Josiah Wedgwood, F.R.S., his personal history

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

I. JOSIAH WEDGWOOD— BIRTH AND EDUCA- TION 1

II. THE WEDGWOOD FAMILY . .... 7

Chapter I Josiah Wedgwood — Birth And Education

JosiAH Wedgwood was born in the house adjoining the Churchyard Works at Burslem, Staffordshire, in 1730. The actual date of his birth is not known ; but his baptism is recorded in the parish register of St. John’s, Burslem, in these words : Josiah, son of Thomas and

Mary Wedgwood, baptized 12th July, 1730.” *

Josiah’s father was a potter, like his forefathers before him. He possessed a small estate, including a pottery, adjoining the Burslem Churchyard. His mother’s maiden name was Mary Stringer, the daughter, it is said, of a nonconformist minister. She was a small and delicately organized woman, quick and sensible, and kindly in her disposition.

Thomas and Mary Wedgwood had thirteen children in all — seven sons and six daughters.

* It is carved on liis monument at Stoke-upon-Trent that he was “born in August, 1730 but this must be a mistake, as he was baptized in the previous month.

Josiali was tlie youngest of the family. In that respect he resembled his contemporaiy, Sir Richard Arkwright, who was the youngest of thirteen children.

From the year 1710 to 1715 Burslem was the principal seat of the pottery manufacture in Staffordshire. There were few pot-works anywhere else in that county. Of the fifty small potters in Burslem many were named Wedgwood. The}'- and their ancestors had been manufacturers of earthenware for more than two hundred years.

Burslem used to be called the Butter Pottery, meaning the place where butter-pots were principally made. The other earthenware produced in Burslem was for the most part coarse in texture, clumsy in design, and very liable to fracture ; yet it was not totally devoid of taste, either in form or ornament.

It may also be mentioned that at the beginning of the eighteenth century there were seven small potters at Hanley (now a place of some forty thousand inhabitants) ; but there was only one horse and one mule in the hamlet. There was neither cart nor carriage of any kind in Hanley, the roads being almost impassable for even pack-horses. The coals used in the place were carried on men’s or women’s backs. There were only two houses at Stoke — Ward’s and Poulson’s — but no pot-works as yet existed there.

Birth and Education

Very little is known of Josiali’s cliildliood. There are, unfortunately, no family letters or journals of the period to refer to ; and biographical material of any description is not to be depended on. There have, indeed, been traditions and surmises printed from time to time, but these are not to be relied upon for accuracy.

It was, on the whole, a good thing for Josiali that he was one of a numerous family. On entering life he found a little world of boys and girls about him. The child in a large family receives a kind of social education by contact with his brothers and sisters. The little corners of his temperament are rubbed olf and smoothed down, as with boys in a public school. If he wishes to pass comfortably through life, he finds that he must give and take, especially when, like Josiah, he has to make his own way in the world.

Not much is recorded about his boyhood. He played about the fields and strips of waste ground near the Churchyard Works. There were occasionally pack-horses at the pottery waiting for their loads of ware. As riding was one of his early ambitions, he occasionally bestrode the pack-horses, held on by the willing packmen.

The mother had of course plenty to do in bringing up such a long family.” She had to feed, to clothe and maintain them. But she never was found wanting. She was, as we have said, lively, quick, and sensible, with a soul full of kindness. She was any thing but selfish or hardened by the number of her children. With a heart opened to them all, young as well as old, slie proved herself one of tlie best of mothers. She taught her children the value of industry, — for, indeed, the greater part of them had little else to look forward to, — together with those good rules of life : integrity, self-help, self-restraint, and perseverance.

Little is known about the school education of her youngest son. When able to toddle about, Josiah was sent to a dame’s school to learn his ABC. This was at that time the only school in Burslera, and he was sent there more to keep him out of the way of the other children, or perhaps out of mischief, than for any learning he received.

The local historian, Simeon Shaw, sa3^s that scarcely any person in Burslem learned more than reading and writing until about 1750, when some individuals endowed the free school for instructing young persons to read the Bible, write a fair hand, and know the primary rules of arithmetic. Josiah’s early education was thus limited to reading and writing.

When seven years old he was sent across the moors to a school at Newcastle-under-Lj^me, kept by a Mr. Blunt. The school was about three and a half miles from Burslem, and in fine weather his walks across the fields and

Birth and Education commons were joyous and healtliful. Among Lis school-fellows were several who afterward achieved considerable distinction, though none proved so great as that of Wedgwood himself.

He remained, however, only a short time at that school. He was taken away at his father’s death, which occurred in June, 1739, when Josiah was only nine years old. All that he had learned up to this time were the beginnings of reading, writing, and arithmetic. The rest of his knowledge and learning he accomplished by himself. Like many men of action and enterprise, like Brindley and Stephenson, he was, for the most part, his own educator.

Josiah’s father, Thomas Wedgwood, did not leave much money or property behind him. By his will, dated 26th June, 1739, he left to his eldest son, Thomas, the Churchyard Pottery, and all his real estate, with a provision for his wife for her maintenance and “the proper bringing up of her younger children.” Twenty pounds were to be paid to six of them on their reaching twenty years of age. The eldest daughter, Ann, was omitted, from which it may be inferred that she had done something displeasing to her father ; and he could not forgive her, even in his dying hours.

Josiah was included among those who were to receive twenty pounds on their coming of age ; and this was the entire capital on which he began his industrial and artistic career. As

G

Josicih Wedgioood lie liimself afterward said of his fortunes : ‘‘I

myself began at the lowest round of the ladder.”

To recur again to Josiah’s early education. jMr. Leslie, afterward Sir John Leslie, professor of natural philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, was, in the early part of his career, the tutor of Wedgwood’s eldest sons. He knew much of the history of the proprietor of Etruria, and after his death collected materials for his biography. lie says that Wedgwood’s early education was confined to the usual routine of a country school, where he learned no language but his own, and that imperfectly. Although deprived of the advantage of a liberal education, by diligence and perseverance he found his own way to useful knowledge and the rightful a2')plication of it.

IMr. Leslie records that Josiah himself attributed much of his success in after life to the opi)ortunity which was given him during a long illness to repair, by reading, the deficiencies of his mental training. Ilis anxiety to accomplish this end as he grew up, and also the urgent way in which he advised his children to gain all the knowledge they could in their early life, show how keenly he felt the disadvantages from which he himself had suffered.

The manner in which Josiah accomplished not only his own but his children’s education will be found set forth in the following chaptei's.

Chapter II The Wedgwood Family

So numerous are the Wedgwoods in Staffordshire that they might almost be described as a clan. They resided principally in Burslem and the neighborhood ; but they spread from thence into Yorkshire, Cheshire, Cumberland, Westmoreland, and other counties, where many of them continued to work at the pottery trade.

The surname of Wedgwood half fills the parish registers of Burslem in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is said that one-third of the inhabitants of the parish then bore the name. According to old deeds and charters the first Wedgwood resided at a place called Weggewood, a hamlet in Staffordshire, about four miles west of Newcastle-under-Lyme. As far back as 1370, in the 13th of Edward IIL, Thomas de Weggewood was frank pledge or head borough of the hamlet of Weggewood.

The family accumulated propert}’', not only by their industry, but partly by their marriages to ladies of distinction. In 1470 John Wedgwood married Mary, the daughter and heiress of John Shaw, and thus possessed the estate of

JosiaJi Wedgioood

Ilarracles, in the parish of Norton, near Leek. The property was inlierited by the elder branch of tlieir descendants, \yhich, for want of issue, sliortly became extinct.

The second branch of the family removed to Burslem ; and the first of them we find mentioned is Gilbert AYedgwood, wlio about the year ICOO married Alargaret, daughter and colieiress of Thomas Burslem, Esq.; and by her lie had Burslem AYedgwood and Thomas AA^edgwood.

Thomas, the second surviving son of Gilbert and Alargaret, was a man of considerable property. He owned a large part of Bui-slem, including three or four pot-works. lie married Margaret Shaw, and had by her a family of several sons and daughters. He died in 10/ 9. Thomas was the ancestor of the families known as the ‘‘Overhouse AA^edgwoods” and the “ Churchyard AA^edgwoods the latter was so called because their pot-works were close to the Burslem Churchyard.

Another son of Gilbert AA^edgwood and Margaret Shaw married in 1084 Mary Leigh, another small proprietress. They had four sons and five daughters. The eldest son, Thomas, inherited from his father the Churchyard pot-works. On arriving at maturity he married Mary Stringer, by whom he had thirteen children— seven sons and six daughters. Josiah, the great potter, was the youngest of the family.

The Wedgwood Family

To return to the origin of the Wedgwoods as potters. We find that Gilbert Wedgwood settled at Burslem in 1612, and became the ancestor of a long line of potters. He manufactured most of the varieties of earthenware in ordinary use. The ware was of a common description, mostly butter-pots, basins, jugs, porringers, and such like. Timber- or wooden - ware, for spoons and dishes, continued to be used.

The best earthenware was imported from abroad, mostly from Delft, in Holland. The Staffordshire potters tried to imitate the foreigners, and eventually succeeded. Before long they equalled them, and obtained part possession of* the home market. Delft-ware was manufactured in Burslem toward the end of the seventeenth century. In 1691 one John Wedgwood made a puzzle-jug in the style of delft- ware. It was called a puzzle- jug because it was so contrived with perforations in various parts of the jug that it was almost impossible to drink from it without spilling a portion. There were imprinted on it the following lines :

“ Here, gentlemen, come try your skill, ril bold a wager, if you will,

That you don’t drink the liquor all.

Without you spill, or let some fall.”

The Wedgwoods continued to be potters, and their numbers in Burslem increased. At the same time they did not subsist entirely by the consumption of their pottery ware. One of them, Dr. Thomas Wedgwood, at the end of the seventeenth century combined farming with pot-making. Ilis son, of the same name, resided at the Red Lyon, and was an innkeeper as well as potter, though whence the title of doctor was derived we do not know.

As the profits of potters Avere then very small, so Avere the Avages of their Avorkmen. Wedgwood’s grandfather had, in 1715, three Avorkmen to Avhom he paid four shillings a Aveek, and three others to AA'hom he paid six shillings a Aveek.

A2)prentices Avere still more poorly paid. Aaron Wood Avas apprenticed to Dr. Thomas WedgAvood in 1731. During the first three years of his apprenticeship he Avas paid one shilling Aveekly. During the next three years he Avas ])aid one shilling and sixpence Aveekly ; and in the last and seventh year he Avas paid four shillings Aveekly. Besides his Avages, Aaron Wood had annually a pair of ncAV shoes. When Aaron’s apprenticeship expired, he Avas engaged for live years as a journeyman at five shillings a Aveek.

Dr. Tliomas WedgAVOod, junior, the innkeeper, did something to imj^roAm the manufacture of pottery. Besides manufacturing imitation agates, marbles, and coffee- and teapots, he eventually succeeded in producing a

The Wedgicood Family pure white stoneware. Ilis workmen also made baking-dishes, milk-pans, pots, jngs, porringers, pitchers, and other sorts of crockery.

The chief hindrance to the expansion of the trade of Burslem and the neighborhood was the horrible state of the roads and by-ways. At the beginning of last century Burslem was a poor, struggling little village of thatched houses. When the Rev. Mr. Middleton, incumbent of Stone, was enforcing upon his hearers the duty of humility, he said they might be compared to so many sparrows, as all of them had been hatched under the thatch. The Big House, with the adjacent earthenware manufactory, erected by Thomas and John Wedgwood in 1750, was the only building in Burslem covered with slates.

Hanley, Shelton, Lane, and Stoke were of still less importance than Burslem. Longport did not exist until the construction of the Trent and Mersey Canal. The original potters scattered themselves over the districts in which clay, wood, and coal were found. The primitive pottery works were widely spread over an area of some ten miles in extent.

The houses in which the families of the workers lived were only thatched hovels, sometimes covered with mud. The midden was a conspicuous object before every door. In many places tliere were mounds of ashes and shard-rucks, consisting of broken pots and spoiled eartlienware. Beside them were the hollows from which the potters had dug their clay. These were usually filled with stagnated water. Every thing was coarse, rude, and unwholesome.

Yet ale-houses abounded, for the people were greatly given to drink. As an excuse it may be said that the earthenware was usually sold in the public-houses. The potters had their sports, too — miserable remnants of “Merry England.” In the centre of Burslem was a high Maypole, at the place where the town-hall now stands, around which the jolly potters held their festivals. They had many so-called amusements — cock-throwing, gooseriding, bull- and bear-baiting. Bull-baiting was continued down to about sixty years since. Each pottery had its special wake, which was usually a saturnalia of drunkenness.

The morals and manners of the people were, of course, brutal and vicious. When John Wesley visited the potteries, about the middle of last century, a crowd of people assembled to laugh and jeer at him, and proceeded to pelt him with mud. The following is from his diary on the 8th of March, 1760 :

“Went from Wolverhampton to Burslem, a scattered town on the top of a hill, inhabited almost entirely by potters, a multitude of whom assembled at five in the evening. Deep attention sat on every face, though as yet accom-

The Wedgioood Family panied with deep ignorance ; but if the heart be moved toward God, lie will in due time enlighten the understanding.

Sunday, ^th. — I preached at night to near double the number, some quite innocent of thought. Five or six were laughing and talking till I had nearly done ; and one of them threw a clod of earth which struck me on the side of the head, but it neither disturbed me nor the congregation.”

A few years later John Wesley preached at the same place, and entered in his journal these words : ‘‘ I began preaching at Burslem. Even the poor potters here are a more civilized people than the better sort (so called) at Congleton.” The women who attended his preaching assumed, to a certain extent, the garb of men, and were quite as ready with their oaths. Every thing was rude, barbarous, and uncivilized.

In most cases an ordinary pot-work was carried on by a man and a laborer. When the potter had sons and daughters, they helped in the work. The sons dug the clay, the man fashioned and fired the ware ; and, when the goods were ready, the mother and daughters filled the panniers, swung across the backs of horses or donkeys. Their drivers tlien drove tliem tlirough the lanes to fairs and markets in order to sell the manufactured goods. The poor brutes were driven on with whip or cudgel, the men and women mostly with pipes in their months.

The roads in the neighborhood of Burslem were of the worst description. The lanes were known as ‘‘hollow ways,” and in wet weather they were streams of muddy water. When the poor brutes, laden with their panniers of crockery, could not toil through the deep and sticky mud, they often fell down and smashed the ware. Sometimes they broke their legs, and were either shot or left to die — a happy release for the poor overworked animals.

These muddy lanes were unenclosed. When the horses and donkeys could not pass through the hollow ways, they were driven on to the adjoining commons or moorland, and went along in single file by the steep escarpments of the road. It was long before carts or wagons could be used at Ibirslem. Even at the beginning of last century they were very rare in the potteries.

But in course of time the earthenware manufactured in Staffordshire improved. The blackglazed or ruddy-colored articles were gradually replaced by brighter and yellower ware, although, as has already been stated, wooden spoons, j)lates, and dishes long continued to be used. A great impulse was given to the manufacture of improved earthenware by the immigration and settlement of Dutchmen and Germans in Staffordshire. They introduced the manufac-

The Wedgwood Family ture of delft-ware. The native manufacturers vied with the foreigners, and they were soon able to export their ware to foreign markets.

Toward the end of the seventeenth century the two brothers Elers, from Delft, followed the Prince of Orange to England, and settled in Stalfordshire for the purpose of manufacturing stoneware. They hired an old thatched farm-house, with some adjoining land, in a secluded spot near Bradwell. The small pot-work which they erected was scarcely discernible from Burslem. The ware which they turned out was found to be of a finer description than any manufactured in the neighborhood.

The Elers made the greatest improvement in the potter’s art of England by introducing the salt glaze — that is, by firing their ware with the vapor of common salt at a high temperature. They washed, and levigated, and in various ways prepared the clays, giving the ware a fineness, durability, and solidity which were entirely new. The ornaments and mouldings were sliarp in execution and graceful in design, far beyond the efforts of the Staffordshire potters at tliat time.

The Elers discovered a vein of clay which they found suitable for their purposes near Bradwell Wood. This clay, carefully levigated, and covered with an excellent glaze, yielded a red ware, like the Etruscan or Japanese, hard and compact in texture, and admirable in design. The Elers, besides their red ware, also produced an Egyptian black, by the mixture of manganese with the clay before it was fired. They were thus the precursors, or, it may be, tlie originators, of the fine black bodies of Josiah ^yedgwood and other Staffordshire manufacturers.

The Elers conducted their operations with perfect secrecy. No strangers were admitted to their pottery. The windows were blinded. Only the stupidest workmen were employed to turn the thrower’s wheel. Even idiots were preferred, Avhile those workmen who appeared more than ordinarily skilful were sworn to secrecy. They were locked up while at work, and were carefully examined when they left the premises.

These measures excited the prying inquisitiveness of the Burslem potters. Tlie men were foreigners ; any thing was lawful against foreigners. They manufactured their line wares in secret. The secret must be discovered. Two Burslem potters, Astbury and Twyford, set their wits to work. Astbury pretended to be an idiot. He applied at the pottery for work, obtained it, and was set to turn the Avheel. To maintain his character of idiot he made numerous mistakes ; he quietly submitted to the kicks and cuffs which the other workmen bestowed upon him.

The Wedgioood Family

But all the while Astbury’s eyes were very wide open. In turning the wheel he carefully witnessed every process, and examined particularly every utensil which was employed. “The ass,” as he was supposed to be, was allowed to go through every department of the works, and on returning home at night he made models of the various implements employed. He also preserved careful memoranda of the various processes he had seen. He remained in the works for two years, and at the end of that time he was master of the “ secrets ” of the Elers’ manufactory.

About the same time Twyford, another Burslem potter, discovered the same secrets, but it is unnecessary to describe his pretences of idiocy. On their discharge both began business on their own account at Shelton. They made red ware, crouch-ware, and white stoneware from the native clays, using salt glaze for some of the vessels and lead ore for others. Astbury seems to have been the most successful of the two. He made journeys to London, where he sold his ware, and obtained further orders.

The Elers were disgusted with the treatment which they had received at Burslem. They eventually left the place, and in 1710 removed to Chelsea, where they connected themselves with a party of Venetian glass-makers wlio had established themselves under the auspices

Josiah Wedgiuood of the Duke of Buckingliam. The Elers also started a manufactory of pottery. Their porcelain achieved a very higdi reputation, and until the time of Josiah "Wedgwood their pottery ware was considered to be the best in the country.

By whatever means Astbury had mastered the secrets of the Elers, he was a man of invention and originality, and did much to accelerate the improvement of stoneware in Staffordshire. When he commenced business at Shelton, he began to use pipe-clay for coating over and washing the insides of vessels. Tobacco-pipe clays are found all over the country. In the reign of Elizabeth the pipes were so small and of such a peculiar shape that they were known as “fairy pipes” — the same sort of pipes that the late Charles Keene used to smoke. In course of time they Avere made larger, but always of Avhite clay. Astbury, by constant improvements, eventually produced his whitedipped Avare, and Avhite stoneAvare, Avhich became an important article of commerce.

Astbury was also the first to discover, though it Avas by accident, the uses of burned flint in the manufacture of stoneAvare. While travelling on horseback, — the usual method of travelling in those days, — he found, on arriving at Banbury, that the horse on Avhich he had ridden Avas so much affected in the eyes that he feared that blindness Avould result. He con-

The Wedgwood Family versed with the hostler at the inn on the subject, and the latter recommended the employment of burned flint. This was quite a new idea to Astbury. However, a piece of flint was put into the Are, and allowed to become red hot. After the flint had cooled it was reduced to powder, some of which was blown into the horse’s eyes, producing such immediate and effectual relief that Astbury was enabled to proceed on his journey. He was an observant man, and was much struck by the pure whiteness which the flint attained on being burned and the ease with which it might be reduced to powder.

On returning to Shelton he obtained some flints, burned them, and introduced them into his clay. The result was a finer and whiter kind of ware than any that had yet been produced. He shortly obtained a preference for his ware, and when the secret became known,- — for nothing can be long kept a secret in the pottery district,-— ground flint soon became a general ingredient in the potter’s materials.

One of the earliest connections of Brindley with Staffordshire was the erection by him of an improved flint-grinding mill near Burslem in 1758. The flint was eventually ground and used in water, so as to avoid the lung diseases to which potters were subject when flint was ground in its dry state. It must also be stated that one Thomas Benson was the first to make the discovery of grinding flints in water.

Samuel Astbiiiy, son of tlie eminent potter, married Miss Elizabetli Wedgwood, sister of Thomas Wedgwood, father of Josiah, and thus the ability of tlie Astbuiys was united to the genius of the Wedgwoods and their descendants.

Chapter III Josiaii Wedgwood Leaens His Trade

On the death of Thomas Wedgwood in June, I'ZSQ, his youngest son, Josiah, who was only nine years old, was taken from Mr. Blunt’s school at Newcastle-under-Lyme, and was shortly after employed at his brother’s pottery. Thomas, the eldest son, had succeeded to the small estate and the pottery business, with provision for the maintenance of his mother and her large family.

Josiah early displayed a taste for modelling. While at school he showed some knowledge of cutting out designs on paper. He had the run of his brother’s factory, and soon after he left school he distinguished himself by his readiness to imitate in clay whatever objects struck his fancy. He seems to have had a natural bent toward modelling. He often amused his acquaintances with imitations in clay of toy figures. His clay model of a mountebank’s stage, with the doctor and his suite, and all the usual accompaniments, excited much admiration among his friends.

The next event of which we have positive knowledge is tliat Josiali was apprenticed to liis brother Thomas at the age of fourteen. The deed of his apprenticeship is still preserved in the Hanley Museum. Five years is the term of apprenticeship mentioned in the indenture, but as seven years was the usual period allowed in such agreements, it is inferred that Josiah had already served for some time in the pottery when his apprenticeship commenced. Shaw, the local historian, states that he worked as a thrower at the early age of eleven years ; and he adds that a wmrkman of his day named John Fletcher could remember making balls of clay for Josiah and his elder brother Richard, both throwers, when they Avere seated at two corners of a small room and he was placed between them.

The pottery turned out at the Churchyard Works was of a common description, consisting chiefly of black and mottled Avare, baking-dishes, pitchers, milk-pans, porringers, and such like. Butter-pots Avere made in large numbers. The butter-pot Avas a coarse cylindrical vessel, about fourteen inches high, made from the clay found in the neighborhood of Burslem. These pots Avere glazed before firing with a mixture of lead and manganese, and Avere sent on the cratemen’s backs to every part of the adjoining country, or sold to the higglers, Avho carried them from village to village in the panniers of their donkeys.

Josiah Wedgwood Learns His Trade 23

Josiah continued to apply himself to the art of throwing. The thrower is the person who sits in his shed, near the j^otter’s wheel, and forms by hand from the moist clay, as it revolves, the crock, the butter-pot, the porringer, and such like wares. A workman weighs a portion of clay, and hands it to the thrower, who is seated at his revolving disk. The boy or girl employed for the purpose turns the wheel, which is attached to the disk by a band. The disk is made to rotate horizontally, while the thrower, who is seated, fashions the vessel by his hands and fingers after the patterns or guides before him, which have been prepared for the purpose. Tlius the throwing is the first and most important operation in forming the shape of vessels.

There are other workmen employed in finishing the ware. For instance, the stouker, in another shed, forms the handles of the vessels and attaches them while moist to the cup or porringer ; while in another shed the ware is ornamented with various colored slips. Thomas to a slight extent improved the manufacture, as, for example, by making moulded ware, which was a somewhat higher branch of his busi|iess. But it was only when Josiah began to achieve distinction that this part of the manufacture attracted attention. Several of his early pieces were designed chiefly for the tea-table and the dessert-service ; they were moulded very neatly in the form of pineapples, leaves, shells, and other natural productions. This talent he afterward applied in the extensive manufacture of his famous jasper models.

It was observed that, though very young, Josiah made rapid progress as a thrower. He had a remarkable e3"e for proportioning the clay under his hands ; and his skill in forming the vessel on the potter’s wheel soon attracted the admiration of his fellow'-workmen. But an unfortunate attack of a malignant disease compelled him for a time to abandon this department of his trade.

In 1741, when Josiah was over eleven years old, virulent small-pox broke out in Burslem. The house in which the Wedgwoods lived was close to the churchyard, and the children of the family were mostly attacked b}^ that horrible disease. One of the worst cases was that of the young thrower, who was covered with confluent pustules from head to foot. He was almost at death’s door, but fortunately escaped with his life ; but long after his partial recovery he was left in a state of almost utter prostration.