sd. Creamcolour, Alias, Queen Ware, Alias, Ivory, still increases – It is amazing how rapidly the use of it has spread all most [sic] over the whole Globe."

He first opened a warehouse at Charles Street, Mayfair in London as early as 1765 and it soon became an integral part of his sales organization. In two years, his trade had outgrown his rooms in Grosvenor Square. In 1767, Wedgwood and Bentley drew up an agreement to divide decorative wares between them, the domestic wares being sold on Wedgwood's behalf. A special display room was built to beguile the fashionable company. Wedgwood's in fact had become one of the most fashionable meeting places in London. His workers had to work day and night to satisfy the demand, and the crowds of visitors showed no sign of abating. The proliferating decoration, the exuberant colours, and the universal gilding of rococo were banished, the splendours of baroque became distasteful; the intricacies of chinoiserie lost their favour. The demand was for purity, simplicity and antiquity. To encourage this outward spread of fashion and to speed it on its way Wedgwood set up warehouses and showrooms at Bath, Liverpool and Dublin in addition to his showrooms at Etruria and in Westminster. Great care was taken in timing the openings, and new goods were held back to increase their effect.

The most important of Wedgwood's early achievements in vase production was the perfection of the black stoneware body, which he called "basalt". This body could imitate the colour and shapes of Etruscan or Greek vases which were being excavated in Italy. In 1769, "vases was all the cry" in London; he opened a new factory called Etruria, north of Stoke. Wedgwood became what he wished to be: "Vase Maker General to the Universe". Around 1771, he started to experiment with Jasperware, but he did not advertise this new product for a couple of years.

Sir George Strickland, 6th Baronet, was asked for advice on getting models from Rome. Gilding was to prove unpopular, and around 1772, Wedgwood reduced the amount of "offensive gilding" in response to suggestions from Sir William Hamilton. When English society found the uncompromisingly naked figure of the classics "too warm" for their taste, and the ardor of the Greek gods too readily apparent, Wedgwood was quick to cloak their pagan immodesty – gowns for the girls and fig leaves for the gods were usually sufficient. Just as he felt that his flowerpots would sell more if they were called "Duchess of Devonshire flowerpots", his creamware more if called Queensware, so he longed for Brown, James Wyatt, and the brothers Adam to lead the architect in the use of his chimneypieces and for George Stubbs to lead the way in the use of Wedgwood plaques.

Wedgwood hoped to monopolise the aristocratic market and thus win for his wares a special social cachet that would filter to all classes of society. Wedgwood fully realised the value of such a lead and made the most of it by giving his pottery the name of its patron: Queensware, Royal Pattern, Russian pattern, Bedford, Oxford and Chetwynd vases for instance. Whether they owned the original or merely possessed a Wedgwood copy mattered little to Wedgwood's customers. In 1773 they published the first Ornamental Catalogue, an illustrated catalogue of shapes. A plaque, in Wedgwood's blue pottery style, marking the site of his London showrooms between 1774 and 1795 in Wedgwood Mews, is located at 12, Greek Street, London, W1.

In 1773, Empress Catherine the Great ordered the (Green) Frog Service from Wedgwood, consisting of 952 pieces and over a thousand original paintings, for the Kekerekeksinen Palace (palace on a frog swamp (in Finnish)), later known as Chesme Palace. Most of the painting was carried out in Wedgwood's decorating studio at Chelsea. Its display, Wedgwood thought, 'would bring an immence [sic] number of People of Fashion into our Rooms. For over a month the fashionable world thronged the rooms and blocked the streets with their carriages. (Catharine paid £2,700. It can still be seen in the Hermitage Museum.) Strictly uneconomical in themselves, these productions offered huge advertising value.

Marriage and children

Wedgwood had wooed his distant cousin Sarah (1734–1815) since first meeting her, but her father Richard wanted to ensure his prospective son-in-law had sufficient means, and insisted on long negotiation by attorneys over the marriage settlement. Then, "Jos" and "Sally" were married on 25 January 1764 at Astbury parish church, near Congleton. They had eight children:

Susannah Wedgwood (3 January 1765 – 1817), known to the family as "Sukey", married Robert Darwin and became the mother of the English naturalist Charles Darwin. Charles married Emma Wedgwood, his first cousin.

John Wedgwood (1766–1844), joined the business rather reluctantly, being mainly interested in horticulture

Richard Wedgwood (1767–1768) (died as a child)

Josiah Wedgwood II (1769–1843) (father of Emma Wedgwood Darwin, first cousin to and wife of Charles Darwin)

Thomas Wedgwood (1771–1805), best known as a pioneer photographer

Catherine Wedgwood (1774–1823) (no children)

Sarah Wedgwood (1776–1856) (no children, very active in the abolition movement and founding member of Birmingham Ladies Society for the Relief of Negro Slaves, the first anti-slavery society for women)

Mary Anne Wedgwood (1778–86) (died as a child)

As a Unitarian, aware of legal constraints on nonconformists getting education, Wedgwood supported dissenting academies such as Warrington Academy, where he gave lectures on chemistry, and was made a professor of metallurgy. The older children first went to school in 1772; the boys to Hindley, while Sukey went to a dame school in Lancashire along with his niece, the daughter of Mrs. Willet. In 1774 he sent his son John to the Bolton boarding school run by the Unitarian minister Philip Holland, followed by young Josiah the next year, and Tom in 1779.