A lovely (and important) Crown Lynn story

I recently heard from Ernie Cooper, one of our Crown Lynn stalwarts from way back. 

Ernie sent me a story recalling  his last day at Crown Lynn before he left for the UK to begin a four-year ceramics degree at Stoke-on-Trent.  He was 21 years old at the time and this was 1965. Ernie had begun work at Crown Lynn as a cadet two years before. 

After gaining his degree, Ernie returned to Crown Lynn as laboratory supervisor.  Harry Jones was the chief chemist. A couple of years later when Harry retired Ernie accepted the position of chief chemist. From 1973-1975 he was  assistant factory  manager (John Heap was the factory manager). He was then promoted to general manager of Gallard & Robinson, a technical ceramics division of Ceramco operating out of Sydney.

Ernie was also involved in Clay Craft and Terra Ceramics. He is now a business consultant living in Australia. 

This photo shows Ernie Cooper as a young Crown Lynn cadet. He is measuring the thickness of glaze that has been sprayed onto a small plate. In the background you can see a kiln car loaded with Bisque ware waiting to be unloaded. 

Here is Ernie Cooper's story of life at Crown Lynn in the 1960s. 

A WALK-THROUGH CROWN LYNN POTTERY 1965

I’ve just run from home, 12 Admiral Beatty Ave, Mt Roskill, about 4 miles and it is now 8 AM. I reached the roundabout at Wolverton Road, Portage Road & Totara  Avenue (now Clark Street), as I head down Totara Avenue passing Robinsons packaging I get my first sight of Crown Lynn just beyond a vacant block on the left-hand side heading into New Lynn. It’s not very impressive a plain brick building with very high windows, this is actually the bisque warehouse but you wouldn’t know it from the outside. The first entrance is an asphalt quadrangle with the seconds shop on the right-hand side, the cafeteria on the left and the main entrance straight ahead. Alan Topham’s office is on the right between the seconds shop and the main entrance. The main feature of the entrance is a large Monstera deliciosa (fruit salad tree) I never see any fruit, it’s always removed by the Crown Lynn workers before it ripens. Later in the day you will find 1 or 2 white coated gentleman at the main entrance waiting to guide groups through the more easily accessible parts of the factory.

I don’t use the main entrance.  I carry on a little further down Totara Avenue to the second quadrangle which has the main office on the right-hand side and a series of offices on the left, one of which will to be my future office which I will share with John Heap. John would be promoted to factory manager after Fred Hoffman left Crown Lynn to run the Titian factory. But today I’m going to walk through the factory for the final time, a familiar place as I have spent the last 2 years as a cadet working in every department. My last day at Crown Lynn before heading off to Stoke-on-Trent to start a 4 year degree at the North Staffs Technical College, I will join fellow cadets Rod Humphrey and Rick Poynter who are already in their second year in the UK. 

I’m heading out to the yard at the back of the factory near the old clay pit where a lot of the raw materials are stored. There are bunkers for each of the different clays ready to be processed, Glen Afton a plastic local clay, Mount Somers from Christchurch a rock like China clay and a beautiful white clay from Matauri Bay. In the open-sided shed there are bags of Feldspar from Scandinavia and imported Talc. I well remember each time a feldspar shipment arrived, any spare labour (which included cadets) was given the job of unloading semitrailers and stacking the feldspar bags by hand 50 high in the sheds. This was hard and dusty work and after 8 hours the reward was one large bottle of beer (DB Green) for every slave. This was dusty Each of the raw materials needs to be processed in a unique way, the Mount Somers clay for example has to be broken up with a sledgehammer prior to milling. Although this is a backbreaking task it’s a popular job as sometimes you can break open one of the rocks and find spectacular crystals of Iron Pyrites (Fools Gold). In this backyard there is also the Plimortar department, an additive to make mortar more pliable, which is run by Sam Lawson (who was later father of the famous Lawson Quins) Sam later started his own mortar additive business but that’s a story for some other time.

As I head into the factory the noise is overwhelming - the tube mills with silica pebbles and silica block lining roar as they rotate and grind the various clays into ‘slip’, Blungers add to the mayhem as they beat the more easily broken down clays to pulp. This is a 24 hour operation good job it’s well away from the nearest habitation! The mills and blungers drop their loads into underground wells where the mixing of the earthenware & porcelain bodies begin, the slip is hot from the mills, making an uncomfortable humid atmosphere. Nearby Mono pumps fill the filter presses at high pressure causing the occasional blowout which just adds to the noisy humid confusion. I’m happy to move on to the quieter Pug room where the filter cake is processed into extruded blocks and left to age for a few days. The clay preparation department is Jeff Ball’s domain, Jeff and his brother Gordon immigrated to New Zealand from Stoke-on-Trent to join Crown Lynn (they were affectionately known as right and left ball).

Gordon Ball looks after the jiggers and jollies, plate and cup making equipment, in the main part of the factory. Smaller pug mills are used to extrude the clay into smaller cylinders that are required for these machines. Jiggers and jollies rely on 2 things - plaster of Paris moulds and a forming tool, jiggers rotate a mould while the forming tool shapes the back and the foot whereas the Jollies rotate the mould and the forming tool shapes the inside surface of hollow ware.

The mould making is run by Ray Machin (another of our Stoke imports) with the help of Tam Mitchell the head modeller. There are several benches each laid out with mould making equipment, the plaster of Paris is made in batches and carried by hand back to the benches. Hemara Hemara is the gun mould maker and today he’s going for the record of the most moulds made in one day. Everyone keeps out of his way giving him the best access to the mixing equipment, there is a bonus system operating so Hemara will earn good money today. It’s now 10 AM, the hooter blows and everyone downs tools and picks up their darts. The mould room has a very active social club based on money raised from the dartboard.  There is the annual fishing trip to be paid for, every time someone gets a Shanghai everybody else must contribute six pence to the cause. Another hooter and it’s back to work.

Bob Farrington produces the forming tools for the jiggers of the jollies working out of the engineers shop. The engineer shop has recently been extended - some say to accommodate the mast of the yacht Buccaneer, Tom Clark’s latest acquisition!

The moulds with their cargo of ‘green ware’ are put into the mangle dryers which carry them through a heating zone that dries them to a leather hard state ready for fettling. And then on to the tunnel kill for the first firing. The green ware is very fragile at this stage and it’s Tony Rakich’s job to oh so carefully move the green ware from the fettlers to the drying area (you will notice the smell, Tony also dries his garlic up here!) and then on to the area where it will be loaded onto the kiln cars.

It’s time to have a word with Dr Heine, he is in charge of the bottom laboratory responsible for checking the earthenware porcelain body formulations are correct and that the various production processes are working properly. Dr Heine is a very qualified German ceramist and an important mentor for the Crown Lynn cadets. I once asked Doc if I could ring him at home and give the results of some firing tests I asked “what your home number Doc” his very German pragmatic reply “I don’t know I never ring myself”.

The tunnel kiln runs nearly the whole length of the factory from the clay preparation towards the cafeteria. At the end of the kiln the bisque is unloaded into wooden crates and trucked into the bisque warehouse. These manual hand trucks were used everywhere at Crown Lynn for trucking crates, glaze drums and anything else that needed to be moved they were also great fun to be ridden like a scooter sometimes with disastrous consequences.

It’s lunchtime now, another hooter, and we’re close to the cafeteria so I go for one of Harry Cheeseman’s famous scones. There is a hierarchy of seating arrangements usually the Stoke crowd congregate together discussing what’s happening at home and the best way to make Oat Cakes (a Potteries breakfast delicacy).

Wandering through the bisque warehouse I remember being asked to sort through some old bisque ware where I found some beer mugs, one I made especially with a black glaze on the outside clear on the inside and added some transfers and gold trim. This piece now resides at the Waitakere Library together with copies of my notes recording my journey through the Crown Lynn cadetship.

At the back of the bisque warehouse is the Murray Curvex decorating room with Jim Byrne the manager, Jim was a colourful character famously banned from the New Lynn RSA. Jim was playing snooker there one night and as he got down to play his shot the lights were turned out for the ode - in a very loud voice Jim said ‘what silly bugger turned the f----ing lights out’ earning him an immediate ban! The Murray Curvex room was the only air-conditioned part of the factory the gelatine bombs and the ceramic inks used to transfer the geometric patterns from the engraved plates to the bisque ware required a constant temperature. The original Murray Curvex machine was imported from Stoke and the others were made in the engineering shop using this original as the pattern - Kiwi ingenuity!

Bisque ware was glazed by spraying or dipping, the 8 to 10 glaze spraying booths ran parallel with the main tunnel kiln and each station was manned by 2 people one spraying the back and second spraying the front. After spraying, each piece was placed into cranks ready for the gloss firing in the Prouty Kilns. The spray booths were semiautomatic and required constant adjustment, the job of Henry Sadler (and me when I was assigned to that department). This job I didn’t mind at all as there was a particularly attractive lady who operated one of the machines and that one always got my special attention!

It’s a short walk from the cup dipping line to the Prouty Kilns which operated 24 hours a day 7 days a week. You could look through the kiln and see the bright red hot zone (~1000° C) in the middle section of the kiln. Occasionally there would be a crash, the cranks would collapse causing a huge mess and stopping the pushing mechanism. Clearing these crashes quickly was essential to keep the production line moving and on more than one occasion I saw Fred Hoffman don a fireproof asbestos suit and get pushed into the hot zone to grab some of the red-hot rubble. Jim Nash was the only person Fred trusted to push him in and pull him out of the Inferno. Under normal circumstances the fired ware from the Prouty Kilns, which was still quite hot, was stacked into the ubiquitous wooden crates awaiting the next process.

The next process was again a rather noisy operation where the pin marks from the firing supports were chipped off using tungsten tipped tools attached to a special vibrating machine. Some of the busiest days I had during my cadetship was keeping the buzzing machines supplied with glazed ware and trucking the finished product into the glost warehouse. Harry Bird looked after this section, a hard taskmaster.

The Decorating room was a short walk from the chipping machines, originally the decorating processes were overseen by John Cowdery but earlier in the year he left and handed the managing of the decorating room to Maude Bowles.  The decorating room was staffed by some of the most gorgeous girls in New Zealand but Maude ran a tight ship and anyone trespassing in her area was given short shrift. This was always the most desirable place to be for the end of year Christmas party! Ah! The end of year Christmas parties (often referred to in more colourful language) sadly I’m not going to see another one of those for a few years!

The decorating room - from a postcard sent to me by Ernie Cooper 

My last port of call is the glaze preparation area, for me this is probably the most interesting of the production processes at Crown Lynn. The Department was originally run by Ron Absalom but more and more he was relying on George Dabb for the day-to-day operations. Little did I know that many years into the future Ron would come to work at Terra Ceramics. I found the frit making and the glaze colouring agents fascinating probably because of my interest in inorganic chemistry and geology. The glaze preparation area was always wet underfoot so the standard footwear was Wellington boots rolled down to mid-calf - not quite the height of fashion. There is a glaze laboratory which tests glaze formulations and formulates new glazes and decorating techniques and this is where I first met Peter Beach who I remember as an enthusiastic ceramic experimenter. Peter was often in at 5:30 AM to make sure he was the first to see new test pieces out of the Prouty Kiln.

It’s 5 to 5 PM now and there is already a line at the clocking off machine, on the dot of 5 there is a mass exodus and it’s time for me to jog home. I think back about the many nights I had stayed back to 9 PM to supervise the ‘twilight’ shift the compensation for which was a Chinese meal in New Lynn.

Well all the hard work has been done, the tickets are booked and the goodbyes said; I’ve had my pep talk from Tom Clark and walked away with a rack of his old pipes, he has just given up smoking, again? So tomorrow I’ll fly out from Whenuapai to Nandi then on to Honolulu and LA with a further stop in New York before landing in London 3 days later. I’ve got a letter of introduction to Blyth Colour Works in Stoke-on-Trent and the North Staffs Technical College is expecting me so let the adventure begin.

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I am so grateful to Ernie for this beautiful and informative story. I am glad he took the time to write it all down for us to enjoy.

ENDS 

Frank Carpay did not make the cruet set!

Frank Carpay's Crown Lynn Handwerk pieces are valuable and higly collectable. 

HERE IS SOMETHING HE DID NOT MAKE. 

Pic courtesy Heather Thorburn

Below is one individual piece. It looks too rough to be made by Crown Lynn. 

 Here is the base - unmarked. 

There is a long-standing myth that this condiment set was designed by Frank Carpay during the time he worked at Crown Lynn. The sets typically sell on TradeMe for over $100. If they were genuine Carpay, avid collectors would push up the bidding well above that figure. 

But unfortunately buyers still pay far more than a mid-century condiment set is worth, in the belief that they are getting a collectable piece of Crown Lynn.  Many experts have assessed this set and we are confident it is not Crown Lynn and not Carpay. Diligent searches of available shape catalogues have found nothing that suggests that this set is Crown Lynn. 

Sadly the myth is perpetuated – sellers ‘believe’ it is Carpay or ‘have been told’ it is Carpay.

Trust me, it is not.  

In contrast, here are some things that Frank Carpay did decorate.  They are all clearly marked with variations on his 'Handwerk’ signature and decorated with his distinctive loose brush-strokes.  This magnificent platter features in my  Crown Lynn book. It was bought by Sir Tom Clark at an auction in 2004, and  he was prepared to pay whatever it took to own it. 

I was shown this vase by a long-standing Crown Lynn staff member who treasured it.

This is part of a dessert set - one large serving bowl and six pudding dishes. 

Almost without exception, Frank Carpay's work is marked with his distinctive Handwerk motif. This bowl also carries the Crown Lynn 'star and tiki' mark which Gail Henry told us is from the late 1940s-early 1950s. 

Frank (Francis Hubertis) Carpay emigrated to New Zealand from Holland in February 1953, bringing with him the radical new design ideas of European modernists including Picasso. He was snapped up by Crown Lynn director Tom Clark, who hoped to move away from the traditional ‘rosebud’ china which was then mainstream.

Working with Crown Lynn designer David Jenkin, Carpay began to develop his innovative Handwerk series.

This is a publicity shot from the Auckland Star newspaper.  Carpay on the left, David Jenkin on the right. Just look at that wonderful array of work behind them. 

Frank Carpay was possibly able to throw pots, but - to my knowledge - at Crown Lynn he was a decorator only.  At first he painted standard Crown Lynn shapes, then he began designing new shapes for jugs, oil bottles and platters.  

This is what Tom Clark told me:  ‘Carpay sketched the shapes and then we made them. Some were hand-potted, Ernie Shufflebottom (Shufflebotham) made them. Others were modelled and moulded.’ 

There was a great deal of publicity at the time. When Carpay demonstrated his technique in public, he was often surrounded by an eager audience. His work was greeted with acclaim by critics and art aficionados.  

However Carpay’s Handwerk series did not sell well.   Most New Zealanders still preferred conservative designs., and Carpay’s unsold work piled up.  In 1956 he was asked to leave Crown Lynn. 

When I was interviewing Sir Tom Clark in 2004, he told me this was one of his biggest regrets.   

 ‘Finally we had too much stuff and I had to say Frank, I’m sorry Frank it’s not selling sufficient. It is costing too much to keep you. Which broke my heart.  He deserved a better chance than we were able to give him. He was way ahead of his time. Now we all think it is beautiful, wonderful but at the time it was way ahead of their (public) taste. He was a very smart guy, he had rubbed shoulders with Picasso, philosophised with him. ‘

After he lost his job at Crown Lynn, Carpay went on to develop a successful business designing and screen printing fabric for beach wear. 

Here is my one and only Frank Carpay piece.  It is the standard shape 735, and was originally one of a set of small serving dishes mounted on a tabletop 'ferris wheel' arrangement.

Lastly thanks to my fellow collectors and researchers who encouraged me to make a formal statement about the much-disputed cruet set. I would be so delighted if there is  no reference to Carpay or Crown Lynn when the next one goes on sale. 

Sources:

Douglas Lloyd Jenkins
Frank Carpay
2002

Louis Le Vailant

Considering Frank Carpay
Art New Zealand NUMBER 109 / SUMMER 2003-04

Interviews with Sir Tom Clark and others

Valerie Monk
2004

ENDS

FOREST WARE 1982-1993

Seven years ago, George and I worked in an apple packhouse with Tom and Colleen Walker. It was full-on, with little time for small talk.  In May this year (2018) we stayed a night with them on our way round the South Island and Tom mentioned in passing that he and his late wife Beth had made and sold ceramics. 

Turns out, Tom and Beth were the makers of Forest Ware, who we had been trying to track down for about five years. And he was right under my nose all along! 
I recorded a couple of interviews with Tom and he generously allowed me to photopgraph his photographic catalogues - which gives us a record of just about everything that Forest Ware made. The  photos below are only a small selection. 


Below are Forest Ware's tiny owls which Tom has kept for 25 years. Moulded by Tom and hand decorated by Beth. The largest is about 4 cm tall. 

This is Tom's story. 

In the early 1980s Tom and Beth Walker were living in their 12-metre house bus in Hastings. Tom was working full-time, so Beth took up hobby ceramics. She discovered a real talent for decorating and soon she was teaching two nights a week.  One of Beth's vases won top prize at a huge ceramics show in Pennsylvania, which gave her the confidence to start decorating pieces at home. Tom began making their own bisque blanks rather than buying them and soon they realised they were making a saleable commodity. 

They added a small electric kiln to their new house bus and moved to Hamilton. Hazelwood Ceramics Studio at Te Rapa invited them to park in their yard and plug into their power.  Tom built a caravan that served as a workshop and could be towed behind the bus.  The owner of Hazelwood Ceramics showed Tom how to copy shapes, and he began making moulds and pouring and fettling. A part-time bus driving job gave them a steady income.
Some of their shapes were blanks from Ceramic Studios but most were copies, with minor changes and different decoration to avoid copyright issues.  Tom would buy a shape he liked and make a mould from it. He only ran into trouble once. When he began making figurines based on Murray Ball’s popular Footrot Flats cartoons, friends warned him that Ball would prosecute so he stopped making them.
In those early days they made mainly souvenir ware for tourist shops in Rotorua, Taupo and Waitomo.  Small native bird figurines and plates which Beth hand-painted with bird images were big sellers, and cheery yellow glow-worms were popular at Waitomo Caves. 

Tom told me that withouth Beth's artistic skills they would not have been able to make Forest Ware.  Sadly, just as the business was really taking off, Beth was hit by a car when she was crossing the road and spent months in hospital and months more recovering. As her strength returned they bought a property at Waihi where they lived in the bus and used a small building and the caravan as workshop space.
After the move to Waihi business boomed. By now they were making a wide range of ornaments as well as souvenir ware. Big sellers included frogs in different poses, owls, dolphins, a pair of American Indian figurines, Ewoks (from the Star Wars movies) and Garfield figurines.  Cookie jars sold for $32-$35.  Kittens and puppies were also popular.  

In the souvenir range they sold thousands of little dishes hand-painted with kowhai and other flowers.  They experimented with dinnerware but ornaments were easier to make and sold better. Decoration techniques included hand painting, ceramic transfers, and spray painting.  Almost without exception a clear glaze was applied over the top.  

 Below is a little souvenir vase which Tom still owns.  It is signed LA Walker. Beth's full name was Lisbeth Ann.

Most of their product was sold at shows – the huge Auckland Easter Show, and others in Wellington, New Plymouth, Whangarei, Hamilton and Hastings.  There were also smaller A&P shows.

For three weeks in the summer Tom and Beth parked up in the holiday township of Whangamata and sold from their bus. This would generate about $10,000, and for extra income they sometimes charged 50c each for people to look inside their bus, still a novelty in the 1980s.

To prepare for shows they packed all day, filling their trailer with three tonnes of product. Then they would drive their 12-metre bus and trailer overnight to the venue, stopping for a brief sleep along the way.  The next day was spent setting up, then they sold for the duration of the show, anything from two to 10 days. Then they would pack up and drive home through the night.
Next day they would start preparing for the next show in three weeks’ time. They worked long hours, often seven days a week. Tom would start at 7 am and often he was in the workshop until 9.30 at night waiting for a firing to finish so he could turn off the kiln.
The business did not make a fortune but it made a living for Tom and Beth and they felt good about what they created.   As can be seen from the display pics above, they made an amazingly large range. Here are their little animal egg cups - which will be sure to add to the never-ending debate of who made what! 

 The wine cask below was modelled from scratch by Tom and hand decorated by Beth. Tom used two discs from a disc plough to form the original shape. A set like this was given as a prize in the TV show Sale of the Century.

Unfortunately by 1992-1993 Forest Ware was no longer profitable and Tom and Beth closed it down. Cheap imported ware, which looked fresh and new, edged them out of the market. About 300 Forest Ware moulds were sold to other studios and the rest were given away or broken up and sent to the local dump.
In partnership with their son they soon began a new and very successful business as balloon clowns.

FOREST WARE MARKS – note that not all Forest Ware was marked 

Hand Painted by LA (Beth) Walker. 

 The usual stamped Forest Ware mark.

 The mark below is on the base of a souvenir bird plate.

A serious mistake!

I have to confess to a mistake in my Crown Lynn Collectors Handbook. On page 136 there is a photo of a Pania of the Reef lamp base which is not Crown Lynn.

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EDITS -  one of my readers - Karen  has shed some light on the likely origins of the Pania I discuss below.  In the catalogue of the Jim Durmmond auction of 22 April 2009, the very last listings are as follows.  (The numbers on the left are the lot numbers for the auction.) 

1891 ‘Marble Art’ resin Pania of the reef lamp base $250 - $300
1892 ‘Marble Art’ cast black resin warrior lamp base $200 - $250
1893 ‘Marble Art’ cast ochre coloured ancestral figure lamp base $300 - $500
1894 ‘Marble Art’ cast black coloured poutokomanawa lamp base $300 - $500
END OF THE DrUMMOND SALE

Karen also provided us with a link to more information about the likely manufacturers, a company called Marble Art. 

http://artistsalliance.org.nz/events/marble-art-ltd-lucien-rizos/

And this is the link to the Jim Drummond catalogue, which Art + Object auction house has generously retained on line for us. 

https://www.artandobject.co.nz/AuctionResources/231/12,43,25,Jim_Drummond_Collection.pdf ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now  back to my original post - Pania on pg 136 of my Crown Lynn Collectors Handbook is not Crown Lynn! 

 It looks like it could be Crown Lynn, it feels like Crown Lynn, but there is absolutely nothing in the records that establishes that it is Crown Lynn.  Significantly, my researcher friend Ev Williams who has spent hours and hours sifting through the records which are now available at Te Toi Uku Crown Lynn museum, has found no reference to it.

The lovely little figurine with a New Zealand theme is almost certainly made by someone in NZ, but I have no idea who.  

Recently I was sent a pic which shows one of these lamp bases with a little sticker "NZ REG. DESIGN 11549" stuck onto the green velvet base. Maybe a NZ design researcher will be able to track down a maker with that information. 

It may not even be ceramic, though as yet we have been unable to find out what it actually is made of.  The owner of the one I photographed lives some distance away and I have yet to check it personally.

So why on earth did I put it in the book?  Believe me, I often ask myself that question.

Unfortunately I was shown it by someone who believed it was Crown Lynn, and I was so thrilled that I made a foolish assumption. The Three Faces of Eve lamp would have been a much more sensible example.

I must apologise to the Crown Lynn collectors who are seeking this piece for themselves - if you find one, by all means treasure it as a special piece of Kiwiana, but it is not Crown Lynn. And there are enough errors on Trademe without me adding to them! 

That lamp is hopefully my most substantial error, but there are others. 

Importantly, Crown Lynn designer Mark Cleverley told me of an error in my first book Crown Lynn a New Zealand Icon.  On page 108,  the Expo 70 Legend of Maui platter and the chopsticks fish hook were designed by Mark Cleverley not (as I was initially told) by David Jenkin. 

Like all researcher/writers, I do my best to thoroughly check and cross-check, but even so the occasional mistake slips through. 

It's ok if the error is online, I just do a quick edit - hopefully before it is re-posted, but an incorrect statement in a book is much more serious because it is there forever.  

Now - a few words on how I research. My work is based on interviews with the actual people who made the ware. For example I recorded over 11 hours of conversations with Sir Tom Clark, the founder of Crown Lynn, and many more interviews with people who were involved with Crown Lynn in various ways.  I transcribed those interviews and used them as the basis of my first book.

As we all know, memory is fallible and often I was told different dates by different people - and sometimes I heard widely differing versions of the same story. 

Where possible I found newspaper clippings, catalogues or other documents to clarify and support my writing. Through the 1960s and 1970s Crown Lynn published a series of newsletters which I was allowed to copy. I also seached out advertisements, which are an accurate record as they were prepared and placed by Crown Lynn. 

However problems arise when you get two different newspaper articles which give differing stories and differing dates. Journalists often base their work on what they are told, and there are pitfalls in that approach.  

My books were both edited at Penguin publishers, and my skillful and very thorough editors picked up inconsistencies in spelling and dates, for which I am forever grateful. 

Sometimes even the internal Crown Lynn publications were in error. Ernest Shufflebotham, creator of the lovely 'Hand Potted' whiteware, was always called Ernie Shufflebottom, in every Crown Lynn newsletter and by all his workmates. It was only after he died that his family in England got in touch with New Zealand researchers and asked us to make a correction. This was too late for my first book, but not for my second.  

After my books were published a whole lot more documentation was made available through the Richard Quinn collection which is now archived at Te Toi Uku, the Crown Lynn museum in New Lynn, Auckland.  Those documents include many catalogues and workbooks from the Crown Lynn factory itself.  They were gathered up by Richard Quinn and others when the factory was closing and was about to be demolished. 

They give more accurate dates than I was able to discover, plus a whole lot of new information.  Much of this new info has been added to the wonderful New Zealand Pottery website by Ev Williams and her fellow researchers. 

I also owe a debt of gratitude to previous researchers, in particular Gail Lambert/Henry and Olive Hale. 


More soon.