Wedgwood (Josiah Wedgwood and Sons)

Wedgwood, in full Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, is an English ceramics company founded on 1 May 1759 by potter and entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood. Its name comes up in the pipe community not for briar or meerschaum stummels, but for the legacy the English ceramics tradition left in tobacco accessories: tobacco jars, ashtrays, and tabletop sets were long a fixture of Wedgwood's catalogs.

The company's real significance, though, lies in the ceramic bodies and firing techniques it developed in the 18th century.

Founding and Etruria

The Wedgwood family was one of Staffordshire's established potting households; Josiah learned the trade in the family workshops and set up his own business at the Ivy House works in Burslem, in Stoke-on-Trent. In 1764 he married his distant relative Sarah Wedgwood; the resources this marriage brought are said to have eased the workshop's growth. In 1766 he bought a large tract of land in Staffordshire and named it Etruria, a nod to the era's fascination with the Etruscans. Etruria Works went into production in 1769; the site, which included both production buildings and worker housing, stood out from its contemporaries for a working system built on division of labor and standard measures.