What does the tea set reveal about British life in the
1840s?
MacGregor's text:
Tea set:
O Most people worked in stoneware ceramics
factories.
O People of all economic and social classes were
starting to drink tea.
In the eighteenth century Josiah Wedgwood had
made some of the most expensive stoneware
ceramics - in jasper and basalt - in Britain, but
this tea set shows that by the 1840s, when
Wedgwood produced it, the company was aiming
at a much wider market. This is quite clearly mid-
range pottery, simple earthenware of a sort that
many quite modest British households were then
able to afford.
-A History of the World in 100 Objects,
Neil MacGregor
O Many people were beginning to take an interest in
the artistry of pottery.