N OT much unites the Honourable Nicholas Soames and Frank Dobson. The former is a grandson of Winston Churchill, a Tory Member of Parliament for leafy mid-Sussex and a man who likes a pheasant for breakfast. The other is a bearded leftie and inner-city London MP, with a good line in filthy jokes.

But both men have written to me in recent months concerned about the future of the Wedgwood Museum in Barlaston. They are among a battalion of Parliamentary colleagues, ceramics enthusiasts, historians, and Stokie exiles desperately worried that the world famous Wedgwood collection could be broken up and sold abroad.

Well, this week Stoke-on-Trent gets its day in court. Beginning tomorrow in Birmingham a High Court judge will hear three days of evidence as to whether the collection of paintings by Joshua Reynolds, anti-slavery medallions, 'Frog' service sets, black Jasper Portland, and Robert-Adam-designed vases can be sold off to plug a pension fund deficit. For the sake of our city, we can only hope the judge sees sense.

But we need to think about a Plan 'B' if he doesn't.

For readers unfamiliar with this sorry tale it goes back to the sad demise of Waterford Wedgwood Royal Doulton in January 2009 under the hapless leadership of the O'Reilly family. The company was then sold to an American private equity company, KPS Capital Partners, free of any pension liabilities.

The pensions of previous Wedgwood employees would be taken care of by the Government-run Pension Protection Fund, set up in the aftermath of the Robert Maxwell-Daily Mirror fraud.

But here's the rub. Because the adjacent, but separate Wedgwood Museum employed five members of staff and used the same pension fund, its assets became liable for the pension debt of all 7,000 Wedgwood ex-employees.

But the museum was specifically set up as a stand alone trust in 1961, so how can a collection ring-fenced 50 years ago be sold off now? While we await the judgement, the museum – still open for visits – has gone into administration, with its priceless collection at risk.

And what a collection it is. Its origins can be traced back to Josiah Wedgwood, himself, pictured below left, who, in 1774, wrote of how 'I have often wish'd I had saved a single specimen of all the new articles I have made, and would now give 20 times the original value for such a collection. I am now, from thinking, and talking a little more upon this subject ... resolv'd to make a beginning'.

And so he made a beginning on what is among the finest ceramics collection in the world with some 8,000 objects on display testifying both to Wedgwood's genius and the company's productivity. But it also tells a broader story of Stoke-on-Trent. The museum is dedicated to 'The People Who Have Made Objects of Great Beauty from the Soils of Staffordshire' and it describes the advent of industrialisation, the nature of the English Enlightenment, and how the ideas of the French Revolution came to the UK. This is the intellectual world of 1700s Birmingham, Lichfield, Stoke-on-Trent and North Staffordshire so brilliantly described in Jenny Uglow's book, The Lunar Society.

What is more, it has been a great success. The Heritage Lottery Fund gifted the museum £5 million to set it up; it won the £100,000 Art Fund prize for best museum and gallery; and only this year its archive collection was recognised by the United Nations as of world renown – alongside the Bill of Rights and death warrant of King Charles I.

All of this is in danger because of a flawed piece of pension legislation. Let us hope the judgement goes in Stoke's favour.

If we lose, the situation is bleaker. A national fund-raising strategy will be needed. The Wedgwood family have been raising awareness and have gained a huge number of supporters, from ex-pottery workers in Bentilee to enthusiasts in Brazil, the USA and Australia.

Characteristically, Nicholas Soames had his own ideas. 'I do not like the sound of the museum closing at all,' his letter to me ended. 'Are you planning a violent demonstration to secure its future?' Not quite yet.

For more information see www.savewedgwood.org