Waimea Pottery History

I was lucky enough to win a booklet put out by the Nelson Potters' Association titled CLAY The Pottery Industry - 150 Years In Nelson.  I gather that this was written in 2009.

I am very impressed with this book and was immediately taken by the in depth information for Waimea Pottery.  There is a list of apprentices and assistants who trained and worked there:

Royce McGlashen
Adrian Bevis
Maureen Greig
John Crawford
Anne Gordon
Darryl Robertson
Lesley Jacka
Jon Benge
Gill Gane
Carl Vendelbosch
Mike Perry
Chas Shaw
Tony and Norma Morley
June Palmer
Stefan and Cushla Hiener
Stephen Carter
William Bell
John Irish
John Clift

Also there and were making their own pots included Trudi Ebsworth, Jill Foster and Marian Baker.  There is some history for all of these potters as well.
Plus a list and map of 29 Nelson potters from the late 1970's.

Well done, I recognise a lot of those names, many whose work still pops up now and then, and some who are still potting.

I see a lot of Waimea pottery here in Christchurch on my travels,I don't collect it but if I did I would have a substantial collection by now.

This is a Carl Vendelbosch pot marked WP and CV. I know the mark is in the gallery already but can you tell me what years was he potting at Waimea?

Well it doesn't actually say when, but it does give a lot of details about his pottery career.
In 1936 he began 8 years training as a glass blower in Holland.
Then he did a 3 year course  at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in the Hague as a sculptor.
In 1951 he and his wife moved to New Zealand and for 7 years Carl worked for Luke Adams pottery making electrical wares and one line of old English slipware.  He remodelled moulds they had and many of the pieces that were made are now very collectable.  It was here that he found an old electric wheel and taught himself how to throw.  He also taught pottery at the WEA and one of the colleges.
In 1958 they moved to Geraldine and Carl worked at NZ Insulators at Temuka..
In 1974 they established their own pottery in Richmond, then moved to Upper Moutere in 1977 when son Peter left school to become a potter where he served 6 years with them.

Thanks Ev very interesting. Probably in the 70's then, sometime in between one of the moves...

Hi everyone - this is an interesting thread about Waimea Pottery.

I have been collecting this for about 16 years now. There is a huge range in terms of quality and there are some extremely good examples around with the familiar WP if you see an NZ then you know it has been made to export to the Australian market.

Jack and Peggy Laird confirmed that the person who did the potting, and the person who glazed, and the person who signed could be 3 different people.

That said there are some striking examples made by John Crawford for example that are instantly identifiable as having been made by him.

At its best I find Waimea Pottery to be quite interesting and well worth making part of a collection. Because of the range in quality, be on the look out for only the best examples is my advice. There are still good examples found in charity shops etc which don't command collector's prices. But not all WP is created equal, I'm a great believer in buying what you can live with and a enjoy for a long time.