Early Life
Josiah Spode was born in a village that is now part of Stoke-on-Trent. Spode was a pauper's son and also a pauper's orphan at the age of six. He was apprenticed to potter Thomas Whieldon in November (Martinmas) 1749, and remained with him until at least 1754, the year in which Josiah Wedgwood became Whieldon's business partner. Wedgwood stayed with Whieldon until 1759. Spode worked alongside Wedgwood and with the celebrated potter Aaron Wood (father of Enoch Wood) under Whieldon's tuition, and was with Whieldon at the high point of production there.
The suggestion that Spode took over the factory of Ralph Baddeley and Thomas Fletcher during the late 1750s and early 1760s is now discounted. After John Turner left Stoke for Lane End in 1762, Spode is said to have carried on the factory of William Banks, Turner's partner, at Stoke for him for some time. There he began to make creamware blue painted as well as white stoneware in the manner of John Turner, and continued to perfect his excellent potting technique. He was powerfully influenced by Turner's work. He also made black ware and maintained a printing press for black transfer printing. He was engaged as master potter, but it is not known if his work there was consecutive or sporadic.
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“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
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