It was sad to hear the news today that Waterford Wedgwood, the company formed from an amalgamation of Waterford glass and Wedgwood pottery, has fallen into administration.

The name Wedgwood, and its most characteristic and recognised Jasper Ware products, are well known icons of the British pottery industry.   Perhaps less well known are the links between the founder of Wedgwood pottery, Josiah Wedgwood, and the Darwin family – including Erasmus Darwin, the inspiration for this blog.

As discussed in this earlier post, Erasmus and Josiah were close friends and core  ‘Lunar Men’.  The two exchanged ideas and letters on a range of topics from canals to pyrometers,  Erasmus bringing his chemistry knowledge to bear in developing new colours for pottery.   He later designed a windmill for grinding  pigments at Wedgwood’s factory at ‘Etruria’.

Wedgwood’s daughter Susannah gave Erasmus music lessons and, by the by, came to marry his son Robert, establishing a trend maintained by Charles Darwin when he married his first cousin Emma, the daughter of Josiah (II).

Wedgwood’s most famous pottery design is the ‘Portland Vase’, a reproduction in Jasper Ware of a piece of (probably) Roman cameo-glassware.  In 2003, something of a controversy blew up regarding the true age of the vase, one which, as this Guardian article explains, science was not able to unravel.

Portland Vases are still being made at Wedgwood but, priced at £4893, are evidently not moving in sufficient quantity to save the business.  When Erasmus received one of the first of these technically challenging pieces, he characteristically proceeded to analyse and document the various Roman scenes; he dedicates 7 pages of text and 4 fold-out drawings to it in his Botanic Garden of  1791.

Update 5 Feb 2012  Wedgewood Museum to close (In the Guardian) Link HERE