Rye Pottery’s Production Team
Stephen Russell throwing at Rye Pottery - Click to enlarge
A great number of men and women have worked for Rye Pottery over the last 60 years, some local and some from far flung places, while many joined us straight from school. Post-war owners Jack and Wally Cole were natural teachers and Wally especially took particular delight in training throwers and decorators during his 30 years at the helm, helping people not just from Rye, but around the world to learn their trade. It was quite a normal thing during Wally’s lifetime to find a student from the Scottish Highlands or from East or West Africa busily working and making copious notes alongside the regular Rye staff for a few weeks; yet another of the reasons Wally was awarded his MBE in 1984.
We hope to add more about members of Rye Pottery’s production teams from the past, but crucial to the production of Rye Pottery today is our current team! Their skills lie in many places, but vitally important to the company is their collective ability to reproduce our designs, shapes and decorating patterns by hand each and every time. This is central to our design ethos and ensures collectors and customers receive exactly what they order: a pot or figure that is quintessentially Rye Pottery.
Stephen Russell - Stephen (pictured above)has been Rye Pottery’s thrower for well over 20 years – one of the longest serving we’ve had since WW2! Responsible for all the tableware that Rye continues to produce for the discerning customer/collector. Stephen’s interest in potting began as a school boy when he worked for Briglin Pottery in London. He later at the age of 19 moved down to Rye working for a time as a thrower for another local pottery then based in the Rye Windmill, before joining Rye Pottery in 1989. He is responsible for all our thrown and cast ware, and particularly enjoys working with red clay, which reminds him of his youthful potting days!
Stephen is, luckily for all of us, able to turn his hand to most things, this is a man who can re-wire a kiln as well as pack one. He also understands and deals with the computer firing schedules, keeps our slipware pipes running even in the coldest weather and makes our wonderful ’Heath Robinson’ tile glazing machine work smoothly when tiles need glazing. He seems to manage a great deal of work all on his own but we do sometimes allow him one of the girls to help out with the head or leg sticking required on so many of the moulded figures!
All Stephen’s hand thrown pottery, bowls, mugs, vases etc have his initial S stamped into the clay. This system was started by Wally and Jack when they re-opened Rye Pottery in 1946/7 so that all their apprentice throwers had their own special initial letters to stamp into the wet clay allowing the Coles to identify each piece of work. These stamped letters in the clay however, DO NOT in any way indicate that the finished design or decoration is by the same person.
This Rye Pottery INITIALLING SYSTEM for the throwers (and indeed since the mid 1990′s the decorators as well ) was started by Wally and Jack when they re-opened the Pottery . These stamped letters or Rye Pottery marks, however were really used to keep a check on the amount and standard of work any one apprentice was producing. The initial does not in any way indicate or mean that that the pot was designed and or decorated by that initialled worker, merely that the production ware so stamped at any one time was thrown by a particular member of the Rye Pottery staff. In fact in years gone by there were occasions when the little metal letter was missing so the thrower would pick up any letter he could find with which to stamp the pot, there were also periods of time ( staff sickness etc) when Rye used visiting throwers, who somehow never marked their ware, thereby leading to even more confusion amongst today’s collectors!
In essence the Rye Pottery initialling system was Wally and Jack Cole’s own version of The Ford Motor Company’s pioneering production line processes to ensure quantity and quality. Because Rye Pottery is a small production pottery and is not a studio pottery, it was vitally important to ensure decorators and throwers were sufficiently skilled to adhere to the original shape and design - so carefully planned – however many times they were asked to reproduce the same pot. The system continues to this day.
>> Click here to see one of Jack’s detailed decoration notes and find out about the designers behind Rye Pottery’s patterns, shapes and figures.
The Rye Pottery Decorators
All our staff play a vital part in creating today’s eminently collectable Rye Pottery figures. When a new piece is added to one of our collections, work on the decoration design begins and the input and skill of everyone in the decorating room is called into action alongside Biddy and Tarquin. Various suggestions, patterns and colour combinations are combined often with detailed historical research, and then they are tried out, over and over again. Then they’re re-worked and tweaked some more, until the best parts of several ideas are combined.Finally a definitive sample and ultimate design is painted and fired. Then and only then is it ready to become a permanent part of the Rye Pottery range.
Wally Cole & June Woolley working on Rye Pottery Multi Floral ware mid 1960's - Click to enlarge
June Woolley – June first started work at Rye Pottery in 1953 and retired in 1998 as head paintress – after only 45 years! Wally picked her originally because the local headmaster said she was good at needlework, (something June herself vigorously denies!) Luckily for us all, she still keeps her hand in by producing the pencilled layouts for most of the lettered commemorative ware we produce. All our collectable Royal occasion hand-painted plates have been worked out by June with either Wally or Tarquin. June herself was responsible for the one lettered The PRINCE & PRINCE of WALES which somehow slipped the eye of us all and went up in a delivery to St Paul’s Cathedral in 1981!
Over the past ten years June has also been sifting and sorting through the amazing Rye Pottery Archive we have. As a result, we have been able with her help, to re-introduce several of the 1950′s shapes and more importantly the decorating patterns and techniques of Wally and Jack’s very productive early Rye years! We now have some really lovely 50′s style vases and bowls for sale in our showroom in the centre of Rye.
Julie Catt hand-lettering Rye Pottery mugs - Click to enlarge
Julie Catt - Julie also has worked for us since leaving school over 40 years ago, mainly working for us at Rye Tiles. We used to take the tiles to her home for her to paint when she was bringing up her small son.
Since 1998 she has taken over from June at Rye Pottery and paints all the commemorative lettered ware for which Rye Pottery is so well known, plus the limited amount of tableware which we do still produce. Julie, as well as painting all the specials for Rye, is still painting Rye Tiles and her ravishing flower, bug and fruit tiles are used and admired all over the world from California to Japan.
Karen Wicking and Jane Davies - Karen and Jane are our two decorators responsible for the ranges of Rye Pottery figures and animals. Jane trained as a teacher and for 23 years taught 8/9 year olds and because she had trained in art and craft in particular she began painting at the local potteries during the holidays. Karen came to us as a 22 year-old & now has a teenage daughter of her own! They are both experienced paintresses and although they work from the original design samples their own painting styles are quite distinctive and recognisable to us all.
Karen Wicken hand-painting Rye Pottery Robins - Click to enlarge