Josiah Wedgwood (12 July 1730 – 3 January 1795) was an English potter, credited with the industrialization of the manufacture of pottery. A prominent abolitionist, Wedgwood is remembered for his "Am I Not A Man And A Brother?" anti-slavery medallion. He was a member of the Darwin-Wedgwood family. Charles Darwin was his grandson.
Born in Burslem, Staffordshire, England, the twelfth and last child of Thomas Wedgwood and Mary Wedgwood (née Stringer;...
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Josiah Wedgwood (12 July 1730 – 3 January 1795) was an English potter, credited with the industrialization of the manufacture of pottery. A prominent abolitionist, Wedgwood is remembered for his "Am I Not A Man And A Brother?" anti-slavery medallion. He was a member of the Darwin-Wedgwood family. Charles Darwin was his grandson.
Born in Burslem, Staffordshire, England, the twelfth and last child of Thomas Wedgwood and Mary Wedgwood (née Stringer; d. 1766), Josiah was raised within a family of English Dissenters. He survived a childhood bout of smallpox to serve as an apprentice potter under his eldest brother Thomas Wedgwood IV. Smallpox left Josiah with a permanently weakened knee, which made him unable to work the foot pedal of a potter's wheel. As a result, he concentrated from an early age on designing pottery rather than making it.
In his early twenties, Wedgwood began working with the most renowned English pottery-maker of his day, Thomas Whieldon. He began experimenting with a...
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