Wedgwood: A Very British Tragedy

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BBC Radio 4 - Wedgwood: A Very British Tragedy

Josiah Wedgwood, 18th-century polymath potter and the tragic recent history of his company

Josiah Wedgwood, the 18th-century polymath potter, entrepreneur and anti-slavery campaigner. Dr Tristram Hunt on how his company's greatness turned to 21st-century tragedy.

In 1730, when Josiah Wedgwood was born in Stoke on Trent, the eleventh and last child to a family of potters, no one imagined that 65 years later this man would have conquered the world with his dazzling new inventions and designs – reinventing ceramics and making Wedgwood blue an iconic brand.  

Josiah Wedgwood became a visionary potter, designer, chemist, marketing genius and radical, dissenting, anti-slavery campaigner.  He was the epitome of 18th century man – combining science with entrepreneurship and a member of the Royal Society - who commissioned James Cook to bring him back clay from his voyages to drive his inspirational, experimental, ground-breaking inventions.  

Dr Tristram Hunt, Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, tells the story of Josiah Wedgwood, his genius and his legacy.  

What has happened since to the company he founded over 260 years ago? How did a family-owned business – the jewel in the crown of Stoke – with generations of skilled workers in the city, lose its independence, become Wedgwood plc and go into a near-terminal decline in the 21st century.  It’s been a rollercoaster ride of different owners, offshoring production to Asia, catastrophic job losses at home, bankruptcy, administration and mismanagement which nearly led to the squandering of 260 years of a skilled ceramics industry in Stoke on Trent.  

Under new ownership, there are some green shoots of recovery, a return to designs inspired by their founder.  Can Wedgwood revive its fortunes, shake off its troubled history and restore Josiah Wedgwood’s ambition – to be ‘Vase Maker General to the Universe’ to a new generation of potters?

Presented by Dr Tristram Hunt
Produced by Anna Horsbrugh-Porter
A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4

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