Снесенный завод Wedgwood в Эттурии: история места, которое не стало объектом всемирного наследия

The World Heritage Site that never was as Wedgwood Etruria Works demolished Mervyn Edwards looks at the Wedgwood connections to Etruria I once took a party of Portuguese students on a history tour around ‘Wedgwood’s Etruria’. It is such a great story that it transcends the language barrier, especially if you have – as I did – an interpreter around to offer assistance. There is enough left in Etruria with a Wedgwood connection to encourage history walkabouts, including such as Etruria Hall, the curious little Roundhouse – which always reminds me of a tea caddy or a biscuit tin – Etruria Park’s commemorative plaque to photographer Thomas Wedgwood, and the stretch of the Trent and Mersey Canal that passed the old Wedgwood factory, which was consigned to the dustbin of history many years ago. As long as I have been active on the local history scene in this area, people have always maintained that had the Wedgwood factory at Etruria survived, it would have been the focal point of a World Heritage Site. It’s worth pointing out then, that in 1951, both the factory and Etruria Hall were listed under Section 30 of the Town and Country Planning Act as of special architectural or historic interest, this status being ‘for the guidance of local planning authorities'. Why was the Etruria Works so important and how do we remember it within living memory? Etruria Hall was built to the north-east of Wedgwood’s works for Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795), being conveniently near to his manufactory, but screened from it by a plantation of trees. The factory itself opened on June 13 , 1769 and Josiah moved into his new mansion on November 11 of that year. The manufactory bore testimony in brick and mortar to the idea that during the Industrial Revolution, everything connected to everything else. It was inspired by the Soho Works (Birmingham) of Matthew Boulton, who Wedgwood much admired. Both Boulton and Wedgwood were friends of Derby architect Joseph Pickford. Pickford designed the Etruria Works and in 1784, a Boulton and Watt steam engine was installed in it in order to drive the clay, flint and colour mills. In 1936 the directors of Wedgwood decided to leave their ageing base at Etruria and build a new headquarters at Barlaston. By this time the old factory was overcrowded and suffering from subsidence – the iron, steel and coal industries having ravaged the area. Converting the factory for the use of modern machinery seemed barely feasible. In 1936, 900 people were employed at Etruria, 600 being transferred to Barlaston in 1940 by which time the earthenware section of the factory was completed. The remainder of the workforce stayed at Etruria until production ceased there in 1950. The new factory was built by 1938 and completed after the Second World War. In 1951 the lease on the premises was sold to the Dunlop Rubber Company with Wedgwood occupying a small part of the premises as sub-tenants of Dunlop. So what actually happened to the site in the 1960s? Subsidence began to affect the Etruria Works appreciably, and by 1960, the frontage had sunk well below the level of the canal. The end was nigh. A photograph on the cover of The Sentinel of November 4, 1960 shows the demolition of the factory bottle ovens, which were reckoned to have been last used at Christmas, 1939. Four bottle ovens had already been taken down, added this newspaper, and demolition continued in stages during the decade. Was there any opposition to the passing of such a quintessential part of the story of the Staffordshire Potteries? Well, the slow destruction of the Wedgwood buildings coincided with an increased interest in the saving of the 200 bottle ovens that were left in Stoke-on-Trent by 1964. The Potteries Civic Society drew up a list of the remnants of the Industrial Revolution that they believed should be preserved. The Society was very interested in the Etruria site, with artist Reginald Haggar adding his weight to the argument to save it. He believed that the works should be preserved as a ‘live’ museum, though he admitted that the financial outlay would be too considerable for the council to bear alone and that support would be needed from the Pottery Manufacturers’ Federation and the Wedgwood family. We read elsewhere that talk of part of the factory being turned into an industrial museum had elicited a poor response. Was the campaign to save the works a slow burner – or were local people indifferent to the plan to preserve two centuries of their industrial past? Did it really matter or was the factory a mere historical bagatelle? Any protests in respect of the demise of the factory smacked of too little, too late – as attested by Sentinel reader H. C. Sheldon of Silverdale in 1965: “Five years ago, when the original ornamental works were demolished, would have been a more fitting time to try to arrest the destruction. We are dealing now with second best, but if possible let there be a happy ending. It is the most famous pottery factory in the world.” He added that the Wedgwood Society of America, realising that 1969 marked the 200th anniversary of the factory’s opening, were intending to hold their international seminar in this country. “Etruria,” declared Mr. Sheldon, “will be their Mecca, but the big question remains – will they see the remains of the factory, or only Etruria Hall and some two dozen houses, the only reminder of an epoch started 200 years ago?” In December, 1965, a member of the Wedgwood Society of America actually sent a telegram to the Minister of Public Works, urging him to intervene to preserve what was left of the historic factory, most of which had already been demolished. At this time, it was felt that the new industrial estate envisaged for the site might include those elements of the factory that were still holding on by the skin of their teeth: the roundhouse, two bottle ovens and the old office block. The scheduling of the factory as a building of historic interest appeared to have mattered very little in the end, with the ministry responding that they could not justify allocating a grant on account of the likely high cost of preservation, the scant support from local sources and the difficulty of finding someone to use the buildings. In 1966, lecturer Peggy Boote – who was about to fly out to the United States in order to speak to the American Wedgwood Society – told The Sentinel that she was horrified that the old Wedgwood factory had recently been bulldozed. “If it hadn’t been snowing, I would have chained myself to the railings in protest.” So there we have it. This particular protest was not staged, all for the sake of a heavy, weatherproof coat and a woolly hat. We may visit Arkwright’s Cromford Mills in Derby, Shrewsbury’s Flaxmill Maltings or Quarry Bank Mill in Cheshire, but the Etruria factory of old Josh Wedgwood, a cornerstone of the Industrial Revolution in Stoke-on-Trent, ceased to be. However, there are elements of the old Etruria site that may still be seen at the Wedgwood Museum in Barlaston – including Josiah Wedgwood’s old fire engine, dating from 1783! Get daily headlines and breaking news emailed to you - it’s FREE