Breaking News regarding the Salisbury Catalogues!!

This concerns the Salisbury c1940’s early catalogues.

One thing leads to another and this is how great things happen! I call it serendipity when things like this occur.

Just like the Oscars, I wish to thank Carissa Lee Pereira, for posting a Shell Wall Vase on the Crown Lynn Fan Club, then Stacey Ellis for posting her two Shell Wall Vases and showing one had a flat back and no footring or number on it and the other had a footring and the number .539. The next person to thank is Mon Grafton for asking me who made the top left Wall Vase that is in the Salisbury early catalogues. Also Val Monk for sharing the early Salisbury catalogues and Gail Henry for her awesome books.
Bless you all xx

I was not aware that the 539 Shell Wall Vase also had a flat back version until Carissa’s post. Stacey posted her two Shell Wall Vases and they clearly showed that the backs were different. I was immediately aware that the flat backed one was not made by Crown Lynn. I likened it to the stand up Shape 631 Shell Vase, where there are two versions and one has a flat base and no footring or number and the other does.

The Salisbury Catalogues are from the c1940’s and there is a Shell Vase in the photos. Crown Lynn didn’t make the Shape 631 Shell Vase for Salisbury until 1964. The same dates are also for the Shape 317 Posy Bowl, which Crown Lynn first made in 1964, but there is one in the early Salisbury Catalogue photos. Also the Shape 396 Fan Vase was first made by Crown Lynn for Salisbury in 1963 and yet there is one in the early Salisbury Catalogues!.

It wasn’t until Mon Grafton asked me about the maker of the long Wall Vase that I went to check out the Salisbury Catalogues. Below the long Wall Vase Mon asked about, was a Shell Wall Vase !!! I quickly looked at all of the shapes in the photos and realised that we only knew the maker for 4 shapes. Each of these were attributed to Spartan Pottery by a Salisbury family member!

So there were 33 shapes that were not attributed to any pottery, counting both the Shell Wall Vase and the Shell Vase which were wrongly attributed to Crown Lynn.

I have several of these mystery pieces and they all have flat bases with no footring and no numbers !! The little Trough vases do have pimple feet. All of these pieces are noticeably lighter for size than Crown Lynn and I have pondered over them for many years, knowing that we will know who made them one day!

My first thoughts were that they must have been made by Spartan Pottery, so I checked Gail Henry and she said that Norman Stevens, David Stuart and Jack Aberly ran this pottery in Glen Eden, West Auckland from 1944 to 1946. When it closed Norm Stevens carried on by himself at least until 1949 continuing to supply Owen Salisbury with high fired blanks. There are no examples of Norm’s work in Gail Henry’s book, just a Crinoline Lady and a Santa, by Spartan, but a Salisbury family member said that Norm made the fish and seaweed vase c1949.

Many of the pieces in the Salisbury photographs have Royal Oak stickers, and these were first used in 1946 when Salisbury moved his factory to Royal Oak and he called the business ‘Royal Oak Pottery’.
Everything is falling into place nicely !!

I gathered all of the pieces I have that are in the Salisbury Catalogues to check out the clay. Several are painted all over, but the ones that show the clay are a match. It is not a white clay, but has a tinge of colour, a distinctive ‘off white’ which is more creamy than white.

To finish, the above is how I concluded that ALL of the pottery in the early Salisbury Catalogues was made by Spartan Pottery/Norm Stevens from around 1944 to 1946+ and were high fired for Salisbury to decorate.

Ev Williams 16.3.2023

A link to the Salisbury Catalogues : So there were 33 shapes that were not attributed to any pottery, counting both the Shell Wall Vase and the Shell Vase which were wrongly attributed to Crown Lynn.

I have several of these mystery pieces and they all have flat bases with no footring and no numbers !! The little Trough vases do have pimple feet. All of these pieces are noticeably lighter for size than Crown Lynn and I have pondered over them for many years, knowing that we will know who made them one day!

My first thoughts were that they must have been made by Spartan Pottery, so I checked Gail Henry and she said that Norman Stevens, David Stuart and Jack Aberly ran this pottery in Glen Eden, West Auckland from 1944 to 1946. When it closed Norm Stevens carried on by himself at least until 1949 continuing to supply Owen Salisbury with high fired blanks. There are no examples of Norm’s work in Gail Henry’s book, just a Crinoline Lady and a Santa, by Spartan, but a Salisbury family member said that Norm made the fish and seaweed vase c1949.

Many of the pieces in the Salisbury photographs have Royal Oak stickers, and these were first used in 1946 when Salisbury moved his factory to Royal Oak and he called the business ‘Royal Oak Pottery’.
Everything is falling into place nicely !!

I gathered all of the pieces I have that are in the Salisbury Catalogues to check out the clay. Several are painted all over, but the ones that show the clay are a match. It is not a white clay, but has a tinge of colour, a distinctive ‘off white’ which is more creamy than white.

To finish, the above is how I concluded that ALL of the pottery in the early Salisbury Catalogues was made by Spartan Pottery/Norm Stevens from around 1944 to 1946+ and were high fired for Salisbury to decorate.

Ev Williams 16.3.2023

A link to the Salisbury Catalogues: https://www.newzealandpottery.net/t5834-salisbury-catalogues-etc