Wedgwood made snuff-boxes, and various trinkets intended to be mounted in metal. These productions of his were coloured to represent precious stones. When the jewellers of London and Bath were shown these wares, they considered them a valuable discovery, the secret of which they could not discover. But learning the low price at which Wedgwood was intending to sell them they grew less favourable, probably from thinking the imitation would ruin the sale of genuine jewels.
We learn, too, that Wedgwood at this time was so incapacitated from attending to his business, owing to the remains of his old complaint, that he was obliged to communicate the secret of the method and proportions of his mixtures to a workman.
The ware manufactured by Whieldon, both during his partnership with Wedgwood and afterwards, are of good quality, and are highly prized by collectors. A tortoiseshell plate costs a sovereign to-day.
Of course none of these early wares of Wedgwood are marked. We shall show how he laid the foundation of his manufactory, which he called “Etruria,” after the Italian home of the famous Etruscans, whose work he admired and imitated.
What Wedgwood did for Staffordshire is shown best in the following sentence by M. Faujas de Saint Font in his “Travels,” who says, speaking of the Wedgwood ware: “Its excellent workmanship, its solidity the advantage which it possesses of sustaining the action of fire, its fine glaze, impenetrable to acids, the beauty and convenience of its form, and the cheapness of its price, have given rise to a commerce so active and so universal that in travelling from Paris to Petersburg, from Amsterdam to the furthest part of Sweden, and from Dunkirk to the extremity of the South of France, one is served at every inn with English ware. Spain, Portugal, and Italy are supplied, and vessels are loaded with it for the East and West Indies and the continent of America.”
Leaving the biographical side of the subject, we come to the actual productions of Josiah Wedgwood. We left him in partnership with Whieldon. That partnership ended, he commenced manufacturing on his own behalf. He speedily found that one pottery was not enough to satisfy his tireless energies. He became the owner of two. In 1762, he presented Queen Charlotte with a breakfast service of cream-coloured earthenware. In return he received the title of “Potter to her Majesty,” and his Queen’s Ware became a great success. Every fortnight a waggon left Burslem for Liverpool with a freight of this ware, to be decorated by Messrs. Sadler and Green by their transfer process at Liverpool.
About this time he took his cousin, Thomas Wedgwood, into partnership, and later Thomas Bentley, of Liverpool, a man of great taste, who exercised no inconsiderable influence upon the style of design of the new pottery at Etruria. A man of wide reading and culture, it was he who supplemented Wedgwood’s practical efforts by his theories. It was always Wedgwood first, but Bentley was an ideal second. He took no part in what Wedgwood termed the “useful” side of the manufactory, such as, for example, the manufacture of Queen’s Ware and other articles for everyday use. Bentley’s partnership was only concerned with the “ornamental” side of the pottery, such as the manufacture of vases and works of art.
In 1769 Etruria was opened, and Josiah Wedgwood might have been seen at the potter’s bench and Thomas Bentley at the wheel, and their united labours produced the first vase, having an inscription which runs:—
JUNE XIII., MDCCLXIX.
ONE OF THE FIRST DAY’S PRODUCTIONS
AT
ETRURIA IN STAFFORDSHIRE,
BY
WEDGWOOD AND BENTLEY.
ARTES ETRURIÆ RENASCUNTER.