It is a twofold memorial: a bronze statue at Stoke-upon-Trent, and a memorial institute, erected close to the birth-place of the Great Potter at Burslem. The foundation-stone was laid on the 26th of October by the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P., then Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the presence of a very large and enthusiastic assemblage. The Chancellor delivered a public address, which in eloquent terms did homage to Wedgwood's great mental qualities and his services to his country.
He described as his most signal and characteristic merit, the firmness and fulness of his perception of the true law of what we term industrial art, or, in other words, of the application of the higher art to industry—the law which teaches us to aim first at giving to every object the greatest possible degree of fitness and convenience for its purpose, and next at making it the article of the highest degree of beauty, which compatibly with that fitness and convenience it will bear—which does not substitute the secondary for the primary end, but recognizes as part of the business the study to harmonize the two.
Mr. Gladstone observed, that to have a strong grasp of this principle, and to work it out to its results in the details of a vast and varied manufacture, was a praise high enough for any man, at any time and in any place. But he thought it was higher and more peculiar in the case of Wedgwood than it could be in almost any other case. For that truth of art which he saw so clearly, and which lies at the root of excellence, is one of which England, his country, has not usually had a perception at all corresponding in strength and fulness with her other rare endowments. She has long taken a lead among the European nations for the cheapness of her manufactures, not so for their beauty. And if the day should arrive when she shall be as eminent for purity of taste as she is now for economy of production, the result will probably be due to no other single man in so remarkable a degree as to Josiah Wedgwood.
We conclude with a lively extract from the Chancellor's exhaustive and interesting address:—
"Wedgwood," he says, "in his pursuit of beauty, did not overlook exchangeable value or practical usefulness. The first he could not overlook, for he had to live by his trade; and it was by the profit derived from the extended sale of his humbler productions that he was enabled to bear the risks and charges of his higher works. Commerce did for him what the King of France did for Sèvres, and the Duke of Cumberland for Chelsea, it found him in funds. And I would venture to say that the lower works of Wedgwood are every whit as much distinguished by the fineness and accuracy of their adaptation to their uses as his higher ones by their successful exhibition of the finest arts. Take, for instance, his common plates, of the value of, I know not how few, but certainly of a very few pence each. They fit one another as closely as cards in a pack. At least, I for one have never seen plates that fit like the plates of Wedgwood, and become one solid mass. Such accuracy of form must, I apprehend, render them much more safe in carriage....
"Again, take such a jug as he would manufacture for the wash-stand table of a garret. I have seen these made apparently of the commonest material used in the trade. But instead of being built up, like the usual and much more fashionable jugs of modern manufacture, in such a shape that a crane could not easily get his neck to bend into them, and the water can hardly be poured out without risk of spraining the wrist, they are constructed in a simple capacious form, of flowing curves, broad at the top, and so well poised that a slight and easy movement of the hand discharges the water. A round cheese-holder or dish, again, generally presents in its upper part a flat space surrounded by a curved rim; but the cheese-holder of Wedgwood will make itself known by this—that the flat is so dead a flat, and the curve so marked and bold a curve; thus at once furnishing the eye with a line agreeable and well-defined, and affording the utmost available space for the cheese. I feel persuaded that a Wiltshire cheese, if it could speak, would declare itself more comfortable in a dish of Wedgwood's than in any other dish."
The worthiest successor to Wedgwood whom England has known was the late Herbert Minton, who was scarcely less distinguished than his predecessor for perseverance, patient effort, and artistic sentiment. We owe to him in a great measure the revival of the elegant art of manufacturing encaustic tiles.
The principal varieties of ceramic ware now in use are:—1. Porcelain, which is composed, in England, of sand, calcined bones, china-clay, and potash; and, at Dresden, of kaolin, felspar, and broken biscuit-porcelain; 2. Parian, which is used in a liquid state, and poured into plaster-of-paris moulds; 3. Earthenware, the Fayence of the Italians, and the Delft of the Dutch, made of various kinds of clay, with a mixture of powdered calcined flint; and, 4. Stoneware, composed of several kinds of plastic clay, mixed with felspar and sand, and occasionally a little lime.