Wedgwood Paper Etruria Stoke on Trent wedg4*

A great collateral item for the Wedgwood collector. From a large Boston merchant's archive, An order acknowledgement from Josiah Wedgwood & Sons, Etruria, Stoke on Trent, dated 4/18/1894. The addressee is "Messrs. Richard Briggs & Co.", a Crockery Merchant, Boston MA. He was a major importer of English China and other wares in the last half of the 19th century. Besides Wedgwood he dealt with, as evidenced by items in the archive, The Worcester Royal Porcelain Co, Mintons, George L. Ashworth & Bros., Ridgways - Bedford Works, Mills Walker Co. - Stourbridge Glass Manufacturers, Thos. Webb & Sons, George Jones & Sons, Langley & Hinde - Liverpool, G. H. Fletcher & Co., and W. T. Copeland & Sons.

The present piece is a Victorian English postal card, 3 1/2"x5 1/2", acknowledging receipt of an order for Wedgwood wares. That Briggs was doing a tremendous volume in these wares is evidenced by all of the other Wedgwood acknowledgements in this archive and those from the other nine firms Briggs was dealing with. On the face of the card is a strike of the "Stoke-on-Trent" postal circular date stamp (cds) and a Boston MA recevier cds. On the Message side of the card is a a dated rubber stamp logotype. This will be a great collateral piece for a Wedgwood collector.

We have determined that the Wedgwood Company used four different logotypes through the years c. 1870 - 1900. They are pictured above in chronological order. We have found some date overlap between these logotypes. It would appear that different departments and account managers phased in new logotypes as they pleased, perhaps using an older one until it wore out.

We are endebted to Jay Briggs for the following information on his Great, Great Grandfather.

At the age of 16, on the death of his father (Dr. John Kingsbury Briggs) Richard Briggs gave up his plans for going to Brown University in Providence where his father was educated, and entered the employ of his cousins William and Alfred Sumner, at the corner of School and Washington Streets in Boston, where all of his business life was spent.

When Mr. Briggs was 21, he was made a full partner. Soon after that he purchased the entire business from his cousins who retired. He became a prosperous and successful merchant, and an authority on china. The two principal causes of Mr. Briggs's success were his great love for his business and his policy of rigid selection. At his death in 1893, one of the magazines of that period stated that he had educated the American people to recognize and admire certain high standards of ceramics.

The names of the most celebrated men and women in America were on his books, and in the china cabinets of most prominent people of this country will be found pieces of china bearing the stamp of Richard Briggs.

The old store had a cordial atmosphere, and itself reflected the feelings of the owner. Mr. Briggs's establishment, as he always refered to it, was a meeting place for many interesting people of his day: Longfellow, Hawthorne, Emerson,and Oliver Wendell Holmes, who found Mr. Briggs a delightful companion; and Mr. Holmes referred to him laughingly in his book "Over the Teacups".

Mr. Briggs went to Europe every year when the journey was quite an arduous one. He always crossed on the Cunard boats; but in his early trips the steamers were side wheelers. He went to all the English factories to Messien, Sevres, Copenhagen, Budapest, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and Italy. He found his treasures in every part of Europe.

Volumes could be written about the old corner China Store, where everything was deliberate and bills sent out once a year. At Mr. Briggs's death, two of his five sons William Sumner Briggs and Richard Briggs continued the business successfully.

Indeed, we recently came across this advertisement for "Richard Briggs China Co." in the 1942 Metropolitan Opera, Boston Program. The address given was Newbury Street, not Washington Street where the great wholesale crockery company was located for so many years.

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