The story of the line starts in 1730 with the birth of Josiah Wedgwood to a family who manufactured pottery.  At six years old, Josiah was an apprentice and by 14 he had suffered a bout of smallpox that weakened his right knee.  By 1760, Josiah had his very own factory and had been experimenting with different formulas of porcelain, clays and glazes and technological advances in the art of transferring designs to the finished product.  In 1765 he made a complete set for Queen Charlotte, advertised himself as the’potter to the Queen’ and his business took off. 

Josiah’s crowning accomplishment was his creation of Jasperware.  Jasper is translucent clay that marries the basalt and Josiah’s original formulas to provide a dense, homogeneously coloured stoneware.  After more than 10,000 failed experiments with numerous clays and glazes, Jasperware was launched in 1775 to overpowering success, particularly to his shoppers in the new democracy of the US of America.  Josiah stated shortly thereafter,’there was no item too rich or too costly for Americans.’

Wedgwood died in 1795 and the business was left to his sons, who, having been brought up made, had totally no real interest in running it.  The job dropped to a nephew, Tom Byerly who struggled significantly with the burden of managing a company he had little love for.  The subsequent 25 years proved tough for the company and Josiah II took over to turn things around by restoring the formulas and business standards set by his father.  Needless to say, continuous industrial turmoil, wars and growing competition made the 1800’s extraordinarily tricky and it wasn’t until the twentieth Century, under the leadership of Josiah V that things started to improve. 

With new, streamlined production facilities, aggressive worldwide marketing particularly in America, and exclusive designs, Wedgwood China products started gaining prominence in the business.  In 1966, Wedgwood’s shares were introduced into the London Stock exchange and since that time, the Corporation has been concerned in aggressive enlargement.  The assets of Susie Cooper, Royal Tuscan, William Adams, Franciscan, Mason’s Ironstone, Waterford, and Rosenthal have been combined with Wedgwood to form the Wedgwood group.  Josiah Wedgwood I might be proud.

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Tags: china, industry, Wedgwood, Wedgwood China