Susie Cooper

Susie Cooper

Last updated 16th, October, 2008

TRAILBLAZING Susie Cooper was one of Stoke-on-Trent’s most prolific pottery designers and had a major influence on the 20th century ceramics industry.

Most women had only just got the vote when Susie set up in business in 1930, so a woman running a pottery factory on her own was nothing less than audacious.

Her first employer, a potter named Gray, of A E Gray’s, based in Hanley, gave her eight months when she joined his company in 1922. Susie not only proved him wrong, but became one of the most influential pottery designers in history.

Susie Cooper pieces were bought by royalty and displayed in the Victoria and Albert Museum. She also more than proved her talent and longevity, working on new designs at her home in the Isle of Man right up to her death aged 92. Susie got depressed, she said, if she wasn’t doing something creative.

During her long working life, which continued for 64 years, Susie Cooper was always ready to get her hands dirty and could throw an excellent pot. Former workers recalled that Susie was even happy to clean the toilets.

Latterly, she was a member of the design team for the Wedgwood Group at Barlaston, after her own company was involved in mergers. Yet she remained a best-selling designer to the end.

The legendary Susie Cooper

Susie Cooper’s life story was a classic of her time.

The youngest of a farming family of seven from the Stanfields area of Burslem, Susie was born in 1902. She attended evening classes at Burslem School of Art and at first thought about being a dress designer.

But her application to the Royal College of Art in London was rejected, because she was not working in a related industry. It was suggested by her tutor Gordon Forsyth that she work for a local potter, to fulfil the college’s requirements, and she joined A E Gray in 1922 to train as a paintress.

With hindsight, it seems remarkable that Susie Cooper was not expected to survive long in the industry. But then Susie herself expected to leave the Potteries behind her for a fashionable new career.

Instead, she was soon promoted to resident designer. In 1923, A E Gray launched the Gloria Lustre range, which was developed in collaboration with Susie’s old mentor, Gordon Forsyth. As production of bright, hand-painted ranges increased, Gray’s launched a new factory mark showing a steam ship at full tilt, bearing the words “Designed by Susie Cooper”.

Susie Cooper Productions

It wasn’t long before Susie was ready to branch out on her own. In 1929, at the age of just 27, she left Gray’s to set up the Susie Cooper Pottery, taking two rooms at George Street Pottery in Tunstall, with the help of her family.

She began decorating pots, backed by a team of six paintresses, but after just three weeks, George Street Pottery was closed by the owner’s creditors and Susie was forced to look for a new base. She struggled to find somewhere suitable and it was March 1930 before she was able to set up in Chelsea Works, which was a small pottery in Moorland Road, Burslem.

At first, Susie would buy white ware from a variety of manufacturers, replacing their factory marks with her own, Susie Cooper Productions, enclosed in a triangle and stamped in black.

Demand for her products was building fast, and it wasn’t long before Susie and her expanding workforce had outgrown the works in Moorland Road.

She uprooted once more and, at the invitation of her main white ware dealer, Harry Wood, found a permanent home at the Crown Works in Burslem.

Her bold earthenware designs, with their new trademark of a leaping deer, were soon recognised in Britain and around the world. King Edward VIII bought one of her tableware services before he abdicated in 1937.

Susie Cooper’s Dresden Spray

Susie worked with shapes as well as designs. Her fame spread throughout the 30s and in, 1932, the Kestrel shape was launched and a range of studio pieces was added to her range. In 1935, her most famous lithograph pattern, Dresden Spray, was introduced.

The outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 brought restrictions to the pottery industry, and a fire at the Crown Works brought production to a standstill until 1945.

Susie reached the height of her career in the 1950s, when she expanded again into bone china production in 1950, taking over the Jason Works in Uttoxeter Road, Longton.

Jean Wallis was working at the factory at the time. In 1997, she told The Sentinel: “Susie Cooper sat with us for 12 months and got us into her way of working. She travelled constantly between Longton and her main works at Burslem.

“Perhaps it was because Susie Cooper was a farmer's daughter, but she never asked anyone to do anything she couldn't tackle herself. She creosoted the wooden floor in our workshop and even whitewashed the toilet.

“I think she did some designing in her office, but she was a quiet woman, quietly spoken, and never lost her temper. She worried about us being cold in the workshop and gave me her woolly scarf to wear.

“We always knew she was an up-and-coming designer and somebody special. She had already been presented to the Queen, who had one of her tea-sets. Princess Elizabeth also made a point of seeing Susie when she was here in the early 1950s.

“After I'd been with Susie for two years, there was a slump in trade and she closed the Longton factory.”

Susie Cooper and Wedgwood

In 1958, the year after fire had once again swept through the Crown Works in Burslem, Susie Cooper merged with RH and SL Plant.

Then Wedgwood took over the company in 1966 and Susie Cooper Designs were incorporated under the Wedgwood seal. Now free from the constraints of factory management, Susie had more time for designing and she grew even more prolific.

In 1979, her skills were recognised when she was awarded the OBE, for services to the pottery industry.

For many years, Susie Cooper lived at Dilhorne, near Cheadle in the Staffordshire Moorlands. In spite of her world fame, she made early breakfasts for her son Tim and carried out household chores. Her architect husband Cecil Barker died in 1972, and Susie herself died in the Isle of Man in 1995.

A hugely impressive Susie Cooper exhibition at the Wedgwood Story visitor centre, Barlaston, near Trentham, was opened by her son Tim Barker and marked her centenary year in 2002.