RICHARD BATESON

^{Richard Bateson at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. (From Dora Billington, ‘The Technique of Pottery’)}

Lee Cartledge of Bentham Pottery has written a fascinating article about Richard Bateson, an old country potter from Burton-in-Lonsdale, North Yorkshire, who in later life taught students at the Royal College of Art and The Central School of Arts and Crafts. Lee has sent me the manuscript to look at and has kindly allowed me to quote from it and use some of the photos.

Richard Bateson is a legendary character, having taught potters like Gordon Baldwin, Alan Caiger Smith and William Newland, all of whom remembered him with affection. Mary Wondrausch interviewed him for her book On Slipware when he was in his nineties and noted his excellent recall and clarity of expression.

Lee first encountered Bateson in 1977 when a stranger came into the pottery with his grandchildren to asked if he might show them what he used to do for a living. Within a few minutes of sitting down at the wheel, it became apparent that this was an astoundingly good thrower. Lee later got to know Bateson and his family well.

Bateson was born in 1894 and started work at 13 in the Waterside Pottery, which was owned by his father and uncle. Waterside specialised in stoneware bottles, for which there was high demand. His father was a thrower but his uncle never seemed to do any work except counting bottles. He was a man of so few words that he was incapable of negotiating and just dropped the price until he got the contract. As a result the potters had to work harder than they ought to have done. Business was booming in the early 20th century but the demand on the throwers was onerous. Two men were required to produce 3,000 bottles a week, which meant using 700 tons of clay a year. Lee comments that at Bentham Pottery today they get through 4 tons a year.

^{Richard Bateson at Waterside Pottery, 1907, in the centre of the front row holding a bottle. His father, Harry is on the left. (Photo: Lancaster Guardian)}

But in the 1920s demand began to fall as stone bottles went out of fashion, and during the depression the Waterside pottery went down to three days a week. It closed in 1933.

Bateson then then bought Bridge End Pottery, where, working alone with a boy, he made terracotta pots and some decorated wares. Between them they did everything from mining the clay to marketing the finished pots. Despite his humble occupation, Bateson was invited by the Council for Art and Industry to display his work at the International Exhibition of Art and Technology in Modern Life in Paris. (Which, by the way, illustrates how anchored in craft the Council for Art and Industry remained.)

^{The International Exhibition of 1937 with the Soviet pavilion on the right.}

The second world war brought big changes to Bateson’s life. The RCA had evacuated to Ambleside, about 30 miles from Burton, and Helen Pincombe, the acting head of ceramics, discovered Bridge End Pottery and got her students to use its facilities, thus introducing Bateson to teaching, which he took to very readily.

He closed his pottery at the end of the war and shortly after joined Pincombe at the RCA to teach throwing, and it was probably through Pincombe that he met her friend Dora Billington at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, where he became such a notable fixture. Alan Caiger Smith recalled a roguish and engaging teacher, always encouraging, often looking for an excuse for a smoke and with liking for the female students. 

Bateson ended up running the pottery course at Wimbledon Art School but as he had no qualifications he was compelled to retire in the late 1950s. He continued to teach informally. There was no shortage of amateur potters and former students who were pleased to employ him. In 1960, he set up a small pottery at Assington, near Ipswich, mainly for teaching. In 1965, aged 71, he retired to Yorkshire, where he lived until his death, aged 98.

POTS IN PAINTINGS

Pam Woolliscroft, who writes about Spode, Tweeted a picture of Monet’s Lunch in the Garden as a nice example of pots in paintings. Artists love pots, so I found a few more.

David Tenier the Younger

Giorgio Morandi

Johannes Vermeer

Pieter Claesz. Porcelain and Delft very common in Dutch painting . . .

. . . Cornelius de Heem

Ravenna mosiac

GÉZA GORKA

There has been a good exhibition of the ceramics of Géza Gorka at the Kieselbach Gallery in Budapest, which I’m sorry to have missed. There is a detailed article about Gorka’s long career here, from which the pictures are taken.

WILLIAM DE MORGAN IN MERTON

Given the popularity of de Morgan’s pottery for the last two generations, it’s surprising that the first modern biography wasn’t published until 1997, Mark Hamilton’s Rare Spirit.

Hamilton, a literary agent, is unusually interested in de Morgan’s novels and takes them seriously. (In a review of the book, Fiona MacCarthy declared herself unconvinced.)

There is a delightful account of de Morgan moving his workshop from Chelsea to Merton, written by one of his decorators Mr Bale:

When Mr. De Morgan was clearing out to go to Merton, it was a strange sight. He was always slapdash in those days, and couldn’t stand the thought of packing. He just sat on a chair and put a hammer through dishes worth £2.10s and £3.00, at the same time saying, ‘Go on boys help yourselves!’ which you may be quite sure we did.

This is a staggering thought, bearing in mind that the best de Morgan pots now fetch around £10,000.

WILLIAM DE MORGAN’S NOVELS (7)

A puff from London Mainly About People

I have been looking at contemporary reviews of de Morgan’s first novel Joseph Vance.

The Sunday Times spoke of “The extraordinary unconventionality and charm of Mr William de Morgan’s ‘ill-written autobiography’ (an absurd description) Joseph Vance. It is a very long and very detailed story of mid-Victorian life and manners, and its very lengthiness and detail contribute to make it fascinating.”

The American press was very enthusiastic. The New York Times wrote: “Mr. de Morgan possesses a subtle humor in characterisation and dialogue rather than in situation, and a deep and touching tenderness underlies the entire work. He writes as a man might who has successfully searched life for joy, and then has lost what he has found. It is all written from the heart — a man who has a sad story to relate, and tells it because he must, not because he would. In Its way it is as sincere as Newman’s Apologia. It is epic in its conception, magnificent in its presentment — this autobiography of a great-hearted man could only be told as it is by another great-hearted man, for it is a sound dictum that there cannot be in the creation what in the creator is not.”

The Baltimore Times said: “The book is of a high order. It is more than a novel: it is a piece of literature. … Joseph Vance is either a survival of the age of sanity or a return to it, the times of Dickens and Thackeray. What is all the more wonderful, there is nothing of imitation about it. The writer remains independently himself and conducts us so easily through this house of memories that one would say the book wins rather than compels interest There is humor here spontaneous and vigorous; yet the book contains romance as improbable as life itself.”

Olivia Howard Dunbar in The North American Review was more thoughtful and saw that the novel’s comparability to Thackeray and Dickens meant it was old-fashioned. “That a contemporary of Mr. Meredith and Mr. James should have been so far able to resist the influences of his time as to produce a novel that is mid-Victorian to the least syllable may seem at first sight a startling case of artistic obduracy. Yet it is possible that the elaborate simplicity of Joseph Vance is the disguise of a shrewd artfulness, and that it was Mr. de Morgan’s sophisticated intention to imply a comment on literary fashions with which he may not happen to be in sympathy. Or the novel’s period of incubation may have been unnaturally prolonged, and it may literally be a lonely survival of the age of Dickens and Thackeray, discipleship to both of which masters it frankly displays.”

WILLIAM DE MORGAN’S NOVELS (6)

One of the delights of William de Morgan’s novels is his sideswipes at followers of Causes, whom he knew well through his association with Suffragists and Spiritualists and his friendship with William Morris.

In Joseph Vance he satirises Aunt Isabella, who has “gone to a Congress of an Association for the Promotion or Suppression of some Virtue or Vice, I’m not sure which!” She is a believer in Homeopathy and collects weird, ineffectual remedies:

“‘It’s that nice prescription of Dr. Hillyer’s. It’s only a little Ammonia and Chlorodyne and Gentian and Bark, and nothing that can possibly hurt. And of course you won’t mind me, dear, no one does! But I’m sure you ought either to take something or let Dr. Hillyer see you.’”

She enquires about symptoms that only homeopaths know about:

“‘Itching in the nostrils. Titillation in the membranes of the nasal canal. Sensation as of centipedes on the occiput, or of a large heavy object in the glottis, accompanied with wheezing, snoring, or choking. Incessant sneezing. Metempsychosis and Asphyxia. Tendency to jump, start and use bad language. Sensation of a swarm of bees in the larynx. Caryatids.’ That’s just exactly what she read very loud to me and a policeman’s back, standing at our gate.”

And she insists that you swallow something she has prepared:

“When I came back from posting my letter found two tumblers of the Weakest possible grog with paper over them — one teaspoonful every four hours of each, alternately. She makes some concession to my feelings on the subject of High Dilutions, and (at great risk to myself, she says) allows me to have Mother-Tinctures. Hence the Alcohol, which has the same relation to real Grog that a glass of water too often has to beer, owing to previous associations and ineffectual dry rubs.

“I wouldn’t nag on this way at poor Aunty, only she really did aggravate Papa.”

WILLIAM DE MORGAN’S NOVELS (5)

I’m reading William de Morgan’s first novel – and his most popular – Joseph Vance, cast as the autobiography of a poor boy who goes through many trials to achieve success in life. The narrative is comic, discursive and fizzes with the joy of writing. And there is a love interest too, so the comparison with Dickens was inevitable. 

I wondered how he was received in his own time and came across this contemporary account:

About four years ago the struggle to live became exceptionally severe, and it was about this time that Mr. de Morgan conceived the idea of ‘Joseph Vance’. He wrote the opening chapters, but was able to get no further, for there was a revival in the tile industry that kept the aged author and artist busy for three years. Twelve months ago, having some time on his hands, Mr. de Morgan decided to finish his first book.

A t this time Mr. de Morgan had no idea of selling the book. It was written for the pure pleasure of writing, and if any were destined to read it the privilege was to be confined to friends. Those who read this first novel of 200,000 words suggested that it should be sent to a publisher, so to a publisher it was promptly dispatched. It came back with the intimation that it was much too long. Several times it was refused, and then Mr. de Morgan conceived the idea of having it typed. It was sent to a well-known firm, and immediately put in hand. One day the proprietress was walking through, the office, when she noticed one of the girls in tears. An inquiry yielded the information that the girl was crying over some of the scenes in the novel she was typing. The proprietress glanced over the girl’s shoulder, and soon was crying also.

She told some friends of the extraordinary power of the novel, and by this circuitous route the story of the book reached Mr. Heinemann, the publisher, who thought a book that could make a typist cry must possess some extraordinary merit. The ’script was sent for, and Mr. Heinemann’s reader gave a glowing verdict on its merits. It was therefore published, and became the success of its year. Mr. de Morgan’s next book followed with equal success, and now he is engaged upon a third novel, which will be published early in the spring. He is a tall, fine-looking, bearded man, recalling Mr. George Bernard Shaw, and he is a very sound thinker.

London Mainly About People

WREST PARK

We went to Wrest Park to break the monotony of lockdown, but I wanted to see it anyway because it has one of the few remaining baroque gardens in England.

The house was built in a thoroughgoing French style between 1834 and 1839 by Thomas, Earl de Grey, but the garden was laid out in the first decades of the 18th century by Henry Grey, Duke of Kent, and is a rare example of a formal woodland garden in the French style, though there are Dutch influences as well, reflecting the Duke’s loyalty to William III. Its principal features – the Long Water on the axis of the house, with woodland walks beyond and parterres near to the house – remain and much of it has survived alteration, Batty Langley, Thomas Wright and Capability Brown having respected it in their later improvements.

This kind of formal garden is now deeply unfashionable, and even the mixed herbaceous border – the staple of garden design in houses of all sizes for a hundred and fifty years – is under pressure from wild and ecological gardening, but English Heritage are embarked on a twenty-year programme to restore it.