| Description | Letters from Josiah Wedgwood the younger, John Wedgwood, and the various business partnerships at Etruria, from 1794 to 1828. The letters mainly concern business matters, such as the installation and ongoing maintenance of the 30 horse power flint mill engine, warming apparatus, gas lighting, and other machinery at Etruria. Up until December 1810 the letters are mainly from the partnership of Josiah Wedgwood & Byerley, which consisted of Josiah Wedgwood the younger and Thomas Byerley. Following Byerley’s death the letters are from Josiah Wedgwood until the 1820s, when letters appear from the new partnership of Josiah Wedgwood & Sons. Several of the letters are signed by clerks and engineers such as Hamlet Wood and Christopher Kirk, and a few of the later letters are by Josiah Wedgwood the younger’s son, also called Josiah. There are also a few letters from John Wedgwood.
How letters from the Wedgwoods were originally kept is unclear. The List of Contents of the Watt Room notes the presence of “three packets of Wedgwood and Wedgwood & Byerley,” while Hazleton’s scrapbook notes separate bundles of letters from Wedgwood and Wedgwood & Byerley. However by the time the collection was listed by the Library the letters were in two indistinct bundles covering 1781 to 1842 (Box 36/25) and 1800 to 1825 (Box 36/26). It was clear that letters from the various General Incoming Correspondence series had been added to the original contents of the Wedgwood bundles – indeed it is possible that the Wedgwood bundles were entirely created by Hazleton in the 1890s from items removed from the General Correspondence. The only letters that could be replaced with certainty were those from the 1829 to 1843 series, and these will now be found in 3/455, General Incoming Correspondence dealt with in the Drawing Office 1829-1843, W.
The Wedgwood letters are now arranged in two bundles. The first bundle contains letters written by or on behalf of Josiah. This second bundle covers the years 1794 to 1828, and contains business correspondence from the partnerships and from Josiah’s sons after his death in January 1795. Some of the letters from Josiah the younger in this bundle show signs of having been on display.
For drawings of the 30 horse engine bought by Josiah Wedgwood & Byerley see Portfolio 5/218. |