Josiah Wedgwood I (1730-1795) was the creator of the highly successful Wedgwood Pottery Company. Josiah’s wealth passed to his descendants and some of it eventually became part of the inheritance of Charles Darwin’s wife Emma. This wealth contributed to the estate that made it possible for Charles to pursue his ideas concerning evolution, without concern for money.
Josiah was born the second son of Thomas Wedgwood, a pottery business owner. When Josiah was nine, his father died and Josiah's older brother Thomas inherited the business. Although Josiah had limited formal education, he became very skilled at "throwing on the wheel" during the five years he was apprenticed to his brother. Three years later, in his early twenties, Josiah left the family business and apprenticed himself to the most renowned English pottery-maker of his day, Thomas Whieldon. From Whieldon he gained technical skill and acquired management skills that were to become the foundation of Josiah's success.
Josiah went into business for himself and gradually earned a reputation as a master potter. But his life did not progress smoothly. Smallpox, and a riding accident on the way to Liverpool, left him with a permanently weakened knee, which made him unable to work the foot pedal of a potter's wheel. During his convalescence he read widely, not only technical books on pottery, but also literature, poetry, and philosophy.
At this time he met Thomas Bentley, a Liverpool businessman with nonconformist and rationalist views, who became his close friend. Bentley introduced Josiah to some of the most creative minds of the century, men whose ideas gave rise to the Industrial Revolution. These friends of Thomas Bentley had formed a group they called the Lunar Society, and Josiah occasionally met with them. Here Josiah met Benjamin Franklin amd Dr. Erasmus Darwin, who became Josiah's lifelong friend.
When he was fully recovered, Josiah returned to his pottery in Burslem, and concentrated on designing pottery rather than making it with his own labor. Wedgwood began experimenting with a wide variety of pottery techniques and over the course of the next decade, his experimentation lead to creation of the first true pottery factory. This endeavor was made possible by capital from his marriage to a richly endowed distant cousin, Sarah Wedgwood.
Sarah Wedgwood (1734-1815) was the daughter of Richard Wedgwood, cheese factor of Spen Green, Cheshire. The couple married in January 1764 at Astbury Church ( Cheshire).
Josiah cherished his well educated and capable wife, whom he called 'Sally', and told his friend Thomas Bentley that she was his 'chief help-mate'. He said that he never finished any of his pots without first asking Sally what she thought of them. Apparently her advice was insightful, because the Wedgwood pottery factory had an uncanny sense of how to market their pottery to their wealthy customers. For instance, the line of pottery first made for Queen Charlotte was named ‘Queen’s Ware’, and was immensely popular and profitable when sold on the mass market.
Josiah and Sarah had a family of seven children: Susannah (Charles Darwin’s mother), John, Josiah II (father to Emma Wedgwood, Charles Darwin’s wife), Thomas, Kitty (Catherine), Sarah, and Mary Anne. Unfortunately a fourth son, named Richard, died when he was very young. The Wedgwood family lived mostly at Maer, about 20 miles North-East of Shrewsbury. Josiah brought not only financial stability to his family, but endowed them with his humanitarian beliefs, especially his abolitionist position on slavery, as well as his Unitarian religious beliefs and traditions that had great influence on his children and grandchildren.
In 1780, Josiah’s long-time business partner Thomas Bentley died, and Wedgwood turned to his friend Erasmus Darwin for help in running the business. As a result of the close association that grew up between the Wedgwood and Darwin families, one of Josiah's daughters, Susannah, later married Erasmus' son Robert, and they subsequently became the parents of Charles Robert Darwin. Charles Robert would continue the connection between the two families by marrying Emma Wedgwood (daughter of Josiah Wedgwood II), who was a first cousin to Charles. At that time cousin marriage was not prohibited, but Charles Darwin was aware that inbreeding could increase the expression of unhealthy traits, and he sometimes blamed his marital choice for the illnesses among his children.
Sources and Further Reading:
Sarah Wedgwood selection at the Wedgwood Museum family biographies