 Hello, my name is Katjin Jones and I'm the Chief Curator of the V&A Collection at World of Wedgwood. Welcome to the Paul Mellon Centre's Ceramics in Britain course. When you hear the name Wedgwood, what springs to mind? Perhaps it's classical forms such as these vases decorated to imitate marble, agate or porphyry housed within the elaborate neoclassical interiors of grand country houses, perfectly capturing the passion for ancient art that characterised the late 18th century. Or you think of that distinctive combination of blue and white jasper used to great effect on the vase on the left, designed by John Flaxman after a classical example and considered by Wedgwood to be the finest and most perfect I have made, so much so that he donated one in 1786 to the British Museum who accepted despite their policy of not acquiring works of contemporary manufacture. Jasper was also an effective medium for capturing the extraordinary detail in portraits such as these on the right in miniature of famous actors, royalty and naval and military heroes to be mounted into the snuff boxes, hairpins or buttons of the fashionable. Perhaps Wedgwood's famous recreation of the Portland vase comes to mind, so iconic that workers at Wedgwood's factory dressed up as a parade of Portland vases to celebrate the bicentenary of Wedgwood's birth in 1930. These pieces represent just some of the achievements of Wedgwood and the many skilled people who work for the company and extraordinary range of goods in the late 18th century. Today I will introduce its founder Josiah Wedgwood and explore how his passion for experimentation and innovation established Wedgwood as one of the most recognisable names in British ceramics. Josiah Wedgwood declared in 1769 that his aim was to become vase maker general to the universe, not to England, Europe or even the world, the universe. This bold ambition reminds us that Wedgwood was a man of great determination, ability and energy. Though Josiah Wedgwood himself has attended school before training as a potter, he was not classically educated, rather he was embedded in a progressive Midlands tradition of industrial advancement and social change. As an entrepreneurial businessman, Wedgwood embraced innovations in design and technical advancement as much as in taste and fashion. His pots appealed as much to the aristocratic tastemakers as to the growing middle classes. This talk will explore Wedgwood's Staffordshire origins, the early history of his factory and some of the innovations in technique, material, style and marketing he pioneered from his base in the region of North Staffordshire known as the potteries. Josiah Wedgwood came from a family of potters, born in 1730 and baptized in St John's Church, Bursland, one of the six towns that now make up the city of Stoke-on-Trent. He was apprenticed at age 14 to his brother Thomas at the Churchyard Pottery, the Wedgwood's family concern. Josiah trained for five years to learn the art of throwing and handling, the skills essential for the master potter he became. The six towns of Stoke-on-Trent were perfectly located to become a ceramic production hub, rich in a variety of clays and coal which was needed in great quantities to fire the kilns. The Wedgwood's was one of many family run potteries in the area. By 1750 there were about 130 factories in Bursland as the map on the right shows. Between the 1720s and 1760s the ceramic industry in Staffordshire had grown exponentially, from small scale potworks producing coarse wares for local and country markets to larger scale factories producing finely made teapots, coffee pots and plates. Amidst this expansion Josiah Wedgwood would contribute to the story of the potteries in surprising and significant ways. So what kinds of pots were being made in Staffordshire as Wedgwood started his career in the industry? The regional clay produced a variety of red, yellow and grey ceramics. Red and black wares and pots decorated with slip wear glazes were produced in large quantities. The late 17th to mid 18th century had seen a number of innovations led by pioneering potters working in the region including the Elis Brothers, Enoch Booth and others. The introduction of a liquid led glaze and the technique of slip casting which allowed detailed designs to be replicated using plaster of Paris moulds as well as lathe turning, sprigging and stamping allowed a great variety of new decoration to be produced in the latest styles. Much of the potteries growing commercial success can be attributed to the invention of salt glazed stoneware in the late 17th century. Made by mixing local Staffordshire clays with ground flint resulting in a tough white-bodied material it became Staffordshire's answer to porcelain albeit much deeper to produce. As the global ceramics trade grew exponentially these developments made the industry was able to produce a wider range of fashionable goods to meet the demand for new and stylish tea wares. Clay was the new silver and the potters of Staffordshire were showing that they could answer the call. A young Josiah Wedgwood witnessed Staffordshire becoming a major ceramic centre of production by the 1750s reliant on a national network of suppliers and catering to the latest fashions. By the time Wedgwood had finished his training the region was shifting focus to a new product, cream coloured earthenware. Staffordshire's ceramics were distributed not just locally but internationally via a growing transportation network of toll roads and as part of the Industrial Revolution canals which offered key link-ups from the Midlands to other transport routes. It is hard to understate the importance of improved transportation for the industry. The loss of fragile pots due to poor quality roads cut significantly into profits. A bout of smallpox made Josiah seriously ill during his apprenticeship and damaged his knee affecting his ability to use the potter's wheel. He also faced an early setback when his brother Thomas refused to go into partnership with him. Perhaps as a result of this industry or as some have argued due to a clash of mentality. Josiah was already showing an interest in experimentation rather than just sticking to the factory's traditional products. Instead Wedgwood partnered initially with John Harrison and Thomas Olders of Stoke before joining in 1754 with Thomas Wielden of Fenton who was known as one of the most creative and respected potters in Britain. Wielden's factory attracted some of the biggest innovators in the potteries. William Grapebatch, a highly creative potter and block maker, block cutter and modeler Aaron Wood and Josiah Spode who went on to find a huge success with his blue and white printed wares. It was in this period that Wedgwood would make his first significant technical breakthrough. A new translucent bright green glaze perfectly suited to the latest Rococo trend for playful trompe l'oeil pots in the shape of fruits and vegetables. On the left is a high-end porcelain cauliflowered churrine and on the right the Staffordshire Pottery's more affordable version using Wedgwood's green glaze which was widely adopted. Made from a mould and decorated in just two colours Wedgwood made teapots, bowls and plates in the guise of cauliflower, pineapples and melons which could be cheaply and quickly produced and marketed. In 1759 Wedgwood had set up his own factory at the Ivy House Works in Bursland and even in the early years Wedgwood's commercial reach went far beyond the Midlands. He exported large quantities of cauliflower wares to European merchants as our museum records show. A turning point in Wedgwood's life and career was his chance encounter in 1762 with Liverpool merchant Thomas Bentley who became his mentor, friend and future business partner. The erudite educated Bentley was soon Wedgwood's advisor on all things relating to taste, fashion and commercial advancement. Wedgwood wrote over 1200 letters to Bentley over the next 18 years although sadly we only have half of the story as few examples of Bentley's letters to Wedgwood survive. For Wedgwood their almost daily correspondence became my magazines, reviews, chronicle and I had almost said my Bible. The other major partnership in Wedgwood's life was his marriage in 1764 to his distant cousin Sarah. It took several years for his future father-in-law Richard Wedgwood a wealthy cheese merchant to approve the match but it seems to have been a very happy marriage and Sarah, known as Sally closely advised Wedgwood on personal as well as business matters. As Wedgwood wrote in 1768 I speak from experience in female taste without which I should have made but a poor figure amongst my pots not one of which of any consequence is finished without the approbation of my Sally. Josiah and Sarah had six children the Wedgwoodians as Josiah referred to them and the Wedgwood dynasty would go on to produce many luminaries perhaps most notably Charles Darwin son of Wedgwood's daughter Suki. These portraits of the couple by George Stubbs are rather unusual because they are painted in enamel on large ceramic plaques made by Wedgwood for Stubbs who was undertaking his own experiments to improve enamel painting. Stubbs also created several designs for Wedgwood plaques featuring his more usual subject matter horses. Wedgwood's next target was Staffordshire's newest product cream-coloured earthenware known as creamware. He embarked with scientific rigor on the improvement of our manufacture of earthenware which at that time stood in great need of it as he wrote in his experiment book. He carried out a series of almost 5,000 glaze and body trials diligently recording notes and ingredient lists. Due to the very real threat of industrial espionage the details were written in code. By the mid-1760s Wedgwood had a good white glaze as you can see in his notes on the right. Wedgwood was on his way to commercial success when a major opportunity presented itself. In 1765 an order arrived from St James's for Queen Charlotte. She wanted a creamware tea set with a gold ground and raised flowers upon it in green. While Queen Charlotte's tea set no longer exists sadly this commission would prove pivotal for Wedgwood. It is a mark of the increased prestige of English pottery that a royal order of this nature came to Staffordshire. By the time Wedgwood received the commission another potter had already turned it down as too technically challenging due to the difficulty of working with gold. Given his enthusiasm for innovation it's no surprise that Wedgwood enthusiastically met the challenge although as he quickly ordered some gold and sorted vice on its application we know it was not something he was already producing. Along with his tea set Wedgwood sent to Queen Charlotte a crate of samples of his other wares including vases and improved earthenware a bold tactic which resulted in further orders but most importantly in 1766. To this manufacturer the Queen was pleased to give her name and patronage commanding it to be called Queensware and honouring the inventor by appointing him Her Majesty's Potter. Creamware had become Queensware and Wedgwood was again ahead of the curve. Wedgwood capitalised on his new reputation his title Potter to Her Majesty shown here on a bill head for an order placed in 1786 for Wyburn Abbey on the left. Pots in this period were not typically marked by their maker but from 1771 Wedgwood stamped their wares on the bottom. On the right an advertisement for his Queensware highlights some of the other marketing innovations that Wedgwood was introducing. He understood the importance of a retail presence in fashionable hotspots so as well as show rooms at prominent addresses in the capital Wedgwood opened shops in Bath and Dublin. There were other innovative marketing strategies to incite consumers. Free delivery throughout the UK replacement of broken items free of charge even buy one get one free. This coupled with his active campaigning for the building of the Trenton Mersey or Grand Trunk Canal and other initiatives to boost the trade highlights Wedgwood's energy for improving every aspect of the production and consumption of his ceramics. He always refused though to lower his prices. In 1766 Wedgwood wrote to Bentley the demand for this said cream color alias Queensware still increases. It is really amazing how universally it is liked. Part of the appeal was Wedgwood's determination continually to update the range of products on offer. A proliferation of shapes and patterns according to the latest fashions from dinner services to unusual shapes like asparagus holders and custard cups were designed and vigorously marketed. Wedgwood relied on high profile supporters the influences of the day from fashionable architects like Adam Wyatt and Chambers and members of the nobility such as Sir William Hamilton and Sir Watkins Williams Win whose collections provided further inspiration for Wedgwood's designs. As well as hand painting Wedgwood recognized the potential of transfer printing from popular engravings to cheaply create up to the minute designs. For this Wedgwood partnered with John Sadler and Guy Green who had perfected the transfer technique and you can see a popular Wedgwood design here. Major commissions were another way to gain influence among the fashionable. The Frog Service, a 952 piece dinner and dessert service for 50 people was undoubtedly Wedgwood's most ambitious creamware project. Began in 1773 for the great Anglophile Empress of Russia Catherine the Great for her summer palace built in a frog marsh outside St. Petersburg which explains the charming frog motif. The service was painted with a total of 1,222 views of British landscapes, antiquities and gardens with Bentley advising Wedgwood on which views should be included. The service was produced at the extraordinary cost of £2,290 which nonetheless represented a financial loss for its producer. The undertaking pushed Wedgwood to his limits and he was required to take on more painters and artists to deliver the project. Always alert to marketing opportunities before it was shipped to Russia the service was displayed in an exhibition in Wedgwood and Bentley's London showroom with tickets supplied on application to the nobility and gentry. Wedgwood's profound interest in marketing and storytelling extended to how and where he made his pots. Wedgwood purchased a 350-acre estate in 1766 and renamed it Etruria. Etruria is not a local Staffordshire name but one given by Wedgwood based on the widely held misconception that the classical Greek and Roman pottery which provided him with so much inspiration for his designs was actually Etruscan. This was to be the site of his family home and his new state-of-the-art factory. Wedgwood's choice of location should be no surprise. The newly built Trenton-Mersey canal visible in the foreground of this image would pass directly by his new purpose-built factory which incorporated the latest working practices in the industry from housing for his workers to a carefully designed layout with a logical and efficient sequence of production. In 1769 the new ornamental works at Etruria were opened a moment celebrated by Wedgwood personally throwing six first days vases with Thomas Bentley turning the handle. Four emerged intact from the kiln and three are still in North Staffordshire. Two in the V&A Wedgwood Museum and one in the Pottery's Museum and Art Gallery. These are the only pots we know for certain that Wedgwood threw on the wheel himself. Wedgwood used his newly perfected black basalt stoneware body to create these vases which were sent to the London Decorating Studios for painting in caustic enamel colours. The form and decoration were borrowed straight from antiquity. Wedgwood's supporter Sir William Hamilton had a renowned collection of works of art from antiquity designs from which were published in 1766 to 7. On one side a scene is copied from one of Hamilton's ancient vases. On the other the date 13th of June 1769 and the inscription Artes Etruriae Renascunta The Arts of Etruria are reborn. The opening of the Etruria factory marked Wedgwood and Bentley's crowning accomplishment, ornamental vases. From the late 1760s often attributed to the rediscovery of the ancient sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum the interest in all things antique whether Egyptian, Etruscan, Greek or Roman was taking over. Wedgwood and Bentley were ready to seize on the opportunity of a market in the throes of violent vase madness. In Europe porcelain was still the order of the day representing the ultimate in desirability and fashion for the wealthy. Wedgwood's genius was in sufficiently refining and improving the wares of Staffordshire making pottery as desirable and in some cases as expensive as porcelain and marketing it as such. It was in decorative vases that the self-appointed vase maker general to the universe would focus his efforts and cement his success. From 1773 catalogues detailing the enormous range of ornamental shapes were produced and translated into French, German and Dutch for the growing foreign markets. Fashionable decorations imitating marble and semi-pressure stones such as porphyry and agate or black basalt polished to a high shine were perfectly suited to the new aesthetic. Wedgwood's interest in scientific advancement continued to acutely aware of the difficulty of measuring temperatures in the kiln Wedgwood invented an apparatus called the pyrometer to measure the temperature more accurately measured of course in degrees Wedgwood. For this invention Wedgwood was elected to the Royal Society in January 1783. Wedgwood was part of a group of forward-thinking industrialists, scientists and thinkers based in the Midlands including Joseph Priestley, Matthew Bolton, James Watt and Wedgwood's close friend the physician and poet Erasmus Darwin who met to discuss the scientific and political issues of the day. This fascinating group of men travelled to their monthly meetings by the light of the moon which allowed for safer travel and earned them their name, the Lunar Society. Reflecting on their impact it has been argued a nation of newtons and locks became a nation of boltons and watts. I think we can safely add Wedgwood to this list. Perhaps Wedgwood's most important contribution to ceramic history was still to come. By the 1770s Wedgwood was a huge commercial success but even as his factory produced an ever-growing range of desirable goods Wedgwood was working on a new invention jasperware. As he had done with creamware Wedgwood embarked on thousands of experiments over several years to perfect the material. Some of the trials were marked with special instructions. The T-T-B-O you can see on a number of these samples stands for tip top of the biscuit oven indicating where they should be placed to best effect in the kiln. How was Jasper different to what came before? A high-fired stoneware body Jasper could be coloured with a mineral oxide stain to perfectly match the neoclassical pastel-toned interiors of Robert Adam and his contemporaries. Jasper was well suited to highly detailed collectible designs such as miniature portraits but equally effective for decorative vases and plaques. It was non-porous so did not need to be glazed and could be cut or polished to create texture and tone on the surface. The creative possibilities were endless. As ever, Wedgwood engaged the top artists and designers of the day to create new work in this new material from John Flaxman Jr who designed this plaque to William Hackwood, Wedgwood's chief modeler and something of a prodigy and the fiery John Voyer who eventually defected to his rival Humphrey Palmer and imprisoned for industrial espionage. Wedgwood continued to campaign for social change. He joined the committee for the abolition of the slave trade in 1787 but his most important contribution was the production of medallions combining the emblem of the society with the motto am I not a man and a brother? The medallion proved popular and ultimately fashionable way to support the cause. As abolitionist Thomas Clarkson commented some had them inlaid in gold on the lids of their snuff boxes of the ladies, several wore them as bracelets and others had them fitted up in an ornamental manner as pins for their hair. A fashion was seen for once in the honourable office of promoting the cause of justice, humanity and freedom. Given Wedgwood's commercial focus it is revealing that these medallions were not for sale but were made for handing out the society's meetings in support of the cause. The abolition of the slave trade would not happen in Wedgwood's lifetime although members of his family would continue the fight and were prominent anti-Saccharites reflecting the interconnectedness of empire and global consumption. Now for the other project that would dominate Wedgwood's final years creating a perfect copy of the Portland vase in Jasper. The glass vessel also known as the Barbarini vase now in the British Museum is thought to date from around AD 25. When the vase came to Britain in the hands of Wedgwood's old supporter Sir William Hamilton its reputation preceded it. Wedgwood and other connoisseurs would have been familiar with the object from Prince but it gained further prominence when Hamilton sold the vase to the Duchess of Portland cuttingly described by Horace Walpole as a simple woman and intoxicated only by empty vases. And then brought after her death by her son the Duke of Portland. Wedgwood's single-mindedness saw him write to the Duke days after the sale requesting to borrow the original vase so he could copy it. I've included these images of Wedgwood's full size Portland vase trials because they highlight both the complexity of the project and all the things that can go wrong in the heat of the kiln and also Wedgwood's utter perfectionism. He agonized over whether to recreate the vase exactly with all its flaws or to improve on it. Almost four years later Wedgwood had achieved his goal of recreating perhaps even surpassing the art of antiquity with his copy. Just as Wedgwood had generated a buzz around his latest project with the exhibition of the Frog Service Wedgwood created another blockbuster exhibition for his Portland vase. The vase, whether Wedgwood's or the original, remains somewhat enigmatic. Its imagery possibly related to the classical story of Pellius and Thetis. William Gladstone described Wedgwood as the greatest man who ever in any age or country applied himself to the important work of uniting art with industry and perhaps it is the Portland vase where he came closest. In the summer of 1780 George Stubbs had painted a large conversation piece depicting the Wedgwood family in the grounds of their home at a Turria Hall. Painted as a contribution towards the enormous cost of the ceramic plaques Wedgwood was producing for Stubbs, Josiah commented we will take the payment in paintings. Wedgwood felt that there was much to praise and little to blame in the picture although he conceded the likenesses were strong but not very delicate. Certainly it is easy to see why Stubbs had a reputation as a horse painter above all given the prominence of the Wedgwood's horses. It is difficult to capture in a short introduction the extraordinary range of Wedgwood's output during Josiah Wedgwood's lifetime. There's no doubt that many of Wedgwood's competitors were also producing fashionable works of extraordinary quality but Wedgwood is by far the best known of the Staffordshire Potters in part due to his tenacity and ambition and in part due to the survival of so much of the story including his factories oven books, pattern books, correspondence and of course pots within the Wedgwood Archives and Museum now part of the V&A and in many other collections. Stubbs captures something of the character of Josiah Wedgwood as an individual seated beside his wife his leg which had by this time been amputated appears slightly stiff his papers and designs laid out beside him and a shape number one vase in black basalt on the table the smoke of his factory visible in the background. Wedgwood had the uncanny ability to both identify and create markets for his goods he embraced the neoclassical taste as it emerged while his European competitors including porcelain manufacturers continued to make works in the Rococo style his material innovations made creamware and stoneware as valued and fashionable as the more elevated porcelain made by his competitors at Chelsea and Derby. Wedgwood mastered both the creative and commercial worlds changing the course of ceramic history his pursuit of knowledge his creativity and his passion for experimentation and innovation is something for us all to be inspired by. Thank you.