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The following events took place during his lifetime.
1733 Bastardy Act ordered that fathers of bastard children shall be committed to gaol until they gave security to indemnify the parish from expense.
1735 Conjuration and Witchcraft Act repealed previous witchcraft acts and made persons (“Pretenders”) claiming to have arts or powers whereby ‘ignorant persons are frequently deluded or defrauded” such as by witchcraft, sorcery, inchantment, conjuration, fortune telling or other occult or crafty science liable to punishment on conviction.
1747 Changes introduced in regard to the window tax (1696).
1751 “Gin” Act for “additional Duty upon Spirituous Liquors ... and the more effectually restraining the Retailing of distilled Spirituous Liquors”; suppressed about 1,700 gin shops in London.
England and Wales adopted the Gregorian calendar.
1753 Marriage Act (Hardwicke’s Act) - only marriages carried out by a Church of England parson were legal.
1759 British Museum opened.
1769 Steam engine patented by James Watt (1736-1819, engineer).
1775 Outbreak of the American War of Independence; continued until 1783.
1782 Act for the Licensing Lottery Office Keepers, and Regulating the Sale of Lottery Tickets
1785 Digitalis first used in the treatment of heart disease.
1789 Start of the French Revolution.
1791 “The Rights of Man” by Thomas Paine (1737-1809, American writer) published. Part 2 outlined a welfare state with children’s allowances, old age pensions and tax-supported elementary schools.
1792 “A Vindication of the Rights of Women” by Mary Wolstonecraft (1759-97, novelist) published; a milestone in the
English potter, whose works are among the finest examples of ceramic art.
Wedgwood was born in Burslem, Staffordshire, on July 12, 1730, into a family with a long tradition as potters. At the age of nine, after the death of his father, he worked in his family's pottery.
In 1759 he set up his own pottery works in Burslem. There he produced a highly durable cream-coloured earthenware that so pleased Queen Charlotte that in 1762 she appointed him royal supplier of dinnerware. From the public sale of Queen's Ware, as it came to be known, Wedgwood was able, in 1768, to build near Stoke-on-Trent a village, which he named Etruria, and a second factory equipped with tools and ovens of his own design. At first only ornamental pottery was made in Etruria, but by 1773 Wedgwood had concentrated all his production facilities there.
During his long career Wedgwood developed revolutionary ceramic materials, notably basalt and jasperware.
In 1754 Wedgwood began to experiment with coloured creamware. He established his own factory, but often worked with others who did transfer printing (introduced by the Worcester Porcelain Company in the 1750s). He also produced red stoneware; basaltes ware, an unglazed black stoneware; and jasperware, made of white stoneware clay that had been coloured by the addition of metal oxides. Jasperware was usually ornamented with white relief portraits or Greek Classical scenes. Wedgwood's greatest contribution to European ceramics, however, was his fine pearlware, an extremely pale creamware with a bluish tint to its glaze.
Wedgwood's basalt, a hard, black, stone-like material known also as Egyptian ware or basaltes ware, was used for vases, candlesticks, and realistic busts of historical figures. Jasperware, his most successful innovation, was a durable unglazed ware most characteristically blue with fine white cameo figures inspired by the ancient Roman Portland Vase. Many of the finest designs were the work of the British artist John Flaxman.
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