| Type | Private (owned by KPS Capital) |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1759 |
| Founder(s) | Josiah Wedgwood |
| Headquarters | Stoke-on-Trent, England |
| Key people | Moira Gavin (CEO) |
| Employees | 300 |
| Parent | WWRD Group Holdings |
| Website | www.wedgwood.com |
Wedgwood, strictly speaking Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, is a pottery firm owned by KPS Capital Partners, a private equity company based in New York City, USA.[1] Wedgwood was founded on May 1, 1759[2] by Josiah Wedgwood and in 1987 merged with Waterford Crystal to create Waterford Wedgwood, an Ireland-based luxury brands group. After the 2009 purchase by KPS Capital, Wedgwood became part of a group of companies known as WWRD, an initialism for "Wedgwood Waterford Royal Doulton." Wedgwood is still used as a generic term to describe the company's traditional product style, especially Jasper Ware.
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Josiah Wedgwood worked with the established potter Thomas Whieldon until 1759 when relatives leased him the Ivy House in Burslem, allowing him to start his own pottery business. The launch of the new venture was helped by his marriage to a remote cousin Sarah (also Wedgwood) who brought a sizeable dowry with her.
In 1765, Wedgwood created a new earthenware form which impressed the then British Queen consort Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz who gave permission to call it "Queen's Ware"; this new form sold extremely well across Europe. The following year Wedgwood bought Etruria, a large Staffordshire estate, as both home and factory site. Wedgwood developed a number of further industrial innovations for his company, notably a way of measuring kiln temperatures accurately and new ware types Black Basalt and Jasper Ware. Wedgwood's most famous ware is jasperware. It was created to look like ancient cameo glass. It was inspired by the Portland Vase, a Roman vessel which is now a museum piece.. (The first jasperware colour was Portland Blue, an innovation that required experiments with more than 3,000 samples). In recognition of the importance of his pyrometer, Josiah Wedgwood was elected a member of the Royal Society in 1783. Today, the Wedgwood Prestige collection sells replicas of some of the original designs as well as modern neo-classical style jasperware.
The main Wedgwood motifs in jasperware, as well as in other wares like basaltware, queensware, caneware, etc., were decorative designs that were highly influenced by the ancient cultures being studied and rediscovered at that time, especially as Great Britain was expanding her Empire. Many motifs were taken from ancient mythologies: Roman, Greek or Egyptian. Meanwhile, archeological fever caught the imagination of many artists. Nothing could have been more suitable to satisfy this huge business demand than to produce replicas of ancient artefacts. Many representations of royalty, nobles and statesmen in silhouette were created, as well as political symbols. These were often set in jewelry, as well as in architectural features like fireplace mantels, mouldings and furniture. Wedgwood has honored several American individuals and corporations as well, both historically and recently. In 1774 he employed the then 19 year old John Flaxman as an artist, who would work for the next 12 years mostly for Wedgwood. The "Dancing Hours" may be his most well known design. Other artists known to have worked for Wedgwood include among others Lady Elizabeth Templetown, George Stubbs, Emma Crewe and Lady Diana Beauclerk.
Wedgwood had increasing success with hard paste porcelain which attempted to imitate the whiteness of tea-ware imported from China, an extremely popular product amongst high society. High transportation costs and the demanding journey from the Far East meant that the supply of chinaware could not keep up with increasingly high demand. Towards the end of the eighteenth century other Staffordshire manufacturers introduced bone china as an alternative to translucent and delicate Chinese porcelain.[3] In 1812 Wedgwood produced their own bone china[4] which, though not a commercial success at first[3] eventually became an important part of an extremely profitable business.
Josiah Wedgwood was also a patriarch of the Darwin–Wedgwood family. Many of his descendants were closely involved in the management of the company down to the time of the merger with the Waterford Company:
Enoch Wedgwood (1813–1879), a distant cousin of the first Josiah, was also a potter and founded his own firm, Wedgwood & Co, in 1860. It was taken over by Josiah Wedgwood & Sons in 1980.
In 1986, Waterford Glass Group plc purchased Wedgwood plc for $USD360 million, with Wedgwood delivering a 38.7 million USD profit in 1998 (when Waterford itself lost $28.9 million) after which the group was renamed Waterford Wedgwood. From early 1987 to early 1989, the CEO was Patrick Byrne, previously of Ford, who then became CEO of the whole group. During his time, he sold off non-core businesses, and reduced the range of Wedgwood patterns from over 400 to around 240. In the late 1990s, the CEO was Brian Patterson. From 1 January 2001, the Deputy CEO was Tony O'Reilly, Junior, who was appointed CEO in November of the same year and resigned in September 2005, and had seen then succeeded by the then president of Wedgwood USA, Moira Gavin.
In 2001 Wedgwood launched a collaboration with designer Jasper Conran which started with a white fine bone china collection and has since expanded to include seven patterns. The company today incorporates Coalport, Mason's and Johnson Brothers wares, and its parent company. Waterford Wedgwood also owns crystal brands such as Waterford, Stuart and Edinburgh, as well as Royal Doulton. Wedgwood continues to be headquartered on a 200 acres (0.81 km2) site in Barlaston.
On 5 January 2009, following years of financial problems at group level, and after a share placement failed during the global financial crisis of 2008, Wedgwood was placed into administration[6] on a "going concern" basis, with 1800 employees remaining. On 27 February 2009, Waterford Wedgwood's receiver Deloitte announced that the New York-based private equity firm KPS Capital Partners had purchased "certain Irish and UK assets of Waterford Wedgwood and the assets of several of its Irish and UK subsidiaries" in a transaction expected to completed in March.[7] In March 2009, KPS Capital Partners announced that it had acquired group assets in a range of countries, including the UK, USA and Indonesia, would invest €100m, and move a number of jobs to Asia to cut costs and return the firm to profitability.[8] In a move that had begun under the previous owners, some 1,500 jobs were cut in the U.K., leaving a few hundred workers in the U.K. producing only the high-end Wedgwood products.[9] After the 2009 purchase by KPS Capital, Wedgwood became part of a group of companies known as WWRD, an initialism for "Wedgwood Waterford Royal Doulton."
Wedgwood's founder wrote as early as 1774 that he wished he had preserved samples of all the company's works, and began to do so. The first formal museum was opened in May 1906, with a curator named Isaac Cooke, at the main (Etruria) works. The contents of the museum were stored for the duration of World War II and relaunched in a gallery at the new Barlaston factory in 1952. A new purpose-built Visitor Centre and Museum was built in 1975 and remodelled in 1985 with pieces displayed near items from the old factory works in cabinets of similar period. A video theatre was added and a new gift shop as well as an expanded demonstration area where visitors could watch pottery being made. A further renovation costing 4.5 million pounds was carried out in 2000, including access to the main factory itself, following which the Visitor Centre complex won multiple awards.
Adjacent to the museum and visitor centre are a restaurant and tea room, serving on Wedgwood ware. The museum, managed by a dedicated trust, closed in 2000 and in 2008 reopened in a new multi-million pound building. The new "state of the art" museum was opened on the 24th of October 2008.
In June 2009, the Wedgwood Museum won a UK Art Fund Prize for Museums and Art Galleries for its displays of Wedgwood pottery, skills, designs and artefacts.[10] In May 2011, the archive of the museum was inscribed in UNESCO's UK Memory of the World Register.[11][12][13]
The Minton Archive is a separate part of the collection. It comprises papers and drawings from 1793–1968 of the designs, manufacture and production of the pottery company, Minton and of the artistic and industrial archives of Royal Doulton. The liquidation of Wedgwood placed this collection under threat of break-up and sale.[14]
Wedgwood railway station was opened in the 1950s to serve the Wedgwood complex in Staffordshire, England.
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