Waterford Wedgwood will pay for the college education of an 11-year-old London schoolboy who set up a website using the Waterford Crystal name after the multinational firm let its ownership of the site lapse.

Waterford Wedgwood had registered its ownership of the site, www.waterfordcrystal.com several years ago but let the ownership lapse. Internet enthusiast James Stell set up a site under the name earlier this month - and immediately began to receive e-mail orders worth thousands of pounds.

James, whose father Richard registers domain names for his business selling kitchenware over the Internet, started to look for names he could register and discovered the Waterford name was available. The day after he had registered it, e-mails started to arrive seeking to place orders. Orders totalled £40,000 sterling (€63,715) in one week, according to Mr Richard Stell. One order was for 10 crystal chandeliers.

When the Stells tried to get in contact with Waterford Wedgwood and advise it about what was happening, they found it difficult to make contact with anyone who was interested. Eventually contact was made with someone who took notice and an arrangement was made for the return of the site.

Although the company feels sure it could assert its right to the site, it has entered into an agreement whereby it gets the site back in return for establishing a bursary for the London schoolboy's college education.

A spokesman for the multinational said it admired James's "flair and entrepreneurial spirit. We'd be interested in getting first call in relation to employing him whenever he finishes college".

The main Waterford Wedgwood site is www.waterford-usa.com. The site does not invite Internet sales. The waterfordcrystal site is one of several sites it registered to gain control over them, but which remain dormant.