Besides having Wedgwood as a partner, he had in his employ such examples of the new race of potters as Josiah Spode, Robert Garner, J. Barker, and Wm. Greatbach. Jewitt[73] has preserved for us some of the hiring books and accounts of Thomas Whieldon, in which the names and pay of three of these four apprentices occur, and which, as they are unique evidence of wages, are here given:
| 1749 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jany | 27 | Hired Jno Austin for placeing white &c. per week | 5 | 6 | |
| Pd his whole earnest[74] | 3 | 0 | |||
| Feby | 14 | Then hired Thos. Dutton | 6 | 6 | |
| Pd 1 pr Stockings | 3 | 6 | |||
| Earnest for vineing (? veining) | 15 | 0 | |||
| Feby | 20 | Hired Wm. Cope for handleing and vineing cast ware | 7 | 0 | |
| Pd his whole earnest | 10 | 6 | |||
| 28 | Hird Robt. Garner per week | 6 | 6 | ||
| Earnest | 10 | 6 | |||
| Pd him towards it | 1 | 0 | |||
| I am to make his earnest about 5s. more in something.[75] | |||||
| Mar | 8 | Then hired Jno Barker for ye huvels (ovens) @ | 5 | 6 | |
| Pd earnest in part | 1 | 0 | |||
| Pd it to pay more | 1 | 0 | |||
| Ap. | 9 | Hired Siah Spoade, to give him from this time to Martelmas next 2s. 3d., or 2s. 6d. if he deserves it | |||
| 2nd year | 2 | 9 | |||
| 3rd year | 3 | 3 | |||
| Pd full earnest | 1 | 0 | |||
| June | 2 | Hired a boy of Ann Blowers for treading ye lathe, @ | 2 | 0 | |
| Pd earnest | 6 | ||||
| 1751 | |||||
| Jany | 11 | Then hired Saml. Jackson for Throwing Sagers and fireing, per week | 8 | 0 | |
| Whole earnest | 2 | 2 | 0 | ||
| Pd in part | 1 | 2 | 0 | ||
| Pd more [sic] | 1 | 1 | 0 | ||
| 1752 | |||||
| Febry | 22 | Hired Josiah Spoad for next Martlemas, per week | 7 | 0 | |
| I am to give him earn’ | 5 | 0 | |||
| Pd in part | 1 | 0 | |||
| Pd do. | 4 | 0 | |||
| 1753 | |||||
| June | 21 | Hired Wm. Marsh for 3 years. He is to have 10s. 6d. earnest each year, and 7s. per week. I am to give an old coat or something abt 5s. value. | |||
| Aug. | 29 | Hired Westaby’s 3 children, per week | 4 | 0 | |
| Pd earnest | 6 | ||||
| 1754 | |||||
| Feby | 25 | Hired Siah Spode per week | 7 | 6 | |
| Earnest | 1 | 11 | 6 | ||
| Pd in part | 16 | 0 | |||
Apparently workmen were hired by the year,[76] and the highest wages paid were 8s. a week. It will be seen that there has been practically no increase in wages since the early days of the century. One wonders where Wedgwood and Spode obtained the capital wherewith to start their businesses.
Josiah Wedgwood was Whieldon’s partner from 1754 to 1759. One of the stipulations of the partnership is said to have been that Wedgwood might keep his experiments to himself. It is certain that he did experiment extensively, and we may attribute to him the green glaze and successful patterns of the “cauliflower” and “pineapple” wares.[77] It would be a mistake to depreciate these patterns as being unsuitable and vulgar imitations of nature. The natural shapes were adapted and conventionalized in a thoroughly artistic way, as anyone who looks at Whieldon’s or Wedgwood’s samples of this ware preserved in the South Kensington Museum can see at a glance. Slavish imitations there were later, but that was not Whieldon’s way.
Staffordshire figures decorated with Whieldon glaze, probably by Wedgwood. c. 1760. Stoke-on-Trent Museums.
Taste changed, however, and Whieldon’s wares became unfashionable. It is only of quite recent years that the agate and marble, perfected later by Wedgwood, or the quaint cottage chimney ornaments and tortoiseshell ware of Whieldon, Wedgwood and Ralph Wood, have come to be valued as a native and genuine Staffordshire art. When Whieldon found that his market had left him he made no attempt to follow in the wake of his pupils, and about 1780 retired from business. His factory was just south of the present railway station at Stoke, and he built and lived in the house which still looks down upon the Trent and the railway. In 1786 he served as High Sheriff for the county. He died in 1798, and is buried at Stoke. His widow died in 1828, and one of his sons, Edward, was for many years Rector of Burslem, and lived at Hales Hall, near Cheadle. But his descendants are now no longer to be found in the potteries.
We know of two other manufacturers who made agate and tortoiseshell ware—Daniel Bird, called “the flint potter” because of his experiments with different proportions of flint in the clay body,[78] and John and Thomas Alders of Cliff Bank. There were probably many others. These two made buttons and knife handles very largely. Both worked at the Stoke end of the Potteries.
Before entering on the fresh epoch in the History of Potting which opens with the work of Wedgwood, it will be as well to recount the end of the salt-glaze industry. It was a risky manufacture. The ware was thin, and many accidents happened in firing. Therefore the ware was costly; and only small pieces could be so glazed. The fluid lead glazes used by the skilful potters of the latter half of the century gave a surface smoother and more suitable for food. The demand for ornamental salt glaze was small, and the enormous demand for useful ware sent all the best potters into the useful trade; while in the ornamental lines Wedgwood’s Greek and Etruscan shapes entirely ruled the market. All these causes conspired to ruin the salt glaze, and by 1770 it had fallen into general disuse. The last considerable makers of salt glaze were the Baddeleys and Christopher and Charles Whitehead of the Old Hall, Hanley.[79] No single maker of salt glaze occurs on the 1787 lists. It was a fine ware, characteristic of and peculiar to Staffordshire, and when one considers the difficulties under which its production was carried on, a tribute of praise is due to those potters who so quickly developed it to its highest state of perfection.
Shaw had an account, from the lips of an old man of eighty-three, born in 1720, showing the conditions under which this old-world industry was carried on.[80] And before we come to the modern life with its canals and steam and complete “factory system,” it is worth while to give this recollection of potting in 1750.