Thomas Whieldon

Thomas Whieldon (September 1719 in Penkhull, Stoke-on-Trent–March 1795) was a significant English potter who played a leading role in the development of the Staffordshire Potteries.

Whieldon is first recorded as a potter in 1744 when he married Anne Shaw at Barlaston Church. Little is known about his early career and it is not known where he served his apprenticeship. Anne died in 1757 and in 1758 Whieldon married Alice Parrot, the daughter of a notable family from Newcastle-under-Lyme. Josiah Wedgwood recorded how Alice later died very suddenly at church one Sunday night in 1772. Whieldon married a third time in 1776, wedding Sarah Turner, who was from London society, although there was a family connection, as yet unknown, with one John Turner of Lane End, Staffordshire, a potter. James Christie, founder of the auctioneering house of Pall Mall, St James’s, was a signatory to the marriage settlement.

There were six children from the marriage to Sarah Turner including one daughter and five sons.

Whieldon's Account Book provides much information for his business during the period 1749 to 1762 and from 1754 to 1759 when he was in partnership with Josiah Wedgwood, but beyond that there is little documentary evidence of his family or his life save for the normal run of parish records and occasional mentions in the private correspondence of Josiah Wedgwood and others.

Thomas Whieldon became very wealthy as a result of his business acumen but preferred to live next door to his Fenton Vivian factory, at Whieldon Grove, a fine house from which he was able to see his works. He continued to live there after his retirement in 1780, when he demolished his factory and planted an ornamental garden on the site, as none of his children wished to take on the business. In 1786 he was appointed High Sheriff of Staffordshire, underlining his social position, and in 1789 he was granted a coat of arms.

He died in 1795, surviving his former partner Josiah Wedgwood by just a few weeks, and was buried in Stoke churchyard.

At some time between 1742 and 1747 Whieldon became a tenant at Fenton Vivian and in 1748 he bought the freehold. He was to remain at this site throughout his career. By 1750 he had bought an additional pottery factory at Fenton Low but this was let to tenants and there is no evidence he ever used the factory at Fenton Low himself. Archaeological finds of pottery shards at Fenton Low cannot be taken as evidence of Whieldon’s early production therefore.

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