Harry Davis, 1910-1986, May Davis 1914-1995. Nationality: British

Harry Davis attended Bournemouth Art School to study painting, he was interested in ceramics but the pottery course was oversubscribed so he spent his free time potting and impressed the head of the ceramics department sufficiently for him to find Harry a job as a thrower with Carter Stabler & Adams (the Poole Pottery) at the end of his course. In 1933 he was taken on as a thrower by Bernard Leach in St Ives; there he met May Scott, a student of Leach and they married in 1938.

For some years thereafter the Davis’s spent time abroad, Harry was appointed Head of the art school at Achimota College on the Gold Coast. In 1942 they joined a pacifist community in Paraguay where they remained for four years, Harry working in a pipe and tile factory.

On their return to England they set up the Crowan Pottery in Cornwall producing attractive, stoneware domestic pottery. It was possibly the increasing threat of the Cold War that induced them to emigrate to New Zealand in 1962 where they established the Crewenna Pottery near Nelson.

Oil Flask with Stopper