Such were the conditions under which the salt glaze of Staffordshire and the agate of Staffordshire were produced and perfected; and having traced these manufactures to their climax, it now remains to describe the rise of cream-coloured earthenware—the cream colour, which under Wedgwood became universal and perfected as we know it to-day. But it would be a mistake to attribute all good cream colour to Wedgwood. Just as all red teapots get put down to Elers; or as salt glaze is divided between Dr Thomas Wedgwood and Astbury according to character; and just as all another class of ware with irregular splashes of coloured glaze is called “Whieldon,” so much that Wedgwood never put his hand to has got dubbed with his name, to the exclusion of contemporaries as enterprising, such as Warburton and Turner, and to the neglect of predecessors who, like Astbury and Booth, had already done very much to make Wedgwood’s development of the cream colour possible.

The ordinary earthenware cream-colour body was composed of ball clay from Dorsetshire, calcined flint, and the lighter burning local clays. After the discovery of china clay and china stone in Cornwall about 1770, these two bodies both came to be added to the standard mixture, and the local clays were gradually dropped.[82] The glaze invented by John Greatbach while at Etruria, and called “Greatbach’s China Glaze,” finally completed the development of the cream colour.[83] In practice the results depended so largely upon the exact composition of body and glaze, the exact temperature of firing in biscuit and glost ovens, and the subsequent decoration, that different potters achieved different results from their cream ware, and very different reputations. Josiah Wedgwood, with whom we must now deal, with his so-called Queen’s Ware, achieved undisputed pre-eminence, and became the greatest agent in the world-wide distribution of the cream-coloured earthenware of North Staffordshire.[84]

Josiah Wedgwood, thirteenth child of Thomas Wedgwood, master potter of the Churchyard works in Burslem, was baptized in Burslem church on July 12, 1730. He was a son, grandson and great-grandson of potters. His brothers, his cousins and his uncles made pots, and many had left an enduring reputation behind them. Josiah too was apprenticed to the trade in 1744 in his eldest brother’s works by the Churchyard side at Burslem.

In 1752 he went into partnership with John Harrison, a tradesman of Newcastle, and they took the factory of the Alders’ at Cliff Bank, Stoke. Here they turned out the agate knife-blades and buttons that Alders had produced before. In two years Wedgwood was able to leave this partnership and join with Whieldon, the best potter of the day. For five years at least these two men were in partnership. Whieldon supplied the skill and traditional knowledge, and Wedgwood the extraordinary energy which was his chief characteristic. His experiments were incessant, and the fine green glaze seen on his cauliflower ware, his first real success, was his reward.

The Relationships between the various members of this family that have been mentioned in the course of this history are shown on the following outline pedigree:—

As soon as he was able to afford a factory of his own, he went back to Burslem, and in 1759 he hired, from his uncles John and Thomas Wedgwood of the Big House, a factory known as the Ivy House Works. Here, or at the “Brick House” Works which he hired in 1762,[85] he made cauliflower, cream colour, and, later, black basalt ware. There worked for him at the Ivy House Works a first cousin, Thomas Wedgwood, who afterwards became his partner in the production of “useful” ware.

A great number of the letters of Josiah Wedgwood have survived, and they show the chief cause of his success to have been his restless passion for experiment and novelty, coupled with an almost American love for the extension of business—particularly profitable business. He was first a skilful potter, secondly a pushing man of business, and only thirdly, perhaps, a great artist. When he broke with his stick some imperfect vase, saying, “That won’t do for Josiah Wedgwood,” it was not because the delinquent vase offended his taste, but because it might damage his reputation and the sale of his wares. He wanted perfection, and he got perfection; but he wanted it to sell, as a business proposition. And when we find him wondering whether he can keep up the price of his common cream plates to four shillings a dozen, while the other potters have brought their price for the same plates down to two shillings a dozen,[86] then we catch a glimpse of how well it paid.

The cream-coloured Queen’s Ware was the chief product of Wedgwood’s early times in Burslem. It was at first decorated, when required, by the widow Warburton, of Hot Lane. But the invention of the cheap method of printing designs on to the glazed ware, made in 1755 by Saddler and Green of Liverpool, provided an excellent substitute for enamelling on the more useful ware. Wedgwood used to send his ware to Liverpool to be printed, and was often there himself, importing clay, or looking after the export trade to America, then, as now, the most important branch of the export trade. It was on one of these visits to Liverpool that he first met his life-long friend, Thomas Bentley, a dissenting radical merchant of the Clapham school, who became his partner in 1768.[87]

Wedgwood had moved entirely into the Brick House Works, afterwards called the Bell Works, early in 1763, but in 1766 he bought the Ridge House estate of about 150 acres in Shelton, where he proceeded to build his new “Etruria”—factory, dwelling house and village. The Etruria works were opened for the production of the black basalt and other ornamental ware in 1769, and here ever since his descendants have carried on the same work. The factory at Burslem continued to produce the useful cream colour, and in this branch of the business, his cousin Thomas Wedgwood was his partner from 1766 till his death in 1788. In 1773, however, Wedgwood, finally closed down the Burslem works, and transferred the last of the “useful” work to join the rest at Etruria.[88]

Wedgwood was now becoming famous. In 1765 he opened his first London warehouse under the charge of his brother John. After John Wedgwood’s death in 1766,[89] he finally induced Bentley to take permanent charge of the London office and showrooms, which became a sort of fashionable lounge.

But that which chiefly brought Wedgwood before the public was his determination to secure better transport facilities to and from the Potteries. In 1762 he and others were busy pressing for a new turnpike road[90] from Cliff Bank, on the Newcastle and Uttoxeter turnpike, through Burslem to the “Red Bull” at Lawton, on the London, Newcastle and Liverpool road.[91] The petition sent up on this occasion gives a description of the state of the industry which is worth quoting. The petition says:—

“In Burslem and its neighbourhood are near 500 separate potteries for making various kinds of stone and earthenware, which find constant employment and support for near 7000 people. The ware of these potteries is exported in vast quantities from London, Bristol, Liverpool, Hull etc., to our several colonies in America and the West Indies, as well as to almost every port in Europe. Great quantities of flint stones are used in making some of the ware, which are brought by sea from various parts of the coast to Liverpool and Hull; and the clay for making the white ware is brought from Devonshire and Cornwall chiefly to Liverpool, the materials from whence are brought by water up the rivers Mersey and Weaver to Winsford in Cheshire; those from Hull up the Trent to Willington; and from Winsford and Willington the whole are brought by land carriage to Burslem. The ware, when made, is conveyed to Liverpool and Hull in the same manner.

“Many thousand tons of shipping ... are employed in carrying materials for the Burslem ware; and as much salt is consumed in glazing one species of it as pays annually near £5000 duty to Government. Add to these considerations the prodigeous quantity of coal used in the Potteries ... and it will appear that ... those who are supported by the pot trade, amount to a great many thousand people; ... and the trade flourishes so much as to have increased two-thirds within the last 14 years.”[92]

The determined opposition of the Newcastle tradesmen and inn-keepers, afraid of loss of traffic, prevented the full scheme being carried out. The Bill, as passed in 1763, provided for the turnpike from Lawton as far as Burslem only.

A Newcastle and Leek turnpike through the future Etruria and Cobridge followed. On February 1, 1765, we find Josiah Wedgwood writing to his brother John in London, “we have another turnpike broke out amongst us here betwixt Leek and Newcastle, and they have, vi et armis, mounted me upon my hobby-horse again.... He carried me yesterday to Leek, from whence I am just returned much satisfied with our reception there. Tomorrow I wait upon Sir Nigel (Gresley) to beg his concurrence, and on Monday must attend a meeting to settle the petition etc. at Mony Ash at yr frd Isaac Whieldons. We pray to have the Utoxeter and Burslem turnpike joined [i.e. Cliff Bank, Shelton, Cobridge and Burslem], and to have the road made turnpike from Buxton and Bakewell to Leek, and from Leek to Newcastle. Whether or not our good friends at Newcastle will give us battle on this occasion we do not know, if they do there will be some probability of my having a commⁿ and seeing the great City again. £2000 is wanting for this road. My uncles Thos. and John (of the Big House) have, I am quite serious, at the first asking subscribed ... five hundred pounds. I have done the like intending 2 or 300 of it for you, and if you choose any more you must let me know in time.”[93]

What these roads were like one can gather from Arthur Young’s travels. He describes the road from Knutsford to Newcastle as “in general a paved causeway, as narrow as can be conceived, and cut into perpetual holes, some of them two feet deep; a more dreadful road cannot be imagined.... Let me persuade all travellers to avoid this terrible country....”[94]

Yet even these roads and lanes seem to have been moving with the times, for we hear, in 1763, of one Daniel Morris introducing wagons and carts for the first time, and acting as carrier.[95] “Pot-wagons” now took crates of ware to Bewdley on the Severn and to Willington Ferry on the Trent. The general rate of transport was 9s. per ton for 10 miles. To the port of Liverpool the rate was 28s. per ton, but flint and clay up from Liverpool cost only 15s. a ton.[96] To Willington the charge was 35s. a ton; and the transit down the river to Hull was almost as expensive.

The Duke of Bridgewater was at this time developing his estates in Cheshire by means of the great Bridgewater Canal. In 1761 it was open from Manchester to Worsley, and James Brindley, “the schemer,” was engaged in extending it to tide-water below Warrington. Brindley was already well known in the Potteries. He was born in the High Peak in 1716, and after serving his apprenticeship as a mill-wright at Macclesfield, and designing many improvements in spinning factories and mine drainage, he settled more or less in the Potteries. In or about 1758 he put up a windmill for grinding calcined flint on an estate called the Jenkins, near Burslem, belonging to John Wedgwood of the Big House; and many other pieces of engineering for the convenience of potters were invented by him. But in 1759 he commenced, under the Duke of Bridgewater, those 365 miles of canal which made his name famous.[97]

Acting under the orders of Lord Gower and Lord Anson, Brindley had, in 1758, made a preliminary survey for a canal to connect the Trent and Mersey. The success of the Bridgewater canal caused this project to be revived in 1764, and an association was formed to obtain Parliamentary powers. In December of that year a meeting was held at Lichfield between Lord Gower and others, at which they discussed the conflicting interests of the proprietors, the landlords, the manufacturers and the public.[98] The scheme was dropped for that session, but all through 1765 Wedgwood, who saw the prime importance of this new method of transport, was engaging support, combating the opposition of rival interests, and getting Bentley to issue pamphlet after pamphlet showing all its advantages.

At last, on May 14, 1766, the Bill received the Royal Assent. On June 3, a meeting of the proprietors was held, presided over by Lord Gower. There were present Lord Grey, Mr Bagot, Mr Anson, Mr Gilbert, Mr Smith of Fenton, Mr Sam. Robinson and others. A committee was formed and the following officers appointed:

out of which he bears his own expenses, and it was ordered that the work be begun on immediately, both sides of Harecastle and at Wilden.”[99]

The first sod was cut by Wedgwood on July 26 at Brownhills, between Burslem and Tunstall, before a great concourse of people, and we are told that an ox was roasted whole for the populace.[100]

The Trent and Mersey canal is 93 miles long, with 75 locks, and rises at the Harecastle tunnel to a height of 326 feet above the Mersey. It is 20 feet broad at the top, 16 feet at the bottom, and 4 feet 6 inches deep, and it cost £300,000.[101] It is carried on aqueducts over the Dove, Trent and Dane, and there are five tunnels. It was pushed on by Brindley with great energy till his death, and completed at last in 1777 by Hugh Henshall, his son-in-law, together with a branch to the Severn from Great Haywood. Brindley died at Turnhurst in Wolstanton on Sept. 27, 1772. In 1786 we read that freight for general goods on the canal was 1¼d. per ton per mile, or less than one-seventh what freight cost before the canal was cut.[102] At the same time the £200 shares in the canal were standing at £600-£700 apiece.[103] It was carrying over 1,350,000 tons of goods and minerals a year in 1849, when it was bought out by the railway company for £1,170,000.

A fresh development of the potting industry took place even while this canal was building. China clay and china stone were discovered by Cookworthy in Cornwall. This was in 1768, and Cookworthy took out a patent for the use of these materials. He never succeeded in producing porcelain on a commercial scale, and in 1773 sold his patent rights to Richard Champion.[104] Mr Champion was one of the chief supporters in Bristol of Edmund Burke, member for that city, and conceived in 1775 the idea of getting with his aid a Bill passed through Parliament to extend the patent which he had bought from Cookworthy for a further seven years. But china clay and china stone had during these last few years been proved of value not only for making china, but also as a constituent of the clay body used for making the cream-coloured earthenware of Staffordshire. It had been imported and used by Wedgwood, Turner of Lane End, the Warburtons and others, and an extension of Cookworthy’s patent, giving to Champion of Bristol the monopoly for seven more years of the right to use this material, whether for making china or earthenware, was naturally resisted by the earth potters of Staffordshire. In this opposition Wedgwood and Turner took a leading part; and their action has been criticized by many who thought they saw in Champion the struggling inventor penalized by pushing capitalists. From another and as reasonable a point of view Champion was a speculator who tried to use political influence to increase the value of a monopoly that he had bought on a different basis. As Mr Burton says, “It certainly seems that the fullest justice was done when Champion was allowed an extension of the patent for the use of china clay and china stone in porcelain, the only substance ever produced by Cookworthy or Champion, and the other potters were allowed to use the same materials in earthenware bodies.”[105]

Yet for the part he played in this business John Turner was afterwards made to suffer and in this manner. On Lord Gower’s estates he discovered a clay which made a singularly hard white body, but the agent for the Earl, remembering, it is said, the action Turner had taken against Champion, told him he might look for his clays elsewhere, and refused to let him work the clay.

The use of china clay and china stone, and the new glaze called “Greatbach’s china glaze,” completed the perfection of the cream-coloured earthenware, and Wedgwood drifted more and more away from the agate and cauliflower ware of his youth to the new body—the Queen’s Ware.[106] Cream colour for the table—printed, enamelled or plain—became ever more important. In 1770 he received an order for an enormous dinner service from the Empress of Russia. Each piece was to have enamelled on it a different view of some English gentleman’s seat. To complete this extraordinary order artists and enamellers were collected from the whole country, and set to work at Chelsea under Bentley’s guidance. The results do not seem very attractive. A picture of a gentleman’s seat, generally in black or drab on a cream-coloured plate, is only interesting. A good border pattern is the most suitable decoration for a dinner plate.

Having got his staff of enamellers together, Wedgwood decided to do his own enamelling in future instead of sending his ware to the Warburtons to be enamelled.[107] The sober border decorations of his tea and dinner ware, which is to some tastes the very best part of his work, were done at Chelsea by these artists. His most successful patterns are mere enamelled borders, perfectly enamelled on perfectly potted plates.

But this was “useful” ware, and all the time he was aiming at the development of his ornamental ware along classical lines. The black basalt—plain; the black basalt—decorated with encaustic red paintings unglazed, after the manner of the Etruscans; the jasper vases and plaques; all are attempts to reproduce the survivals of Greece and Rome. This neo-classic style, if not original, was at least a change from the endless rococo of Dresden, and the shepherdesses of Chelsea and Sèvres; and, compared with the “art china” productions of the first half of the nineteenth century, the copies of even decadent Rome seem to be the acme of good taste. One is also tempted to regret that in them the whole art of the potter is devoted to the most exact reproduction of bronze, of Parian marble, of natural cameos, or even of the glassy Barberini Vase. The reproduction is splendid, and probably nothing would have shocked Wedgwood more than to think that posterity could prefer his lavender tea service, or the vine pattern on his Queen’s Ware.

It is however undoubtedly on his jasper that his fame with succeeding generations has been based:—the white classical figures, designed by Flaxman or by Hackwood, embossed on a blue or black ground. The discovery of the jasper body, with its admixture of barium sulphate, gave him a perfectly white hard stoneware body, which would take a high fire, and become semi-vitrified without glazing. The body could be stained light or dark blue, pink, green or black, by the addition of suitable oxides, and then formed the ground of his jasper ware; while the white body, pressed into small plaster moulds, taken out and then “sprigged on,” formed the ornamental embossments. This jasper ware could be used, and is still found, as panels in Adam fireplaces, with Flaxman’s “Dancing Hours” or “Medusa Head” clean cut on the blue plaque; as cameo medallions, bearing the heads of personages of state, for show cabinets; or as vases under a glass case, such as the Portland Vase, completed in 1790. And it is this jasper ware that is called to mind when “Old Wedgwood” is spoken of by amateurs. A proper description is impossible here of these Jasper or Black Basalt vases, statues or plaques, in which he received the invaluable assistance of Flaxman as a modeller, and the advice of every gentleman of the period who prided himself upon his taste. Description of manufacture and details of patterns must alike be left to special monographs, such as that of Prof. Church.

To complete a bald account of Wedgwood’s career as a potter we must add the following notes. Between the years 1759 and 1769 he perfected the cream colour, between 1766 and 1769 the black Etruscan ware was brought to its highest perfection; the jasper body and glaze was undergoing development from 1773 to 1777, and the jasper dip from 1780 to 1786. His mechanical bent showed itself in a persistent and successful effort to develop the turning lathe so as to give a ribbed surface to the ware. This he called “engine turning,” and it is a device which has been largely employed ever since on decorative pieces. In 1783 he invented a neat pyrometre for registering the heat of ovens, and was elected in consequence a Fellow of the Royal Society. His great partner Bentley died in 1780, and for a few years Wedgwood carried on his works alone; but in 1790 he took into partnership his three sons John, Josiah and Thomas, and his sister’s son Thomas Byerley. The style and title of the Firm which had been “Wedgwood and Bentley” from 1768-80, “Wedgwood” from 1780-90, now became for a short time “Wedgwood, Sons and Byerley.” In 1793 his sons John and Thomas, having no aptitude for the systematic work of a master-potter, and being rich enough to be idle, retired from the firm, and conveyed their shares to the younger Josiah. Till Thomas Byerley’s death in 1810, the firm was known as “Wedgwood, Son and Byerley.”[108]

Josiah Wedgwood himself died on January 3, 1795. He bequeathed to his second son Josiah his share in the factory and an estate of 363 acres in Stoke and Hanley, and to his other children a fortune of about £160,000.[109] Mr Burton sums up the result of his work as follows: “His influence was so powerful, and his personality so dominant, that all other English potters worked on the principles he had laid down, and thus a fresh impulse and a new direction was given to the pottery of England and of the civilized world. He is the only potter of whom it may truly be said that the whole subsequent course of pottery manufacture has been influenced by his individuality, skill and taste.”[110]