Pictured: Susan Williams-Ellis’ name appears in the last advertisement for products from Gray’s Pottery, published in Pottery and Glass, August 1961
Gray’s Pottery was sold to Susan Williams-Ellis and her husband Euan Cooper-Willis on 1st January 1960. The decision to sell had emerged through a long-standing friendship between AE Gray and Sir Clough Williams-Ellis. During this time, Gray’s Pottery had produced various souvenir items for the gift shop at Sir Clough’s developing Portmeirion village in north-west Wales. Susan not only ran the shop for her father in the 1950s but she was also very much involved in the creation of designs for the ceramics. She was therefore an important designer contributing to the Gray’s portfolio of patterns just before the firm was sold.
The book ‘Portmeirion Pottery’, 2000, Steven Jenkins and Stephen P McKay contains full details of Susan Williams-Ellis’ design work associated with Gray’s Pottery and its evolution into Portmeirion Potteries.
