The Design Greats Shape and ceramic qualities – those have been David Queensberry’s key drivers throughout his career in the tabletop industry. He has certainly lived a life – (there is even a newspaper article about him – at 95-years-old – taking down a mugger outside his front door in April of this year). His industry experiences are unmatched. Tableware International’s Mairead Wilmot sat down with the designer at his London home…
A life well lived
It started at Eton – the worldfamous school frequented by the likes of Prince William and other esteemed notables. The art department was run by Wilfred Blunt, (brother of the infamous Soviet spy Anthony Blunt) – and was equipped with a kiln and some wheels. “It’s an interesting thing to say you first got interested in pottery at Eton,” muses acclaimed designer David Queensberry from his kitchen table in a leafy London suburb. “The sort of people who go to Eton become ambassadors and those sorts of things… I suffer from dyslexia which slightly inhibited me in some ways academically.” Born in London, David Harrington Angus Douglas, the 12th Marquess of Queensberry was born on 19 December 1929, a stone’s throw from Westminster. “Being Irish, I’m not well versed on titles,” I tell the man better known as one half of design duo Queensberry Hunt. “I’d leave it that way,” he quips.
Becoming David Queensberry
“I really got somehow to think pottery isn’t all about the wheel, and Bernard Leach, and crafts” After Eton, David went to the Chelsea College of Art and then Central Saint Martins “which was very into pottery”. At that time, he says, Central was run by the noted potter Dora Billington. “She had escaped Stoke on Trent by becoming the teacher 68 TABLEWARE INTERNATIONAL
of pottery at the Central, and that’s where I first really got into ceramics,” David, now 95-yearsold, recalls. Shape has always been his passion, shape and ceramic qualities. Ceramics at art college was was centered around throwing on the wheel, David remembers, and was dominated by the influence of Bernard Leach (the British studio potter and teacher). “I met interesting people there (at the Central). In particular, the famous artist, Eduardo Paolozzi – we became friends and remained so until his death. Pottery isn’t all about the wheel, and Bernard Leach, the pottery industry in the post-war period was booming in England – I’m talking about the ‘50s, because there had been a ban on making decorated pottery all through the war – you could only make basic pieces. “It was accepted we needed plates, but you didn’t waste time and money putting flowers and things on. Decorated pottery only came back in the ‘50s but I began to wonder more and more about the industrial way in which ceramics were made.” Post war, business was booming. David’s (who never saw action but was conscripted to serve in the army of occupation) first trip to Stoke on Trent was on his motorbike when he was “22 or 23”. Using a family connection – (his grandmother, an interior decorator, had worked with Sir Ernest Johnson and wrote to him pleading her grandson’s cause – the Johnson family were considered the ceramic family of the 20th century). “I was quite good academically in sciences so said he could get me a job as a laboratory assistant in the tile factory – so my first job was in
the Johnson Tile Factory. That’s how I got into the industry.” At the Johnson Tile Factory David had access to a workshop which he used in the evening, and after a while he spread his wings. “After a period, I left that job and started doing my own stuff, particularly with a company called Crown Staffordshire China. It was one of the many familyowned companies in Stoke. It was a big industry and very, very successful.” Crown Staffordshire China was owned by Sam Green. “He thought contemporary was going to grow. And of course, he was right. He gave me the opportunity to develop, (and I’ve still got odd bits), Queensberry China. “Then I had the problem of getting it made on the factory floor and trying to sell it!” David managed to get Queensberry China into Heals on London’s Tottenham Court Road, a shop which supported contemporary designs. “There was a hell of a lot going on in modern design and it really stemmed from architecture and great architects like Mies van der Rohe,” he remembers of the time. From Crown Staffordshire China, David found himself working for a company called Midwinter. “It was run by a guy called Roy Midwinter who inherited the family business. He had been a
pilot in the war, and he turned the Midwinter factory into a contemporary one. He proved there was a fantastic market. Everyone else then started to copy him.” Midwinter was David’s first success – in fact, it was hugely successful. “It looks pretty awful to me now,” he says truthfully. “It came out in the 1960s. I did the design and the pattern. The great thing about working with Roy, he was a great promoter of design.” Midwinter was later sold on and eventually became part of Wedgwood.
The (disasterous) interview
“He knew all about me, I had everything he didn’t like, amongst other things I’m upper class, I had a title, all the sorts of things that put certain people off!” By 1956, David was living and working in Stoke on Trent. Midwinter was moving into serious production, and he was becoming “modestly well-known for contemporary style”. While at Stoke, he was
On failure “Would I say I’ve had many failures? Oh many. What I find the most curious thing is you can have ideas about what is good design, and ideas about function, but what you cannot be clear about is how the market is going to react, and many people I’ve known in the business agree with me.”