 Born in Burslem, Staffordshire, the eleventh and last child of potter Thomas Wedgwood (d. 1739) and Mary Wedgwood ("née" Stringer; d. 1766), Josiah was raised within a family of English Dissenters, he was the grandson of a Unitarian minister and was an active Unitarian.By the age of nine, he was proving himself to be a skilled potter.He survived a childhood bout of smallpox to serve as an apprentice potter under his eldest brother Thomas Wedgwood IV.