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Wedgwood
Josiah Wedgwood (July 12, 1730 – January 3, 1795, born Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent) was an English potter, credited with the industrialization of the manufacture of pottery. He was a member of the Darwin — Wedgwood family, most famously including his grandson, Charles Darwin. more...
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Biography
Early life
Born the twelfth and youngest child of Thomas Wedgwood III and Mary Wedgwood, Josiah was raised within a family of English Dissenters. He survived a childhood bout of smallpox to serve as an apprentice potter under his eldest brother Thomas Wedgwood IV. Smallpox left Josiah with a permanently weakened knee, which made him unable to work the foot pedal of a potter's wheel. As a result, he concentrated from an early age on designing pottery rather than making it.
In his early twenties, Wedgwood began working with the most renowned English pottery-maker of his day, Thomas Whieldon. There he began experimenting with a wide variety of pottery techniques, an experimentation that coincided with the burgeoning early industrial city of Manchester, which was nearby. Inspired, Wedgwood leased the Ivy Works in his home town of Burslem and set to work. Over the course of the next decade, his experimentation (and a considerable injection of capital from his marriage to a richly endowed distant cousin, Sally Wedgwood) transformed the sleepy artisan works into the first true pottery factory.
Marriage and children
Wedgwood married Sarah Wedgwood (a third cousin). Together, they had seven children:
Susannah Wedgwood (1765–1817) (married Robert Darwin, was mother of the English naturalist Charles Darwin);
John Wedgwood (1766–1844);
Josiah Wedgwood II (1769–1843);
Thomas Wedgwood (1771–1805) (no children);
Catherine Wedgwood (1774–1823) (no children);
Sarah Wedgwood (1776–1856) (no children);
Mary Anne Wedgwood (1778–1786) (no children);
Work
Wedgwood's work was of very high quality (when visiting his workshop, if he saw an offending vessel that failed to meet with his standards, he would smash it with his stick, exclaiming, "This will not do for Josiah Wedgwood!"). Wedgwood was also keenly interested in the scientific advances of his day and it was this interest that underpinned his adoption of its approach and methods to revolutionize the quality of his pottery. His unique glazes began to distinguish Josiah's wares from anything else on the market.
By 1763 he was receiving orders from the highest levels of the British nobility, including Queen Charlotte. Wedgwood convinced her to let him name the line of pottery she purchased "Queen's Ware", and trumpeted the royal association in his paperwork and stationery. As a burgeoning industrialist, Wedgwood was a major backer of the Trent and Mersey Canal dug between the River Trent and River Mersey, during which time he became friends with Erasmus Darwin.
Read more at Wikipedia.org
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