It took four years of research for Josiah Wedgwood to come up with the formula for jasper ware and even then it didn’t always work.

This blistered pot is one of his failed attempts to copy the Portland Vase, a famous piece of Roman glassware now in the British Museum. In the end, or course, he succeeded.

His copies were so perfect that when the original was damaged, they could be used as a model for the restoration.

The Wedgwood museum still had all his research samples as he tried different chemical compositions and firings to get the perfect stoneware, colored all the way through in blue or black or green.

On the factory tour we saw jasper ware being made today in the same way that Wedgwood invented two hundred and fifty years ago.

But that was not the only ceramics made by Wedgwood. Here are some of the various things they have made over the years.

These were the very first pots made at the Wedgwood factory in Etruria, turned by Josiah himself.

They are valued at half a million pounds each.

Wedgwood had a family portrait painted by Stubbs, who far preferred to paint horses. You can imagine the conversation.

WEDGWOOD: Mister Stubbs, I would like you to paint a portrait of my family.
STUBBS: Perhaps a fox hunting scene, then Mister Wedgwood?
WEDGWOOD: No, we don’t hunt, I just want a picture of my family.
STUBBS: All of you mounted of course?
WEDGWOOD: No, perhaps gathered in front of our home. As you may have noticed, sir, I have a wooden leg and find it impossible to mount a horse.
STUBBS: But the children at least must be on horseback, surely?
WEDGWOOD: Half of them are too young to ride.
STUBBS: Just the older ones on horseback then. I’ll be round at ten o’clock on Monday. Good day, sir. [Exits persued by man with wooden leg]
WEDGWOOD: But…

As you can see, Stubbs was right to include the horses, as he was not as good at people.

Incidentally, the girl on horseback grew up to be Charles Darwin’s mother.

Wedgwood was one of the pioneers of mass production, breaking complex tasks down to simple parts and assigning each task to a group of specialists. No single person produces a piece of jasper ware. We saw one group of workers tamping the white decorations into moulds to shape them, and another set applying them by hand to the outside of unfinished pots. This did have its drawbacks, though. In the 19th century the one person who knew the formula for making jasper ware clay died, and it took the company fifteen years to reproduce Josiah Wedgwood’s original work to make it again.

Wedgwood was concerned about his workers, building housing and a school, to which he also sent his own children. He was a strongly opposed to slavery, and produced anti-slavery cameos for abolitionists to wear at his own expense.

As I mentioned, we also went on a tour of the factory, but they don’t allow photos there. There was also a hands on pottery making option. Paula signed up for that.

Josiah would be proud of her.