Image: Guardian
During a few days spent visiting my family, I finally (it’s somewhere i’ve been meaning to visit for years) paid a visit to the Wedgwood Museum in Stoke-On-Trent.
Today, Stoke is an area that faces significant challenges in the form of serious deprivation (50% of inhabitants live in an area that is amongst the top 10% most deprived areas in England), high unemployment and the poor health of inhabitants. Back in the 17th-19th centuries it was a haven for all things ceramic, and was a prosperous place, with a significantly larger population than it has today. In the Potteries (the greater Stoke area) there were numerous companies working to produce ceramics that were shipped all over the world, used at the finest tables and for everyday domestic purposes – a shining example of British design and ingenuity.
I had a GREAT day at Wedgwood. The museum was stuffed to the gills with examples of work, both the finished articles and the experiments various members of the Wedgwood family used to create pieces.
Amongst the beautiful gilded plates and the familiar dusty-blue cameos, there were drawers and drawers of tiny test tiles showing experiments with clay and glazes. These methodical trials were fascinating, as they showed the blend of science, creativity and business acumen that ceramics can involve.
Image: courtesy Wedgwood – Tray of Jasper Trials – 1773
The best part of my day was the factory tour. Given that it was mid-week, the museum was pretty quiet, so me and my Mum got to have a private tour with our friendly and knowledgeable guide. I spent most of the forty minutes walking around like a dork, with a wide grin on my face as our guide led us around the factory.
I was so excited to see everything, the entire process from the vats where they mix up the clay to the workers carefully applying the gold to the edges of plates.
Image: FashionBite (alas no photos in the factory allowed)
It was really interesting to see how things are done on a large scale and then compare this with my experience making and teaching ceramics.
There was a mixture of hand-thrown and mould-made ware, so although there was an element of automation, there was still a large amount of human input.
I was pleased to see the employees finishing off pieces all had a mug of tea at their workbenches, and it was interesting to see the number and variety of hand moisturisers people used in an attempt to ward off the destruction of their skin.
Even the mould-made ware had to have the seams taken off (fettling), be turned and then smoothed (all by hand), so my horror at the prices of the finished pieces in the on site shop was tempered a bit when I saw the efforts put in by the workers. The high-end stuff was glazed five times before having the gold applied twice more, so a plate setting you back £800 didn’t seem as insane as it first appeared; that said, our guide commented that one Russian client recently ordered pieces for a forty place setting. Yikes.
I explained to our guide that I was an art teacher, and how interesting it all was to me, and I asked if the company takes on apprentices. He told me that they do, and that it takes between two and seven years to become competent, and even then employees are still monitored closely by master potters.
It made me happy to think that the myriad skills I saw were not being lost (seeing apprentices working was a bonus) but at the same time I know that a large chunk of what is produced under the Wedgwood name is made abroad, for example in Indonesia and China. All the prestige stuff is made at the Barlaston factory, but the more everyday isn’t, which is a shame; Wedgwood is part of a US owned conglomerate that includes Royal Doulton and Waterford Crystal, and of course many smaller companies have been absorbed, for example Minton.
Another reason for visiting was the news a couple of years back that the museum and collection might have to be sold off to plug a hole in the Wedgwood pension fund that was created when the company went into administration. The museum’s archives have been recognised as important by UNESCO, and to think that such a wonderful collection with insight into not just manufacturing but social history too could be broken up and sold to the highest bidder is hugely sad.
So, somewhere to visit as soon as you can. I’d really recommend it.
Also, it has an awesome factory outlet selling seconds and discontinued ceramics and glass which is definitely worth a trip to…
