Am I Not A Man And A Brother?: The fate of the Wedgwood Museum
Yesterday I received an email regarding the seemingly unavoidable fate of The Wedgwood Museum. Because of pension legislation, the Wedgwood collection faces dispersal. This is a tragedy for anyone passionate about the decorative arts, artisan communities and entrepreneurship of the 18th century.China and pottery are not fashionable these days; the time for tea and decorative plates and urns has gone, but this isn't about pottery: it's about a man who came to play a prominent role in the artistic and economic sensibilities of the late 18th century. Josiah Wedgwood was born in 1730 to a family of dissenters, and brought up to go into the family pottery trade. However, a bout with smallpox left him with a weakened leg (which would eventually need amputating), and he concentrated on the design of new pieces, rather than manufacture. He married his rich (distant) cousin and leased works in his home town of Burselm. He experimented continually, producing pieces reflecting world archaelogical discoveries (Wedgwood's Black Basalt, modelled on Etruscan pottery finds and later, his Portland Vase) and also on the naturalistic and rococo fashions of the time. Wedgwood benefitted hugely from being present at the beginning of the craze for 'decorative' interiors, where pieces were made to order and dictated to by fashion. Aside from his commercial success, Wedgwood was a pioneer for social reform in the workplace and thinker who, along with Erasmus Darwin and Matthew Boulton created 'works' based upon humanitarian models. His Etruria Works, established in 1769 would run for 180 years. In order to gauge the fashion and hear of the new finds on the Continent, both Wedgwood and Boulton spent a great deal of time in London. They would see the new finds and then make copies of them: Wedgwood in ceramic, Boulton in silver or silver-plate. After a number of years of speculative production, Josiah would look back on his success and reflect, in 1774:
‘I have often wish'd I had saved a single specimen of all the new articles I have made, & would now give twenty times the original value for such a collection. For ten years past I have omitted doing this, because I did not begin it ten years sooner. I am now, from thinking, and talking a little more upon this subject ... resolv'd to make a beginning.'
Thus the beginnings of the Wedgwood Museum were formed. Wedgwood, Boulton and Darwin (Josiah's daughter would marry Eramus's son, and Charles was Josiah's grandson) would go on to be immortalized as 'The Lunar Men', members of the Lunar Society which promoted intellectual progress and Enlightened thinking in the Midlands during the latter part of the 18th century. Wedgwood strongly supported the Abolitionist cause and worked hard at it during the latter part of his life. The Am I Not A Man And A Brother? jasperware cameos were his most famous testimony to his beliefs, and became a fashion item for pro-Abolistionists with women wearing them in bracelets and as hair ornaments, and the men as medals. Josiah Wedgwood died, probably of a facial tumour, in 1795 after a very productive life. Should the collection of the Wedgwood Museum be dispersed it would be a significant and sad loss to Britain's 18th century museum holdings. Should this happen, it will be sad that a man who was one of the first large-scale industrialists to care for his workers will lose his legacy to a well-meaning but apparently ineffectual piece of legislation designed to protect the pension funds of modern day Wedgwood staff. You can read more about The Wedgwood Museum, including the recent multi-million pound makeover and also about its current sad plight. For more on Wedgwood and late 18th century trade links, particularly between London and the Midlands, I can only recommend Jenny Uglow's dense but highly informative book, The Lunar Men.
UPDATE: @SaveWedgwood are now on Twitter, and there is a site dedicated to raising awareness of the Museum's situation at http://www.savewedgwood.org
