It was announced just before Christmas that a judge at the High Court in Birmingham gave a verdict saying that the collection in the Wedgwood Museum, valued at £18 million, could be sold to help cover a £134 million pension deficit stemming back to the 2009 collapse of the Waterford Wedgwood pottery firm. This led to an outcry from the family, the local member of parliament, curators and ordinary Potteries folk, horrified by the idea that their region, which has already lost its pottery, coal and steel industries, could lose its proud heritage too. Experts believe any sale would undoubtedly see the collection broken up with the best items sold abroad.
Happily on Christmas Eve, the Daily Telegraph was able to report that billionaire John Caudwell, who was born into a working class family in Stoke on Trent in the 1950s and who made his fortune from selling his home-grown mobile phone company, had stepped forward offering to keep the collection intact, in place and open to the public.
Obviously there are many formalities to be gone through, but it looks as though the Wedgwood Museum has been saved.
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