A E Gray and Co Ltd

This pottery decorating company was started by Albert Edward Gray in 1912 at Stoke and then in 1920 moved to the larger Glebe Pottery in Mayer Street, Hanley and then in 1933 to works in Whieldon Road, Stoke; Stoke-on-Trent, England.

A. E. Gray & Co were a decorating firm, buying in white-ware shapes from other manufacturers. They never made ware of their own.

Albert Edward Gray had over twenty years' experience as a pottery salesman with the Manchester firm of H. G. Stephenson Ltd. In 1907 he moved to Stoke-on-Trent to start his own pottery wholesale business.
By 1912 Gray started his own business in Stoke, decorating plain white ware produced by others. Growing demand required larger premises and in 1920 he moved to the Glebe Pottery in Mayer Street, Hanley.
In 1922 a fledgling designer, Susie Cooper, joined A. E. Gray. She was to become an innovative designer - on her 27th birthday in 1929 Cooper left Gray's to start her own business: Susie Cooper Pottery Ltd.
In 1923, his son, Robin, joined the firm and he had also engaged Sam C. Talbot as his designer.
In 1933 the growing business moved to works in Whieldon Road, Stoke.

Relationship with Kirkland & Co:

Around 1936 Gray purchase an interest in Kirkland & Co of the Albion Pottery, Etruria who were one of the principle suppliers of white ware for Gray's.
c.1938, following the purchase of the interest Kirkland's was renamed "Kirklands (Etruria) Ltd"
In 1941, as part of the government's Wartime Concentration Scheme, the Albion works were closed. Both Kirkland and Gray continued business from the Middleport Pottery of Burgess & Leigh.

The 1951 Pottery Gazette directory lists A. E. Gray and R. E. Gray as joint managing directors and S. C. Talbot as sales manager.
By 1956 the business was run by R. E. Gray and S. C. Talbot as joint managing directors. A. E. Gray was chairman but in semi-retirement; he was a Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts and a Justice of the Peace.
The founder Albert E Gray died in 1959. The business was sold and on the 1st January 1960 to Susan Williams-Ellis and her husband, Euan Cooper-Willis.
Susan and Euan wanted their own manufacturing pottery and in February 1961 acquired Kirkhams Ltd. of London Road, Stoke.
In December 1961 A. E. Gray & Co. Ltd. and Kirkhams Ltd. combined under the new name of Portmeirion Potteries Ltd at the London Road site.

| see: 1956 article on Gray's Pottery |

| visit: www.grayspottery.co.uk for more information on Grays Pottery |