page_title: Wedgwood
section_title: Early history
hierarchical_section_title: Wedgwood / Early history
caption_attribution_description: Britain Loves Wikipedia at the Victoria and Albert Museum Tea and coffee service, Staffordshire English: Tea and coffee service England, Staffordshire, about 1775 Two of England\'s contributions to ceramic history were creamware and transfer-printing, which revolutionised ceramic decoration worldwide. Creamware was cheap, durable and well-suited to dinner and tea services. It was hugely popular between 1765 and 1820. Transfer-printing, perfected around 1750, enabled manufacturers to achieve high-quality decoration at a low cost. Made at Josiah Wedgwood\'s factory; transfer-printed in Liverpool by Guy Green (died 1799) Creamware, transfer printed in enamel Given by Lady Charlotte Shreiber Collection ID: 414:1157/B&amp;C-1885 This photo was taken as part of Britain Loves Wikipedia in February 2010 by Valerie McGlinchey.
context_page_description: Wedgwood is a fine china, porcelain, and luxury accessories manufacturer that was founded on 1 May 1759 by the English potter and entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood and was first incorporated in 1895 as Josiah Wedgwood and Sons Ltd. It was rapidly successful and was soon one of the largest manufacturers of Staffordshire pottery, "a firm that has done more to spread the knowledge and enhance the reputation of British ceramic art than any other manufacturer", exporting across Europe as far as Russia, and to the Americas. It was especially successful at producing fine earthenware and stonewares that were accepted as equivalent in quality to porcelain but were considerably cheaper.
  Wedgwood is especially associated with the "dry-bodied" stoneware Jasperware in contrasting colours, and in particular that in "Wedgwood blue" and white, always much the most popular colours, though there are several others. Jasperware has been made continuously by the firm since 1775, and also much imitated. In the 18th century, however, it was table china in the refined earthenware creamware that represented most of the sales and profits.
context_section_description: Josiah Wedgwood (1730–95), came from an established family of potters, and trained with his elder brother. He was in partnership with the leading potter Thomas Whieldon from 1754 until 1759, when a new green ceramic glaze he had developed encouraged him to start a new business on his own.  Relatives leased him the Ivy House in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, and his marriage to Sarah Wedgwood, a distant cousin with a sizable dowry, helped him launch his new venture.
  Wedgwood led "an extensive and systematic programme of experiment", and in 1765 created a new variety of creamware, a fine glazed earthenware, which was the main body used for his tablewares thereafter.  After he supplied her with a teaset for twelve the same year, Queen Charlotte gave official permission to call it "Queen's Ware" (from 1767).  This new form, perfected as white pearlware (from 1780), sold extremely well across Europe, and to America.  It had the additional advantage of being relatively light, saving on transport costs and import tariffs in foreign markets.  It caused considerable disruption to the makers of European faience and delftware, then the main European tableware bodies; some went out of business and others adopted English-style bodies themselves. The Pont-aux-Choux factory near Paris was one of the first to do so; in France creamware was known as faience fine, in Italy terraglia.
  Wedgwood developed a number of further industrial innovations for his company, notably a way of measuring kiln temperatures accurately, and several new ceramic bodies including the "dry-body" stonewares, "black basalt" (by 1769), caneware and jasperware (1770s), all designed to be sold unglazed, like "biscuit porcelain".
  In 1766, Wedgwood bought a large Staffordshire estate, which he renamed Etruria, as both a home and factory site; the factory was producing from 1769, initially making ornamental wares, while the "useful" tablewares were still made in Burslem.
  In 1769 Wedgwood established a partnership with Thomas Bentley, who soon moved to London and ran the operations there.  Only the "ornamental" wares such as vases are marked "Wedgwood & Bentley" and those so marked are at an extra level of quality.  The extensive correspondence between Wedgwood and Bentley, who was from a landowning background, show Wedgwood often relied on his advice on artistic questions.  Wedgwood felt the loss keenly when Bentley died in 1780.
  Wedgwood's slightly younger friend, William Greatbatch, had followed a similar career path, training with Whieldon and then starting his own firm around 1762.  He was a fine modeller, especially of moulds for tablewares, and probably did most of Wedgwood's earlier moulds as an outside contractor.  After some twenty years, Greatbatch's firm went under in 1782, and by 1786 he was a Wedgwood employee, continuing for over twenty years until he retired in 1807, on generous terms specified in Wedgwood's will.  In the early period he seems also to have acted as agent for Wedgwood on trips to London, and after Wedgwood's retirement he may have in effect managed the Etruria works.
caption: A transfer printed creamware Wedgwood tea and coffee service. c. 1775, Victoria & Albert Museum, in the "Liverpool Birds" pattern.  Fashionable but relatively cheap wares like this were the backbone of Wedgwood's early success.
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