[Anon], ‘Josiah Wedgwood’

An interest in the life and works of Josiah Wedgwood was spurred by two events in the period 1865–70. In 1865, two publications that dealt with the history of the man and the business were published: Llewelyn Jewitt’s The Wedgwoods: Being a Life of Josiah Wedgwood and Eliza Meteyard’s Life of Josiah Wedgwood. Following the 1851 Exhibition, it was evident to the Wedgwood company that they had lost the edge that they once had in terms of both design and quality. There is no finer material in any trade available to the artist, and it is possible to make it the auxiliary to other branches of art manufacture; but as long as it seems heresy to introduce figures or ornament that have no precedent in the works of the man who discovered the material, as far as genuine art is concerned, it may be said to be lost.