For a few desperate months earlier this year, it looked as if the revamped £10 million Wedgwood Museum in Stoke-on-Trent was destined to become Britain’s most expensive memorial plaque.

The collapse of Waterford Wedgwood, the pottery manufacturer whose 250-year history it chronicles, hit visitor numbers hard and turned what should have been a thriving industrial site around the museum into a ghost factory. But now the business has been given a lifeline and the spirit of hope was boosted last night when the museum won the Art Fund Prize for museums and galleries — at £100,000, the most lucrative prize in the business.

Lord Puttnam, who chaired the jury, said: “This museum is extraordinary for so many reasons and we were all but unanimous in our decision. The Wedgwood Museum brilliantly highlights the marriage of art, design, manufacturing and commerce. It fully meets our criteria of what a 21st- century museum should aspire to be.”

There have been various incarnations of the museum since the first one opened in 1906, and it was closed for ten years for redevelopment work before the current building opened on October 25 last year. Then, on January 5, Waterford Wedgwood slid into administration. “It was just the most horrendous day,” said Gaye Blake-Roberts, the museum’s director.

Changing tastes and in particular a decline in the popularity of “special occasion” bone china were blamed, but the company appears to have pulled back from the brink. KPS Capital Partners, a US private equity fund, is understood to have invested £85 million and promised to retain half the company’s employees. The car park outside the museum is once again full.

The museum’s fortunes have shadowed those of the business — visitor numbers that had dropped by at least a quarter are now recovering. The museum is financially and operationally independent from the business and is owned and run by a charitable trust. It tells the story of one of the world’s most recognisable consumer brands, but Ms Blake-Roberts said that the visitor experience amounted to much more than seeing the world’s best collection of blue and white jasperware.

“It’s about the social history of the area, developments in commerce, taste, fashion and technology,” she said. Besides pottery, the museum includes a hoard of 84,000 18th-century manuscripts relating to the founder, Josiah Wedgwood, whose scientific innovations and creativity meant that by the time of his death in 1795 Wedgwood dishes were to be found on royal tables across the world, from George III’s to that of Catherine the Great of Russia.

Ms Blake-Roberts plans to use the £100,000 awarded at the ceremony at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London last night to help to fund space for 1960s pottery and temporary exhibition areas for travelling displays and children’s work.

The judges, who included the potter Grayson Perry and the mathematician Marcus du Sautoy, praised the way in which the museum used its world famous collection to take visitors on a tour of British social, design and industrial history, while remaining embedded in the local community.

Andrew Macdonald, acting director of the Art Fund, said: “The Wedgwood Museum magnificently celebrates the extraordinary achievement of Britain’s industrial history. It is a richly deserving winner of this prize and its victory could not have come at a better time for the area.”

Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow, Orleans House Gallery in Twickenham and Ruthin Craft Centre in North Wales were also shortlisted for the prize.

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