Rare. ESTC records only The Met (without the additional leaf at the end), New York Historical Society (without the additional leaf at the end) and Yale (x2, both copies do not have the additional leaf at the end) in the USA. The last copy recorded on Rare Book Hub was at Sotheby’s in 1977 (“contemporary red leather, gilt, rather worn, from the collection of Queen Charlotte”) and before that the only other copy recorded was sold at Sotheby’s in 1918 (“stiff paper cover, RARE”). Printed in Baskerville type (see Straus & Dent, 1683). Some copies have a later additional leaf at the end (see ECCO, printed on the recto only) which was inserted in copies for presentation by Wedgwood, the end of the text states: “Mr. Wedgwood drew up a hasty little piece and distributed it through the pottery; and now takes the liberty of inclosing it to a few gentlemen to whom he has the honour of being known, hoping that some more general and effected means may be thought of to prevent the mischiefs threatened to this kingdom by the emigration of its workmen and artificers.”
A highly manipulative polemic by the great English pottery manufacturer Josiah Wedgwood warning his employees of the grave risks associated with emigrating to America (and France). Published amidst civil unrest in the Staffordshire area due to a series of bad harvest and rising food prices caused by the American War of Independence. Wedgwood, fearful that he would lose his workers (and their knowledge of his manufacturing processes) provides stark details of the tough life faced by employees who had already fled to America.
Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795) established his pottery in Staffordshire in 1759 and produced highly distinctive stone, jasper and earthenware which became very fashionable and was exported across the globe making him one of the most influential 18th-century British manufacturers. Wedgwood also famously produced the jasperware medallion showing a kneeling black slave with the motto, “Am I not a man and a brother?” as part of his efforts to support the abolitionist movement. Foreign exports had been a key part of Wedgewood’s trade and he wrote in 1765:
“The bulk of our particular manufactures are, you know, exported to foreign markets, for our home consumption is very trifling in comparison to what is sent abroad & the principal of these markets are the Continent & Islands of North America.” (writing to Sir William Meredith).
In this pamphlet, addressed by Josiah Wedgwood (“F.R.S. [Wedgwood was elected to the Royal Society in the same year this pamphlet was published] Potter to Her Majesty”) to “My Countrymen and Friends!” he warns of of, “some attempts…made to seduce you into the service of foreign manufacturers.” Wedgwood adds, “I am fully persuaded it would be contrary to your own interest, as well as that of your country, to accept such offers, however tempting they may, by false colouring be made to appear…” (p.3)
Wedgwood acknowledges the “flattering promises” of foreign employers but reminds his workers that although it is true that higher wages might be offered abroad, “greater care is taken of the poor when sick or past labour, in England, than in any other part of the world” (p.3).
Wedgwood then describes a couple of actual cases of workers emigrating to America. The first, the real-life case of John Bartlam (or Bartlem as Wedgwood spells it) who emigrated to Charleston, South Carolina around 1763 to establish a pottery manufactory. Wedgwood notes that the journey was immediately beset by “storms and tempests upon the sea” before they arrived in Charlestown.
“This adventure being encouraged by the government of that province, the men, puffed up with expectations of becoming gentlemen soon, wrote to their friends here what a fine way they were in, and this encouraged others to follow them. But change of climate and manner of living accompanied perhaps with a certain disorder or mind to be mentioned hereafter, (which have always made great havock among the people who have left this country to settle in remote parts) carried them off so fast, that recruits could not be raised from England sufficient to supply the places of the dead men…” (p.5)
Wedgwood goes on to detail how fresh workers were repeatedly called on from England but were repeatedly hampered by difficult conditions at sea, and on arrival in the new country, resulting in “lingering death” for the men and their families, he concludes:
“For though the people there were disposed to encourage this infant manufactory, and the assembly of that state gave him at different times five hundred pounds, to keep him on his legs as long as they could; yet all would not do; the work was abandoned, and only one man returned to England; the rest, with Mr Bartlem himself, are either known to be dead or have not been heard of since” (p.7)
Wedgwood also describes another “equally fruitless” attempt to set up a manufactory of, “a sort of China ware” in Pennsylvania:
“The event was nearly the same in this as in the others; the proprietors, soon finding that they had no chance of succeeding, not only gave up the undertaking, but silenced the just complaints of the poor injured workmen, by clapping one of them (Thomas Gale) into a prison: the rest who had never received half the wages agreed for, were left entirely to shift for themselves. **Thus abandoned, at the distance of some thousands of miles from home, and without a penny in their pockets, they were reduced to the hard necessity of begging in the public streets for morsels of bread. Some died immediately, of sickness occasioned by this great change in their prospects and manner of living, being dashed at once from the highest expectations to the lowest and most abject misery…”** (p.8)
Wedgwood also warns against workers moving to France:
“In old England, in Staffordshire, you were happily places amidst populous and thriving towns and manufactures; - amongst people of the same religion, speaking the same language, and brought up in the same habits of life, as yourselves; - among neighbours, who knew you from infancy, who were inclined to partake as well in your cares as in your pleasures, and to assist you on every occasion of difficulty; - amongst your relations and dearest friends, daily interchanging mutual good offices of love and affection. But turning your eyes from this bright scene, how is the prospect changed! You are now outcasts in a strange land; where the people do not understand your language, nor you theirs; to whom, therefore, you cannot unbosom yourselves, nor tell your complaints; nor, if you could, would they care for them…” (p.14)
This pamphlet was written at a time of great unrest in the area around the pottery in Staffordshire. Bad harvests and rising food prices caused by the American War of Independence resulted in workers from the Etruria (the name given by Wedgwood to the pottery works) capturing a boat counting food supplies and distributing the contents amongst the workers. Fearful of this act of defiance by his workers, Wedgwood wrote to them directly in a pamphlet published in the same year, An address to the young inhabitants of the pottery (also published by Smith). Wedgwood’s son, Tom, wrote to his father on 11th March 1783:
“Dear Papa,
As I thought you would like to hear how the mob went on, I will tell you….
On Monday the Mob came to Billington’s where there was a meeting of the Master Potters, Dr Falkener, Mr Ing, [and] Mr Sneyd of Belmont, who harangued the Mob on the bad way they had begun to lessen the price of corn, as did my brother John…The riot act was then read and [the assembly] was told if they did not disperse in an Hour’s time they [the militia] would fire on them…
An hour gone and they did not disperse. Dr Falkener had got the word ‘fire’ in his mouth when two men dropt by accident, which stopt him, and he considered about it more. The women were much worse than the men, as for example, Parson Sneyd had got about 30 men to follow him, he huzzaing, but a woman cried: ‘Nay, nay, that wunna do, that wunna do’, and so they turned back again, and it was agreed that the corn taken [in] the boat should be sold at a fair price.
Bolton and Barlow [two of the leaders of the uprising] are taken up and gone to Stafford [i.e. the prison there]“ (see The selected letters of Josiah Wedgwood (1965) p.268.)
Wedgwood’s fear that his workers might leave the country does not seem to have been easily alleviated and a year later a newspaper reported:
“On Wednesday last two Painters from the potteries in Staffordshire were taken up on a charge of preparing to leave this kingdom, and to enter into the services of foreign manufacturers, and were brought before Sir Sampson Wright, who committed them to prison for further examination. Papers were found upon them, which sufficiently showed their intention, and in one of those papers were various receipts for glazes of China and Earthenware. They were discovered in consequence of a plan formed some time since, by which we have the pleasure to acquaint the manufacturers in general it is impossible for their workmen to emigrate out of this country without the greatest risk of being discovered. The particulars of the plan will be kept secret for very obvious reasons” (Whitehall Evening Post 1st May 1784)
At the end of the pamphlet Wedgwood includes the text of two Acts on the enticement of workers abroad in order, “in the shortest and simplest manner” to remind his workers of,
“…the criminality as well as the bad consequences arising to your country, your friends, and yourselves, from your forsaking your native land and entering into foreign service; let me now she you the sense which our laws have expressed of this crime and the provision made by them fro preventing and punishing it; that so, knowing the danger, as well as the evil you may avoid them both“ (p.18)
Provenance: clipped old bookseller’s description of this copy pasted on the front flyleaf “Privately printed and very scarce and curious…”, small circular blue shelf label on the front pastedown “R. G.” Acquired by a British book dealer from the Wedgewood family and then sold to Maggs.
