Josiah WedgwoodBorn 12 Jul 1730; died 3 Jan 1795 at age 64.English inventor, artist and potter who began a new branch of the pottery industry in the early 1760's. This inventor placed the manufacture of stoneware on a scientific basis, and founded the potteries of North Staffordshire. The agateware and unglazed blue or green stoneware he decorated with white neo-classical designs, used pigments he invented. In 1768 he used his engineering skills to design the machinery and high-temperature beehive-shaped kilns. For his invention of a pyrometer for measuring high temperatures, Wedgwood was made a fellow of the Royal Society. He was a major financial supporter of Dr. Thomas Beddoes' Pneumatic Institute near Bristol, where Humphry Davy studied nitrous oxide (1800). |
