Lot 90: WOOD, Enoch (1759-1840). An archive of the Staffordshire potteries, comprising:

a collection of autograph material, 18th-19th century, including correspondence, inventories, drawings, 3 maps, plans, chronologies, copies of legal documents, accounts and printed material, arranged and numbered 1-303 in red ink upper left, with a corresponding index, and loosely inserted within two portfolios, folio, half-calf with papered boards, the first labelled inside upper cover by Enoch Wood, 'Memoranda, these are scraps & papers Intended to be arranged at some convenient season by & for inspection of my Family only', the majority in Enoch Wood's hand; the papers include (listed in the order arranged here): a 55-page account of the Staffordshire potteries and their history, including drawings in ink and pencil and a folding plan, in ink and washes, of Rushton Grange, Burslem (1768); clippings from Staffordshire newspapers (The Staffordshire Mercury, The Potteries' Gazette, 1820s-40s), a 'list of different clays and wares', numbered and listed by shelf (presumably an inventory of the museum in the Wood factory); folding plan of the mines and engines in Norton Parish, drawn to scale and used in the 'Wedgwood v Gallimore trial'; an indenture dated 1731 between Aaron and Ralph Wood and Thomas Wedgwood (published in Simeon Shaw's History of the Staffordshire Potteries and Jewitt's The Wedgwoods), subscription for a monument to Josiah Wedgwood, papers and general meeting notices for the Manufacturers of Earthenware, many signed by members; A Plan of the town of Burslem about 1750 and from that to 1759, 'by Mr McPhayl, Land surveyor, 1816, under my direction', 545 x 480mm, ink and wash on paper laid down on canvas (a version reproduced in Jewitt's The Wedgwoods), a pen-and-ink drawing of the Barberini Vase, diagram of the pits and Burslem Engine (1809); autograph letters signed from John Mortlock, Jacob Warburton, John Wood, Aaron Wood, Mr Davenport and others including Ralph WEDGWOOD (1766-1837), autograph letter signed [1808] on carbon paper (his own invention, and bearing his patentee's blindstamp for the 'Manifold Writer'), 328 Oxford Street, to Ann Wood, 1 1/2 pages, 4to; Wedgwood is in search of 'a good wife and a finger for the superb present of the Emp.ss of Russia'; and another letter on carbon paper (1834), with a letter from WILBERFORCE concerning patents (for further information on Ralph Wedgwood, master potter and inventor, see lot 83); with a small quantity of unnumbered papers, including WEDGWOOD, Josiah (1730-1795), autograph letter signed to Mr Deusbury, Etruria May 27 1795, 1 page, 4to.

[With]: JEWITT, Llewellynn Frederick William (1816-1886), an autograph collection of correspondence, mainly with Godfrey WEDGWOOD, proofs and notes relating to the publication of Jewitt's works on the Wedgwood family, mainly the The Wedgwoods: being a Life of Josiah Wedgwood, London: 1865, including Wedgwood family trees and chronologies, an autograph letter signed (1865) from GLADSTONE, an acceptance as dedicatee; a small quantity of printed material including Jewitt's own proofs, 11 issues of The Potter (1856-8), 35 issues of The Potters' Examiner (1844), and publications and newspaper articles (1865) relating to The Wedgwood Institute, memorial, and family; together with a collection of 46 autograph letters written to or collected by Jewitt, from the Duke of Devonshire, Lord Vernon and others.

AN IMPORTANT ARCHIVE OF MATERIAL RELATING TO BURSLEM AND THE STAFFORDSHIRE POTTERIES, ASSEMBLED BY ONE OF THE LEADING MANUFACTURERS. The majority of the papers are apparently unpublished; they offer a detailed history not only of the potteries, the Woods, Wedgwoods and other major manufacturers, but also a social history of Staffordshire, and insights into working practices and conditions at the height of the industrial age. Having been apprenticed to Humphrey Palmer and the Wedgwoods, Enoch Wood started up his own company with Ralph Wood in Burslem in 1784. His family came to be one of the most prominent pottery families of the 19th century. During his long life, Enoch Wood, as this archive shows, kept an eye on posterity, keeping detailed records and mementoes of life in Burslem. The present papers are covered in explanatory notes, signed 'EW', often with suggestions for their preservation. His comments offer amusing insights -- on his drawing of the Portland Vase is his note that he had closely examined Josiah Wedgwood's jasper copy of the original, and 'I could have modeld it in much better stile'. Following the closure of his factories in 1846, Enoch Wood's papers must have been dispersed; the present collection of papers is an important survival for the documentation of the Staffordshire potteries.

OTHER PROPERTIES

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