402 THE WEDGWOODS. 



more than a stone's throw of the birthplace of the great 

 potter. This proposition for the founding of an institution 

 was the first movement which had been made to do him 

 public honour, and it was shortly afterwards met by the 

 counter proposition to erect a statue. Thanks to this oppo- 

 sition, both the statue and the institution are provided for 

 the Potteries. The first stone of the " Wedgwood Insti- 

 tute " at Burs! em was laid on the 26th of October, 1863, by 

 the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P., her Majesty's 

 Chancellor of the Exchequer, who took occasion in the 

 course of one of the ablest and most eloquent addresses 

 which even he has ever delivered, to pay a just and warm 

 tribute to the excellencies, the character, the ability, and the 

 high attainments of Wedgwood. 



From this address of Mr. Gladstone's, I have already made 

 some quotations in former chapters. His idea of the estab- 

 lishment of the institution being national rather than local in 

 its interest and purpose, remains to be given. " When," said 

 Mr. Gladstone, " I received, through one of your respected 

 representatives, an invitation to co-operate with you in the 

 foundation of the Wedgwood Institute, at the place which 

 gave him birth, and on the site of his first factory, I could 

 not hesitate to admit that a design of this kind was, at 

 least in my view, not a local, but, when properly regarded, 

 rather a national design. Partly it may be called national, 

 because the manufacture of earthenware, in its varied and 

 innumerable branches, is fast becoming, or has indeed 

 become, one of our great and distinguishing British manu- 

 factures. But it is for another and a broader reason that I 

 decide to treat the purpose you have now in hand as a 

 purpose of national rather than merely local or partial 

 interest. It is because there are certain principles applicable 

 to manufacture by the observance or neglect of which its 

 products are rendered good or bad. These principles were 

 applied by Wedgwood, with a consistency and tenacity that 

 cannot be too closely observed through the whole of our 

 industrial production. These principles being his, and being 



