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Pottery  We use the pottery products almost everyday in our life.B ut there are few people who know the history of the pottery and porcelain.H ere we will look into the difference of the pottery and the porcelain and try to understand the some of the different aspects of the pottery and porcelain.P ottery is defined as earthenware and includes Faience, or Majolica, cream ware and, according to many authorities, a near-porcelain variety called stoneware.T he origins of the making of pottery are lost in antiquity, and date from when Primitive Man found that the heat of a fire would harden clay.S o far as the modern collector is concerned little is available that was made before the sixteenth century, although a considerable number of earlier examples can be studied in museums.T hey are seen to be of simple shapes, mostly in the form of jugs; sometimes with decorative patterns cut or impressed into the red or buff clay; with patterns rubbed on or dribbled in wet clay (slip) of a contrasting colour or with designs stamped on pads of clay stuck on the article.M any are colored with transparent glazes made from lead, in shades of yellow, brown or green.T he shapes used varied from place to place and from century to century, and it is not always possible to name where or when a piece was made.J ohn Astbury and Thomas Whieldon of Staffordshire were the foremost potters in the middle of the eighteenth century, and their output comprised wares of all the types that were then known.I n particular, Whieldon's name is linked with wares with pale-colored transparent glazes including early versions of the famous Toby Jug, and Ralph Wood and his son, also named Ralph, made similar types.A stbury is noted for pieces made from red clay, either engine-turned on a lathe or with white clay ornaments in relief.T hese two men led the way to the perfecting of lead-glazed pottery, a step that was the achievement of Josiah Wedgwood.W edgwood was a good practical potter, he had been for a few years in partnership with Whieldon, but was a better business man, and his cream-colored lead-glazed earthenware, known from 1765 as Queen's Ware, was so successful that it competed with porcelain, and was imitated not only by other English makers but also all over the Continent of Europe.T he closest imitator in England was the factory at Leeds, Yorkshire, which approached the high quality of Wedgwood's products, but often used original patterns.H is own men in Staffordshire decorated much of Wedgwood creamware, or at a workshop he had for a time in London at Chelsea, but a quantity was sent to Liverpool to be ornamented by a newly invented process.