Wedgwood cup and saucer

c. 1891-1908

Mellor collection, Otago Museum (Image copyright, Otago Museum, Dunedin

Unpublished

Josiah Wedgwood began working in his father’s pottery from the age of nine and in 1768 he built a factory near Stoke-on-Trent which he called ‘Etruria’. For the next 175 years Wedgwood pottery was produced there; in 1940 the factory was moved to the village of Barlaston in Staffordshire. The mark on the bottom of this Wedgwood bone china cup and saucer dates it to between 1891 and 1908, as it was in 1891 that ‘England’ first appeared on the Wedgwood mark. In 1908 the mark was replaced by ‘Made in England’. The tea and breakfast service from which this set comes was apparently a favourite of Frank Wedgwood’s.