Wedgwood Tenth Anniversary Christmas Plate

Josiah Wedgwood (July 12, 1730 — January 3, 1795, born Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent) was an English potter, credited with the industrialization of the manufacture of pottery.

He was a member of the Darwin — Wedgwood family, most famously including his grandson, Charles Darwin.

Born the thirteenth and youngest child of Thomas Wedgwood III 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, T. Whieldon. There he began experimenting with a wide variety of pottery techniques, an experimentation that coincided with the burgeoning early industrial city of Manchester, which was nearby. Inspired, Wedgwood leased the Ivy Works in his home town of Burslem and set to work. Over the course of the next decade, his experimentation (and a considerable injection of capital from his marriage to a richly endowed distant cousin, Sarah Wedgwood) transformed the sleepy artisan works into the first true pottery factory.

Rare Wedgwood Tenth Anniversary Christmas Plate measures 9.50 inches Diameter. In good condition with no chips or cracks. Limited production and no longer made with the original box. Issued in 1978.

Antique Porcelain & Pottery