Mintons
Mintons was a major company in Staffordshire pottery, "Europe's leading ceramic factory during the Victorian era", an independent business from 1793 to 1968. It was a leader in ceramic design, working in a number of different ceramic bodies, decorative techniques, "a glorious pot-pourri of styles - Rococo shapes with Oriental motifs, Classical shapes with Medieval designs and Art Nouveau borders were among the many wonderful concoctions"; as well as pottery vessels and sculptures, the firm was a leading manufacturer of tiles and other architectural ceramics, producing work for both the Houses of Parliament and United States Capitol. The family continued to control the business until the mid-20th century. Mintons had the usual Staffordshire variety of company and trading names over the years, the products of all periods are referred to as either "Minton", as in "Minton china", or "Mintons", the mark used on many. Mintons Ltd was the company name from 1879 onwards; the firm began in 1793 when Thomas Minton founded his pottery factory in Stoke-upon-Trent, England as "Thomas Minton and Sons", producing earthenware.
He formed a partnership, Minton & Poulson, c.1796, with Joseph Poulson who made bone china from c.1798 in his new near-by china pottery. When Poulson died in 1808, Minton carried on alone, using Poulson's pottery for china until 1816, he built a new china pottery in 1824. No early earthenware is marked, a good deal of it was made for other potters. On the other hand, some early factory records survive in the Minton Archive, much more complete than those of most Staffordshire firms, the early porcelain is marked with pattern numbers, which can be tied to the surviving pattern-books. Early Mintons products were standard domestic tableware in blue transfer-printed or painted earthenware, including the ever-popular Willow pattern. Minton had trained as an engraver for transfer printing with Thomas Turner. From c 1798 production included bone china from his partner Joseph Poulson's near-by china pottery. China production ceased c. 1816 following Joseph Poulson's death in 1808, recommencing in a new pottery in 1824.
Minton was a prime mover, the main shareholder in the Hendra Company, formed in 1800 to exploit china clay and other minerals from Cornwall. Named after Hendra Common, St Dennis, the partners included Minton, Wedgwood, William Adams, the owners of New Hall porcelain; the company was profitable for many years, reducing the cost of materials to the owning potters, selling to other firms. Early Mintons porcelain was "decorated in the restrained Regency style", much of it just with edging patterns rather than painted scenes, thus keeping prices within the reach of a large section of the middle class. Early porcelain Minton's two sons and Herbert, were taken into partnership in 1817, but Thomas went in to the church and was ordained in 1825. Herbert had been working in the business since 1808, when he was 16 as a travelling salesman. On his death in 1836, Minton was succeeded by his son Herbert Minton, who took John Boyle as a partner to help him the same year, given the size of the business. Herbert developed new production techniques and took the business into new fields, notably including decorative encaustic tile making, through his association with leading architects and designers including Augustus Pugin and, it is said, Prince Albert.
Minton entered into partnership with Michael Hollins in 1845 and formed the tile making firm of Minton, Hollins & Company, at the forefront of a large newly developing market as suppliers of durable decorative finishes for walls and floors in churches, public buildings, grand palaces and simple domestic houses. The firm exhibited at trade exhibitions throughout the world and examples of its exhibition displays are held at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D. C. where the company gained many prestigious contracts including tiled flooring for the United States Capitol. The "encaustic" technique allowed clays of different colours to be used in the same tile, allowing far greater decorative possibilities. Great numbers of new churches and public buildings were given floors in the tiles, despite the protests of William Morris, many medieval church floors were "updated" with them. Hard white unglazed "statuary porcelain" called Parian ware due to its resemblance to Parian marble, was first introduced by Spode in the 1840s.
It was further developed by Minton who employed John Bell, Hiram Powers and other famous sculptors to produce figures for reproduction. Mintons had been making some figures in the more demanding medium of biscuit porcelain, reused some of these moulds in Parian. In the year ended 1842, the sales of the main company Minton & Co totalled £45K, divided as follows: Porcelain: gilt £13K and ungilt £8K Earthenware: enamelled £6K, printed £10K, "cream-colour" £4K, coloured bodies £2K Ironstone: 2KMuch of the transfer printing was done by outside specialists, "engraving done off the Works" cost £641, while "engraving done on the Works" cost £183. 1820 to 1850 In 1849 Minton engaged a young French ceramicist Léon Arnoux as art director who remained with the Minton Company until 1892. This and other enterprising appointments enabled the company to widen its product ranges, it was Arnoux who formulated the tin-glaze used for Minton’s rare tin-glazed Majolica together with the in-glaze metallic oxide enamels with which it was painted.
He developed the colored lead glazes and kiln technology for Minton’s successful lead-glazed Palissy ware also called ‘majolica’. This product transformed Minton’s profitability for the next thirty years
Charley's Aunt
Charley's Aunt is a farce in three acts written by Brandon Thomas. The story centres on Lord Fancourt Babberley, an undergraduate whose friends Jack and Charley persuade him to impersonate the latter's aunt; the complications of the plot include the arrival of the real aunt and the attempts of an elderly fortune hunter to woo the bogus aunt. The play concludes with three pairs of young lovers united, along with an older pair – Charley's real aunt and Jack's widowed father; the play was first performed at the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds in February 1892. It opened in London at the Royalty Theatre on 21 December 1892 and transferred to the larger Globe Theatre on 30 January 1893; the production broke the historic record for longest-running play worldwide, running for 1,466 performances. It was produced by the actor a friend of Thomas, who appeared as Babberley; the play was a success on Broadway in 1893, in Paris, where it had further long runs. It has been revived continually and adapted for films and musicals.
Jack Chesney and Charley Wykeham are undergraduates at Oxford University in love with Kitty Verdun and Amy Spettigue. Charley receives word that his aunt, Donna Lucia d'Alvadorez, a rich widow from Brazil whom he has never met, is coming to visit him; the boys invite Amy and Kitty to lunch to meet her intending to declare their love to the girls, who are being sent away to Scotland with Amy's uncle, Stephen Spettigue, Kitty's guardian. They seek out another Oxford undergraduate, Lord Fancourt Babberley, to distract Donna Lucia while they romance their girls. While they are out, Babbs breaks into Jack's room to steal all his champagne, but Jack and Charley intercept him and persuade him to stay for lunch. Babbs tells the boys about his own love, the daughter of an English officer called Delahay, whom he met in Monte Carlo, although he does not remember her name. Babbs uses Jack's room to try on his costume for an amateur play in which he is taking part. Amy and Kitty arrive to meet Jack and Charley, but Donna Lucia has not arrived yet, so the girls leave to go shopping until she shows up.
Annoyed, Jack orders Charley to go to the railway station to wait for Donna Lucia. Jack soon receives an unexpected visit from his father, Sir Francis Chesney, a retired colonel who served in India. Sir Francis reveals. Horrified, Jack suggests that Sir Francis should marry Donna Lucia, a widow and a millionaire, in order to clear the family debts. Sir Francis agrees to meet Donna Lucia before he makes a decision. Charley receives a telegram saying; the boys panic: the girls are coming, they won't stay without a chaperone. Babbs's costume happens to be that of an old lady. Jack and Charley introduce Babbs as Charley's aunt, his strange appearance and unchanged voice do not raise any suspicions. Babbs annoys the boys by accepting kisses from Kitty. Sir Francis soon enters to meet Donna Lucia, he takes one look at Babbs and tries to leave. Spettigue angered that Kitty and Amy are lunching with the boys without his permission; however the penniless Spettigue soon learns that Charley's aunt is Donna Lucia D'Alvadorez, the celebrated millionaire.
He decides to stay for lunch to attempt to woo "Donna Lucia". Outside Jack's rooms, in the grounds of St Olde's College, the boys are trying to get their girls alone so that they can confess their love. However, Babbs is in the way, charming the girls as Donna Lucia. Jack's father, Sir Francis, has decided to propose marriage to Donna Lucia, purely for money. Jack urgently corners orders him to let his father down gently. Babbs does so. Spettigue still wants to marry "Donna Lucia" for her money. Meanwhile, the real Donna Lucia, who turns out to be an attractive woman of middle age, arrives with her adopted niece, Miss Ela Delahay, an orphan; the money left to Ela by her father is enough to make her independent for life. Ela reveals that her father had won a lot of money at cards from Fancourt Babberley, for whom Ela still holds a great deal of affection. Donna Lucia recounts the story of a colonel named Frank who she once met more than twenty years ago, of whom she was fond. However, he was too shy to propose, he left for India before he could tell her how he felt.
Sir Francis enters, Donna Lucia recognizes him, the two rekindle their affection. However, before she can introduce herself, she discovers. To investigate, she introduces herself as a penniless widow. Jack and Charley make their declarations of love to their girls. However, they discover; the girls enlist Babbs to get the consent from the greedy Spettigue. Spettigue invites the entire party, including the real Donna Lucia and Ela, to his house, so that he can talk to "Donna Lucia" in private. Babbs, recognizing Ela as the girl he fell in love with in Monte Carlo, tries to escape, but he is caught by Spettigue. Babbs is upset by being in the same room as the girl he loves without being able to talk to her. Jack and Charley try to calm him down. Babbs spends time with the real Donna Lucia, Ela and Kitty, during which the real Donna Lucia embarrasses Babbs by showing how little he knows about Donna Lucia. Ela takes a liking to the fake Donna Lucia, who sounds like the man she loves, pours he
Worthing
Worthing is a large seaside town in England, district with borough status in West Sussex. It is situated at the foot of the South Downs, 10 miles west of Brighton, 18 miles east of the county town of Chichester. With an estimated population of 104,600 and an area of 12.5 square miles the borough is the second largest component of the Brighton/Worthing/Littlehampton conurbation, which makes it part of the 15th most populous urban area in the United Kingdom. Since 2010 northern parts of the borough, including the Worthing Downland Estate, have formed part of the South Downs National Park. In April 2019, the Art Deco Worthing Pier was dubbed the best in Britain; the area around Worthing has been populated for at least 6,000 years and contains Britain's greatest concentration of Stone Age flint mines, which are some of the earliest mines in Europe. Lying within the borough, the Iron Age hill fort of Cissbury Ring is one of Britain's largest. Worthing means " Worth/Worō's people", from the Old English personal name Worth/Worō, -ingas "people of".
For many centuries Worthing was a small mackerel fishing hamlet until in the late 18th century it developed into an elegant Georgian seaside resort and attracted the well-known and wealthy of the day. In the 19th and 20th centuries the area was one of Britain's chief market gardening centres. Modern Worthing has a large service industry in financial services, it has one of Britain's oldest cinemas Dome cinema. Writers Oscar Wilde and Harold Pinter worked in the town. Worthing means " Worth/Weorð/Worō's people", from the Old English personal name Worth, Weorð or Worō, -ingas; the name was first recorded as Weoroingas in Old English. Worthen was used as late as 1720; the modern name was first documented in 1297. Another village with a similar name near Emmen in Drenthe in the Northeastern part of the Netherlands is Weerdinge. Older local people sometimes claim that the name of Worthing is derived from a natural annual phenomenon. Seaweed beds off nearby Bognor Regis are ripped up by summer storms and prevailing Atlantic currents deposit it on the beach.
A rich source of nitrates, it makes good fertiliser. The decaying weed was sought by farmers from the surrounding area, thus the town would have become known as Wort -inge. From around 4000BC, the South Downs above Worthing was Britain's earliest and largest flint-mining area. With four of the UK's 14 known flint mines lying within 7 miles of the centre of Worthing. An excavation at Little High Street dates the earliest remains from Worthing town centre to the Bronze Age. There is an important Bronze Age hill fort on the western fringes of the modern borough at Highdown Hill. During the Iron Age, one of Britain's largest hill forts was built at Cissbury Ring; the area was part of the civitas of the Regni during the Romano-British period. Several of the borough's roads date from this era and lie in a grid layout known as'centuriation'. A Romano-British farmstead once stood at a site close to the town hall. In the 5th and 6th centuries, the area became part of the kingdom of Sussex; the place names of the area, including the name Worthing itself, date from this period.
Worthing remained an agricultural and fishing hamlet for centuries until the arrival of wealthy visitors in the 1750s. Princess Amelia stayed in the town in 1798 and the fashionable and wealthy continued to stay in Worthing, which became a town in 1803; the town expanded and elegant developments such as Park Crescent and Liverpool Terrace were begun. The area was a stronghold of smugglers in the 19th century and was the site of rioting by the Skeleton Army in the 1880s. Oscar Wilde holidayed in the town in 1893 and 1894, writing the Importance of Being Earnest during his second visit; the town was home to several literary figures in the 20th century, including Nobel prize-winner Harold Pinter. During the Second World War, Worthing was home to several allied military divisions in preparation for the D-Day landings. Worthing became the world's 229th Transition Town in October 2009. Transition Town Worthing, the project exploring the town's transition to life after oil, was established by local residents as a way of planning the town's Energy Descent Action Plan.
Worthing was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1890, when the towns absorbed the neighbouring civil parish of Heene. Subsequent enlargements took place in 1902, 1929 and 1933 before being reincorporated as a borough in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. Since its inception as a borough, the authority has granted freedom of the town to some 18 individuals; the borough's coat of arms includes three silver mackerel, a Horn of Plenty overflowing with corn and fruit on a cloth of gold, the figure of a woman, considered to be Hygieia, the ancient Greek goddess of health, holding a snake. The images represent the health given from the seas, the fullness and riches gained from the earth and the power of healing. Worthing's motto is the Latin Ex terra copiam e mari salutem, which translates as'From the land plenty and from the sea health'. On 31 March 1930 Charles Bentinck Budd was elected to the Offington ward of the West Sussex County Council; that year, who lived at Greenville, Grove Road, was elected to the town council as the independent representative of Ham Ward in Broadwater.
At an election meeting on 16 October 1933, Budd revealed he was now
Hanley, Staffordshire
Hanley, in Staffordshire, England, is a constituent town of Stoke-on-Trent. Hanley was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1857 and became a county borough with the passage of the Local Government Act 1888. In 1910, along with Burslem, Fenton and Stoke-upon-Trent it was federated into the county borough of Stoke-on-Trent. Hanley was the only one of the six towns to be a county borough before the merger. In 1925, following the granting of city status, it became one of the six towns that constitute the City of Stoke-on-Trent. Hanley is the de facto city centre having long been the commercial hub of the city of Stoke-on-Trent, it is home to many high street chain stores. The name Hanley comes from either "haer lea", meaning "high meadow”, or "heah lea" meaning "rock meadow". At one time, there were many coal mines in North Staffordshire. Hanley Deep Pit was opened in 1854, it was the deepest pit in the North Staffordshire coalfield, reaching a depth of 1500 feet. At its peak in the 1930s it employed some 2000 men and boys producing 9000 tons of coal a week.
The pit was closed in 1962 but much of the headgear and spoilheaps were left in situ. In the 1980s, the original site was cleared and converted into Hanley Forest Park. Coal miners in the Hanley and Longton area ignited the 1842 General Strike and associated Pottery Riots; the College Road drill hall was completed in 1903. The 1986 Stoke-on-Trent Garden Festival led to the reclamation of large areas of land west of the city centre area – including the former Shelton steelworks, derelict since 1978; when the Garden Festival closed, the land remained derelict for some time, before being re-developed into public parkland and for retail and leisure. In 2013, a brand new and modern bus station opened in Hanley; this replaced the former bus station, on Lichfield Street. The new bus station is the first stage in the regeneration project which will see the previous bus station demolished, replaced with a new centre consisting of shops, restaurants and a cinema; the new bus station is smaller than its predecessor, has seen various routes in and out of the city changed to accommodate the location of the new bus station.
The bus station features a sheltered waiting area, Spar shop and toilets, is covered by CCTV, has digital timetables showing information on travel times for the day, as well as Now/Next above the entrance to each bay. Access to the station is controlled by automatic doors, at both the pedestrian entrance and coach bays; the new bus station links Hanley with towns in North Staffordshire, as well as Buxton and Stafford. Most services are run by First Potteries, though there are a number of smaller independent operators, such as Wardle Transport, D&G Bus, Arriva Midlands. In addition, National Express Coaches connect Hanley with destinations including London, Birmingham and Manchester, with additional seasonal services to holiday destinations; as part of the redevelopment of the town and wider city, a new bus interchange will be built on John Street, allowing the current station to be demolished to make room for further redevelopment of the town. Hanley no longer has a railway station but there was once one located on Trinity Street, on the Potteries Loop Line, opened by the North Staffordshire Railway for passengers on 13 July 1864.
The station survived for 100 years – it was closed in 1964, as part of the Beeching Axe, the land is now a car park. Hanley is connected to the waterways network. Hanley offers several cultural facilities such as the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, the Victoria Hall, the Regent Theatre, BBC Radio Stoke's Open Centre and studios, while Piccadilly hosts the annual Sanity Fair and French Market events. Hanley is the location of Stoke Pride, an annual pride event for LGBT people of the city. Christian Churches and Chapels in Hanley include: Bethel Evangelical Free Church, Bethesda Town Mission, Congregational Independent Tabernacle Church, Elim Church, Etruria Wesleyan Chapel, Holy Trinity C of E, Providence Methodist Church, St. John's C of E, St. Luke's C of E, St. Mark's C of E, St. Matthew's C of E, Sacred Heart RC, Trinity Methodist, St Simon and St Jude. "HANLEY a large modern town and chapelry, in the parish of Stoke, is about two miles east by north of Newcastle, ranks next to Burslem in size and opulence.
The town is in an elevated situation, the streets forming which are irregular, but many of the houses are well built. The chapelry contained, in 1821, 5,622 inhabitants." 1828 journal "Hanley, the most populous town in North Staffordshire, is described as the capital of the Potteries, a title to which it has the greatest pretensions. At the census of 1891, the population of the municipal borough reached the total of 54,846. 1893 journal More on Hanley in trade journals Henry Heath was a Latter-day Saint pioneer, explor
Lancashire
Lancashire is a ceremonial county in North West England. The administrative centre is Preston; the county has an area of 1,189 square miles. People from Lancashire are known as Lancastrians; the history of Lancashire begins with its founding in the 12th century. In the Domesday Book of 1086, some of its lands were treated as part of Yorkshire; the land that lay between the Ribble and Mersey, Inter Ripam et Mersam, was included in the returns for Cheshire. When its boundaries were established, it bordered Cumberland, Westmorland and Cheshire. Lancashire emerged as a major industrial region during the Industrial Revolution. Liverpool and Manchester grew into its largest cities, with economies built around the docks and the cotton mills respectively; these cities dominated the birth of modern industrial capitalism. The county contained the collieries of the Lancashire Coalfield. By the 1830s 85% of all cotton manufactured worldwide was processed in Lancashire. Accrington, Bolton, Bury, Colne, Manchester, Oldham, Preston and Wigan were major cotton mill towns during this time.
Blackpool was a centre for tourism for the inhabitants of Lancashire's mill towns during wakes week. The historic county was subject to a significant boundary reform in 1974 which created the current ceremonial county and removed Liverpool and Manchester, most of their surrounding conurbations to form the metropolitan and ceremonial counties of Merseyside and Greater Manchester; the detached northern part of Lancashire in the Lake District, including the Furness Peninsula and Cartmel, was merged with Cumberland and Westmorland to form Cumbria. Lancashire lost 709 square miles of land to other counties, about two fifths of its original area, although it did gain some land from the West Riding of Yorkshire. Today the ceremonial county borders Cumbria to the north, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, North and West Yorkshire to the east; the county palatine boundaries remain the same as those of the pre-1974 county with Lancaster serving as the county town, the Duke of Lancaster exercising sovereignty rights, including the appointment of lords lieutenant in Greater Manchester and Merseyside..
The county was established in 1182 than many other counties. During Roman times the area was part of the Brigantes tribal area in the military zone of Roman Britain; the towns of Manchester, Ribchester, Burrow and Castleshaw grew around Roman forts. In the centuries after the Roman withdrawal in 410AD the northern parts of the county formed part of the Brythonic kingdom of Rheged, a successor entity to the Brigantes tribe. During the mid-8th century, the area was incorporated into the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria, which became a part of England in the 10th century. In the Domesday Book, land between the Ribble and Mersey were known as "Inter Ripam et Mersam" and included in the returns for Cheshire. Although some historians consider this to mean south Lancashire was part of Cheshire, it is by no means certain, it is claimed that the territory to the north formed part of the West Riding of Yorkshire. It bordered on Cumberland, Westmorland and Cheshire; the county was divided into hundreds, Blackburn, Lonsdale and West Derby.
Lonsdale was further partitioned into Lonsdale North, the detached part north of the sands of Morecambe Bay including Furness and Cartmel, Lonsdale South. Lancashire is smaller than its historical extent following a major reform of local government. In 1889, the administrative county of Lancashire was created, covering the historic county except for the county boroughs such as Blackburn, Barrow-in-Furness, Wigan and Manchester; the area served by the Lord-Lieutenant covered the entirety of the administrative county and the county boroughs, was expanded whenever boroughs annexed areas in neighbouring counties such as Wythenshawe in Manchester south of the River Mersey and in Cheshire, southern Warrington. It did not cover the western part of Todmorden, where the ancient border between Lancashire and Yorkshire passes through the middle of the town. During the 20th century, the county became urbanised the southern part. To the existing county boroughs of Barrow-in-Furness, Bolton, Burnley, Liverpool, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, St. Helens and Wigan were added Warrington and Southport.
The county boroughs had many boundary extensions. The borders around the Manchester area were complicated, with narrow protrusions of the administrative county between the county boroughs – Lees urban district formed a detached part of the administrative county, between Oldham county borough and the West Riding of Yorkshire. By the census of 1971, the population of Lancashire and its county boroughs had reached 5,129,416, making it the most populous geographic county in the UK; the administrative county was the most populous of its type outside London, with a population of 2,280,359 in 1961. On 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, the administrative county was abolished, as were the county boroughs; the urbanised southern part became part of two metropolitan counties and Greater Manchester. The new county of Cumbria incorporates the Furness exclave; the boroughs of Liverpool, Knowsley, St. Helens and Sefton were included in Merseyside. In Greater Manchester the successor boroughs were
Wedgwood
Josiah Wedgwood and Sons known as Wedgwood, is a fine china and luxury accessories company founded on 1 May 1759 by English potter and entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood. In 1987, Wedgwood merged with Waterford Crystal to create Waterford Wedgwood, an Ireland-based luxury brands group; the main assets of Waterford Wedgwood were purchased in 2009 by KPS Capital Partners, a New York-based private equity firm, the group became known as WWRD Holdings Limited, an abbreviation for "Waterford Wedgwood Royal Doulton". In July 2015, it was acquired by a Finnish consumer goods company. At the outset, Josiah Wedgwood worked with the established potter Thomas Whieldon until 1759, when relatives leased him the Ivy House in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, which allowed him to start his own pottery business, his marriage to Sarah Wedgwood, a distant cousin with a sizable dowry, helped him launch his new venture. In 1765, Wedgwood created a new form of creamware, a fine glazed earthenware, which impressed the British Queen consort Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who gave official permission to call it "Queen's Ware".
This new form sold well across Europe. In 1766, Wedgwood bought a large Staffordshire estate, as both a home and factory site. Wedgwood developed a number of further industrial innovations for his company, notably a way of measuring kiln temperatures and new ceramic bodies including Black Basalt and Jasperware, both unglazed stonewares. Wedgwood's best known product is Jasperware, created to look like ancient cameo glass, it was inspired by the Portland Vase, a Roman vessel, now a museum piece. The first jasperware colour was Portland Blue, an innovation that required experiments with more than 3,000 samples. In recognition of the importance of his pyrometric beads, Josiah Wedgwood was elected a member of the Royal Society in 1783; the Wedgwood Prestige collection sold replicas of the original designs, as well as modern neo-classical style jasperware. The main Wedgwood motifs in jasperware – as well as in other wares like basaltware, caneware, etc. – were decorative designs that were influenced by the ancient cultures being studied and rediscovered at that time as Great Britain was expanding its empire.
Many motifs were taken from ancient mythologies: Roman and Egyptian. Meanwhile, archaeological fever caught the imagination of many artists. Nothing could have been more suitable to satisfy this huge business demand than to produce replicas of ancient artefacts. Many representations of royalty and statesmen in silhouette were created, as well as political symbols; these were set in jewellery, as well as in architectural features like fireplace mantels and furniture. Wedgwood has honoured American individuals and corporations as well and recently. In 1774 he employed the 19-year-old John Flaxman as an artist, who would work for the next 12 years for Wedgwood; the "Dancing Hours" may be his most well known design. Other artists known to have worked for Wedgwood include among others Lady Elizabeth Templetown, George Stubbs, Emma Crewe and Lady Diana Beauclerk. Wedgwood had increasing success with hard paste porcelain which attempted to imitate the whiteness of tea-ware imported from China, an popular product amongst high society.
High transport costs and the demanding journey from the Far East meant that the supply of chinaware could not keep up with high demand. Towards the end of the 18th century other Staffordshire manufacturers introduced bone china as an alternative to translucent and delicate Chinese porcelain. In 1812 Wedgwood produced their own bone china which, though not a commercial success at first became an important part of an profitable business. Josiah Wedgwood was a patriarch of the Darwin–Wedgwood family. Many of his descendants were involved in the management of the company down to the time of the merger with the Waterford Company: John Wedgwood, eldest son of Josiah I, was a partner in the firm from 1790 to 1793 and again from 1800 to 1812. Josiah Wedgwood II, second son of Josiah I, succeeded his father as proprietor in 1795 and introduced the production by the Wedgwood company of bone china. In 1815, during Josiah II's time as proprietor, the great English Romantic poet William Blake spent time engraving for Wedgwood's china catalogues.
Josiah Wedgwood III, son of Josiah II, was a partner in the firm from 1825 until he retired in 1842. Francis Wedgwood, son of Josiah II, was a partner in the firm from 1827 and sole proprietor following his father's death until joined by his own sons. Financial difficulties caused him to offer for sale soon after taking over the firm its factory at Etruria and the family home Etruria Hall, but only the hall was sold, he continued as senior partner until his retirement to Barlaston Hall in 1876. Godfrey Wedgwood, son of Francis Wedgwood, was a partner in the firm from 1859 to 1891, he and his brothers were responsible for the reintroduction of bone china c.1876 and the employment of the artists Thomas Allen and Emile Lessore. Clement Wedgwood, son of Francis Wedgwood, was a partner. Laurence Wedgwood, son of Francis Wedgwood, was a partner. Major Cecil Wedgwood DSO, son of Godfrey Wedgwood, partner from 1884, first Mayor of the federated County Borough of Stoke-on-Trent, was chairman and managing director of Wedgwood until his death in battle in 1916.
Kennard Laurence Wedgwood, son of Laurence Wedgwood, was a partner. In 1906 he went to the United States and set up the firm's New York office, which became Josiah Wedgwood and Sons USA, an incorporated subsidiary, in 1919. Francis Ham
Francis Leggatt Chantrey
Sir Francis Legatt Chantrey was an English sculptor. He became the leading portrait sculptor in Regency era Britain, producing busts and statues of many notable figures of the time, he left the Chantrey Bequest for the purchase of works of art for the nation, available from 1878 after the death of his widow. Chantrey was born at Jordanthorpe near Norton, his father, who dabbled in carpentry and wood-carving, died when Francis was twelve. At fifteen, he was working for a grocer in Sheffield, having seen some wood-carving in a shop-window, he asked to be apprenticed as a carver instead, was placed with a woodcarver and gilder called Ramsay in Sheffield. At Ramsay's house he met the draughtsman and engraver John Raphael Smith who recognised his artistic potential and gave him lessons in painting, was to help advance his career by introducing him to potential patrons. In 1802 Chantrey paid £50 to buy himself out of his apprenticeship with Ramsay and set up a studio as a portrait artist in Sheffield, which allowed him a reasonable income.
For several years he divided his time between Sheffield and London, studying intermittently at the Royal Academy Schools. In the summer of 1802 he travelled to Dublin, where he fell ill, losing all his hair, he exhibited pictures at the Royal Academy for a few years from 1804, but from 1807 onwards devoted himself to sculpture. Asked in life, as a witness in a court case, whether he had worked for any other sculptors, he replied: "No, what is more, I never had an hour's instruction from any sculptor in my life", his first recorded marble bust was one of the Rev. James Wilkinson, for Sheffield parish church, his first imaginative sculpture, a head of Satan was shown at the Royal Academy in 1808. In 1809 the architect Daniel Asher Alexander commissioned him to make four monumental plaster busts of the admirals Duncan, Howe and Nelson for the Royal Naval Asylum at Greenwich, for which he received £10 each. Three of them were shown at the Royal Academy that year. On 23 November 1809 he married Mary Ann Wale at St Mary's Church, Twickenham.
By this time he was settled permanently in London, His wife brought £10,000 into the marriage, which allowed Chantrey to pay off his debts, for the couple to move into a house at 13 Eccleston Street, Pimlico. He bought land to build two more houses, a studio and offices. In 1811 he showed six busts in the Royal Academy; the subjects included Horne Tooke and Sir Francis Burdett, two political figures he admired. Joseph Nollekens placed the bust of Tooke between two of his own, the prominence given to it is said to have had a significant influence on Chantrey's career. In the wake of the exhibition he received commissions amounting to £2,000. In 1813 he was able to raise his price for a bust to a hundred and fifty guineas, in 1822 to two hundred, he visited Paris in 1814, again in 1815, this time with his wife, Thomas Stothard, D. A. Alexander, visiting the Louvre where he admired the works of Raphael and Titian. In 1819 he went to Italy, accompanied by the painter John Jackson, an old friend named Read.
In Rome he met Thorvaldsen and Canova, getting to know the latter well. In 1828 Chantrey set up his own foundry in Eccleston Place, not far from his house and studio, where large-scale works in bronze, including equestrian statues, could be cast. Chantrey developed a procedure of making a portrait sculpture in which he would begin by making two life-sized drawings of his sitter's head, one full-face and one in profile, with the aid of a camera lucida, his assistants would make a clay model based on the drawings, to which Chantry would add the finishing touches in front of the sitter. A plaster cast would be made of the clay model, a marble replica made of that. Allan Cunningham and Henry Weekes were his chief assistants, made of many of the works produced under Chantrey's name; the debilitating effects of heart disease made him more reliant on assistants in the last few years of his life. Chantrey was rare among the leading sculptors of his time in not having visited Italy at a formative stage in his career.
A writer in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine in 1820 saw him as liberating English sculpture from foreign influence:Those who wish to trace the return of English sculpture from the foreign artificial and allegorical style, to its natural and original character—from cold and conceited fiction to tender and elevated truth, will find it chiefly in the history of Francis Chantrey and his productions. More Margaret Whinney wrote that Chantrey "had a great gift for characterisation, his ability to render the softness of flesh was much admired" and that "though compelled by the fashion of the day to produce, on occasions, classicizing works, his robust common sense and his enormous talent is better displayed in works which combine an classical simplicity of form with naturalism in presentation". Chantrey was a prolific sculptor. According to an article published in 1842, he produced, besides his busts and reliefs, three equestrian statues, 18 standing ones, 18 seated ones and 14 recumbent figures.
His most notable works include the statues of George III in The Guildhall, London.
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