Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 60.djvu/147

 year his father died, and the boy's school career, such as it was, closed. He at once began work at Burslem in the pottery of his eldest brother, Thomas, and soon became an expert 'thrower' on the wheel. An attack of virulent smallpox when he was about eleven greatly enfeebled him, particularly affecting his right knee. However, on 11 Nov. 1714, when Josiah was in his fifteenth year, he was apprenticed for five years to his brother Thomas. Unfortunately—so it seemed at the time—he was soon compelled, by a return of the weakness in his knee, to abandon the thrower's bench and to occupy himself with other departments of the potter's art. He thus obtained a wider insight into the many practical requirements of his craft, learning, for instance, the business of a 'modeller,' and fashioning various imitations of onyx and agate by the association of differently coloured clays. Towards the close of his apprenticeship Josiah developed a love for original experimenting, which was not appreciated by his master and eldest brother, who declined on the expiry of his indentures to take him into partnership. The young and enthusiastic innovator was not fortunate in his next step, when he joined—about 1751—Thomas Alders and John Harrison in a small pot-works at Cliff Bank, near Stoke. He succeeded, indeed, in improving the quality and increasing the out-turn of the humble pottery, but his copartners did not appreciate nor adequately recompense the efforts of one who was so much in advance of them in mental power and artistic perception. A more congenial position was, however, soon offered to him by a worthy master-potter, Thomas Whieldon of Fenton. With this new partner Wedgwood worked for about six years, until the close of 1758, when he decided to start in business on his own account. On 30 Dec. in that year he engaged for five years the services of Thomas Wedgwood, a second cousin, then living at Worcester, and practising there as a journeyman potter. There is no doubt that the wares (especially those having green and tortoiseshell glazes) made during the period of collaboration between Thomas Whieldon and Josiah Wedgwood owed much of their distinctive character to improvements effected by the young potter.

It was probably during the first half of 1759 that Wedgwood, now in his twenty-ninth year, became a master-potter. His capital was extremely small; but he knew his strength, and ventured to take on lease a small pot-works in Burslem, part of the premises belonging to his cousins John and Thomas Wedgwood. Although the annual rent paid for this Ivy House Works was but 10l., this sum did not represent its market value. The kilns and buildings soon became unequal to the demands made upon them. More accommodation was wanted, not only for an increased number of workmen, but also for carrying out the modern system of division of labour which Wedgwood was introducing, and for improved methods of manipulation. But the master-potter himself was everything and everywhere, and not only superintended all departments, but was the best workman in the place, making most of the models, preparing the mixed clays, and of course acting as clerk and warehouseman. Yet Wedgwood saw the impossibility of conducting upon the old lines the factory which he had begun to develop. He could not tolerate the want of system, the dirt and the muddle, which were common characteristics of the workers in clay. But Wedgwood introduced much more than method and cleanliness into his factory. Dissatisfied with the clumsiness of the ordinary crockery of his day, he aimed at higher finish, more exact form, less redundancy of material. He endeavoured to modify the crude if naive and picturesque decorative treatment of the common wares by the influence of a cultivated taste and of a wider knowledge of ornamental art. Such changes were not effected without some loss of those individual and human elements which gave life to many of the rougher products of English kilns during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But there was much to be said on the other side. Owing to their uniformity in size and substance, dozens of Wedgwood's plates could be piled up without fear of collapse from unequal pressure. In glaze and body his useful wares were well adapted for their several purposes. And then the forms and contours of the different pieces showed perfect adjustment to their use: lids fitted, spouts poured, handles could be held. Although it is not to be assumed that all these improvements and developments took place during the first few years of Wedgwood's career as an independent manufacturer, yet they were begun during his occupancy of the Ivy House Works. That his business rapidly became profitable may be concluded from the fact that in the course of 1760, less than two years after Wedgwood had begun his labours at the Ivy House Works, he was able to make a gift—double that of most of the smaller master-potters of Burslem—towards the establishment of a second free school. And very soon after this dale