Qualla: Wedgwood

Wedgwood: Introduction

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lionel Allorge, CC BY-SA 3.0. It took more than three thousand recorded experiments to invent Wedgwood blue. Josiah Wedgwood, a Staffordshire potter from a family of Staffordshire potters, was looking for a stoneware that could imitate the milky-blue ground of ancient Roman cameo glass. He found it eventually, in 1775, after years of mixing and firing and discarding. The colour - somewhere between cornflower and dusk - became one of the most recognisable in commercial design history, and the dry, unglazed jasperware he made with it has been in continuous production since. Wedgwood the firm was founded on 1 May 1759. It has outlived empires, wars, and most of its competitors, and it has spent the last two centuries oscillating between being a luxury maker, a mass producer, and an asset on someone else's balance sheet.

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Image: Lionel Allorge | CC BY-SA 3.0

Wedgwood: Inventing a Customer

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Josiah Wedgwood, CC BY 3.0. The young Josiah Wedgwood understood something his rivals did not: a cheap product that looked like an expensive one would sell at the expensive price if you could persuade the right people to buy it first. In 1765 he developed a new variety of creamware, a refined glazed earthen...

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Image: Josiah Wedgwood | CC BY 3.0

Wedgwood: The Etruria Works and an Anti-Slavery Token

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wedgwood and Bentley, CC0. In 1766 Wedgwood bought a Staffordshire estate, named it Etruria after the ancient Italian civilisation whose pottery he wanted to imitate, and built a new factory on the site. Etruria began production in 1769, the same year he perfected black basalt ware. He went into partnershi...

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Image: Wedgwood and Bentley | CC0

Wedgwood: The Family, the Factory, the Move to Barlaston

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kpjas, CC BY-SA 3.0. Josiah died in 1795. His sons and nephew kept the business running through the Napoleonic Wars and the collapse of American export markets after Waterloo, but the firm's reputation for technical innovation dimmed through the early nineteenth century. Recovery came with Godfrey We...

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Image: Kpjas | CC BY-SA 3.0

Wedgwood: Bought, Merged, Acquired

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Daderot, CC0. From 1986 onward Wedgwood ceased to be an independent company. Waterford Glass Group bought the firm that year, forming Waterford Wedgwood plc. In 2009, after a failed share placement during the financial crisis, Waterford Wedgwood went into administration. KPS Capital Partners b...

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Image: Daderot | CC0