Archive for category Waterford
Waterford Wedgwood: 250 years of history | Business | guardian.co.uk
Josiah Wedgwood. Source: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
After 250 years of history, glassware and china maker Waterford Wedgwood is calling in the administrators.
Wedgwood traces its origins to England in 1759 while Waterford started in Ireland in 1783. The two companies, which are among the world’s leading brands of fine crystal and china, merged in 1986. In 1998 the business acquired a controlling stake in German china maker Rosenthal.
Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, Waterford Wedgwood is represented in more than 80 countries and employs around 9,000 people around the world.
Wedgwood
Wedgwood was founded in 1759 by Josiah Wedgwood, who is now remembered as the “Father of English Potters”. He was the youngest of 12 children born in Burslem, Staffordshire, in the heart of the English potteries and serviced his apprenticeship as a potter before setting up his own business.
After he manufactured a cream-coloured tea and coffee service for Queen Charlotte, wife of George III, she allowed him to style himself “Potter to Her Majesty” and to call his new cream ware Queen’s Ware.
Josiah also created Black Basalt, a fine black porcelain, which enabled him to produce copies of the newly excavated Etruscan pottery from Italy. His invention of a new stoneware called Jasper has been described as the most important development in the history of ceramics since the Chinese discovery of porcelain nearly 1,000 years earlier. He employed many notable artists including George Stubbs to design bas-reliefs, often imitating classical Greek motifs.
In 1766 he built a new factory in Staffordshire which he called Etruria, as well as a Georgian mansion, Etruria Hall, for his family. The opening of Etruria on 13 June 1769 was celebrated with the throwing of six so-called First Day’s Vases. His business partner Thomas Bentley, a Liverpool merchant who sold Wedgwood ceramics,
turned the potter’s wheel. In 1774 they supplied a 944-piece dinner service, which became known as the frog service because of its green frog emblem, to Empress Catherine II of Russia.
After Josiah invented the pyrometer, a device for measuring higher degrees of heat in kilns, he was elected to the Royal Society in 1783. His last major
ceramic achievement was the Portland Vase, produced in 1789 – a facsimile of a famous Roman cameo glass vase known as the Barberini.
In 1790 he took his three sons John, Josiah II and Thomas, and his nephew Thomas Byerley into partnership, but John and Tom left three years later.
The 19th century saw the introduction of the first coloured earthenware and the manufacture of bone china. Wedgwood provided a bone china dinner service ordered by US President Theodore Roosevelt for the White House.
During the 1930s, the fifth Josiah Wedgwood decided to built a new, modern factory at Barlaston in Stoke-on-Trent. Production started in the 1940s and has continued at the site ever since.
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Waterford Wedgwood: 250 years of history | Business | guardian.co.uk
Watching the ball drop a must for New Year’s | thenews-messenger.com | The News-Messenger
With New Year’s Eve being only two days away, my thoughts travel to all of the New Year’s Eves of my past. No matter how my family rings in the new year, watching the famous ball drop in Times Square in New York City is a must. We always have our television tuned into that iconic New Year’s celebration as midnight approaches.
As I pondered today’s column, I started wondering about the history of these Times Square parties. My intrigue led me to www.timessquarenyc.org/nye/nye_history.html where I uncovered some very fascinating facts surrounding this New Year’s tradition that has not only captivated a nation, but an entire world.
The first-ever Times Square New Year’s Eve celebration took place on Dec. 31, 1904. The day started with a street festival that gave way to a dazzling fireworks display which was set off at the base of the impressive Times Tower at the intersection of 42nd Street, Broadway and 7th Avenue in New York City. As 1905 rang in, the sounds of cheering and noisemakers from the more than 200,000 people gathered could be heard 30 miles away. The events of the day were such a resounding success that Times Square immediately became known as “the place to be” to usher in the new year. And so, a tradition was born.
Much to the frustration of the coordinators of this newfound party, the fireworks display was banned two years later for the 1907 celebration. That did not stop Alfred Ochs, owner of the New York Times, who was an integral part in establishing this annual event in Times Square. He arranged to have an iron and wood ball, weighing 700 pounds, measuring 5 feet in diameter, and illuminated with one hundred 25-watt bulbs, suspended on the flagpole atop One Times Square. Precisely at midnight, the sphere was lowered to signal the start of a new year.
Throughout history, the ball has been replaced and upgraded several times. The first of these came in 1920 when a 400-pound wrought iron ball replaced the iron and wood ball. Again in 1955, this was replaced with a much lighter 200 pound aluminum ball, which was used until the 1980s.
At that time, red lights were added along with a green stem to symbolize an apple. This played nicely into the “I Love New York” marketing campaign which embraced New York City between the years of 1981 and 1988. Seven years later, the red lights and stem disappeared and the traditional white lights were once again used.
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Watching the ball drop a must for New Year’s | thenews-messenger.com | The News-Messenger
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