Etruria Works

The Etruria Works was a ceramics factory opened by Josiah Wedgwood in 1769 in a district of Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, which he named Etruria. The factory ran for 180 years.

Wedgwood had previously based his business in the nearby town of Burslem at the Ivy House Works and the Brick House Works (demolished - the Wedgwood Institute is built on its site). In 1767 Wedgwood paid about three thousand pounds for his new site, which was then known as the Ridgehouse Estate. It lay directly in the path of the Trent and Mersey Canal of which Wedgwood was a promoter. On one side of the canal Wedgwood built a large house, Etruria Hall and on the other side a factory. His architect was Joseph Pickford.

The motto of the Etruria works was Artes Etruriae Renascuntur. This may be translated from the Latin as "The Arts of Etruria are reborn". Wedgwood was inspired by ancient pottery then generally described as Etruscan, although the term was used for items now known to be Greek. In particular he was interested in artworks which Sir William Hamilton began to collect in the 1760s while serving as an ambassador in Naples. The modeller John Flaxman was able to adapt this classical art for the eighteenth-century market, producing designs such as "the dancing hours". The products of Wedgwood's factory were greatly admired in Britain and abroad. Some of Flaxman's designs are still in production today.

Little remains of the factory today, although one surviving structure is now protected as a listed building . The site was affected by mining subsidence, and most of the factory was demolished after the Wedgwood company moved production to Barlaston some miles south on the Trent and Mersey Canal. Part of the site is now occupied by the local newspaper The Sentinel.