Staffordshire, Etruria, circa
1930. Original photograph by Harold
White displaying the distinctive shape of the bottle ovens.
At the time of Josiah Wedgwood’s birth in 1730 the
Pottery Industry was on the eve of major changes. In the early decades of the 18th century groups of
peasant potters worked in villages, such as Burslem, often in thatched
cottages, catering for an entirely local demand manufacturing utilitarian
objects such as butter pots to carry the local products to market. However, during Josiah’s lifetime the
industry and the country went through one of the most significant changes
becoming, by 1830, the World’s first industrial nation. Coal, iron, textiles and ceramics
transformed the economic and social composition of Great Britain. It was as a direct result of this revolution
that steam power would inevitably be applied to the ceramic industry.
Coal-fired steam machines became the motive power of the Industrial Revolution. By the first decade of the 19th
century steam power was to be found in hundreds of factories and mines
throughout the country.
Like every other industry, pottery needed raw
materials; these were initially prepared and ground in water mills, often
converted from corn-mills. In North
Staffordshire the use of water driven mills, especially for the grinding of
flint, existed from the 17th century onwards. The use of these water driven mills were
supplemented by windmills such as that owned by Josiah Wedgwood, located as it
was described, ‘On the Jenkins’, a local
area of land nearby in Burslem. One can only imagine what difficulties and
delays the local potters experienced in the preparation of the basic raw
materials. Throughout industrial
history water driven mills and windmills were always the source of trouble when
engaged in the heavy task of grinding flint stones and other potters’
materials. It was for this reason that, James Brindley, the ‘Millwright
Genius’, settled in North Staffordshire prior to becoming more famous for his
engineering work in the construction of the Duke of Bridgewaters’ canal, (North
of Staffordshire near Warrington in Cheshire),and the more important and
impressive Trent and Mersey Canal.
Inventors during the early decades of the 18th century had
experimented with artificial sources of power to supplement or surpass natural
power. One of the great advantages of these new methods was consistency and not
being reliant on natural phenomena such as droughts or floods.
Portrait of Josiah Wedgwood I, 1782. Oil on canvas by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792)
One of the other restricting factors in the early
development of the ceramic industry was that frequently the potters’ workshops
were sited some considerable distance from the actual location of the wind and
water mills. It was therefore to be of
considerable advantage for the potters of the 18th century, for a
device to be invented to enable the mixing of the clays and grinding of the
flints to be nearer their factories.
Not only would this cut down the cost of production but it also meant
there was a considerable saving in the cost of transporting the heavy raw
materials, frequently over a considerable distance. What was probably more
important to the potter, was that it would have also enabled him to supervise
on the spot the mixing and preparation of the different ingredients and raw
materials necessary for his particular pottery. Thus a potter who could have water powered grinding wheels
operating on his pot-bank, was in an advantageous position as compared with his
rivals. Josiah Wedgwood was obviously
very conscious of this aspect of the industry and had learnt this important
fact of cost effective production through his partnership with Thomas Whieldon
(1754-1759) at his works in Fenton Vivian where Whieldon owned and operated his
own mills.
Engine turning lathe, introduced into ceramic production by Josiah Wedgwood I circa 1763
Recent research has revealed that one of the
contemporaries of Whieldon and Wedgwood, John Turner of Lane End, had installed
an engine to pump water from a pool over the water-wheel at his Stoke
pottery. Simeon Shaw in the ‘Rise and
Progress of the Staffordshire Potteries’ refers to this engine but gives very
little detail except to state that it was not a ‘Steam Engine’. It seems
evident that this engine was a Newcomen model which Turner had probably seen
being used in the tin mines, during his visit to Cornwall in1775, when he
travelled with Josiah Wedgwood. Wedgwood and Turner were impressed with the
mechanical devices used in Cornwall and on their return Josiah subscribed to a
copy of Pryce’s ‘Mineralogia
Cornubiensis’(1778), which gave a contemporary description of the
apparatus used in the crushing of tin ore.
The book gives a detailed description of the artificial power used to
pump water from the tin mines and it is easy to conjecture therefore that
Turner immediately returned to the Potteries, and purchased a Newcomen
atmospheric engine for his works. The
use of this type of engine in the Potteries to supplement the water power points
to the new era of the rotative steam engine, which was ushered into the
industry in the early 1780s.
In a contemporary view of Wedgwood’s Etruria
manufactory by Stebbing Shaw, evidence exists for the use of a windmill for
grinding materials being in use by 1773.
It was to be superseded in the course of the next two decades as steam
power was introduced. Similarly, Josiah
experimented with Doctor Erasmus Darwin’s,( 1731-1802 ), design for a
horizontal windmill, to be built at the Etruria Works, but it seems probable
that this project, for the grinding of ceramic colours, was not particularly
successful and that too was discarded in favour of the new steam power.
When examining the associates and friends of Josiah
Wedgwood in the 18th century frequently in the past, only passing
reference has been made to James Watt,(1736-1819),the Scottish inventor. He is often described as a ‘Fellow
Philosopher’, the words used in a contemporary context to mean the equivalent
of a scientist today. Their working relationship
and subsequent friendship was based on Josiah Wedgwood, (the premier pioneer
industrial capitalist of England), pinning his faith to Watt’s steam engine to
provide the motive power in the pottery industry. This belief was based first on Wedgwood’s practical experience as
a potter searching for a reliable source of artificial power and secondly on
his conviction that Watt, the inventor, had made a remarkable scientific
development with his invention of the steam engine. The ‘Soho Engine Book’, referring
to the engineering works executed at the Soho Manufactory of Boulton and Watt,
shows that Wedgwood placed successive orders for rotative engines in 1782 and
1784, and a 10 horse power engine was installed in 1793. This document indicates that Wedgwood’s
manufactory at Etruria was the first factory in Staffordshire to have a Watt
rotative steam engine installed, and in fact a second steam engine had been
installed at Etruria before the first Watt steam engine was installed in the
Lancashire cotton industry, which is renowned today as being the pioneer of
this method of producing power.
There is an interesting note in Wedgwood’s own hand
where he details the tasks he expects of Watt’s 1793 engine. These can be summarised as:
1.
To
grind flint.
2.
To
grind enamel colours.
3.
To
operate a stamper or crusher for saggars.
4.
To
temper or mix clays.
Interior of the former
Wedgwood Museum at Barlaston, 1985.
Visible here is a reconstruction of an 18th century potter’s
wheel and the original engine turning lathe.
It is a well-known fact that wherever Josiah
Wedgwood led the other potters followed and this is clearly demonstrated with
the Watt engines. Josiah’s faith in the steam engine being a great asset to the
industry was passed to his competitors as well as his own family successors to
the business. His son, Josiah II, had a
30 horse power Watt steam engine installed at Etruria and he stated in a
Parliamentary Committee enquiry that the Etruria steam engines were used
extensively. Josiah II wrote to L. S. Parkes on 7th October 1814
that, ‘The potter’s wheel and lathe have been turn’d by the steam-engine at
Etruria for some years with ingenious contrivances for altering the speed and
reversing the motion. The wooden cones
are used for altering the speed, but I conceive they have long been used for
the same purpose at the Birmingham manufactories’. Interestingly, the Watt
engine installed in Etruria in 1801 was still working in 1912 when it was
finally dismantled and sold.
The advent of steam power in the ceramic industry
had a considerable effect. First of all
it concentrated all the preparatory processes for the raw materials needed in
the pottery industry inside the walls of the pot works. Following the application
of steam power some of the hitherto purely handcraft work yielded to machine
processes. The old foot or hand driven
wheel for the thrower was replaced by the faster steam driven throwing wheel,
the same process affected the turners’ lathes, but it must be stressed that the
invasion of power driven machinery did not make the workers in a pottery
factory mere machine minders. In the
pottery factories from the stage where the clay reached the thrower, the turner
and beyond, craftsmanship and artistry still dominated which is where the
‘Industrial Revolution’ in the pottery industry differs from all the other
changes within the broader scope of general manufacturing in Great
Britain. Wage books and photographic
evidence show that young or female attendants still ‘trod’ lathes or turned
wheels as late as 1913, and even later.
Innovation in the ceramic industry was not confined
solely to mechanical methods. Josiah
realised that the ceramic industry and new technological developments would
provide considerable rewards to anyone who was prepared to labour hard. He decided to try to improve all aspects of
production, he wrote; ‘To try for some more solid improvement, as well as in
the Body, as the Glazes, the Colours & the Forms of
the articles for our manufacture’. Almost certainly, Josiah’s interest in
experimentation owes much to the fact that during the smallpox epidemic which
swept through North Staffordshire when he was either 11 or 12 years of age,
(1741/1742), he contracted the disease which left him with a severely disabled
right knee meaning that he was unable to use the traditional kick wheel used
for throwing within the industry. This
turned him towards experimentation and he deliberately endeavoured to improve
the earthenware body which was already prevalent in the North Staffordshire ceramic
industry by that time.
It is estimated that by 1750 there were about 130
Potteries in North Staffordshire, the majority of which would have been
manufacturing the standard products of the day, including salt glazed
stoneware, black glazed wares, and red wares.
However, it seems likely that by the 1750’s many of these Potteries
would have been moving into the production of the newly developed cream
coloured earthenware. Individual
reputations apart, the development of creamware was clearly dependent on the
existence of certain basic techniques already in use before the middle of the
century. Chemical analysis has
established that the relationship of the creamware body to the white body used
for salt glazed stoneware in terms of their essential ingredients are very
similar and they have a great deal in common.
Whereas creamware was being produced by the 1740s, Josiah Wedgwood’s
innovation came in transforming this earthenware body into a highly refined ceramic
material which was described by Dr.Aiken as, ‘a species of pottery of a firm
and durable body and covered with a rich and brilliant glaze and bearing sudden
vicissitudes of heat and cold without injury; it was manufactured with the ease
of expedition; was sold cheap”. The
refinement of the cream coloured earthenware took a considerable amount of time
and patience until finally Josiah was able to write in his ‘Experiment Book’ at
last; ‘A Good wt. [white] Glaze’.
Throughout the 18th century, creamware
became successfully more refined, technically perfect and more aesthetically
excellent, until it reached its zenith with a fine form, thin body, clear and
brilliant glaze which formed a perfect background for the ingenious enamellers
as well as other more mechanical forms of decoration. Creamware is one of the most versatile and long-lived ceramic
bodies, it was perfect for its purpose being used for everything from elaborate
and ornamental vases to humble utilitarian wares. Its widespread use and popularity are exemplified in the writings
of the Frenchman, Faujas de Saint Fond, in ‘Voyage en Angleterre’; ‘Its excellent workmanship, its
solidarity, the advantage which it possesses of standing the action of the
fire, its fine glaze, impervious to acid, the beauty, convenience and variety
of its forms and its moderate price have created a commerce so active and so
universal, that in travelling from Paris to St Petersburg, from Amsterdam to
the furthest points of Sweden, from Dunkirk to the southern extremity of
France, one is served at every inn from English earthenware. The same fine articles adorn the tables of
Spain, Portugal, & Italy, and it provides the cargoes of ships to the East
Indies, the West Indies and America’.
Despite Wedgwood’s initial success, the trials for
cream coloured earthenware continued.
He commented on the 6th March 1765 in a letter to his elder
brother John, ‘I have begun a course of experiments for a white body &
glaze which promises well hitherto’.
Between 1763 and 1767 Wedgwood made many radical changes not only the body
and glaze of creamware but also in his method of manufacture including
alterations to the kilns, tools and apparatus of the factory. One of his innovatory additions to the Works
occurred in 1763 when, according to his own ‘Common Place Book’ Josiah introduced
an engine-turning lathe into his pottery. It is thought that he acquired the
lathe from John Taylor of Birmingham, through the auspices of Matthew Boulton,
where Wedgwood had seen similar machines in use in the Ormolu and metal works,
though it is probable that he made considerable alterations and amendments to
suit his own requirements.
Page taken from the
Wedgwood Useful Ware Catalogue. Date
1774
It is interesting to note that engine-turning on
ceramics was being used in the London porcelain industry by about 1755, and is
mentioned in a contemporary description of the Chelsea factory on 3rd
February 1759. The technique of
engine-turning had long been used on metal, wood and ivory. Giovanni Maggiore, who was born in Milan,
was to become the lathe worker to the Duke of Bavaria, and has been credited
with the technique for making turned ivory boxes in Munich around 1575.
Wedgwood claimed he himself had introduced a special
engine lathe into the pottery industry in 1763 but it is important to make the
clear distinction between this and the plain, parallel turning lathe, which
Josiah credits to the Elers Brothers, which was introduced into production at the close of the 17th
century. Josiah’s date for the
introduction of his eccentric motion lathes is confirmed in his correspondence
dating from June 1763 when he was obviously consulting Plumier’s book, ‘L’Art
de Tourner’, first published in Lyon in 1701 and revised by the author for the
Paris edition published in 1749.
Page taken from the Wedgwood Useful Ware Catalogue. Date 1774
Due, arguably to the great economic and social
changes and innovations of the second half of the 18th and early 19th
century, a new middle class of society began to develop, enjoying the comfort
and wealth newly brought about by their feats of entrepreneurialism. There were
more opportunities for them to enjoy the daily round. New achievements created an atmosphere of excited anticipation
and an optimistic confidence tempered with apprehension for the future. Such people lived longer due to the advances
in agriculture and the better transport, which facilitated the production, and
transport of foodstuffs. The birth of
the ‘Industrial Revolution’ expanded the boundaries of the world adding to that
spirit of optimism and offering seemingly infinite possibilities. Newly discovered materials, improved tools
and techniques encouraged unprecedented specialisation of artists and craftsmen
both in the function and creation of the objects they made. During this period England saw some of the
most important changes in its lifestyle.
Marketing became as important as production to the major manufacturers
in industries, which were rapidly developing the ability to supply more than a
simple regional demand. Diversification
of work and the division of labour within a factory brought about a dramatic
reduction in production costs. Pottery
began to find markets in all parts of Britain and for every room in the house,
not just utilitarian items such as the butter pots which had previously been
used to carry the wares to market, or jugs and mugs for containing essential
liquids.
Many potters, Josiah Wedgwood included, were quick
to realise that at the annual fairs and markets fine prices could never be
realised. Given the technology in the
18th century ceramic industry the manufacturers, who did not enjoy
State or Ducal patronage, had to be especially entrepreneurial and actively
encouraged many different methods of getting their wares into the newly
constructed homes to be enjoyed by this new society. Wedgwood actively encouraged the ‘Shoals of Ladies’ as he called
them to visit his shop, both by invitation only as with the exhibitions of the
‘Frog’ Service for Empress Catherine II of Russia, and the display of Josiah’s
copy in Jasper of the celebrated Portland Vase, or to come during their season
in town to meet with friends and to enjoy the wares he had created in the hope
and expectation that they would leave the shop to tell their husbands what they
wanted purchasing and their friends what was new and readily available.
Wedgwood’s innovatory cream coloured earthenware was
called Queen’s Ware after the successful completion of his first commission for
Queen Charlotte secured in the summer of 1765.
With the delivery of ‘A complete sett of tea things’ which included a
dozen cups for coffee, six fruit baskets and stands, six melon preserve pots
and six hand candlesticks, Josiah was permitted to title his cream coloured
earthenware ‘Queen’s Ware’. No evidence
has been discovered to determine exactly when the service was delivered to
London but it was evidently sometime before the 9th June 1766, when
a notice in Aris’ Birmingham Gazette, (a pre-eminent Midlands newspaper)
announced: ‘Mr Josiah Wedgwood, of Burslem, has had the honour of being
appointed Potter to Her Majesty’.
The appearance of numerous advertisements in the
London papers, especially the Public Advertiser of March 1769 specifically
refer to ‘Queen’s Ware’, these as well as the Royal patronage brought Wedgwood
to the attention of the nobility naturally increasing his orders for Queen’s
Ware dramatically, causing him to comment in September 1767 to his closest
friend, Thomas Bentley, about this phenomenon when he wrote: ‘The demand for
this sd. Creamcolour, Alias Queens Ware, alias, Ivory
still increases - It is really amazing how rapidly the use of it has spread
allmost over the whole Globe, & how universally it is liked.- How much of
this general use, & estimation, is owing to the mode of its introduction -
& how much to its real utility & beauty?’. It is interesting,
that Mrs Papendiek, Assistant Keeper to the Wardrobe of Queen Charlotte (an
honorary position of considerable rank at the Court) wrote, some years later,
that; ‘Our tea and coffee set were of common India China (known today as
Chinese Export Porcelain), our dinner service of earthenware, to which, for our
rank, there is nothing superior.
Chelsea porcelain and fine India China being only for the wealthy. Pewter and Delft ware could be had, but they
were inferior’. Cream coloured earthenware was so widely
used that people no longer referred to ‘Common pewter’ but to ‘Common Wedgwood’
instead.
Page taken from Wedgwood’s first Trials Book dated February 17th 1759 in Fenton; this is the commencement of notes taken by Wedgwood in the course of his partnership with Thomas Whieldon of Fenton.
Experiment and innovation were very much part of
Wedgwood’s working philosophy. The
predominant style of Neo-classicism flourished in the middle of the 18th
century taking over almost exclusively from all other decorative styles in
England at that time. Once these great
new houses had been constructed ornamental vases became one of the most
important aspects of the interior.
Josiah was to write on 1st May 1769 that in London, ‘Vases
were all the cry’ and he added that he must, ‘endeavour to satisfy ... this
universal passion’. Josiah’s avowed aim
was to become, ‘Vase Maker General to the Universe’ something which he
successfully achieved with his wide range of vases in imitation of natural
stones, such as Agate and Porphyry and subsequently those manufactured in Black
Basalt.
By September 1767, Josiah Wedgwood had already
carried out a considerable number of trials for the perfection of Black Basalt,
he wrote to Bentley of his secret experiments, ‘I am still going on with w.th
my tryals, & want much to shew you some of them, but I can neither send
them in a letter, nor say so much about them to you as I could like, for L.rs
are liable to Accidents and therefore I must, though brim full, contain myself
‘til I see you’. Less than 12 months
later this new product was on the market.
By the end of 1769 Wedgwood was announcing that encaustic vases were to
be, ‘our principal articles for the ensueing season’. Clearly the trade was
smitten with Neo-classical vases and the population was clamouring for the most
recent products.
Many eminent men, designers and architects were
employed to provide the forms and patterns for the Wedgwood ornamental wares.
This is clearly illustrated with the Griffin candlesticks, which were
first put into production in 1771 and
subsequently occur in both Black Basalt and Jasper. They were adapted from the original designs by Sir William
Chambers (1723-1796), architect to King George III, which were published in his
third edition of his, ‘A Treatise on Civil Architecture’. The attribution to Chambers is confirmed by
a letter from Wedgwood to Bentley dated November 1771, ‘The Griffin Candlestick
is alter’d sure enough, for Hackwood was oblig’d to new model it. I hope all the world will not have Mr.
Chamber’s Eyes’.
Towards the end of 1772 the ornamental business of
Wedgwood and Bentley was suffering one of its periodic declines. Dependent on customers in a fickle society,
as well as emerging competition by other potters such as Humphrey Palmer,
Josiah Spode and John Turner, Wedgwood sought to make a new product. It can be argued that the triumphal outcome
of about 5,000 recorded experiments with the production of Jasper, was his most
important contribution to ceramic art and one of the most significant
innovations in ceramic history since the Chinese invention of porcelain nearly
one thousand years earlier. Josiah’s
almost unbroken series of experiments to produce white earthenware, stoneware
and other bodies has made it difficult to disentangle the development of his
white ‘terracotta’ from the invention of Jasper.
Wedgwood’s progress in the development of any new
ceramic body, glaze or technique was empirical. Josiah was using materials which were full of unidentified
impurities and which consequently produced infuriatingly, unpredictable
variations in behaviour. His success
was purely the result of trial and error.
In response to the request from Bentley, in February 1766, Wedgwood
revealed part of his Jasper formula with the comment, ‘You desire to know a
Mixture - Will you be content to have part of it now, & the remainder
another time - It is too precious to reveal all at once’. By February 1773 Josiah was writing to
Bentley that he had made, ‘...some very promising experim.ts lately upon fine
bodies for Gems & other things’.
Nothing much more is heard of these until March 1774 and it is clear
that he had little time to spend upon them during the previous 14 months: ‘I have’ he wrote ‘for sometime past been
reviewing my experiments, & I find such Roots, such Seeds as
would open, & branch out wonderfully if I could nail myself down to the
cultivation of them for a year or two’.
By the end of August his experiments seemed to have born fruits as he
writes that he is, ‘... at work upon more solid materials, & have no doubt
of succeeding’. By the end of 1774, Wedgwood was making
intaglios in two colours by laminating blue and white Jasper and by the
beginning of 1775 Josiah had declared himself ‘absolute’ in white Jasper, blue
and ‘... likewise a beautifull Sea Green, and several other colors, for grounds
to Cameo’s, Intaglios &c’. For nearly two more years Wedgwood struggled
with intractable materials which seemed to have a will of their own causing him
to write in June 1776 in frustration, ‘This Jasper is certainly the most
delicately whimsical of any substance I have ever engaged with’. Jasper never became to be the easiest of
bodies to work with or fire, and there were still occasional obstacles to be
overcome and sophisticated techniques such as the ornamenting of vases and
‘diced’ decoration, which first appears in invoices for April 1790, still
needed to be mastered. Nevertheless, by
the end of 1777 Jasper was regularly in production in a variety of objects and
colours.
Tray of Jasper trials. Circa 1770-1774
Wedgwood’s choice of colours for Jasper, dictated
largely by the metal oxides available for the staining of the clay mixture, bore
a close relationship to the colours most favoured for the interiors by Robert
Adam (1728-1792) and James Wyatt (1746-1813). During the 18th
century, Jasper continued numerically to outstrip Black Basalt in the
inventories of ware sent to London from Etruria after 1775, but Basalt objects
remained strongly prominent and together these stoneware bodies went a
considerable way to make the Company pre-eminent in the ornamental ware
production. In 1769 in the early years
of their partnership, Wedgwood suggested to Bentley that they should spend some
time, ‘In pursuit of Fortune, Fame
& the Public Good’, something which Josiah achieved by marrying art with
industry and utility with beauty, both making a lasting contribution.
Wedgwood was never slow to take advantage of new
techniques. Paralleling the advantages of steam power with the advances in
industrialisation together with innovations which were equally important. The founding of the Etruria manufactory saw
the introduction and application of Adam Smith’s principles of the division of
labour. Whereas previously pottery
articles had been made from start to finish by a single workman, they were now
produced at each stage by a specialist, which improved the dexterity of the
craftsman and saved time. Another important division was that between the
making and the designing of a pot and Wedgwood’s pioneering methods included
the employment of the best obtainable artists such as John Flaxman jnr, Henry
Webber and William Hackwood, amongst others, to emulate the best productions of
the past which were in great demand. This enormously improved the level of
design as compared with the products of the earlier Staffordshire slip ware
potters whose naive, though charming designs could not be described as
sophisticated art. The new specialisation of the potters meant they were now
relieved of the task of designing, decorating and firing of the ware ensuring
that there was a considerable improvement in the quality of the craftsmanship.
The same was true of leaders in other manufacturing fields, Boulton had earned
himself a wide reputation for the mounting of Wedgwood cameos in buckles,
buttons, snuff boxes, candelabra, ormolu vases amongst other items. The
Sheffield plate makers had few rivals in excellence of design and the Carron
Iron Works had become famous for their fire backs designed by the Adam brothers
(James and Robert), one of whom had actually become a partner in the
enterprise. The architectural designs of the Adam family and their schemes for
the interior decoration, in conjunction with the furniture designs of
Hepplewhite and Chippendale are well known.
In all of their work there is a very definite transition from mere
handicraft to a well-developed factory production based on sophisticated
industrial design.
The growth of industrialisation meant that mass
production began to take the place of individual craftsmanship and the creators
of fashion also became its slaves. By
the second half of the 18th century it was not the designer or
manufacturer who was the arbiter of good taste, but the salesmen who found it
necessary to pander to popular taste by demanding a ceaseless flow of
novelties. Inevitably competition
became keener and real taste became rarer as the purchasing power became more
accessible to the wage earner. This
gradual debasement of good design was quite apparent to
John F. Rigaud (1742-1810), portrait of Thomas Bentley,
friend and partner of Josiah Wedgwood I (previously attributed to Joseph Wright
of Derby). Oil on canvas.
Josiah who wrote to his partner Thomas Bentley
in June 1779 saying, ‘Fashion is infinitely superior to merit in many respects;
& it is plain from a thousand instances that if you have a favourite child
you wish the public to fondle & take notice of, you have only to make
choice of proper sponcers’. It is to his credit, in spite of the
demand for ‘showy things’, he stuck more closely to his classical forms and his
desire to,’ Excel the noblest works of this or any age’.
The innovations in industry and the revolution, which
occurred in the 18th century, would have soon ceased had there not been a
coincident revolution in transport. As
Josiah says in, ‘An Address to the Young Inhabitants of the Potteries’, a
printed pamphlet designed to answer workers’ complaints he states that, the
roads were well nigh impossible to travel along, even to the strings of pack
horses which provided the main means of moving raw materials and finished
products, whilst such routes were infested with highwayman and robbers. It was soon obvious that facilities must be
improved if the growing productivity of the district was to find an outlet to
the rest of England and the expanding foreign market. Josiah was an active supporter and promoter of the turnpike
roads, particularly those connecting the Potteries to the ports including
Liverpool and Chester, through which clay from Cornwall was imported and
finished goods exported. Josiah
addressed the local North Staffordshire inhabitants at the Town Hall of Newcastle-under-Lyme
in 1763. His forceful speech outlining
the advantages of such a road system is recorded in full in his ‘Common Place
Book’. Wedgwood went on to enlist the
help of Lord Gower, a local landowner and Staffordshire Member of Parliament, in
seeing the new Turnpike Bill through Parliament. Nine Turnpike Acts were passed by Parliament in 1766. Later Acts of 1777 and 1783 were
specifically aimed at linking the local road system to the main London routes. It is interesting that included in the 130
Trustees named in the 1791 Turnpike Act were Josiah Wedgwood I and his three
sons.
In view of the uncertain and poor road
communications it is not surprising therefore, to find Wedgwood, an ardent
supporter of James Brindley and his latest plans for the development of a
system of canals. Brindley known as
‘The Schemer’ was well known in the Potteries as a millwright and a builder of
windmills. The earlier navigation
schemes of the 17th and early 18th centuries had
consisted merely of improvements to natural rivers, which were always subject
to the risk of droughts and floods, but Brindley’s new scheme in which he
succeeded so admirably, was to make canals independent of the rivers by
building them so that they could be carried across the countryside at one
level, where necessary on aqueducts or through cuttings and tunnels. His first successful venture was the
building the Bridgewater Canal in 1761 to carry coal from the Duke of
Bridgewater’s colliery at Worsley to Manchester. Arthur Young, the traveller and writer, regarded Brindley’s plan
to carry this canal over the river Mersey as, ‘The greatest plan (if executed)
that ever yet was thought of, and will exceed the noblest works of the Romans,
when masters of the world’.
A greater scheme by far was a canal linking the
rivers Trent and Mersey or ‘Grand Trunk’ canal, as Brindley called it, which
was warmly supported by Wedgwood, who acted as its Treasurer as he states; ‘at
£000 Per ann. out of which he bears
his own Expences’. When finally
completed in 1777, this canal rose 395 feet to its summit at Harecastle in
Staffordshire where it passed through a tunnel 2880 yards long, one of the
greatest 18th century engineering feats completed in 1775. The Trent
and Mersey canal was 93 miles long with 76 locks, 5 tunnels and 269 smaller
aqueducts and bridges and when completed it linked a chain of waterways across
the heart of industrial England. The proposed line of the canal passed the
front of the Etruria Works and afforded an easy means of transport connecting
with both the ports of Liverpool on the west coast and Hull on the east coast.
Wedgwood Etruria
factory on the banks of the Trent & Mersey Canal, in operation between the
years of 1769
and 1950. Print executed from a 19th century woodcut.
The first meeting of those men interested and
involved with the proposed development was called on 10th June 1766
at The Crown, a coaching inn in Stone, Staffordshire. Over a year before the inaugural meeting Josiah had written to
his brother John, on 3rd April 1765, stating, ‘This scheme of a Navigation
is undoubtedly the best thing that could possibly be plan’d for this country
& I hope there is a great degree of probability of its being carried into
execution’. The Bill for the Trent and Mersey Canal was presented to Parliament
on 18 February 1766 and authorised on 14th May. On 16th July 1766 Wedgwood cut
the first sod of earth to commence the canal construction.
With the completion of the canal, freight rates were
immediately reduced by nine tenths and many of the handicaps facing the earlier
potters were overcome. The canal
systems held sway until the coming of the “Iron Horse”, and as the railway age
advanced so there were bitter fights and controversies between the canal,
turnpike and coaching companies’ interests and the railway promoters. But progress could not be prevented and
ultimately the rail system was to supersede water transportation.
Josiah Wedgwood had been born into arguably one of
the most exciting eras in English history an age of enquiry, discovery and
experiment. None of the superb
advancements in ceramic production would have been feasible in the 18th
century without Josiah’s pioneering activities to produce a thermometer which
could measure high temperatures inside the kiln. Prior to the successful production of Wedgwood’s thermometer, (or
pyrometer as it was also known abroad), the kiln man was always the highest
paid workman on the factory because it was purely by his skill and judgment
that wares were successfully fired. Josiah
had experimented since 1780 with the construction of the thermoscope, matching
fired clay cylinders with those fired at known temperatures ranging in colour
from buff to red indicating respectively low to high temperatures, but later he
turned to measuring the shrinkage of clay using an upgraded pyrometer which he
devised. Wedgwood’s development of this
thermometer revolutionised the industry and for his achievement James
‘Athenian’ Stuart, celebrated Architect proposed Josiah for election as a Fellow
of the Royal Society. On the 9th
May 1782 Wedgwood read his paper on, ‘An attempt to make a Thermometer for
measuring the Higher Degrees of Heat ... up to the strongest Vessels made of
Clay can support’, he was awarded the highest scientific accolade in the
country by election to this august body.
Josiah not only ‘Converted a rude and inconsiderable
manufactory into an elegant art and an important part of National commerce’ but
was a true pioneer in an age of innovation and change. He is justly remembered as the ‘Father of
English Potters’ and as William Burton’s memorial to Wedgwood states it was
‘His influence that was so powerful and his personality so dominant that all
other English potters work on the principles he laid down’. His ceramic
tradition has endured through three centuries.
The quotations are reproduced by the kind permission
of the Trustees of the Wedgwood Museum, Barlaston, Stoke on Trent,
Staffordshire, England. They have been quoted with the original spelling and
punctuation.
Gaye Blake
Roberts
Museum Curator
Copyright 2001