Staffordshire pottery and its historyWedgwood, Josiah C. (Josiah Clement)
History
Staffordshire pottery and its history
Wedgwood, Josiah C. (Josiah Clement)
Potters -- England; Staffordshire pottery; Wedgwood ware
[82] Professor Church quotes the following memorandum, done in red enamel
on the back of a large dish of Wedgwood’s Queen’s Ware in the possession
of Mr Sidney Locock:—“This dish was made at Etruria by Messrs Wedgwood
& Bentley, the first year after Messrs Wedgwood & Bentley removed from
Burslem to Etruria. Ric. Lawton served his apprenticeship at turning
with them, and has had it in his house more than fifty years. It is my
brother William’s modelling. It was turned on a hand lathe, as plates
were at that date. I preserve this to show the quality of common cream
ware before the introduction of growan or Cornwall stone. This body is
formed of flint and clay only, the same as used for salt-glazed ware at
that time, and flint and lead only instead of salt glaze, and it is fired
in the usual and accustomed way and manner, as usual for glazed tea-pots,
tortoiseshell, mottled, and agate, and cauliflower, &c. Also sand from
the Mole Cop and Baddley Edge was used either in the body or glaze. N.B.
Before flint was used they used a certain proportion of slip for the
body in the glaze to prevent crazing, and to make it bear a stronger
fire in the glaze oven. I was the first person that made use of bone in
earthenware when in my apprenticeship at Mr Palmers at Hanley Green.
Burslem, Sept. 26th, 1826.
ENOCH WOOD.”
Church, “English Earthenware,” pp. 81-82.
[83] Shaw, _op. cit._, p. 184.
[84] Many “lives” of Wedgwood have been written, and this is not the
place to repeat them. Miss Meteyard has two large volumes on him; Jewitt
has one; Smiles holds him up in a recent work as a model of self-help;
Professor Church has written a monograph on him and his Jasper Ware;
and lastly, Mr Elbert Hubbard, of New York, has made his courtship and
marriage the subject of an exhaustive and wholly imaginary study. But
many of these works, and some of the Histories of Potting too, are
marred by indiscriminating eulogy and a fertile imagination. Simeon
Shaw, for instance, within 120 pages, manages to distinguish no fewer
than 47 favoured manufacturers by name with praise of this stereotyped
character:—“of whom we may observe that great professional ability is
in him joined with philanthropy, and a readiness to accelerate every
meritorious enterprise.” This, however, is perhaps preferable to the
style:—“Wedgwood, poor dear, old soul, got terribly worried,” which
distinguishes another of these Histories.
[85] Wedgwood MS., Bills for carting goods to the “new works.”
[86] Wedgwood’s Letters, II, 24.
[87] Meteyard’s “Wedgwood,” I, 486.
[88] Meteyard’s “Wedgwood,” II, 235.
[89] Wedgwood’s Letters, I.
[90] The converting of a road into a turnpike road was the only way in
which it could be kept in really good repair. Tolls were charged and used
partly to repair the road and to attract more traffic.
[91] Wedgwood’s Letters, I.
[92] Jewitt, _op. cit._, pp. 162-3.
[93] Wedgwood’s Letters, I.
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