Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 60.djvu/148

 Wedgwood paid much attention to the improvement of the means of communication by road in the potteries, giving evidence before a parliamentary committee in 1763, and subscribing in 1765 the sum of 500l. towards making new roads. Later on he took an important part in the development of the local canal system, seeing very clearly how necessary for the trade of the district were easy communication and rapid transit of raw materials and of goods by water as well as by land between the chief places of production and of distribution.

About 1762, when he was appointed queen's potter, Wedgwood, finding it necessary to secure additional accommodation, rented the Brick House and Works in Burslem. These he occupied until his final removal to Etruria in 1773. In 1766 Thomas Wedgwood, who had been employed in the factory since 1759, was taken into partnership. In the same year Josiah Wedgwood acquired for 3,000l. a suitable site between Burslem and Stoke-upon-Trent for a new factory and residence. Later on he added considerably to this domain, and built thereon for his workmen a village, to which he gave the name Etruria, as well as the mansion Etruria Hall and an extensive and well-equipped pot-works. The new Etruria factory was opened on 13 June 1769, just ten years after Wedgwood had first started in business entirely on his own account. Doubtless the sale of useful ware as distinguished from ornamental furnished Wedgwood with the funds at his disposal. For during the decade 1759-69 he had been continually improving the cream-coloured earthenware, as well as several other ceramic bodies of less importance. Wedgwood, we know, was well acquainted with what other potters in England had already achieved. The ingenious processes and beautiful productions of [q. v.] were familiar to him; he used the slip-kiln introduced by Ralph Shaw, the liquid glaze or dips employed by Enoch Booth, and the plaster-of-paris moulds described by Ralph Daniel. Many patented and secret processes connected with the ceramic industry had been devised in the forty years 1720-60. Wedgwood adopted or improved many of them, adding novel elements derived from his own careful and numerous experiments, and from his own acute powers of observation. Wedgwood was not a great chemist in the modern sense, for chemistry in his day was very imperfectly developed. But his trials of methods and materials were carried out in the exhaustive spirit of true scientific inquiry, and brought about many improvements. His good taste and his endeavour after purity of material and finish of form bore good fruit. He rapidly acquired something more than a local reputation. The products of his kilns were esteemed for their adaptation to their several uses, the variety and elegance of their shapes, the delicacy and sobriety of their colouring, and the propriety of their decoration. These remarks apply especially to the cream ware, afterwards known as queen's ware. This was not brought to perfection until about 1768 or 1769, when the English patents of Brancas-Lauraguais (1766) and [q. v.] (1768) had directed attention to the true china-clay of Cornwall. But before that date Wedgwood had succeeded in improving the texture and colour of his cream ware, and in preventing its glaze from becoming crazed through contracting more than the body after being fired in the kiln. This last improvement was effected by adding both pipeclay and ground flint to the lead compound previously used alone for glazing purposes. But Wedgwood's early advances were not confined to cream ware. He turned his attention to the black composition known as Egyptian black, a rough product which, under the name of black basaltes, acquired in Wedgwood's hands a richer hue, a finer grain, and a smoother surface. Ita density was high (2·9), and it took a fine polish on the lapidary's wheel. Of it were fashioned many objects of decoration, as well as of utility. Inkstands, seals, tea equipages, salt-cellars, candlesticks, life-size busts, vases, relief-plaques, and medallion portraits of 'illustrious ancients and moderns' were made in this body, which was sometimes decorated with 'encaustic' colours, silvering, gilding, or bronzing. The encaustic colours were enamels without gloss, and were employed chiefly on black basalt vases imitative of Greek work. Although the examples available for copying generally belonged to a period of poor art; and although the effect of the encaustic colours was often marred by weak drawing and a vulgar modernity of style, still the body was choicer and the potting more accomplished than any similar work done by Wedgwood's immediate predecessors. Besides cream-coloured earthenware and black basaltes, another ware improved by Wedgwood was the variegated or marbled. This was of two kinds, one coloured throughout its entire substance by means of the association, in various twistings and foldings, of two or more clays burning to different hues in the kiln. This kind of ware, though improved during his partnership with Whieldon, cannot be regarded as a characteristic product of Wedgwood's la-