CHAPTER III. 



BOYHOOD OF JOSIAH WEDGWOOD. ATTACK OF SMALL-POX. 

 MR. GLADSTONE'S NOTICE OF THIS ATTACK. AMPUTATION OF 



HIS LEG. JOSIAH WEDGWOOD ASA " THROWER." ENOCH 



WOOD. WILLIAM LITTLER AND AARON WEDGWOOD. 



DEATH OF THE MOTHER OF JOSIAH WEDGWOOD. TERMI- 

 NATION OF HIS APPRENTICESHIP. COMMENCES MAKING 

 AGATE KNIFE HANDLES, ETC. ENTERS INTO PARTNERSHIP 



WITH JOHN HARRISON. PARTNERSHIP WITH THOMAS 



WHIELDON. 



DURING his apprenticeship, probably about his sixteenth 

 year, Josiah Wedgwood was seized with illness a violent 

 attack of the small-pox, it is stated and was laid up for a 

 considerable period with that complaint. By this illness, 

 and the weakness which followed it, he was incapacitated 

 from following, to any extent, one branch of the art to 

 which he had been bound that of a thrower and thus, 

 fortunately, his ever active mind had more time, and 

 more opportunity, to develop itself in the other and more 

 ornamental branches of his trade. The Right Hon. W. E. 

 Gladstone, in his able and truly eloquent address at Burslem, 

 on occasion of his laying the foundation stone, as Chan- 

 cellor of the Exchequer, of the Wedgwood Memorial Insti- 

 tute in that town, thus strikingly and pleasingly alludes to 

 this affliction or, rather, blessing which visited the boy- 

 genius : "Then comes the well-known attack of small- 

 pox, the settling of the dregs of his disease in the lower 

 part of the leg, and the amputation of the limb, rendering 

 . him lame for life. It is not often that' we have such 

 palpable occasion to record our obligations to the small-pox ; 



