Freedom, Inc_ - Brian M. Carney [26]
One industry in particular had benefited from both the new source of power and the canal—pottery manufacturing. Among pottery manufacturers, Josiah Wedgwood stood out both for the way he capitalized on industrialization and for the economic and social contributions he made. Despite having no formal scientific education, he made many improvements in pottery production that allowed the mass production of high-quality green-and jasperware. A great proponent of the canals—some people even called him their “king”3—he foresaw how they would reduce his costs for clay while providing a far more reliable delivery system for his finished products; he could avoid the frequent breakages that came with using the rough, rutted roads. And Wedgwood’s vision was validated in full: The freight costs to and from potteries would fall by more than 80 percent after the completion of the Birmingham-Wolverhampton canal. Wedgwood even discussed with Boulton the idea of building previously unheard-of steam-powered canal boats.
That kind of visionary thinking was encouraged in the Birmingham Lunar Society, of which Wedgwood and Boulton were both members. Founded in the 1750s, the society met regularly—on full-moon nights so members could find their way home—to discuss new, often dramatic, projects and ideas related to their industrial and economic times. Perhaps it was after one of these discussions that Wedgwood decided to go beyond improving production methods and delve into improving the organization of work itself.
Whatever the genesis of the idea, Wedgwood implemented a system of organization that, in 1776, Adam Smith dubbed the “division of labor.” Every worker was trained “in detail” so that he was able to respond to the “growing demand for new shapes, glazes, and clays.” Commodity articles were produced by workers different from those producing ornamental items. Such was the extent of this scheme that in Wedgwood’s Etruria plant—built in 1769 on a canal he had helped to plot and on a site he named in honor of ancient Greek and Etruscan pottery traditions—all but five of the 278 workers had a specific assigned task.4 However, “with a view to the strictest economy of labor” Wedgwood didn’t stop there in his search for efficiency. He placed foremen over the line workers to ensure that productivity was maximized. The flexible working hours that had been inherited from the artisanal tradition were banished and replaced by strict, regular schedules. Wedgwood was so unrelenting in his pursuit of efficiency that he even installed a time clock. His business prospered. Patrons and orders flowed in, including from Queen Charlotte, who appointed Wedgwood a queen’s potter, and Russian empress Catherine II, who ordered 952 pieces in 1774. His wealth also increased dramatically—at his death Wedgwood left behind a fortune of £500,000 (the equivalent of perhaps $100 million today), a thriving business, and a daughter, Susannah, the mother of Charles Darwin.
British industrialists greatly benefited from the Industrial Revolution that unfolded in the Midlands, Scotland, and elsewhere around the British Isles. Economic growth during this period was such that even though half of British industry’s export market was lost due to American independence, growing internal demand quickly took up the slack. However, not all participants in this revolution benefited equally from it.
In 1795, a local clergyman memorialized Wedgwood’s death with the following poem:
Such the true patriot, from whose gates each day
A crowd of healthy workmen make their way
Whose rare productions foreign courts demand
And while they praise, enrich his native land.
View his Etruria, late a barren waste
Now high in culture, and adorn’d with taste.5
Wedgwood’s workers did indeed have decent housing at the idyllic site, but that was not the case for most of the working class.