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The Wedgwoods of Etruria
The history of the Wedgwood family of potters would appear to begin with Gilbert Wedgwood of: Dale Hall, Burslem who was born in 1588 and who was described as potter and farmer, He married Margaret Burslem, they had 12 children and he lived to the age of 90. Two sons, Gilbert and Thomas continued in the family business. Thomas Wedgwood I was born in 1617 and lived in Overhouse and Churchyard House, Burslem, his occupations described as gentleman, potter, landowner and farmer. He married Margaret Shaw and had 10 legitimate children including Thomas Wedgwood II. His son Thomas Wedgwood III and grandson Thomas Wedgwood IV continued the tradition as potters at the Churchyard House, Burslem until 1773. Thomas Wedgwood III had 11 children the youngest of whom was Josiah Wedgwood.
Josiah Wedgwood was born at Burslem, Staffordshire in 1730. It was Josiah who was to develop the Wedgwood dynasty to its pre-eminent position in the industry. His father died when he was 9 leading him to have to start work as a 'thrower' in the pottery of his eldest brother, Thomas, to whom he was apprenticed at age 14. Thomas refused Josiah a partnership in the business, so the younger man moved first to a small pottery run by John Harrison and then to the renowned firm of Thomas Wheildon of Fenton. From there, he opened his own works, first at his cousin's Ivy House and later at the Brick House factory. Whieldon allowed Wedgwood to take with him the formulae that had resulted from his experiments at his factory. Josiah went into partnership with Thomas Bentley in 1768 and they became close friends. They opened a new factory near Stoke-on-Trent in 1771 which they called Etruria and they later built an adjoining village to house the workers. The name was taken from the Etruscan master potters of central Italy working in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. They worked together in perfect harmony for the next 12 years until Bentley died in 1780. Bentley supplied the social graces and contacts that Josiah lacked in his early years. They joined an association of scientists and intellectuals calling themselves the Lunar Group including Joseph Priestley, Joseph Banks, Matthew Boulton, James Watt and Erasmus Darwin, and they played a great part in Josiah’s evolution as one of the greatest scientists and artists in the ceramics industry. Josiah married his third cousin Sarah Wedgwood and they had 7 children. Erasmus Darwin's son Robert would married Josiah Wedgwood's daughter Suzannah, and they were the parents of Charles Darwin, the scientist who formulated the theory of evolution. Charles Darwin in turn married his first cousin Emma Wedgwood.
Josiah Wedgwood
Josiah had contracted smallpox at age 11 which left residual chronic osteomyelitis in his right knee and the increasing difficulties with walking finally made him decide to have the leg amputated in 1768, long before the discovery of anaesthesia. He was forced to abandon practical work for a time but used the opportunity to gain a wider knowledge of the potter's craft leading to him performing thousands of experiments to perfect new forms of china. This eventually led to the introduction of Creamware, Pearl White, black basalts enhanced by red colours to imitate Greek vases, and Jasperware produced in 1773 from experiments with barium sulphate and metallic oxides. In 1765, Queen Charlotte, wife of King George III, requested that Wedgwood become “Potter to His and Her Majesty” and Josiah changed the official name of his creamware to “Queen’s Ware.” It was during this period that Wedgwood began to export his china, particularly to Russia, France, and North America. Other eminent patrons included Empress Catherine II of Russia, who placed a large order in 1774.
Josiah Wedgwood was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1783 for inventing the pyrometer to measure oven temperatures. He was a campaigner for social reform and greatly improved conditions for his workers at the Etruria factory and village. He improved factory organization to greatly increase the workers’ output by "division of labour" allocating mixing, shaping, firing and glazing to specialist workers. He was a member of the group that arranged for the building of the Trent & Mersey Canal which was completed in 1777 allowing him to bring Cornish clay to his Etruria factory and transport finished goods by barge to Liverpool and Hull. In 1775 he initiated what was probably the world's first collaborative industrial research project, leading the Staffordshire pottery industry to introduce the coal-fired steam engine to replace traditional water driven mills and windmills, under the direction of the scientists Matthew Boulton and James Watt from the Lunar Group. He became a political reformer as well as social reformer and was a member of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.
Josiah Wedgwood died in 1795. He left an enormously wealthy china empire to his seven children but they had grown up in such a privileged environment that initially none wished to leave their place in English society to return to run the business. Management was left to Josiah’s nephew, Tom Byerly. Over the next few years, the war with the United States, the Napoleonic Revolutions and a loss of fashion for Wedgwood wares led to a major downturn in the business and this necessitated return of the family to restructure the firm. Josiah’s oldest son John returned to the factory in 1800 followed by his second son Josiah II in 1805.
The business had fallen to close to ruin due to the family’s long indifference and poor management and it was Josiah II’s son Francis Wedgwood who set about reviving its fortunes. Francis Wedgwood was born in 1800 and attended the Rugby Public School before postgraduate education in Industrial Manufacture in Edinburgh. He joined the firm as a partner with his brother Josiah III in 1827 and took full control in 1842. Francis was forced to sell a half share to John Boyle and in 1844 they attempted to sell the pottery and estate with mixed success. Boyle died 6 months later but the firm was saved by injection of capital from Robert Brown who became a partner from 1846 to 1859 when Brown died. Francis was then joined by his eldest son Godfrey in 1859 and by other sons Clement in 1863 and Lawrence in 1865. Godfrey appointed Emil Lessore as Art Director and he was followed by Thomas Allen. Francis retired in 1870 leaving his three sons as equal partners and he died in 1888. His sons were able to buy back all of the assets that had been sold and a new London showroom was opened in 1875. They were followed by the fifth generation of Wedgwoods, Godfey’s son Cecil in 1884, Clement’s son Frank in 1889 and Lawrence’ son Kennard in 1894. The late part of the century was a period of financial downturn making it necessary to incorporate the firm as Josiah Wedgwood and Sons Ltd in 1895. Several key members left to fight in the Boer War and Kennard was left in charge and he appointed John Goodwin as Art Director. Together, they started to change the entire range of wares offered. Cecil Wedgwood was killed in the First World War and Frank died in 1930. Frank’s son Clement then joined the firm together with his cousins Josiah V and Hensleigh Wedgwood just prior to the Great Depression, resulting in the sixth generation of Wedgwoods in control.
Francis Wedgwood
The Depression greatly reduced sales so that the new management again completely changed the direction of the patterns to suit the contemporary “Arts and Crafts” movement to regain their position. The Etruria factory had become run down so that a new Wedgwood factory was built in Barlaston near Stoke-on-Trent in 1938. Construction was interrupted by the Second World War and the factory was not completed until 1949. Following World War II, Wedgwood produced many of its most popular patterns again marketing heavily in the United States. In 1966, Wedgwood became a public company and acquired the assets of Susie Cooper, Royal Tuscan, William Adams, Franciscan, Mason’s Ironstone, Waterford, and Rosenthal to form the Wedgwood Group. In turn it joined the Waterfod compny but sadly they went into receivership in January 2009.
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