A humble potter ahead of his time

Today, the internationally renowned brand of Wedgwood china epitomizes the staid, elegant dinner setting. Yet its origins, more than 200 years ago, were anything but conventional, as Brian Dolan’s expansive biography makes clear. In “Wedgwood: The First Tycoon,” Dolan studies the extraordinary life of Josiah Wedgwood, a man born into poverty but who upon his death in 1795 was worth 600,000 pounds -- the equivalent, in today’s value, of more than $1 billion.

Born in a northern English village in 1730, the youngest of 12 children, Wedgwood was hardly a son of privilege: By the age of 9, he’d suffered the death of his father, a struggling potter who left the family bankrupt.

The author, a professor at UC San Francisco, follows the young Wedgwood’s arduous years as a potter’s apprentice, eventually coming into his own, both as an artist and as a businessman determined not to repeat the mistakes of his father. The ambitious Wedgwood kept a journal, recording his thoughts on the potential for “the improvement of our manufacture of earthenware.” In one entry, he wrote that “[t]hese considerations induced me to try for some more solid improvements as well in the Body as the Glazes, the Colours, and the Forms of that articles of our manufacture.”

Experimenting in his own kitchen, which he had converted into a laboratory, Wedgwood systematically tested the results of complex glazes and sophisticated textures and colors, seeking to produce something “that surpassed anything else he had seen,” Dolan writes.

Remarkably, all this happened even before Wedgwood had formed his own company. At the time he was still in partnership with a more experienced local potter, who was oddly underwhelmed by his innovations. “His unique glazes were what, at this time, distinguished Josiah’s wares from anything else in the marketplace,” Dolan writes, and by the age of 30 Wedgwood was confident enough to go it alone.

Aside from Wedgwood’s ambition and financial success, his revolutionary thinking on labor practices was truly praiseworthy: He organized skilled labor into one of the world’s first factories and, amazingly, offered health insurance, pension plans and even family housing to his workers. (He was smart enough to realize this would encourage loyalty and dedication to his company.) Even in an enlightened age, Wedgwood seemed truly ahead of his time.

In his personal life, Wedgwood was just as progressive. He had an enormous admiration for women, especially his beloved wife, Sally: “Josiah was beside himself with pride,” Dolan writes. “He had enormous respect for Sally, who in captivating ways reminded him of his own sister, Catherine. Beyond being well educated and exhibiting a reasoned temperament, she had a fiery intellect and incisive interests.” Wedgwood considered Sally his “chief helpmate,” and not just because of her substantial dowry. She was a full collaborative partner to him professionally.

“What forlorn Animals the best of us are,” Dolan quotes Wedgwood as having said, “when destitute of a Female head of a Family.”

If Dolan has any misgivings about his subject, he keeps them largely to himself. Yet this is not intended as a criticism; to dwell on Wedgwood’s failings would seem petty in light of his pioneering accomplishments and apparent overall integrity.

Wedgwood was a tycoon who nonetheless appeared to lead an exemplary life, never forgetting his humble beginnings. And though he died a wealthy man, Wedgwood maintained a lifelong wariness of the aristocracy.

Even today, Dolan notes, “Wedgwood represents elite taste without social prejudice. The name carries the status of an old master, but is accessible to those without aristocratic wealth.”

Dolan’s biography is so comprehensive in its detail that readers may at times find themselves more distracted than engrossed. Yet the author’s exhaustive commitment to his subject is impressive -- and it seems fair to say that would-be tycoons could learn a thing or two from Wedgwood.