There are many facets to Josiah Wedgwood best known as a Potter but also an entrepreneur and abolitionist. He was born in Burslem, Staffordshire, the eleventh and last child of potter Thomas Wedgwood and Mary Wedgwood. It was his scientific approach to pottery making that set him apart from other producers at the time, meticulously researching the chemistry of materials and techniques.

Wedgwood's great friend was abolitionist campaigner Thomas Clarkson, this raised his awareness of the cause and he began to actively participate in the campaign for the abolition of slavery. Wedgwood mass-produced cameos depicting the seal for the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade which were widely distributed, in turn, becoming the most recognised image of a black person in all of 18th-century art.