. The Wedgwoods: being a life of Josiah Wedgwood; with notices of his works and their productions, memoirs of the Wedgwood and other families, and a history of the early potteries of Staffordshire. ns of Mr. S. C. Hall, Mr. Mayer, Mr. Marjori-banks, Mr. Eathbone, and others, as well as in differentmuseums, may be seen splendid examples of vases, &c., inthis beautiful material. Of the black ware or basaltes, an infinite variety ofgoods was in the course of a very few years a dense and compact body, hard enough to strike firewhen struck on steel, capable of receiving and retaining ah
. The Wedgwoods: being a life of Josiah Wedgwood; with notices of his works and their productions, memoirs of the Wedgwood and other families, and a history of the early potteries of Staffordshire. ns of Mr. S. C. Hall, Mr. Mayer, Mr. Marjori-banks, Mr. Eathbone, and others, as well as in differentmuseums, may be seen splendid examples of vases, &c., inthis beautiful material. Of the black ware or basaltes, an infinite variety ofgoods was in the course of a very few years a dense and compact body, hard enough to strike firewhen struck on steel, capable of receiving and retaining ahigh polish, untouched by acid or metal, bearing a muchmore intense heat than the stone itself, of the deepest andpurest colour, and yet having a sm*face as soft, delicate, andsmooth as an infants flesh, this material was capable ofbeing moulded and used in a variety of ways, and of pro-ducing works of the highest and most exquisite order. 190 THE WEDGWOODS. A group of examples of this black ware, wliicli I haveselected from the extensive collection of Mr. S. C. Hall, isgiven in the accompanying engraving; and later on I shallhave occasion to speak of other varieties of this truly admir-. able ware, and to again refer to Mr. Halls collection—acollection which is, unquestionably, one of the finest andmost valuable in existence. In 1766, the same year in which so many other im-portant events connected with Wedgwood took place, hedetermined upon the purchase of an estate, and the foundingof works of a commensurate character with the rapidlyincreasing extent of his commercial transactions. Foiled inhis attempt to purchase the pot-works, &c., at Burslem, andfully impressed with the importance of having his manufac-tory close to the caual in whose formation he had taken soprominent a part, he fixed his mind upon an estate in thetownship of Shelton, two miles distant from Burslem, whichhe considered to be the best adapted of any in the locality WEDGWOOD PURCHASES RIDGE HOUSE ESTATE.
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, bookidwedgwoodsbei, bookyear1865
