Etruria has been
created, nurtured and grown by men of local, national and
international fame, without whom the story would never have been
complete.....
Josiah Wedgwood
I (1730-1795)
In 1769
Wedgwood opened his new works on a rural site in between Hanley
and Newcastle-under-Lyme, which he purchased because he knew that
the Trent and Mersey canal would run past the site. He named the
site Etruria.
The
canal was opened in 1777.
Thomas Wedgwood
(1771-1805)
Thomas Wedgwood born in May 1771 in Etruria, Staffordshire.
Wedgwood is credited with a major contribution to technology for
being the first man to think of a method to copy visible images
chemically to permanent mediums...the birth of photography as we
know it today.
James Brindley (1716-1772)
"On Friday last I
dined with Mr. Brindley, the Duke of Bridgewater's engineer, after
which we had a meeting at the Leopard on the subject of a
Navigation from Hull.... to Burslem"
– Josiah
Wedgwood,11th March 1765.
Granville Levison Gower
(1773-1846)
Born at a time when
the industrial revolution was in its infancy, he grew up in an
atmosphere of great change and development in the iron industry.
In 1815 he was elevated to the peerage and created an Earl.
That same year his son was born, named George, who was to take
over the running of Shelton on his father's death in 1846.
Jessie Shirley (1848-1927)
