Josiah Wedgwood's business was already successful and expanding when she was born, and she grew up in increasingly comfortable circumstances.

Her baptism in January 1765, at home because of bad weather, was followed by a lobster dinner, with port, for the family, though as a sign of things to come, her father had to leave early to deal with business matters.

[1] At the age of seven, she was sent to a boarding school in Manchester but returned home for the summer holidays "full of pouks, & boils & humours", according to a letter by her father, so was taken to the spa at Buxton to recover, and thereafter tutored at home, with occasional visits to London to stay with her father's friend and business partner Thomas Bentley.

Despite the families living in the Midlands, the marriage was at St Marylebone, Middlesex, even then part of London.

[citation needed] In 1817, she started growing ill, with gastrointestinal symptoms that were probably a sign of either a severe ulcer or stomach cancer.