Josiah Wedgwood, the Wedgwood Pottery Company, and the Beginning of the Industrial Revolution in England

Wedgwood Anti-Slavery Cameo

A better introduction to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution than Adam Smith is the history of Josiah Wedgwood and the Wedgwood Pottery Company.

This is how one company actually ushered in the Industrial Revolution.

The revolutionary generation that first adopted steam engines saw the following trends and changes:

Manufacturing was being modernized by a small group of entrepreneurs. Much of the new raw material processing and manufacturing was concentrated in a small area in the middle of England, away from London. These modernizing entrepreneurs formed a new economic, intellectual and social network.

Modernizing entrepreneurs like Wedgwood tended to be members of Dissenting sects (like Quakers) or Nonconformist churches (not members of the Church of England), Whigs (liberals) in politics, and believers in “progress.” They were optimistic about the future, influenced by the ideas of Hume, Rousseau, Locke and Adam Smith. They believed their society could be reformed and they were active agents for improvement.

In 1787, Wedgwood produced a ceramic medallion to support the abolition of slavery. It had a chained African pleading, “Am I not a man and a brother?” This was in the country that became rich by dominating the African slave trade and raising Caribbean sugar with slaves working under brutal conditions. 

They believed in studying and understanding the material world through reason, data, experience, and experimentation. They had personal ties with scientists and intellectuals. 

Like Wedgwood, many came from poor backgrounds. Because of their backgrounds and dissenting religious beliefs, they could not attend Oxford or Cambridge. They were cut off from the traditional avenues of social advancement - government official, army officer, and the Church of England. 

The Industrial Revolution gave them opportunities for economic success denied them under the pre-industrial society. Entrepreneurs could develop these opportunities because of a long political struggle in England to establish the rule of law, individual rights, property rights, patents and limits on governmental power. It also helped that they were largely ignored by the king and the landowning aristocracy.

The Industrial Revolution was a radical break in history. But in England, many of the preconditions were already in place, as can be seen by the history of the Wedgwood company.  

Josiah Wedgwood came from a family of potters. He founded the famous Wedgwood pottery company in 1759. 

Wedgwood and many of his business associates and acquaintances were modernizing entrepreneurs. Wedgwood and others built large factories recruited and industrial labor force, and understood the division of labor. They were constantly looking to improve their businesses - better machines, larger and more efficient production, new and improved products, new materials and marketing.

A limiting factor was power to run the machinery. Waterwheels were inefficient, with not enough power to drive the larger, faster, heavier machinery. English rivers were flat, sluggish, and sometimes dry because of droughts. The solution - Watt’s steam engine, which was first manufactured in 1775.




James Watt invented a more efficient steam engine but it was Matthew Boulton, a friend and sometime business partner of Josiah Wedgwood, that partnered with Watt and built the factory that produced Watt's steam engine. Boulton heard about Watt's engine through a mutual acquaintance in his network of correspondents. Boulton, a successful manufacturer, established and ran a new company (Boulton and Watt) that dominate steam engine production and marketing for a generation. Watt concentrated on improving his steam engine and inventing related technology. Like many later industrial companies, Boulton and Watt was the combination of a businessman and an inventor/mechanic.

Innovation at Wedgwood was based on science and experimentation. Josiah Wedgwood carried out thousands of experiments in his lifetime analyzing all aspects of pottery manufacturing and decoration, and record the results in detailed notebooks. He read chemistry books and knew and corresponded with the foremost chemists of his day. He tried to reduce the traditional hit or miss methods of producing pottery to more scientific measurement and control. (This tradition of careful observation and scientific understanding of the natural world was passed on to Josiah Wedgwood’s grandson, Charles Darwin.)

Josiah Wedgwood used power-driven machinery and early assembly line techniques to mass-produce pottery. He was the first manufacturer to install a Watt steam engine.

Wedgwood was always on the lookout for new styles, better machinery (lathes and kilns) and new production methods. He believed in retaining employees and training them to become increasingly productive. To keep employees, he provided housing and retirement benefits. Wedgwood cooperated with other manufacturers he knew to introduce new materials and new processes into the production of pottery.




Wedgwood expanded sales and profits by selling in foreign markets. He provided a large amount of specially designed pottery to the English and Russian royal families. Wedgwood turned a luxury product for royalty and the very rich into a mass market product for the expanding upper middle class. In addition to European countries, Wedgwood made a special effort to sell to the American colonies. He designed different styles at different price points for different markets. Today we would call this market segmentation.  

His experiments with new materials and production methods led to the creation of new styles of pottery, which he believed were necessary to increase sales. Wedgwood changed styles every few years, backed by innovations in marketing such as showrooms and branding that were to become standard in the selling of consumer goods.

In summary, he exploited new production technology and combined it with scientific production control and management. His innovative design and selling strategies became standard for future consumer goods companies.

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See the related post, Adam Smith's Pin Factory.

See Guide to Posts for other related posts on the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in England and America.