Etruria Works

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Etruria Works was a ceramics factory opened by Josiah Wedgwood in 1769 in a district of Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, which he named Etruria.

In 1767 Wedgwood paid about three thousand pounds for the site, which was known as the Ridgehouse Estate. It lay directly in the path of the Trent and Mersey Canal of which Wedgwood was a promoter. The motto of the factory was Artes Etruriae Renascuntur. This may be translated from the Latin as "The Arts of Etruria Are Reborn". The works of this factory were greatly appreciated and admired in Britain and abroad. Little remains of the factory today, as the site was affected by mining subsidence, and the Wedgwood company moved production to Barlaston some miles south on the Trent and Mersey Canal.