Hensleigh Wedgwood chimes in on that Pesky Extra E

While researching in my library sometime back, I randomly picked a book from the shelf and to my delight noticed it had been one of Elizabeth Chellis'. The title page of Staffordshire Pottery and its History by Josiah C. Wedgwood does not state a publication date, but in Elizabeth's hand in pencil I found: [1913]? 1922 says C V Wedgwood check again I smiled as I thought about her thorough attention to detail. I found enclosed in the front a news-clipping from the local Wellesley newspaper of 12 Feb 1953- an ad for the local Community Playhouse with coming attractions, a fun commentary on the times, to wit: The Promoter, Operation Secret (with Karl Malden), Everything I Have is Yours, with Marge and Gower Champion and Claudette Colbert in Outpost in Malaya. More interesting to us Wedgwoodians perhaps is an article, dated 4 Feb 1947, from the Boston Herald which I think bears repeating: "Hensley [sic] Wedgwood, of the British family whose name is famed in china and pottery, arrived in this country recently on a business trip. He was interviewed by a group of newspaper and magazine writers about the manufacture and sale of Wedgwood...One interviewer noticed that in his lapel [he] wore a tiny pin on which was the letter 'E'. Wedgwood was asked whether this was a British award similar to the 'E' Awards, given by the War and Navy Depts. during the war. 'Not at all,' said Wedgwood. 'It's there to remind people abut the correct spelling of my name-that there's only one 'E' in Wedgwood'". One would think that since the article was about the spelling of his name, the newspaper proofers would be sure his FIRST name was spelled correctly! Perhaps we need to retell this story to young collectors, those on eBay and other places where we SO often find this annoying mis-spelling. We really need to commission a jewelry manufacturer to make us a blue & white enamel E lapel pin! In a quick search for a photo of Hensleigh, I found a very interesting article by Hensleigh in a 1970 issue of American Heritage about Josiah, another article about our favorite potter, which bears a good read. Click the title of this post to read it! And another amazing find popped up as I searched for that picture of Hensleigh. Check out this book by a much earlier Hensleigh Wedgwood! I don't remember having heard of this one, but perhaps I have and simply never investigated!

And from the back of Elizabeth's book, perhaps used as a placemarker, fell a short poem cut from a newspaper without attribution or date with which I close, in hopes that someday when my library is disseminated others will enjoy the odds and ends I seem to be constantly tucking inside my books.

STAFFORD CANAL
Where lichened locks all dripping cool
So deeply store their limpid pool,
Gay-painted barges dream and drowse
In soft shadows of haymows.

And by the inn with open door
Old bargemen speak of water lore,
Crews or cargoes, miles per day,
Copper bars, and bales of hay.
[wonder if Elizabeth itched to change this to 'pots of clay' as do I]

While off in distant growing gloom
I see dark massive Wrekin loom,
Low lightning-lit in Shropshire sky.
An anchored cloud as night flows by.
R. N. T.