POTTERY.[11]

(_Concluded from page 326._)

_Wedgewood's Staffordshire Ware._

[11] By Mr. A. Aikiu, in Trans. Soc. Arts.


Lastly is the manufacture of those species of glazed pottery known by
the general name of Staffordshire ware. The date of this ware is about
sixty years ago, and it unquestionably originated with the late Mr.
Wedgewood. It not only originated with him, but was carried by his
knowledge, his skill, and his perseverance, to a degree of excellence
which, in several points, has never been surpassed, and in some has
never been equalled.

He perceived that the defects of the delft ware, at that time the only
species of pottery employed for common domestic purposes, were the
softness and looseness of texture of its body, which obliged the potter
to make it thick and clumsy and heavy, in order to ensure to it a
moderate durability; and that its porousness, as well as its dirty grey
colour, required a thick coating of white enamel, which added still
farther to its bulk and weight, and which, consisting for the most part
of lead and arsenic, was hardly safe for culinary use.

He began, therefore, by inventing a body for earthenware, which at the
same time should be white, and capable of enduring a very high degree of
heat without fusion, well knowing that the hardness of the ware depended