File:Staffordshire pottery and its history (1913) (14773074672).jpg

Identifier: staffordshirepot00wedg (find matches)
Title: Staffordshire pottery and its history
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors: Wedgwood, Josiah C. (Josiah Clement), 1872-1943
Subjects: Staffordshire pottery Potters Wedgwood ware
Publisher: London : S. Low, Marston & co. ltd.
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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rnest III 6 Pd in part 16 o Apparently workmen were hired by the year,*and the highest wages paid were 8s. a week. Itwill be seen that there has been practically noincrease in wages since the early days of the cen-tury. One wonders where Wedgwood and Spodeobtained the capital wherewith to start theirbusinesses. Josiah Wedgwood was Whieldons partner from1754 to 1759. One of the stipulations of the part-nership is said to have been that Wedgwood mightkeep his experiments to himself. It is certain thathe did experiment extensively, and we may attri-bute to him the green glaze and successful patternsof the cauliflower and pineapple wares.f Itwould be a mistake to depreciate these patterns as *It is recorded of the Rev. J. Middleton, Master Potter andCurate of Hanley, c. 1750, that he refused to hire men by theyear, deeming it slavery. It was not till 1866 that the TradeUnions put an end to the annual hiring of grown men by ayears binding agreement. tBurton, English Earthenware, p. 119. 78
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CO CO To face p. 79 THE BEGINNING OF THE FACTORY being unsuitable and vulgar imitations of nature.The natural shapes were adapted and conventiona-lized in a thoroughly artistic way, as anyone wholooks at Whieldons or Wedgwoods samples ofthis ware preserved in the South KensingtonMuseum can see at a glance. Slavish imitationsthere were later, but that was not Whieldons way.Taste changed, however, and Whieldons waresbecame unfashionable. It is only of quite recentyears that the agate and marble, perfected later byWedgwood, or the quaint cottage chimney orna-ments and tortoiseshell ware of Whieldon, Wedg-wood and Ralph Wood, have come to be valuedas a native and genuine Staffordshire art. WhenWhieldon found that his market had left him hemade no attempt to follow in the wake of hispupils, and about 1780 retired from business. Hisfactory was just south of the present railway stationat Stoke, and he built and lived in the house whichstill looks down upon the Trent and the railway.In 1786 h

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