The Potter of Burslem

Josiah Wedgwood opened his first pottery works in Burslem, Staffordshire, in 1759. He became the most celebrated potter in English history — but what made his factory remarkable wasn't just the beauty of his finished pieces. It was what happened to the failures.

In the Wedgwood works, when a vessel came off the wheel misshapen or cracked during forming, the apprentices knew the routine. The marred clay was never thrown into the waste heap. It was gathered up, soaked in water, kneaded again — a process called "wedging" — and placed back on the wheel. The same lump of clay might pass through a potter's hands three, four, even five times before it finally held its intended shape.

Wedgwood himself had been reshaped by life. Smallpox left him with a weakened right knee that was eventually amputated, ending his ability to work the foot-pedaled potter's wheel. Yet that very limitation pressed him toward innovation, design, and artistry that transformed English ceramics forever. His brokenness became the doorway to his greatest work.

This is Jeremiah's vision at the potter's house. When God looked at Israel — marred on the wheel, not holding the shape He intended — He did not cast them aside. "So he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make it." The same hands. The same clay. A new intention.

The Almighty does not waste His clay. He gathers it, works it, and begins again.