106 THE WEDGWOODS. 



and was buried by the parish officers." As an interesting 

 illustration of the rate of wages in the days of Wedgwood's 

 apprenticeship, it may be mentioned that Fletcher, who 

 " made balls " for the two brothers working at two corners 

 of a small room, he being placed between them and sup- 

 plying them alternately, received fourpence per week for his 

 first year, sixpence for the second, and ninepence for the 

 third. Of these rates of wages I shall yet have more to say 

 later on. 



. While yet in his apprenticeship, Josiah lost his mother, 

 who died, it is said, at Burslern, early in the year 1748, 

 when he was between seventeen and eighteen years of age. 

 She was buried near to her late husband, in the graveyard 

 adjoining the works the graveyard shown in the engraving of 

 the " Churchyard Works," where the burial-place may be seen 

 to the left but the tomb in which they were both doubtless 

 interred has been despoiled of its inscription. Close beside 

 it are other tombs of members of the family. After the 

 death of his mother, to whom Josiah was, I believe, most 

 deeply attached, he is said to have continued to reside with 

 his brothers and sisters in the same house in the works, and 

 to have applied himself most sedulously to the improvement 

 of his art. 



While yet an apprentice he had made great progress in 

 his art, not being content to follow simply that branch prac- 

 tised in his brother's works. He particularly made himself 

 master of the method of colouring wares with metallic 

 calces in imitation of agate, tortoiseshell, &c. During this 

 period, too, he first made advances in his afterwards famous 

 cream-coloured ware. He thus, however, spent so much of 

 his time in experiments, and in trying new applications of 

 his art, that his brother became uneasy, and continually 

 exhorted him to give up these flights of fancy and confine 

 himself to the beaten track of his ancestors an exhortation 

 which, happily for himself and for the world, was of no avail. 

 At the expiration of his apprenticeship Josiah Wedgwood 

 pointed out to his brother many modes of increasing their 



