After starting his business as a wholesaler of useful ceramic items, Gray launched a production operation in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, in 1912. He sourced undecorated pottery, so called ‘white ware’, from various suppliers and, using the talents of highly-accomplished in-house designers such as Susie Cooper and Sam Talbot, developed a highly successful decorating business.
Even though the company was relatively small when compared with the mainstream pottery companies in North Staffordshire (it employed less than 100 people at its height in the 1930s), Gray’s Pottery punched well above its weight! Its 1930s’ slogan ‘The Pottery of Distinction’ was well-chosen and many of the firm’s designs were to be found at important national and international exhibitions as well as being included in influential design registers.
Gray’s Pottery was as responsive to fashion as anyone else in the industry and sought to supply customers new and old, at home and abroad, with prompt attention. When viewed with the benefit of hindsight, the company’s range of products and designs is staggering. Besides the obvious output of cups and saucers, plates and bowls, jugs/pitchers and teapots, vases and urns, there are egg-cups, dog-bowls, jelly-moulds, bird-feeders and juice squeezers. There are decorations covering floral designs, lustres, banded patterns, slipware, geometric jazzy designs and print and enamel patterns. The products also include wall pockets for flowers, large animal studies, lustre decorated 18th-century figures, table lamps and hors d’oeuvre sets complete with wooden trays. And all this from a firm that manufactured for a mere 50 years, including the severely disruptive periods of two world wars.
