CERAMICS A-Z

Ceramics - Q is for Queen's Ware

Vase, made at Josiah Wedgwood's factory, about 1765. Museum no. 3119-1853 (click image for larger version)

Cream-coloured earthenwares, containing a combination of whitish clays and calcined flint, were made in Staffordshire from the 1740s. Josiah Wedgwood - whose extraordinary skills as a ceramic technologist were very nearly matched by his talents as a salesman and entrepreneur - made various improvements to the material during the 1760s.

Following his appointment as Potter to Queen Charlotte in 1766, he named his improved creamware 'Queen's Ware'. This did much to ensure the fashionable status of his pottery. But as the term rapidly became the generic name for creamware, it was also widely used to promote the products of his competitors. Along with transfer printing and the bone china formula, creamware was one of the major technical advances in ceramics that the British can lay claim to.