The English pottery firm of Wedgwood have been making fine dinner and ornamental ware for over two centuries. Perhaps best known for its characteristic blue and white jasper and the finest bone china, Wedgwood's fame and fortune were built upon the "Queen's Ware,' Josiah Wedgwood's greatest achievement and today, Wedgwood's most exclusive ware.

The revolution Josiah Wedgwood produced in dinnerware is one we rarely consider. When we think of him we recall his famous blue "jasper" wares; his role in the abolition of the slave trade; the part he played in establishing England's canal system; his pioneering of the division of labour in his factories; and for Australians, his production of the "Sydney Cove Medallion". All of these are his, but his contemporary fame and his fortune (he was worth half a million pounds when he died in 1796) were built on his "Queen's Ware" tableware, developed in the early 1760s.

Through a long and continuing series of experiments, Josiah produced "a species of earthenware... quite new in its appearance covered with a rich and brilliant glaze, bearing sudden alterations of heat and cold, manufactured with ease and expedition, and consequently cheap..." By the mid 1780s, his Queen's Ware was, in both body and glaze, as white as the earthenware being produced by most potteries of today