Plate, 9.75 inches diameter. Brown transfer with polychrome clobbering. Maker is Wedgwood & Co. The pattern features a medallion shape in the center divided into eight segments. In the center a circle and four of the segments contain colorful flowers and leaves in red, blue and green which climb outward. In the remaining four segments shapes containing feather-like images also progress in size outward. The border contains flower blossoms and scrolls in a repeated motif.
The wares of Wedgwood & Co are sometimes confused with those of Josiah Wedgwood & Sons Ltd. However, the inclusion of “& Co” or “& Co Ltd” in the name always differentiates between the two companies as Josiah Wedgwood never used “& Co.” Enoch Wedgwood (a distant cousin of Josiah Wedgwood) became a partner in Podmore, Walker & Co. in 1835 and in 1856 the business was renamed Podmore, Walker, Wedgwood & Co. Following the death of Thomas Podmore in 1860, Enoch Wedgwood inherited shares in the interests of the business left to him by Podmore, the partnership was dissolved and became Wedgwood & Co. Enoch Wedgwood took his younger brother Jabez into partnership. By the 1870s the company was employing between 600 and 700 men. Enoch died in 1879 and was succeeded by his sons Edmund and Alfred Enoch Wedgwood who ran the business until 1900 when family control ceased. The company did not have the same drive under the two sons and in 1890 Hollinshead and Kirkham took over the Unicorn Works. In 1900 the firm became a limited company and effective control passed out of the hands of the Wedgwood family. The new money and management put new life into the company and up to 1950 great efforts were put into regaining their former markets, largely by playing to the company’s strengths in producing high quality goods.
