Born into a family of potters in 1759, his career included a brief stint with Josiah Wedgwood before learning his modelling skills with Humphrey Palmer, and by 1783 he was already established in Burslem as an independent potter with his cousin Ralph Wood.
The Woods struck a partnership with local lawyer James Caldwell in 1790 but by 1818 Enoch had taken over the business, renaming it Enoch Wood & Sons and establishing himself as a leading manufacturer producing large quantities of blue printed earthenware as well as porcelain. In 1829 the operation was described as ‘encompassing the sites of five old factories’ and by the 1830s the firm had around one thousand workers. It even expanded into mining interests, acquiring the Bycars Colliery in Burslem to provide fuel for firing the ovens.
Enoch died in 1840 and the pottery was run by two of his sons – Enoch and Edward. In 1843 Enoch Wood & Sons was listed in The Borough of Stoke-on-Trent as ‘being employed in the manufacture of earthenware of every variety,’ and was among ‘the largest exporters of that article from Staffordshire to the United States of America’. The pottery was closed in 1846 but Enoch’s dedication to pottery lives on: an early collector of English pottery, he had a museum of almost 700 pieces, some of which are now held in Pillnitz Castle in Dresden, in the V&A in London, and in the City Museum in Stoke-on-Trent in the UK.
