WEDGWOOD, Josiah (1730-1795), the most distinguished of English manufacturers of pottery. Many members of the Wedgwood family had been established as potters in Staffordshire throughout the 17th century, but their productions were in no way remarkable. Josiah, born in 1730, was the youngest child of Thomas Wedgwood, who owned a thriving pottery in Burslem. At a very early age he distinguished himself by keen powers of observation and love for all that was curious and beautiful. Soon after the death of his father in 1739, Josiah, then scarcely ten years of age, was taken away from school and set to learn the art of moulding or “throwing” clay pottery, at which he soon became extraordinarily skilful. In 1744 he was apprenticed to his eldest brother, who had succeeded to the management of his father’s pottery; and in 1751, when the term of his apprenticeship had expired, Josiah Wedgwood became manager of the neighbouring Alder pottery, with a very moderate salary. In 1759 he started as an independent potter at the Ivy-House works in Burslem, and soon introduced many improvements among the simple classes of pottery which were then made in Staffordshire. Soon, however, Wedgwood’s tastes were turned in an archaeological direction by the increasing interest then taken in Greek or (as they were then called) Etruscan vases. His enthusiasm was specially aroused by the illustrations in Comte de Caylus’s Recueil d' Antiquités (1752-67); aided by this work he began to attempt to copy Greek designs, and in later years he was further assisted by loans of vases from the fine collection of Greek pottery possessed by Sir William Hamilton. In 1769 Wedgwood opened new potteries on a larger scale at Etruria in Staffordshire, having entered into partnership with Thomas Bentley of ...