WEDGE-PRESS. [OireMnri.] WEDGWOOD, JOSIAH will ever be asso ciated with the history of the porcelain and pottery manufacture in this country. He was born in 1730 at Bnrslem, in Staffordshire, where his father, Thomas Wedgwood, and some other members of his family, were en gaged in the manufacture of pottery, a branch of industry then in a very imperfect state. His education was very limited; and at the age of eleven years Josiah worked in his elder brother's pottery. The small-pox, which left an incurable lameness in his right leg, so as afterwards to require amputation, compelled him to relinquish the potter's wheel. After a time he left Burslem, and entered into part nership with a person named Harrison, at Stoke ; and during this partnership his talent for the production of ornamental pottery is said to have first developed itself. He re turned to Burslem in 1759, and set up for himself. His business being prosperous, he took a second manufactory, where he made white stone-ware, and a third, at which was produced the improved cream-coloured ware by which he gained so much celebrity. Wedg wood presented some articles to Queen Charlotte, who ordered a complete table I service, and appointed him her potter. He soon afterwards opened a warehouse in the metropolis for the sale of his productions. One of his principal works was his imitation of the Portland Vase, of which lie made fifty copies. But though these were sold for fifty
guineas each, that sum did not, it is said, repay him for his expenditure. He succeeded in producing the most delicate cameos, me dallions, and miniature pieces of sculpture, in a substance so extremely hard, that they appear likely to exceed even the bronzes of antiquity in durability. Another important discovery made by him was that of painting on vases and similar articles, without the glossy appearance of ordinary painting on porcelain or earthenware; an art which appears to have been lost since the time of Pliny. The fame of his operations was such that his works at Burslem, and subsequently at Etruria, a village erected by him near Newcastle-under Lyne, and to which he entirely removed in 1771, became a point of attraction to numerous visitors from all parts of Europe. The result of Wedgwood's talent and energy not only obtained for him extensive patronage and an ample fortune, but were of the highest import ance to the commercial interests of his country.
In addition to the attention bestowed by Wedgwood upon this manufacture, he deserves remembrance for the public spirit displayed by him in the encouragement of various useful schemes. Among these the Trent and Mersey Canal is conspicuous. Wedgwood's pyrometer is noticed elsewhere. [PyrtomETER.] He died at Etruria in 1795.