Josiah Wedgwood

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Josiah Wedgwood bigraphy, stories - English potter

Josiah Wedgwood : biography

12 July 1730 – 3 January 1795

Josiah Wedgwood (12 July 1730 – 3 January 1795) was an English potter, founder of the Wedgwood company, credited with the industrialisation of the manufacture of pottery. A prominent abolitionist, Wedgwood is remembered for his "Am I Not a Man And a Brother?" anti-slavery medallion. He was a member of the Darwin–Wedgwood family. He was the grandfather of Charles Darwin and Emma Darwin.

Legacy and influence

A locomotive named after Wedgwood ran on the Churnet Valley Railway.. Churnet-valley-railway.co.uk. Retrieved on 2011-01-02.

"Am I Not a Man And a Brother?"

Wedgwood was a prominent slavery abolitionist. His friendship with Thomas Clarkson – abolitionist campaigner and the first historian of the British abolition movement – aroused his interest in slavery. Wedgwood mass-produced cameos depicting the seal for the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade and had them widely distributed, which thereby became a popular and celebrated image. The Wedgwood medallion was the most famous image of a black person in all of 18th-century art. The actual design of the cameo was probably done by either William Hackwood or Henry Webber who were modellers in his Stoke-on-Trent factory., 1787 From 1787 until his death in 1795, Wedgwood actively participated in the abolition of slavery cause, and his Slave Medallion, which brought public attention to abolition.. Thepotteries.org. Retrieved on 2011-01-02. Wedgwood reproduced the design in a cameo with the black figure against a white background and donated hundreds of these to the society for distribution. Thomas Clarkson wrote; "ladies wore them in bracelets, and others had them fitted up in an ornamental manner as pins for their hair. At length the taste for wearing them became general, and thus fashion, which usually confines itself to worthless things, was seen for once in the honorable office of promoting the cause of justice, humanity and freedom".

The design on the medallion became popular and was used elsewhere: large-scale copies were painted to hang on walls, The Scottish Government, 23 March 2007 and it was used on clay tobacco pipes.. BBC. Retrieved on 2011-01-02.

Biography

Early life

Born in Burslem, Staffordshire, England, the eleventh and last child of Thomas Wedgwood and Mary Wedgwood (née Stringer; d. 1766), Josiah was raised within a family of English Dissenters. By the age of nine, he was proving himself to be a skilled potter. 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 and then making it.

In his early twenties, Wedgwood began working with the most renowned English pottery-maker of his day, Thomas Whieldon, who eventually became his business partner in 1754. He began experimenting with a wide variety of techniques, an experimentation that coincided with the burgeoning of the nearby industrial city of Manchester. Inspired, Wedgwood leased the Ivy Works in the town of Burslem. Over the course of the next decade, his experimentation (and a considerable injection of capital from his marriage to a richly-endowed distant cousin) transformed the sleepy artisan works into the first true pottery factory.

Marriage and children

Wedgwood married Sarah Wedgwood (1734–1815), his third cousin, in January 1764. They had seven children:

  • Susannah Wedgwood (1765–1817), (mother of the English naturalist Charles Darwin)
  • John Wedgwood (1766–1844)
  • Josiah Wedgwood II (1769–1843) (father of Emma Darwin, cousin and wife of the English naturalist Charles Darwin)
  • Thomas Wedgwood (1771–1805) (no children)
  • Catherine Wedgwood (1774–1823) (no children)
  • Sigita Wedgwood (1775-1842) (no children)
  • Emilis Wedgewood (1778-1816) (no children)
  • Sarah Wedgwood (1776–1856) (no children, very active in the slavery abolition movement