Person    | Male  Born 1730  Died 3/1/1795

Josiah Wedgwood

Master potter. Born in Burslem, Stoke, Staffordshire, into a potters family. Married his cousin, Sally. Childhood smallpox left him with a limp. His inability to operate the potters wheel meant he turned to design and management instead.  It is said he often used his stick to smash items that he felt were not good enough. Contacted the Cherokees Indians to find a source of the whitest possible clay. His London showrooms became a fashionable place to visit. Flaxman, Stubbs and Lady Diana Beauclerk all provided designs for him. Promoter of social reform and active in the fight against the slave trade. Wedgwood is nowadays compared with Henry Ford for his innovative introduction of methods of mass production.

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This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Josiah Wedgwood

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Josiah Wedgwood

Charming plaque, in the Wedgwood blue pottery style.

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Spirit of Soho Mural

Interesting that Coca Cola are specifically mentioned on the panel but not as...

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Other Subjects

Worshipful Company of Founders

Worshipful Company of Founders

Founders were workers in brass and brass alloys or tinplate. They made small objects such as candlesticks and weights and measures. From their website (link now dead): "Today ... the Founders' Com...

Group, Craft / Design, Liveries & Guilds

3 memorials
Huntington Shaw

Huntington Shaw

wrought iron craftsman. Born Nottingham. Died Hampton Court.

Person, Craft / Design

1 memorial
William Caxton

William Caxton

Probably born Tenterden, Kent. Printer, in 1474, producing the first book printed in English "The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye". Died Westminster.

Person, Craft / Design, Journalism / Publishing

3 memorials
Tallow Chandlers Company

Tallow Chandlers Company

Tallow chandlers make candles and other products from animal fat.  the Company originated as a religious fraternity.  1456 granted a coat of arms.  1462 became a Livery Company. 

Group, Craft / Design, Liveries & Guilds

2 memorials
Essex House - E3

Essex House - E3

In 1891 C. R. Ashbee moved the workshops of the Guild of Handicraft from 34 Commercial Street to Essex House, at 401 Mile End Road, an early eighteenth-century mansion. The guild prospered at Essex...

Building, Craft / Design, Property

1 memorial

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Henry Fielding

Henry Fielding

Novelist, playwright. Born Somerset. Half-brother to Sir John Fielding. Lived in Bow Street and Essex Street. Play: The Miser. Novels: Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones. As magistrate he carried out a numb...

Person, Law, Literature, Theatre, Portugal

2 memorials
Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope

Poet. Born Lombard Street.  A childhood illness left him only 4 and a half feet tall, hunchbacked, crippled and with chronic pain.  Best known for his satirical poems. Also a wit: "And all who told...

Person, Poetry

5 memorials
William Hogarth

William Hogarth

Satirical artist and illustrator. Trained as an engraver, he depicted the unseemly behaviour of contemporaries in works like 'The Beggar's Opera' (1728) and 'A Rake's Progress' (1732). Much of his ...

Person, Art, Seriously Famous

12 memorials
Horatio ('Horace') Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford

Horatio ('Horace') Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford

Writer and collector. Youngest son of Sir Robert Walpole. His gothic novel "The Castle of Otranto"' was published in 1764. But his passion was his gothic creation, his house at Strawberry Hill,...

Person, Literature, Politics & Administration

5 memorials