The Wedgwood family name is synonymous with pottery and has its traceable origins lodged in the 13th century and, of course, Stoke-on-Trent. Josiah, perhaps the most famous bearer of the name, was famed for his skilful manipulation of china clay. Leveson Wedgwood was a man who founded a steam dynasty in the same area at around the same time, writes Keith Langston.
Leveson Wedgwood was a boilermaker born in Cobridge, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire and a direct relative of the ‘Master Potter’. To this day, this branch of the family ‘Wedgwood’ is still involved in the operation of steam vehicles, a tradition that is over 100-years-old.
There are as many interesting facets to the family history of the Staffordshire dynasty as there are different spellings of the name. Some say that the family took the name from a farm house adjacent to Brindley Ford (in Staffordshire); others prefer a version concerning derivation from Woden, the Norse god, and others from Germanic origins in describing a wedge shaped area of forestry a ‘wedged wood’. What is for sure is that the name has been spelt at least 198 different ways. In the more commonly accepted form, it certainly acquired a letter ‘d’ in 1535 and the inclusion of the letter ‘e’ had disappeared by the 1600s and so Wegewood became Wedgwood. It has always been linked worldwide with the achievements of the company set up by the great potter of Etruria, and rightly so, but let us expand that record if we may.
A close-up shot on the same journey, under the watchful eye of a ‘Birkenhead Ferries’ employee. Arthur Jnr and his Uncle Jos made the return trip from Cobridge every day, five days a week. They got about two-hours sleep between trips!
Contributing to the industrial growth of the Staffordshire ‘Potteries’ area, Leveson Wedgwood and his ‘line’ was in good company. A quick scan of the Wedgwood family archives will reveal that ‘industrious’ could well have been their middle name. Among their number were a medieval mayor of the City of Cambridge, several ministers of the cloth, a famous London saddler, at least two eminent doctors and several fighting men; including one who was present at, and survived, the Battle of Waterloo.
A fair sprinkling of engineers and, not surprisingly, an absolute plethora of ‘Master Potters’ are also among those recorded as being inter-related Wedgwoods. In fact one predecessor could have been described as covering most of the above-mentioned bases. He was a man who was later to become a convert to religion and a powerful evangelist - William Clowes of Burslem (1780). A relative of Josiah’s mother, he was variously described as a highly-skilful master potter, a notorious drinker, a gambler, an inveterate womaniser and a prize fighter, not all bad then, eh!
Leveson Wedgwood, the originator of the family’s ‘Steam Dynasty’, was born to Hamlet and Maria Wedgwood of Burslem on 25 June 1852 and died in 1928 and he and his wife Dorcas (nee Peak) were certainly not without issue. Indeed the family home at Nettlebank House, Smallthorne, echoed to the sound of no less than 10 children, six boys, which surprise, surprise, include a Josiah among their number, and four girls. The accounts of the home life of this man, and his ‘not always perfect’ spouse, would on their own make fascinating reading and in these times would not have been out of place as a feature in Hello magazine, but that’s another story!
Wallis & Steevens three-ton tractor Baby, photographed at North Road Boiler Works, Cobridge.
You should never; it is said in respect of bringing up children, ‘make fish of one and flesh of another,’ but a study of the Wedgwood archives lead the examiner to the definite conclusion that of his many grandchildren Leveson Wedgwood had a favourite. That was a young man named Arthur who was born in 1900 and he was referred to by his grandfather as ‘Artie’ and was constantly to be found in the company of the old man. It is the recollections of ‘Artie’, meticulously set down by his son Stanley Levison Wedgwood and chronicled by an in-law, Sylvia Bickley, which contain the details of the families ‘steam’ past.
It does not end there, as moving on and looking at the current adult generation of the family, you will discover an active involvement with steam transportation. This could even turn out to be a story without end as, happily, the current younger generation of the family are also similarly disposed to steam and vintage restoration.
Becoming a boilermaker by trade, Leveson did not follow in the footsteps of his father, or indeed the rest of his huge collection of relatives, who were mostly potters. However it was the very existence of those ‘pot banks’, which created work for those who had become skilled riveters of metal. Envisaging a good future, with the prospect of much work within the pottery trade, the young Wedgwood decided to become his own master and in 1885 he set up his boiler-making business.
Situated in the Cobridge area of Stoke-on-Trent, the firm carried out business at premises known as the North Road Boiler Works. Confidence in his own undoubted ability helped him establish quickly a creditable manufacturing facility and he was successful in gaining work locally. However the company did not generate large profits and with a growing, and increasing, family to feed, the Burslem boilermaker was hard put to make ends meet.
Five-ton Foden No 4402 of 1914 (M 6131) carries a narrow gauge locomotive Toad from the North Staffordshire Railway loco works to Cauldon Low Quarries. Photographed on ‘Corkscrew Bank’, Dunwood, between Endon and Leek. Note that the loco probably weighed eight tons!
The good Leveson was known as a man with a fine sense of humour and a kind heart and many tales of his compassionate lifestyle are recorded and do his memory great credit. For example, the winter of 1890-91 was recorded as possessing a period of prolonged frosts, notably from 25 November 1890 until 22 January 1891, with temperatures in the English countryside so low that the canals were reported to have frozen over so severely as to prohibit the movement of barges.
This in turn meant that the bargee’s were unable to earn money and as a consequence many of them, together with their families, faced the real possibility of starvation. Leveson Wedgwood is known to have opened the doors of his Smallthorne home to many of those impoverished people and to have shared what little sustenance his family had with them. So severe was the winter in question that skating on the ice at Regents Park, London was recorded as being possible on no less than 43 days, with ice up to 9in thick.
The developing Wedgwood Boiler Works became the employer of most of Leveson’s actual and extended family and included in that number was his son Arthur. It was Arthur who first brought steam transport to the business. He had the ear of his father and was able to persuade him that although those large teams of ‘shires’ hired in, together with their minders to move the boilers around looked good and in fact did a good job, steam vehicles would in the long run be cheaper.
