WEDGWOOD AND THE CREAM COLOUR.
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.
[Illustration: Truly and affectionately yours,
J. WEDGWOOD
Etruria, 14th Feb. 1774]
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:—
+-Thomas Wedgwood, Master Potter of the Churchyard and of Burslem
| | Overhouse, (_c._1617-1679)
| |
| +-John Wedgwood, Master Potter of Burslem Overhouse. (1654-1705)
| | O.S.P.M.
| |
| +-Thomas Wedgwood, Master Potter of the Churchyard Works. (1660-1716)
| |
| +-Thomas Wedgwood, Master Potter of Churchyᵈ. (1685-1739)
| | |
| | +-Thomas Wedgwood, Master Potter of the Churchyᵈ & Overhouse.
| | | (1717-1773)
| | |
| | +-Josiah Wedgwood, Master Potter of Etruria. (1734-1788)
| |
| +-Aaron Wedgwood, of Burslem Hamil. (1697-_c._1750)
| |
| +-Thomas Wedgwood, Master Potter of Etruria. (1730-1795)
| |
| +-Ralph Wedgwood, Inventor and Master Potter of Burslem
| and of Ferrybridge (Yorks). (1766-1837)
|
+-Aaron Wedgwood, Master Potter of Burslem. (_c._1624-1700)
| |
| +-Dr. Thos. Wedgwood, senr., Master Potter of Burslem. (1655-1717)
| | |
| | +-Dr. Thos. Wedgwood, jun., Master Potter of Rowleys’ in Burslem.
| | | (1695-1737)
| | |
| | +-Eve = 1721 Ralph Shaw, Master Potter of Burslem.
| |
| +-Aaron Wedgwood, Master Potter of Burslem. (1666-1743)
| | |
| | +-Aaron Wedgwood. (1695-1722)
| | | |
| | | +-Aaron Wedgwood, Master Potter of Longton Hall. (1717-1763)
| | |
| | +-Richard Wedgwood, of Spen Green, co. Chester. (1701-1780)
| | | |
| | | +-Sarah, mᵈ Josiah Wedgwood, Master Potter (1734-1815)
| | |
| | +-Thomas Wedgwood, Master Potters (1703-1776) O.S.P.
| | |
| | +-John Wedgwood, of the Big Hᵒ. (1705-1780)
| | |
| | +-John Wedgwood, of Bignal End. (1758-1838) O.S.P.
| | |
| | +-Thomas Wedgwood, Master Potter of the Big House, Burslem.
| | | (1762-1826) O.S.P.
| | |
| | +-Mary, mᵈ John Baddeley, Master Potter of Shelton.
| | | (1764-_c._ 1810)
| | |
| | +-Mary, dᵃ and h., mᵈ John Wood, Master Potter of Brownhills.
| |
| +-Richard Wedgwood, Master Potter of Burslem Overhouse, mᵈ Katherine
| dᵃ and h. of John Wedgwood of the Overhouse.
|
+-Moses Wedgwood, Potter of Burslem. (_c._1626-1677)
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:
“James Brindley, Surveyor General, £200 per ann.
Hugh Henshall, Clerk of the works, £150 ”
T. Sparrow, Clerk to the proprietors, £100 ”
Jos. Wedgwood, Treasurer, £000 ”
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]
[Illustration: WILLIAM TURNER, MASTER POTTER
Fl.: 1780]
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.
[Illustration: HACKWOOD, THE MODELLER]
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]
[Illustration: MAP OF HANLEY IN 1800]