WEDGWOOD, Josiah (1769-1843), of Maer Hall, Staffordshire

The son and namesake of the famous Staffordshire potter and inventor Josiah Wedgwood (1730-95), whom he succeeded as chief of the family’s manufacturing firm, Wedgwood briefly represented Stoke-on-Trent as a Reformer. While his father has been much studied as an industrial and scientific pioneer, Wedgwood has received no comparable attention. The Wedgwood family had been involved in the Staffordshire pottery trade since the late seventeenth century. Wedgwood’s father set up on his own account in 1766, establishing the Etruria factory soon after. He later developed a type of cream-coloured earthenware known as Queen’s Ware, and was a skilful marketer of his products.1N. McKendrick, ‘Josiah Wedgwood: an 18th century entrepreneur in salesmanship and marketing techniques’, Economic History Review, 12 (1959-60), 408-33; idem, ‘Josiah Wedgwood and factory discipline’, Historical Journal, 4 (1961), 30-55; idem, ‘Josiah Wedgwood and Thomas Bentley: an inventor-entrepreneur partnership in the industrial revolution’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 14 (1964), 1-33; idem, ‘Josiah Wedgwood and cost accounting in the industrial revolution’, Economic History Review, 23 (1970), 45-67; N. McKendrick, J. Brewer and J.H. Plumb, The birth of a consumer society (1982), ch. 3; R. Reilly, Josiah Wedgwood, 1730-1795 (1992); J. Uglow, The lunar men (2002); B. Dolan, Josiah Wedgwood: entrepreneur to the enlightenment (2004).

On his father’s death in 1795, Wedgwood (known as Josiah II or Jos in the family) inherited Etruria Hall, the Etruria factory and the surrounding estate.2B. and H. Wedgwood, The Wedgwood circle, 1730-1897 (1980), 105. The chronic incompetence of his elder brother and death of his younger brother meant that the management of the firm devolved upon him. Hitherto Wedgwood had shown little interest in business, living as a landed gentleman in Dorset, where he served as high sheriff in 1803, and Surrey.3Ibid., 105-6, 114, 132. Wedgwood has been portrayed as a ‘plodding’ unimaginative man who lacked his father’s genius, but these traits arguably equipped him to manage the company during a difficult period.4Ibid., 79, 105. The French Wars had closed continental markets, and the firm increasingly faced stiff competition from new rivals.5J.C. Wedgwood, Staffordshire pottery and its history (1913), 148-9.

Wedgwood displayed a ruthless streak in cutting the company’s costs, but did little to encourage new techniques or designs.6B. and H. Wedgwood, The Wedgwood circle, 166. He sold his Dorset properties in 1806 and returned to Staffordshire. He sacked two of his cousins and eased out his elder brother, whose fecklessness had placed a heavy financial burden on the company, from the partnership.7Ibid., 133-5, 138-53. In 1828, Wedgwood closed the famous London showrooms established by his father and ‘committed the unpardonable vandalism of selling off the stock, patterns, and moulds there stored’.8Wedgwood, Staffordshire pottery, 150-1.

In 1831 Wedgwood unsuccessfully contested Newcastle-under-Lyme as a Reformer, but he was returned for the new constituency of Stoke-on-Trent, which encompassed the Staffordshire Potteries, the following year. His daughter Emma wrote that ‘all of us were very much pleased at his coming in so grandly, especially as he is become too Tory for these Radical Times’.9Emma Wedgwood to Jessie Sismondi, 16 Dec. 1832, Wedgwood Archives, Keele University, qu. in B. and H. Wedgwood, The Wedgwood circle, 219. However, during his campaign Wedgwood expressed strong support for the ‘immediate abolition of slavery’, a ‘considerable alteration’ of the corn laws, the opening up of the East India trade and opposed the renewal of the Bank of England’s charter, believing ‘that the trade in Banking ought to be open to free competition’.10Staffordshire Advertiser, 10 Nov. 1832, 15 Dec. 1832. Although he was an Anglican (unlike his Unitarian father), Wedgwood believed that ‘Church reform was necessary, and must be conceded’.11Staffordshire Advertiser, 15 Dec. 1832.

In Parliament, Wedgwood was a silent but conscientious attender.12B. and H. Wedgwood, The Wedgwood circle, 220. He supported the Whig government’s Irish policy, and opposed further political reforms. He backed Fowell Buxton’s attempt to shorten the length of slave apprenticeships, 24 July 1833, a low fixed duty on corn, 7 Mar. 1834, and Althorp’s proposed replacement of church rates by a central grant, 21 Apr. 1834. The sexagenarian Wedgwood retired at the 1835 general election, having in any case been informed that he would have stood little chance of re-election.13Ibid.; Staffordshire Advertiser, 27 Dec. 1834.

In his later years Wedgwood was increasingly afflicted by palsy or Parkinson’s disease, and he retired from the business in 1841 and died two years later.14B. and H. Wedgwood, The Wedgwood circle, 238, 240. In 1839 his youngest daughter Emma had married her cousin (and Wedgwood’s nephew) Charles Darwin, the naturalist and scientist, who published his seminal Origin of Species twenty years later. Wedgwood’s main achievement was to ensure the survival of the pottery business, which passed to his second son Francis (Frank) (1800-88), and the family remained heavily involved in its management into the latter half of the twentieth century.15Ibid., 241-3; R. Reilly, ‘Wedgwood, Josiah (1899-1968)’, www.oxforddnb.com. Wedgwood PLC was taken over by the Irish firm Waterford Crystal in the mid-1980s, and in 2009 Waterford Wedgwood, as the successor company was known, was bought by the private equity group KPS Capital Partners.16http://www.kpsfund.com/newsandpressreleases/press2009-03-26.asp. Frank’s grandson Josiah Clement Wedgwood (1872-1943), was Liberal then Labour MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme 1906-42, and from the late 1920s pressed for a national biographical dictionary of parliamentarians. To this end he researched and published Staffordshire Parliamentary History (4 volumes, 1919-34) and History of Parliament, 1439-1509 (2 volumes, 1936-8), and is generally regarded as the progenitor of the History of Parliament Trust, founded in 1940.17http://www.histparl.ac.uk/about.html#history. As both politician and historian, J.C. Wedgwood continues to be the subject of scholarly fascination.18D. Cannadine, ‘Josiah Wedgwood and the History of Parliament’, Staffordshire Studies, 11 (1999), 1-27; P. Mulvey, The political life of Josiah C. Wedgwood: land, liberty and empire, 1872-1943 (2010); D.W. Hayton, ‘Colonel Wedgwood and the historians’, Historical Research, 84 (2011), 328-55.