Who “transformed ceramics from a ‘rude and unformed art’ into a stylish and well-designed, mass-manufactured product”? According to Tristam Hunt, acclaimed historian and director of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, it was Josiah Wedgwood, who founded Wedgwood in 1759.

Here, Mr. Hunt discusses Wedgwood’s innovations and contributions not just to the realm of pottery, his invention of Jasperware being just one of them, in Stoke-on-Trent, the city in England that became synonymous with ceramics production long before Mark Hewitt, another participant in the conversation, was born there. Hewitt, whose father and grandfather had both served as the director at Spode, a well-known fine china company based in Stoke, chose for himself not a life in industrial but studio pottery. His work is part of the permanent collection in museums throughout the United States and he has exhibited widely as well.