Wedgwood, Josiah

Wedgwood, Josiah (1730-1792) was born in Burslem, Staffordshire. He joined the firm of Thomas Wheildon at Fenton, who gave him the freedom to experiment, and founded a factory in Etruria with his business... 

Dorn, H. (1970-1980) Memoir of Josiah Wedgwood, in Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. 13, ed. Gillispie, C.C. (Scribner s Sons, New York) p. 213. 

One of the patrons found him a house on the outskirts of Birmingham, where he could live comfortably and devote himself to scientific experimentation. Priestley set up a scientific laboratory in the house. While he lived there some of his patrons died or stopped contributing, but there were always others willing to take their places. Dr. Erasmus Darwin and the pottery designer and manufacturer Josiah Wedgwood, the two grandfathers of Charles Darwin, were among those who contributed to his support. 

In the following year Hatchett was made a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1798 he analyzed an earthy substance, sydneia, which Josiah Wedgwood had found in New South Wales and another specimen of it provided by Sir Joseph Banks (5). This, according to Wedgwood, was composed of a fine white sand, a soft white earth, some colourless micaceous particles, and some which were black. Hatchett found it to consist of siliceous earth, alumine, oxide of iron, and black lead or graphite and concluded that the Sydneian genus, in future, must be omitted in the mineral system. ... 

The pneumatic apparatus devised by Priestley is highly functional and also very simple. He used a variety of cylinders and jars, kitchen utensils, a gun barrel in which to heat substances, and only the simplest purpose-built apparatus. His friend Josiah Wedgwood made apparatus for him in stoneware and earthenware. The pneumatic... 

Davy, who experimented extensively upon himself with N2O, introduced it to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, James Watt (inventor of the steamboat), Peter Mark Roget (author of the famous Thesaurus), the potter Josiah Wedgwood (also later knighted) and other luminaries. Before long, patients were flocking to the Pneumatic Institution to be treated with... 

Josiah Wedgwood II to Thomas Poole, British Library Add MSS. 35, 345 ff. 148-149, dated 1799/12/19 describes Beddoes s use of a warm room and oxygenating the air. 

Beddoes to Josiah Wedgwood, quoted in R. E. Schofield, The Lunar Society of Birmingham (Oxford Clarendon Press, 1963), 373. 

Mankowitz, W. (1980) Wedgwood, 3rd edition, Barrie and Jenkins, London. A standard biography of Josiah Wedgwood. 

Tames, R. (1984) Josiah Wedgwood, An Illustrated Life ofJosiah Wedgwood 1730-1795, Shire Publications Ltd., Aylesbury, Bucks, UK. A brief biography of the man described by British Prime Minister William Gladstone (1868-1874) as the greatest man who ever, in any age or country, applied himself to the... 

Nicholson was an entrepreneur who had shipped out with the East India Company worked as commercial agent for Josiah Wedgwood of china tea-service fame and served as master of a school for mathematics, a patent agent, and water engineer. He patented several of his own inventions, collaborated on at least one novel, had time to get married and have at least one son, wrote a chemical dictionary, and most important for our story, published a monthly science journal. In this journal Nicholson was able to report that he and... 

In 1798 Beddoes founded a Pneumatic Institution in Dowry Square, Hotwells, Bristol, where the medicinal properties of gases were to be examined. James Watt and Josiah Wedgwood were interested in it, and Davy was appointed there in October (seep. 32). Beddoes and Watt had previously written a book on the medicinal properties of gases. Beddoes noticed that venous blood assumes a scarlet colour when exposed to water gas (carbon monoxide), which is extremely deleterious. ... 

The true explanation of Priestley s supposed conversion of water into air had been suggested to him in a letter of 23 January 1783 by Josiah Wedgwood (who made him a present of the retorts) If water passes through the retort outwards, may not air pass inwards , which Priestley would not then admit. In a letter of 29 April 1783, Priestley informed Watt that he had made a mistake he says with relish Behold with surprise and indignation the figure of an apparatus that has utterly ruined your beautiful hypothesis the experiment is described in Priestley s paper, and must have been added after this was sent to the Royal Society on 21 April 1783. 

Bamboo Tile. A term used in Africa and Asia for Spanish tile (q.v.) on account of their resemblance, when placed in position, to a roof of split bamboo. Bamboo Ware. A bamboo-like type of CANE WARE (q.v.), somewhat dark in colour, first made by Josiah Wedgwood in 1770. 

Basalt Ware, A type of ceramic artware introduced in 1768 by Josiah Wedgwood and still made by the firm that he founded. The body is black and vitreous, iron oxide and manganese dioxide being added to achieve this a quoted composition is 47% ball clay, 3% china clay, 40% ironstone and 10% Mn02. 

---