UK must not sell off Wedgwood's legacy Josiah Wedgwood was one of the world's great business heroes. A leading figure of the 18th- century enlightenment in England, he was an innovator and a scientist. Fiercely competitive, he was brilliant at design and marketing, and was probably the first person anywhere to understand the importance of brands. First in England, then across Europe and America, the emerging middle classes rushed to buy his tableware and decorative ceramics. On the back of that enthusiasm, he built a business that lasted 250 years. In his relentless drive to deliver design and innovation to a growing consumer market, Wedgwood was the Steve Jobs of his day - but with a lot more humanity. By the standards of the time he was a caring employer, with a sick club and a library at his factory, and he played an energetic part in the abolition of the slave trade. A cameo of a kneeling slave - produced at his own expense - became a badge of honour for those who supported the campaign. He rejoiced at the independence of America: "Someone should be made to say distinctly what has been the object of the present most wicked and preposterous war with our brethren and best friends." Now his remarkable legacy is in jeopardy. Over the years, Wedgwood and his successors set aside some of their factories" finest pieces to be preserved for future generations. In 1962, the company put the collection into an independent trust, which achieved charitable status in 1998. After nearly a decade of fundraising, the trust built a beautiful museum in the heart of the North Staffordshire Potteries, which won the Art Fund prize for the most outstanding museum in 2009 and has been recognised by Unesco as a vital part of the UK's cultural heritage. Then came trouble. In 2009, the Wedgwood trading company went bust, leaving a hole in its pension fund of £134.7m. By that time, a number of company employees had been transferred to work in the museum, which in a way made it in the legal sense a participating employer in the Wedgwood group pension plan. Had the museum's liabilities been limited to the amount needed to cover its own employees" pension deficit, it would have had to come up with about £100,000. Instead, the museum is liable under the so-called "last man standing" rule of UK law for the whole of the Wedgwood pension deficit. Absent some form of intervention, that means a collection valued at between £11.5m and £18m - but which in a broader sense is priceless - will have to be broken up and sold. The administrators are waiting to see whether the Attorney-General will appeal this decision and, in the meantime, are actively looking around for funding. The government says it would be a cultural disaster if the collection were to be dispersed, and appears to be doing what it can behind the scenes to find a way out. The arts world is very properly outraged: 18 Royal Academicians, including Tracey Emin and the president Christopher Le Brun, have written to the Guardian to protest. The world of industry and commerce should also now be taking action. Along with its ceramics and paintings, the museum contains what must be one of the finest business and industrial archives anywhere. Dating back to 1759, it includes Wedgwood's experiment and account books, and his correspondence with other great figures of the enlightenment. Never one for an understatement, W.E. Gladstone put it this way: "Wedgwood was the greatest man who ever, in any age, or in any country . . . applied himself to the important work of uniting art with industry." The Wedgwood Museum tells a story about England and the industrial revolution, which is at least as important as its aesthetic and cultural value: this is an issue for the business as well as the arts world to be exercised about. At present this unique collection is where it ought to be - gathered together in a well-designed museum in Barlaston. The High Court ruling seems to make it inevitable that funds equivalent to its value will have, somehow or other, to be handed over to the Wedgwood company pension fund. However, future generations would, rightly, not forgive us if we allowed the museum to be emptied and this great man's legacy to be auctioned off in order to make this possible. The writer is chancellor of the University of Warwick, former director-general of the Confederation of British Industry and a previous editor of the Financial Times