Henry Venables, Etruria Road, established 1860, manufactured Etruscan-red porous goods, black basalt ware, jet glazed ware, and blue and other coloured jaspers. In these he produced a large variety of vases, as well as other ornamental and useful goods.
CHAPTER VIII.
Etruria—Josiah Wedgwood—The Wedgwood Family—Indenture of Apprenticeship—Ridge House Estate—Etruria Works founded—Thomas Bentley—Flaxman—Catalogues of Goods—Jasper and other Wares—Portland Vase—Monument to Josiah Wedgwood—Marks—Various Productions of the Works—M. Lessore.
Having already, some years ago, written a work devoted to the life of Josiah Wedgwood—a history of the family to which he belonged, of the works founded by him, and of his various productions[52]—it will not be necessary to enter at any very great length into the subject in this chapter.
Josiah Wedgwood was born at Burslem in July, 1730, and was baptized on the 12th of that month, the entry in the parish register being as follows:—“1730. Josiah, son of Thomas and Mary Wedgwood, bapd. July 12th.” He was the youngest, the thirteenth, child of Thomas Wedgwood (eldest son of Thomas Wedgwood and his wife, Mary Leigh, of the Churchyard House and Works, Burslem), by his wife, Mary Stringer. This Thomas Wedgwood was born in 1686–7, and his family consisted of seven sons and six daughters. The daughters were, I believe, Maria, born in 1711; Anne, born in 1712; Mary, born in 1714; Margaret, born in 1720; Catherine, born in 1726; and Jane, born in 1728: while the sons were Thomas, of the Churchyard and Overhouse, born in 1716; Samuel, in 1718; John, in 1721; Aaron, in 1722; Abner, in 1723; Richard, in 1725; and Josiah, in 1730.
Figs. 517 to 523.—Wedgwood’s Jasper Ware.
The Wedgwoods were an ancient family of Staffordshire, being originally, I believe, of Wedgwood in Wolstanton, where a Thomas de Weggewood “was frankpledge, or headborough, of the hamlet of Weggewood” in 1370; and a century later John Wedgwood, a descendant, then of Blackwood or Dunwood, married Mary Shawe, the heiress of Harracles. The Wedgwoods of Burslem, who belonged to this family, had, for many generations before the birth of Josiah, been potters there, and indeed a considerable portion of the place passed into the hands of one of them, Gilbert Wedgwood, by marriage with Margaret Burslem, heiress of the De Burslems, the original owners of the place, about the year 1612. The issue of this marriage was, it appears, six sons and two daughters: Joseph, who died without issue; Burslem, whose line became extinct in the third descent; Thomas, who married Margaret Shaw (who survived him, and afterwards married Francis Fynney), and had a family of seven sons and nine daughters, and was the ancestor of the families known as the “Overhouse Wedgwoods” and the “Church Wedgwoods,” of which latter Josiah was a member; William; Moses; and Aaron, who was ancestor of the family known as the “Big House Wedgwoods;” Mary, married to Broad; and Sarah, married to Daniell. The eldest son of Thomas and Margaret, to whom I have alluded, was John, who appears to have been born in 1654 and to have died in 1705. He had by his wife, Alice, a daughter, Catherine, who married her cousin, Richard Wedgwood, potter, of the “Overhouse” branch, and had by him John, an only child, who died a minor. This lady, who survived her husband, married, secondly, Thomas Bourne, and thirdly, Rowland Egerton, and died a widow in 1756. The second son of Thomas and Margaret, Thomas Wedgwood, was born in 1660, and married, in 1684, Mary Leigh. He resided, and had his pot-works close to the churchyard at Burslem, where they still exist. By his wife, Mary Leigh, he had a family of four sons and five daughters. The sons were Thomas (father of Josiah), John, Abner, who died young, Aaron, and Daniel; and the daughters, Catherine, married to her relative, Dr. Thomas Wedgwood, jun.; Alice, married to Thomas Moore; Elizabeth, married to Samuel Astbury; Margaret, married to Moses Marsh; and Mary, married to Richard Clifton. Thomas Wedgwood, who succeeded his father at the Churchyard Works, died in 1739, when his youngest and most famous son, Josiah, was hardly nine years old (and by his will the sum of twenty pounds, to be paid him on attaining the age of twenty, was left), and was in turn succeeded by his eldest son, Thomas, in the business. This Thomas Wedgwood married, in 1742, Isabel Beech, and in his marriage settlement is described as “of the Over House, Burslem, potter,” and probably both these and the Churchyard Works were carried on by him.
To this Thomas Wedgwood his eldest brother, Josiah Wedgwood, was bound apprentice on the 11th of November, 1744. The original indenture of apprenticeship (which, with a vast number of other documents, wills, &c., I had the pleasure to be the first to make public in the Life of Wedgwood), preserved in the Museum at Hanley, is as follows:—
“This Indenture, made the Eleventh day of November, in the Seventeenth year of the Reign of our Soveraign Lord, George the Second, by the grace of God, King of great Brittain, and so forth, and in the year of our Lord one Thousand Seven Hundred forty and four, Between Josiah Wedgwood, son of Mary Wedgwood, of the Churchyard, in the County of Stafford, of the one part, and Thomas Wedgwood, of the Churchyard, in the County of Stafford, Potter, of the other part, Wittnesseth that the said Josiah Wedgwood, of his own free Will and Consent to, and with the Consent and Direction of his said Mother, Hath put and doth hereby Bind himselfe Apprentice unto the said Thomas Wedgwood, to Learn his Art, Mistery, Occupation, or Imployment of Throwing and Handleing, which he the said Thomas Wedgwood now useth, and with him as an Apprentice to Dwell, Continue, and Serve from the day of the Date hereof, unto the full end and term of five years from thence next Ensuing, and fully to be Compleat and Ended; During which said Term, the said Apprentice his said Master well and faithfully shall serve, his secrits keep, his Lawfull Commands Every were gladly do; Hurt to his said Master he shall not do, nor willfully suffer to be done by others, but the same to his Power shall let, or forthwith give notice thereof to his said Master; the goods of his said Master he shall not imbezil or waste, nor them Lend, without his Consent, to any; at Cards, Dice, or any other unlawfull Games he shall not Play; Taverns or Ale Houses he shall not haunt or frequent; Fornication he shall not Commit, Matrimony he shall not Contract; from the Service of his said Master he shall not at any time depart or absent himselfe without his said Master’s Leave: but in all things as a good and faithful Apprentice Shall and Will Demean and behave himselfe towards his said Master and all his, During the said Term, and the Said Master his Apprentice the said Art of Throwing and Handleing which he now useth, with all things thereunto, shall and will Teach and Instruct, or Cause to be well and Sufficiently Taught and Instructed after the best way and manner he can, and shall and will also find and allow unto the Said Apprentice Meat, Drink, Washing and Lodging, and Apparell of all kinds, both Linen and Woolen, and all other Necessaries, both in Sickness and in Health, meet and Convenient for such an Apprentice During the Term aforesaid, and for the true performance of all and Every the said Covenants and Agreements either of the Said Parties Bindeth himselfe unto Each other by these presents, in Witness wereof they have Interchangeably Set their hands and Seals the Day and year before mentioned.