400 A TOPOGRAPHICAL 



The Methodists have a Chapel at the foot of Etruria Bank. 



We copy the following article from the Gentleman's Magazine, 

 for February, 1795: 



" Died, at Etruria, in Staffordshire, aged 64, JOSIAH WEDG- 

 WOOD, Esq. F. R. and A. ss. ; to whose indefatigable labours is owing 

 the establishment of a manufacture that has opened a new scene of 

 extensive commerce, unknown before to this or any other country. 

 It is unnecessary to say that this alludes to the Pottery of Stafford- 

 shire, which by the united efforts of Mr. Wedgwood, and his late 

 partner, Mr. Bentley, has been carried to a degree of perfection, 

 both in the line of utility and ornament, that leaves all work, an- 

 cient or modern, far behind. 



" Mr. Wedgwood was the younger son of a potter, but derived 

 little or no property from his father, whose possessions consisted 

 chiefly of a small entailed estate, which descended to the eldest 

 son. He was the master of his own fortune, and his country has 

 been benefitted in a proportion not to be calculated. His many- 

 discoveries of new species of earthenwares and porcelains, his 

 studied forms and chaste style of decoration, and the correctness 

 and judgment with which all his works were executed under his 

 own eye, and by artists, for the most part, of his own forming, hav- 

 ing turned the current in this branch of commerce ; for, before his 

 time, England imported the finer earthenwares, but for more than 

 twenty years past, she has exported them to a very great annual 

 amount, the whole of which is drawn from the earth, and from the 

 industry of the inhabitants ; while the national taste has been im- 

 proved, and its reputation raised in foreign countries. His inven- 

 tions have prodigiously increased the number of persons employed 

 in the Potteries, and in the traffic and transport of their materials 

 from distant parts of the kingdom ; and this class of manufacturers 

 is also indebted to him for much mechanical contrivance and ar- 

 rangement in their operations, his private manufactory having had, 

 for thirty years and upwards, all the efficacy of a public work of 

 experiment. Neither was he unknown in the walks of philosophy. 

 His communications to the Royal Society shew a mind enlightened 

 by science, and contributed to procure him the esteem of scientific 

 men at home, and throughout Europe. His invention of a ther- 

 mometer for measuring the higher degrees of heat employed in 

 the various arts, is of the highest importance to their promotion, 

 and will add celebrity to his name. At an early period of his life, 

 seeing the impossibility of extending considerably the manufactory 



