Wedgwood

Josiah Wedgwood and Sons

Successor	WWRD Group Holdings Ltd
Founded	1759
Founder	Josiah Wedgwood
Headquarters	Stoke-on-Trent, England
Key people	Pierre de Villeméjane (CEO)
Number of employees	3,100
Parent	Fiskars Corporation
Website	www.wedgwood.co.uk

Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, commonly known as Wedgwood, is a fine china, porcelain, and luxury accessories company founded on 1 May 1759 by Josiah Wedgwood.

In 1987, Wedgwood merged with Waterford Crystal to create Waterford Wedgwood, an Ireland-based luxury brands group. Waterford Wedgwood was purchased by the New York City-based private equity firm KPS Capital Partners in 2009, and became part of a group of companies known as WWRD Holdings Ltd., an acronym for "Waterford Wedgwood Royal Doulton." On 2 July 2015, Fiskars Corporation acquired WWRD.

At the outset, Josiah Wedgwood worked with the established potter Thomas Whieldon until 1759 when relatives leased him the Ivy House in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, which allowed him to start his own pottery business. His marriage to Sarah Wedgwood, a distant cousin with a sizable dowry, helped him launch his new venture.

In 1765, Wedgwood created a new form of earthenware, which impressed the then British Queen consort Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz who gave official permission to call it "Queen's Ware." This new form sold extremely well across Europe. In 1766, Wedgwood bought Etruria, a large Staffordshire estate, as both a home and factory site. Wedgwood developed a number of further industrial innovations for his company, notably a way of measuring kiln temperatures accurately and the new ware types Black Basalt and Jasper Ware.

Wedgwood's best known product is jasperware created to look like ancient cameo glass. It was inspired by the Portland Vase, a Roman vessel which is now a museum piece. The first jasperware color was Portland Blue, an innovation that required experiments with more than 3,000 samples. In recognition of the importance of his pyrometric beads (pyrometer), Josiah Wedgwood was elected a member of the Royal Society in 1783. The Wedgwood Prestige collection sold replicas of the original designs as well as modern neo-classical style jasperware.