Self Help by Samuel Smiles (desktop ebook reader txt) 📖

at St.

Cloud fourteen years before Bottgher’s discovery, the superiority

of the hard porcelain soon became generally recognised. Its

manufacture was begun at Sevres in 1770, and it has since almost

entirely superseded the softer material. This is now one of the

most thriving branches of French industry, of which the high

quality of the articles produced is certainly indisputable.

 

The career of Josiah Wedgwood, the English potter, was less

chequered and more prosperous than that of either Palissy or

Bottgher, and his lot was cast in happier times. Down to the

middle of last century England was behind most other nations of the

first order in Europe in respect of skilled industry. Although

there were many potters in Staffordshire—and Wedgwood himself

belonged to a numerous clan of potters of the same name—their

productions were of the rudest kind, for the most part only plain

brown ware, with the patterns scratched in while the clay was wet.

The principal supply of the better articles of earthenware came

from Delft in Holland, and of drinking stone pots from Cologne.

Two foreign potters, the brothers Elers from Nuremberg, settled for

a time in Staffordshire, and introduced an improved manufacture,

but they shortly after removed to Chelsea, where they confined

themselves to the manufacture of ornamental pieces. No porcelain

capable of resisting a scratch with a hard point had yet been made

in England; and for a long time the “white ware” made in

Staffordshire was not white, but of a dirty cream colour. Such, in

a few words, was the condition of the pottery manufacture when

Josiah Wedgwood was born at Burslem in 1730. By the time that he

died, sixty-four years later, it had become completely changed. By

his energy, skill, and genius, he established the trade upon a new

and solid foundation; and, in the words of his epitaph, “converted

a rude and inconsiderable manufacture into an elegant art and an

important branch of national commerce.”

 

Josiah Wedgwood was one of those indefatigable men who from time to

time spring from the ranks of the common people, and by their

energetic character not only practically educate the working

population in habits of industry, but by the example of diligence

and perseverance which they set before them, largely influence the

public activity in all directions, and contribute in a great degree

to form the national character. He was, like Arkwright, the

youngest of a family of thirteen children. His grandfather and

granduncle were both potters, as was also his father who died when

he was a mere boy, leaving him a patrimony of twenty pounds. He

had learned to read and write at the village school; but on the

death of his father he was taken from it and set to work as a

“thrower” in a small pottery carried on by his elder brother.

There he began life, his working life, to use his own words, “at

the lowest round of the ladder,” when only eleven years old. He

was shortly after seized by an attack of virulent smallpox, from

the effects of which he suffered during the rest of his life, for

it was followed by a disease in the right knee, which recurred at

frequent intervals, and was only got rid of by the amputation of

the limb many years later. Mr. Gladstone, in his eloquent Eloge on

Wedgwood recently delivered at Burslem, well observed that the

disease from which he suffered was not improbably the occasion of

his subsequent excellence. “It prevented him from growing up to be

the active, vigorous English workman, possessed of all his limbs,

and knowing right well the use of them; but it put him upon

considering whether, as he could not be that, he might not be

something else, and something greater. It sent his mind inwards;

it drove him to meditate upon the laws and secrets of his art. The

result was, that he arrived at a perception and a grasp of them

which might, perhaps, have been envied, certainly have been owned,

by an Athenian potter.” {18}

 

When he had completed his apprenticeship with his brother, Josiah

joined partnership with another workman, and carried on a small

business in making knife-hafts, boxes, and sundry articles for

domestic use. Another partnership followed, when he proceeded to

make melon table plates, green pickle leaves, candlesticks,

snuffboxes, and such like articles; but he made comparatively

little progress until he began business on his own account at

Burslem in the year 1759. There he diligently pursued his calling,

introducing new articles to the trade, and gradually extending his

business. What he chiefly aimed at was to manufacture cream-coloured ware of a better quality than was then produced in

Staffordshire as regarded shape, colour, glaze, and durability. To

understand the subject thoroughly, he devoted his leisure to the

study of chemistry; and he made numerous experiments on fluxes,

glazes, and various sorts of clay. Being a close inquirer and

accurate observer, he noticed that a certain earth containing

silica, which was black before calcination, became white after

exposure to the heat of a furnace. This fact, observed and

pondered on, led to the idea of mixing silica with the red powder

of the potteries, and to the discovery that the mixture becomes

white when calcined. He had but to cover this material with a

vitrification of transparent glaze, to obtain one of the most

important products of fictile art—that which, under the name of

English earthenware, was to attain the greatest commercial value

and become of the most extensive utility.

 

Wedgwood was for some time much troubled by his furnaces, though

nothing like to the same extent that Palissy was; and he overcame

his difficulties in the same way—by repeated experiments and

unfaltering perseverance. His first attempts at making porcelain

for table use was a succession of disastrous failures,—the labours

of months being often destroyed in a day. It was only after a long

series of trials, in the course of which he lost time, money, and

labour, that he arrived at the proper sort of glaze to be used; but

he would not be denied, and at last he conquered success through

patience. The improvement of pottery became his passion, and was

never lost sight of for a moment. Even when he had mastered his

difficulties, and become a prosperous man—manufacturing white

stone ware and cream-coloured ware in large quantities for home and

foreign use—he went forward perfecting his manufactures, until,

his example extending in all directions, the action of the entire

district was stimulated, and a great branch of British industry was

eventually established on firm foundations. He aimed throughout at

the highest excellence, declaring his determination “to give over

manufacturing any article, whatsoever it might be, rather than to

degrade it.”

 

Wedgwood was cordially helped by many persons of rank and

influence; for, working in the truest spirit, he readily commanded

the help and encouragement of other true workers. He made for

Queen Charlotte the first royal table-service of English

manufacture, of the kind afterwards called “Queen’s-ware,” and was

appointed Royal Potter; a title which he prized more than if he had

been made a baron. Valuable sets of porcelain were entrusted to

him for imitation, in which he succeeded to admiration. Sir

William Hamilton lent him specimens of ancient art from

Herculaneum, of which he produced accurate and beautiful copies.

The Duchess of Portland outbid him for the Barberini Vase when that

article was offered for sale. He bid as high as seventeen hundred

guineas for it: her grace secured it for eighteen hundred; but

when she learnt Wedgwood’s object she at once generously lent him

the vase to copy. He produced fifty copies at a cost of about

2500l., and his expenses were not covered by their sale; but he

gained his object, which was to show that whatever had been done,

that English skill and energy could and would accomplish.

 

Wedgwood called to his aid the crucible of the chemist, the

knowledge of the antiquary, and the skill of the artist. He found

out Flaxman when a youth, and while he liberally nurtured his

genius drew from him a large number of beautiful designs for his

pottery and porcelain; converting them by his manufacture into

objects of taste and excellence, and thus making them instrumental

in the diffusion of classical art amongst the people. By careful

experiment and study he was even enabled to rediscover the art of

painting on porcelain or earthenware vases and similar articles—an

art practised by the ancient Etruscans, but which had been lost

since the time of Pliny. He distinguished himself by his own

contributions to science, and his name is still identified with the

Pyrometer which he invented. He was an indefatigable supporter of

all measures of public utility; and the construction of the Trent

and Mersey Canal, which completed the navigable communication

between the eastern and western sides of the island, was mainly due

to his public-spirited exertions, allied to the engineering skill

of Brindley. The road accommodation of the district being of an

execrable character, he planned and executed a turnpike-road

through the Potteries, ten miles in length. The reputation he

achieved was such that his works at Burslem, and subsequently those

at Etruria, which he founded and built, became a point of

attraction to distinguished visitors from all parts of Europe.

 

The result of Wedgwood’s labours was, that the manufacture of

pottery, which he found in the very lowest condition, became one of

the staples of England; and instead of importing what we needed for

home use from abroad, we became large exporters to other countries,

supplying them with earthenware even in the face of enormous

prohibitory duties on articles of British produce. Wedgwood gave

evidence as to his manufactures before Parliament in 1785, only

some thirty years after he had begun his operations; from which it

appeared, that instead of providing only casual employment to a

small number of inefficient and badly remunerated workmen, about

20,000 persons then derived their bread directly from the

manufacture of earthenware, without taking into account the

increased numbers to which it gave employment in coalmines, and in

the carrying trade by land and sea, and the stimulus which it gave

to employment in many ways in various parts of the country. Yet,

important as had been the advances made in his time, Mr. Wedgwood

was of opinion that the manufacture was but in its infancy, and

that the improvements which he had effected were of but small

amount compared with those to which the art was capable of

attaining, through the continued industry and growing intelligence

of the manufacturers, and the natural facilities and political

advantages enjoyed by Great Britain; an opinion which has been

fully borne out by the progress which has since been effected in

this important branch of industry. In 1852 not fewer than

84,000,000 pieces of pottery were exported from England to other

countries, besides what were made for home use. But it is not

merely the quantity and value of the produce that is entitled to

consideration, but the improvement of the condition of the

population by whom this great branch of industry is conducted.

When Wedgwood began his labours, the Staffordshire district was

only in a half-civilized state. The people were poor,

uncultivated, and few in number. When Wedgwood’s manufacture was

firmly established, there was found ample employment at good wages

for three times the number of population; while their moral

advancement had kept pace with their material improvement.

 

Men such as these are fairly entitled to take rank as the

Industrial Heroes of the civilized world. Their patient self-reliance amidst trials and difficulties, their courage and

perseverance in the pursuit of worthy objects, are not less heroic

of their kind than the bravery and devotion of the soldier and the

sailor, whose duty and pride it is heroically to defend what these

valiant leaders of industry have