Women in Ceramics 

In the last thirty years, extensive research has been conducted by design historians to rediscover womens contribution to the design and manufacture of ceramics in Britain. Women have always been involved in ceramic production and in the last hundred years have made up half the workforce. At first they worked in unskilled jobs carrying and wedging clay and assisting the men to whom they were subcontracted. Sylvia Pankhurst visited the Staffordshire Potteries in 1907 and noted:

"Women turned the wheel for throwers and trod the lathe for turners.
In each case a woman was employed by the man for whom she toiled
she was the slave of a slave."

From the late 19th Century, however, women began to be employed as skilled paintresses. Some, such as Hannah Barlow, the star decorator at Doultons Lambeth Pottery from 1871 to 1913, designed the decoration they applied. In the 20th Century womens opportunities in the pottery industry multiplied. Clarice Cliff rose from paintress to head the design studio and effect a marketing triumph at the Royal Staffordshire Pottery while Susie Cooper was an independent designer and manufacturer.  Grete Marks came to Britain from Germany in 1936 after her successful company, the Haël Werkstätten, was taken over by the Nazis. Here she worked successfully as a freelance designer before setting up her own pottery.

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