Josiah Wedgwood Research Articles

Peter Bell’s Professions

This article investigates the socioeconomic contexts of Wordsworth’s Peter Bell in relation to Peter’s ‘profession’ – to use Wordsworth’s term, when he wrote that first among the ‘great defects’ of Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner is that the protagonist ‘has no distinct character … in his profession of Mariner’. Peter Bell is a ‘potter’; Wordsworth’s footnote to the 1819 first edition defines this as ‘a hawker of earthenware’. Modern scholarship accepts the northern definition of potter as ‘pedlar’, effacing the connection to pottery. Yet evidence in the poem suggests that Wordsworth understood the socioeconomic contexts of the poem’s Swaledale setting in 1798–1800, with particular knowledge of the area’s role as the heart of Britain’s lead-mining industry. Peter’s presence in Swaledale links him, through his ‘professions’, to lead mining in the Pennines; and through lead mining, to the Staffordshire pottery industry and Wordsworth and Coleridge’s friends and patrons, Tom Wedgwood and Josiah Wedgwood II.

The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship by Deborah Willis

Reviewed by: The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship by Deborah Willis Christopher Hager (bio) The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship. Deborah Willis. New York: New York University Press, 2021. ISBN: 978-1479809004, 256 pp., cloth, $35.00. In the visual culture of the Civil War era, images of Black men most often evoke slavery. The figure of a kneeling, half-naked slave persisted from Josiah Wedgwood’s abolitionist icon of the 1780s—Am I Not a Man and a Brother?— to the 1876 Emancipation Memorial in Washington DC, in which Abraham Lincoln extends his hand over Archer Alexander’s barely lifted head. At the height of the Civil War, in 1863, a fugitive named Gordon was photographed in multiple poses, but only the shot of the whipping scars on his back became a widely circulated carte de visite. The image of him in a new private’s army uniform appeared, smaller, to one side of the picture of his bared back, near the end of an issue of Harper’s Weekly. (See Bruce Laurie’s “Chaotic Freedom” in Civil War Louisiana: The Origins of an Iconic Image, reviewed by Anne Strachan Cross, pages 323–325 of this issue, for an investigation of this image.) On a Black man’s body, a soldier’s uniform not only signified freedom rather than enslavement. It also suggested equality—it was, after all, the same [End Page 327] one white soldiers wore (even if Black soldiers alone got their pay docked for it)—and citizenship. The eagerness with which newly enlisted men had their photographs taken in uniform suggests they understood very well what Frederick Douglass expressed: “Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters U.S., . . . and there is no power on the earth which can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship in the United States.” The Black Civil War Soldier presents an unmatched array of such photographs—enough to ensure their place in any canon of wartime imagery and to make Black citizens, more than Black slaves, an essential part of the visual record of the Civil War. The quality of the physical book is no small part of this project. Generous in size, on glossy paper, it features scores of high-resolution images, mostly in color, to capture what a visitor to an archive would see: sepia tones, hand-coloring, gilt bindings on carte-de-visite albums, metal clasps on ornately decorated tintype frames. With production values that rival the kinds of commemorative and coffee-table books from which, for many years, young people in a certain class of American homes formed their initial impressions of the conflict (remember the companion volume to Ken Burns’s The Civil War?), Deborah Willis’s new book claims a place as a definitive reference—one that puts African Americans’ roles at the center of the story. The book’s text, organized into five chronological chapters, consists primarily of excerpts from primary sources. Civil War historians will be familiar with many of these, drawn from notable figures such as Charlotte Forten, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and Robert Gould Shaw. Some of the richest material—letters by Black soldiers and their families—will likewise be familiar to scholars of “The Black Military Experience,” to borrow the title of a key volume of the Freedmen and Southern Society Project’s Freedom series, which is among several published anthologies Willis draws from. Connections between these sources and the images that accompany them can sometimes be gnomic or elusive. A photograph of Sojourner Truth appears without comment below a Massachusetts soldier’s letter about pay inequity; the images of the enslaved man Gordon are reproduced without discussion in the text; and Martha Glover’s letter to her husband dangles unremarked at the end of a chapter, despite being a widely cited source in scholarship on family structure (Amy Murrell Taylor), congressional abolition (Amy Dru Stanley), and Black women’s abuse by enslavers (Sharon Romeo). Readers of this journal may be frustrated by the book’s lack of historiography or its reticence about some complicated textual material, but its aim is not...

Review: Design Technics: Archaeologies of Architectural Practice

Review: <i>Design Technics: Archaeologies of Architectural Practice</i>

Defining a New Femininity? Josiah Wedgwood’s Portrait Medallions of Sarah Siddons and his “Femmes Célèbres”

In 1788, the potter Josiah Wedgwood introduced a radical new sub-section under the banner of his popular Heads of Illustrious Moderns, from Chaucer to the Present Time focused on historical and contemporary women, rather than men, and entitled “Femmes Célèbres”. In its creation, Wedgwood celebrated the lives and achievements of twenty-eight elite, white women of immense privilege and beauty, but also objectified and commodified them for his financial gain. Within this group of aristocrats, mistresses, poets, queens, and educationalists were several female worthies, inspirational women, who possessed qualities he clearly admired—independence, intelligence, and industry. The outsider was the actress and first modern female celebrity, Sarah Siddons, whose struggles to gain acceptance by overcoming gendered obstacles paralleled those of elite, educated, literary women in their desire for recognition. Wedgwood’s gallery of female heads may have served as a visual conduct book or manual, presenting a modern vision of female agency, a new femininity that circumvented and navigated conventions of politeness and the status quo. When accompanied by enlightened conversations, even gossip, among women around the tea-table or while shopping with friends, the life choices of the sitters depicted in these portrait medallions served to educate and promote what it meant to be a woman in the late eighteenth century. This article redefines the reception of this group of ornamental portrait medallions in Wedgwood’s new stoneware bodies as decorative art objects inspired by fine art representations and made accessible through mass production.

Recurrence of an Image

&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; Josiah Wedgwood’s design for the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade is primarily an artifact of a past politics of inclusion that literally required the posing of the question “Am I Not a Man and a Brother?” for the sake of Africans’ shared basis in humanity. With its loinclothed kneeling slave in manacles and pathetic appeal, it is a rather disturbing example of how images can both encourage and curtail the expansion of socially democratic principles. And yet, if we were to extrapolate from the form and content of Wedgwood’s emblem, a rich legacy of influence emerges across two centuries of black protest. Through an assessment of performative declarations and appeals that amount to a cross-disciplinary continuation of the “Negro Question,” this essay will outline the epistemological continuity that binds our current categorical regard for black humanity with its less-than-ideal origins.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D;

Manufacturing Labor Discipline

Josiah Wedgwood, the Montgolfier family, and Samuel Bentham were leading producers during the early industrial era. A pottery manufacturer, a family of papermakers, and the Inspector-General of Britain’s Naval Works, they all occupied the highest perch in their fields. This article considers the efforts by these eminent figures to control the exercise and reproduction of skill in their shops. It examines their attempts to build internal labor markets and blend carefully trained, home-grown hands with novel systems of work discipline and fresh technologies. In doing so, this article assesses the success and limits of the entrepreneurial trio’s designs in the coming of mechanized production.

Halliday, Daniel. The Inheritance of Wealth: Justice, Equality, and the Right to Bequeath. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. 256. $42.95 (cloth).

Halliday, Daniel. <i>The Inheritance of Wealth: Justice, Equality, and the Right to Bequeath</i>. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. 256. $42.95 (cloth).

Durga Saptashati: The Primordial Source of Origin and Advent of 'Celebrity'

Celebrity has been a ubiquitous term in the disciplines of Advertising and Media. As per the existing relevant literature relating to the chronological corridor, Josiah Wedgwood,a famous potter in 18th Century A.D. only, is regarded to have become the first ever celebrity. However, the present paper, drawn on the advertising hues of a renowned Indian scripture - Durga Saptashati, composed thousands of years ago, attempts to bring a breakthrough in the historical archive pertaining to celebrity by declaring Almighty Goddess as the foremost celebrity, and thus establishing Durga Saptashati to be the primordial source of origin and advent of celebrity too.

Clay and ‘civilisation’ – imperial ideas and colonial industry in Sydney, 1788–1823

Sydney clay formed one of the earliest points of scientific interest in colonial New South Wales. Thanks to Josiah Wedgwood and Erasmus Darwin, it became associated with elite ideas surrounding the development of a European ‘civilisation’ in the new colony through skilled arts and manufacturing. By following the utilisation of this clay until 1823, this article traces how non-elites adopted these ideas. It uses a methodology focused on material culture that combines the practices and sources of history and historical archaeology. It contends that even non-elite colonists behaved as if ‘civilisation’ was created and maintained by the skilled manufacture and use of certain items such as pottery. This outlook and practice excluded Aboriginal people and culture from the colony from the outset.

Patent and innovation during the Industrial Revolution in England

Summary The article explores the role of patent or lack thereof in Josiah Wedgwood’s business. It first discusses the motive behind his opposition of extension of Richard Champion’s patent and then delves into his defence of his own patent in the dispute with the alleged infringer. It aims to show the incongruence of words and deeds of a tradesman with respect to patents; more importantly, it sets out to demonstrate that the claim of patent as an incentivising measure does not bear out as far as Wedgwood is concerned; rather, it is lack of patent protection that facilitates innovation in his pottery business.

John Baskerville: Art and Industry of the Enlightenment. Ed. by Caroline Archer-Parré and Malcolm Dick

The name of John Baskerville, the contemporary of Matthew Boulton and Josiah Wedgwood, became known, like theirs, in several European countries. Was he the representative of a movement, or was he essentially an individual and eccentric sport, brilliant in many ways and flawed in some? It is difficult to find evidence that Baskerville was the advance guard in the midland counties of England of a significant movement in printing, even if he deserves to be mentioned as a representa tive of the formidable British technical development that was once known as ‘the industrial revolution’. This collection of essays is the outcome of a conference in Birmingham held in 2013 in the name of the newly-founded ‘Baskerville Society’. Several contributions display their loyalties, including those relating to ‘the English urban Renaissance’, evidence of a welcome broadening of awareness of the growth of English provincial printing. There is also a substantial essay on Japanning (Yvonne Jones), and others on the decorated papers and the bindings that can be associated with Baskerville (Barry McKay and Diana Patterson; Aurélie Martin). One inevitably thinks that the use of some colour in this section would have supported the reader's appreciation of these texts, and indeed that the images in the book could have been more ample and better printed.

Josiah Wedgwood, Manufacturing and Craft

Josiah Wedgwood, Manufacturing and Craft

Mystifying What Matters: Erotic Antiquarianism in Erasmus Darwin’s Portland Vase

Critics from the eighteenth century to the present have largely agreed in portraying Erasmus Darwin as an apostle of sexual liberation. One of Darwin’s career-long themes, that erotic love unifies the visible universe and the invisible, reaches its apotheosis in The Botanic Garden (1792) with his account of the famous Portland Vase as reproduced by Josiah Wedgwood. According to Darwin, the vase represents the Eleusinian Mysteries, an ancient fertility ritual where the god Eros presides. Darwin’s interest in this tradition parallels the contemporary antiquarian movement, represented particularly by the Society of Dilettanti, which researched the sacramental character of sexuality in the pagan world. I argue, however, that such work more often perpetuated an ideology of sexual restraint than of freedom. The antiquarians discerned two different myths of Eros: that of the divine progenitor from the esoteric rites, and that of the impish mischief-maker from popular tradition. By valorizing the former at the expense of the latter, they sublimated the socially and ontologically disruptive qualities of sexuality itself into decorous abstractions. Reading Darwin alongside these antiquarians helps bring into relief his own anxieties about the way that raw sexuality, and raw matter in general, challenges a unitary vision of the cosmos. For Darwin, the Portland Vase ultimately becomes a fetish—a mystification of the material realities not only of sexual desire but also of industries like Wedgwood’s.

Official Histories of Parliament and the Nature of the Union of 1707: A Forgotten Episode in Anglo-Scottish Academic Relations

The Scottish Committee on the History of Parliament was established in 1936 as an offshoot of Col. Josiah Wedgwood's scheme for a collaborative ‘history of parliament’ researched and written on biographical lines. Circumstances, however, determined that the Scottish history would take a separate path. When Wedgwood's scheme was revived in 1951 an unsuccessful attempt was made to reintegrate the two projects. Discussions between the respective managing committees were conflicted and often bad-tempered, focussing on different interpretations of the nature of the united parliament created in 1707. The Scottish committee insisted that it was a new constitutional entity, while the English saw it as a continuation of the Westminster parliament with Scottish MPs added. This story of mutual incomprehension illustrates the profound differences between Scottish and English academics in the writing of parliamentary history, and also reveals a hitherto unobserved element in the development among leading Scottish jurists of a strain of ‘legal nationalism’ based on their interpretation of the constitutional significance of the Union.

Colonel Josiah Wedgwood's Questionnaire: Members of Parliament, 1885–1918. By PriscillaBaines. Wiley Blackwell. 2012. viii + 278pp. £22.99.

Colonel Josiah Wedgwood's Questionnaire: Members of Parliament, 1885–1918. By PriscillaBaines. Wiley Blackwell. 2012. viii + 278pp. £22.99.

„Trzy puzdra z kaftiorami…”, czyli o fajansie i porcelanie na tykocińskim zamku

Archaeological explorations carried out so far in the castle area in Tykocin – Podlachia, have delivered not only numerous, but also varied movable artifacts. Despite predominating objects of local production, there are also items from distanced production centers; these are, among the others, fragments of glass vessels, clay pipes, elements of armory and coins from 16 th century up to 19 th century. The article concentrates on two selected categories of modern imports and their local imitations, i.e. porcelain and faience. For 91 thousand of various source categories obtained in the discussed site, pieces of faience and porcelain create relatively small collection of 614 fragments, including 540 pieces of faience and 74 pieces of porcelain. The minimum number of those vessels was defined for 304, respectively: 251 and 53 items. Nearly half of all the fragments was obtained from mixed layers, made chiefly as a result of architectonic works, performed in the castle and around in the 60s of the last century. Most of the production was unsigned, therefore it is rather difficult in defining the objects’ origin and precise dating. Only ten vessels are marked (five porcelain and five faience ones), seven of which created possibilities of identification. Production places of majority of items were stated on the base of manufacturing techniques and comparative analyses. It was possible first of all for ornamented examples with decorative elements characteristic for particular workshops, production centers on vessel types. This collection consists, among the others, of the most expensive and the most desirable products of those times – original China, Dutch faiences of Delft, English dishes from Josiah Wedgwood’s manufacture(?) and porcelain from Meissen of Saxony and royal Vienna manufacture, but moreover – products probably from workshops situated in Italy, England (Bristol), France (Nevers, Rouen, Sevres), other German centers (Volkstedt), Silesia (Proszkow Śląski), Volhynia (Korzec, Baranowka, Horodnica), Pomerania (Gdansk, Szczecin area) and Lesser Poland (Cmielow, Ilza). The listed finds are mainly elements of crockery sets – plates, saucers, bowls, cups, soup tureens and vases, pitchers. The collection is completed by a tea-pot and lids (probably for jugs). Tykocin assembly also possesses one sanitary vessel – a bed-pan. The assortment of faience products is more diversified, in comparison with more unified porcelain collection, although in both ceramic groups – plates are in predominance. The described artifacts is an interesting material evidence of needs and aesthetic preferences of the buyers, new trends in ceramic manufacturing of the period and consumption fancies, the proof of fulfilling the orders and active commodity exchange between Tykocin and the Baltic towns, as well as the capital in modern period. As far as kinds and ornamentations are concerned, the products refer to common trends in West European and home ceramic production from the end of 17 th century up to 19 th century. Majority of the described products, both porcelain and faience ones were used when the castle was owned by the last two Branicki Family representatives – Stefan Mikolaj (about 1640–1709) and Jan Klemens III (1689–1771). It can not be excluded, that some of these objects were brought to the castle in the beginning of 18 th century together with Polish of foreign monarchs’ courts. On the base of historic evidence existing we have only information on the movable property of Jan Klemens III, but there is lack of information concerning the objects belonging to his father. There are no direct remarks about the objects brought or being in possession of Tykocin castle residents; there are only notices saying about dishes ordered by the hetman or belonging to the equipment of his other seats, first and foremost, the palaces in Bialystok, Warsaw and Choroszcza. However, these documents deliver precious information on the assortment belonging to Jan Klemens III and consisting of faiences and porcelain, their quantity, origin and destination, the owner’s preferences as to types, ornaments and colors of the preferred vessels. It can be speculated that some of those objects reached Tykocin and were used here during more ceremonious occasions.

Hercules Subdued: The Visual Rhetoric of the Kneeling Slave

The image of the kneeling slave, designed for the seal of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, then widely distributed as a cameo manufactured and distributed by Josiah Wedgwood became a powerful abolitionist icon. The image has been seen as both one of victimization and one that acknowledges the agency of the slave. While the former interpretation is understandable given the re-configurations of the image within the polemics of the Abolitionist campaign of the nineteenth century, the original image needs to be examined within the context of its construction. For this, it is necessary to explore the classical nature of the figure, particularly the representations and mythic significance of Hercules. These associations are combined with references to supplication as depicted in earlier token books, religious iconography, contemporary treatises on acting, eighteenth century treatises on gesture and rhetoric, and eighteenth century treatises on phrenology, physiognomy and ethnology. It is the complexity derived from such blending that became simplified and limited in later re-presentations where the image is used in conjunction with sentimental appeals to the benevolence of the viewer. As the classical resonances gave way to sentimental imperatives, the changing array of discourses changed not only the context which gave the image meaning, but reshaped the very image of the kneeling slave in subtle, but significant ways. The result provides us with a complex study of the dynamics of visual rhetoric.

Erasmus Darwin: Sex, Science, and Serendipity, by Patricia Fara

Erasmus Darwin: Sex, Science, and Serendipity, by Patricia Fara. Oxford, UK, Oxford University Press, 2012. xii, 322 pp. $34.95 US (cloth). Erasmus Darwin, physician, botanist, philosopher, inventor, and poet, was one of the outstanding intellectuals of eighteenth-century England in an era noted for men of intellectual brilliance. Among his many interests were education for women, social reform, liberty, and the abolition of slavery. As one of the founders of the Lunar Society, he was a colleague of such giants of the British industrial revolution as Josiah Wedgwood, Matthew Boulton, James Watt, and Joseph Priestley. Nowadays, however, relatively few people have heard of him, instead associating the family surname with his grandson, Charles. According to Patricia Fara, Erasmus Darwin's reputation faded because he entertained controversial ideas that were, in the era of the French Revolution, suspiciously radical and unpopular with the British political and social establishment. And there was one more factor: Darwin was a terrible poet. Fara, whose books include Science: A Four Thousand Year History (Oxford, 2009), Pandora's Breeches: Women, Science and Power (London, 2004), and Newton: Making of Genius (New York, 2002), focuses upon making the of science intelligible for readers who specialize in neither nor science, and she explains that for the present work, she decided to try out other ways of writing history (p. 1). In Erasmus Darwin, Fara organizes her examination of the polymath's life and career around the framework of three poems written by Darwin, The Loves of the Plants, The Economy of Vegetation, and The Temple of Nature, plus a parody written by his conservative detractors, The Loves of the Triangles. Fara describes the progress of her research, provides plainspoken commentary upon her reactions to the overwrought quality of Darwin's poetry, and divulges the truth about her field of endeavor--that the practice of is not at all precise and, instead, follows a meandering path full of accidental discoveries, false trails, and jettisoned chapters (p. 253). result is a lively, readable, and illuminating social history, though, regrettably, when Fara points out that she has fictionalized parts of her progression, the early admission takes the edge off the reader's anticipation of this alternative history. Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) was a sociable Midlands doctor who incorporated his radical ideas about natural philosophy, politics, and social reform into florid and sexually suggestive scientific poems that also presaged his grandson's interest in natural selection and biological adaptation. An adherent of the botanical classification system of Carl Linnaeus, whose taxonomy was based upon reproductive organs and thus was too lurid, in British opinion, for the gentle feminine pastime of gardening, Darwin translated the Linnaean Systema Vegetabilium from Latin, publishing A System of Vegetables in 1783. …

Emotion, succession, and the family firm: Josiah Wedgwood & Sons

We argue that both business history and social science studies of family firms often neglect the family qua family, in particular paying insufficient attention to the emotional elements of family as they affect family firms, separating out one from the other as distinctive variables, and treating each from a rationalising perspective. Adopting a microhistorical approach we use the case of succession at Josiah Wedgwood & Sons to argue that consideration of emotions and sensibilities provides new insight into behaviour at this world-famous firm.

Appendix 1: Respondents to Wedgwood's Questionnaire

Parliamentary HistoryVolume 31, Issue s2 p. 119-127 Appendix 1: Respondents to Wedgwood's Questionnaire First published: 11 October 2012 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1750-0206.2012.00339.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume31, Issues2Special Issue: Texts & Studies Series 7: Colonel Josiah Wedgwood's Questionnaire: Members of Parliament, 1885‐1918, by Priscilla BainesOctober 2012Pages 119-127 RelatedInformation