“I have often wish’d I had saved a single specimen of all the new articles I have made, and would now give twenty times the original value for such a collection. I am now, from thinking, and talking a little more upon this subject … resolv’d to make a beginning.” So said Josiah Wedgwood in 1774, as he laid the foundations for one of the greatest ceramics collections in the world. The Wedgwood Museum was first opened to the public in 1906, and for more than a century it has been telling the story of how six towns in north Staffordshire were transformed through clay and coal into the world-famous Potteries.
Then, in 2009, the Wedgwood business went into administration and, through a wretched quirk in pension law, brought the museum down with it. Suddenly, this extraordinary testament to the genius of Josiah Wedgwood and the unrivalled skills of Stoke-on-Trent’s potters was at risk of a fire-sale to fill a £134m pension black hole.
Today, the fight to save the Wedgwood collection begins in earnest as the Art Fund joins forces with the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Victoria & Albert Museum to raise the final £2.75m of the £15m price tag. It is a campaign to which, I hope, Guardian readers might contribute, because if you haven’t yet made it to Barlaston to see the 8,000-strong collection – from black jasper Portland designs to bone china tea sets and Robert Adam-designed vases – you are missing out on one of the most compelling accounts of British industrial, social and design history.
Pottery was being thrown around Stoke-on-Trent from the late 1500s. Out of the brown and yellow Staffordshire clay came butterpots and flowerpots. In the sun kilns of Bagnall and Penkhull, local artisans started to glaze their earthenware and develop a reputation for craftsmanship. In the late 17th century came high-heat salt glazing, then biscuitware and finally creamware.
On the continent, at Dresden and Delft, the Saxons and the Dutch were doing the same. But Europe’s ceramicists long remained in the shadow of China, which had mastered the magic of porcelain, the famous blue and white ceramic formed by kaolin in clay. “China” (Britain’s new word for pottery and porcelain) became the 18th-century rage.
It was the two Josiahs – Spode and Wedgwood – who realised Stoke-on-Trent was missing a trick. From his Etruria factory, Wedgwood innovated with the firing of iron and manganese. He dumped the familiar tortoiseshell and agate designs, and tried out a new process of copper-plate transfers.
It allowed him to unleash a volley of new designs – flowers, birds and love scenes – that caught the attention of even Queen Charlotte. His trademark jasper and basalt production followed. Soon, Chinese porcelain imports were edged out of the market as Wedgwood’s factories automated production and drove prices down.
Here was where the Industrial Revolution was born. And it is all brilliantly explored through a museum dedicated to “The people who have made objects of great beauty from the soils of Staffordshire”. For me, part of the collection’s wonder has always been its ability to chart the major episodes of intellectual history Wedgwood lived through – the English Enlightenment; the French and American revolutions; the campaign to abolish slavery – via the materiality of ceramic artefacts.
There is much more besides. Wedgwood died in 1795 but the museum charts how the firm prospered by responding to the Victorian cult of the home, the Great Exhibition, the growth of empire. Even better are the 20th century displays, with their Eduardo Paolozzi plates and Eric Ravilious coronation designs.
But for the people of Stoke-on-Trent, the museum is also an important testament to their own heritage of creativity, industriousness, manufacturing identity and civic pride. With the bottle kilns now disappearing from the north Staffordshire skyline, this collection bears witness to their historic contribution to the success of the Potteries.
However, saving the Wedgwood collection has to be about building a future as much as securing the past. For what this treasure trove and its archive also offers is an invaluable resource for today’s young ceramicists. As the pottery business emerges from the decimation of the past few decades, the museum stands as an inspiration for the new talent entering the industry. The Wedgwood factory itself is being rebuilt, with a promise to end the outsourcing to Indonesia and revive the “Made in Staffordshire” brand. All of which makes it more vital that we seek to honour Wedgwood’s founding wish and save these wonderful specimens of his new and old articles.