The Compton Potters' Arts Guild was a pottery

Pottery

Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...

, founded by and based at the Surrey

Surrey

Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...

 home of Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 artist

Artist

An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

, Mary Fraser Tytler

Mary Fraser Tytler

Mary Seton Fraser Tytler was a symbolist craftswoman, designer and social reformer.-Biography:...

.

Background

A follower of the Home Arts and Industries Association

Home Arts and Industries Association

The Home Arts and Industries Association was an organisation that functioned as a precursor to the Art Workers Guild in the development of the Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain. It was founded in 1884 by Eglantyne Louisa Jebb who was inspired by an initiative of Charles Godfrey Leland in...

, set up by Earl Brownlow in 1885 to encourage handicrafts among the lower classes, Fraser-Tytler, the wife of Victorian era

Victorian era

The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...

 painter and sculptor George Frederic Watts

George Frederic Watts

George Frederic Watts, OM was a popular English Victorian painter and sculptor associated with the Symbolist movement. Watts became famous in his lifetime for his allegorical works, such as Hope and Love and Life...

, had offered to design and build a new mortuary chapel when the council in Compton, Surrey

Compton, Surrey

Compton is a village and civil parish in the Guildford district of Surrey, England. It is situated between Godalming and Guildford. The village is close to the A3 road and is crossed by the North Downs Way. Compton contains the Watts Mortuary Chapel, built to the memory of Symbolist painter George...

 were developing a new cemetery

Cemetery

A cemetery is a place in which dead bodies and cremated remains are buried. The term "cemetery" implies that the land is specifically designated as a burying ground. Cemeteries in the Western world are where the final ceremonies of death are observed...

. Setting up a local evening class

Evening Class

Evening Class is a novel by Maeve Binchy. It was adapted as the award-winning film Italian for Beginners by writer-director Lone Scherfig, who failed to formally acknowledge the source, although at the very end of the closing credits is the line 'with thanks to Maeve Binchy'.-Plot introduction:A...

, led by Louis Deuchars

Louis Deuchars

Louis Reid Deuchars was a Scottish artist and sculptor.Born in Comrie, Perthshire, Scotland, he attended Glasgow School of Art from 1887 to 1888. During his time in the city he was working as a stained-glass painter, possibly for a firm of decorators, such as J & W Guthrie. His series of...

, Mary got them designing and modelling designs guided by her and influenced by friends and crafts people: Edward Burne-Jones

Edward Burne-Jones

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet was a British artist and designer closely associated with the later phase of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, who worked closely with William Morris on a wide range of decorative arts as a founding partner in Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, and Company...

, Walter Crane

Walter Crane

Walter Crane was an English artist and book illustrator. He is considered to be the most prolific and influential children’s book creator of his generation and, along with Randolph Caldecott and Kate Greenaway, one of the strongest contributors to the child's nursery motif that the genre of...

, Alexander Fisher

Alexander Fisher

Alexander FisherAliases: Sash Fisher, A. S. Fisher, Alex Fisher, Alexander Fisher, A. Fisher, F. Fisher, Alex, Fisher, Sacha FisherBorn: December 25, 1903 in pre-Revolutionary Russia - escaped in 1917...

, William de Morgan

William De Morgan

William Frend De Morgan was an English potter and tile designer. A lifelong friend of William Morris, he designed tiles, stained glass and furniture for Morris & Co. from 1863 to 1872. His tiles are often based on medieval designs or Persian patterns, and he experimented with innovative glazes and...

 and Phoebe Traquair.

The resultant Romanesque

Romanesque Revival architecture

Romanesque Revival is a style of building employed beginning in the mid 19th century inspired by the 11th and 12th century Romanesque architecture...

/Gothic revival exterior of the Watts Mortuary Chapel

Watts Mortuary Chapel

The Watts Mortuary Chapel is a Gothic Revival chapel and mortuary located in the village of Compton in Surrey.As a follower of the Home Arts and Industries Association, set up by Earl Brownlow in 1885 to encourage handicrafts among the lower classes, when Compton Parish Council created a new...

 aroused such interest, that before work on the polychrome

Polychrome

Polychrome is one of the terms used to describe the use of multiple colors in one entity. It has also been defined as "The practice of decorating architectural elements, sculpture, etc., in a variety of colors." Polychromatic light is composed of a number of different wavelengths...

 interior had started, Watts had set-up permanent Arts and Crafts communities

Arts and Crafts movement

Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...

 in both Compton and her home-town of Aldourie

Aldourie

Aldourie is a small crofting village, on the east shore of Loch Ness and is within the council of Highland, Scotland. Aldourie Castle, seat of the Laird on Dunbar, is close to the village of Aldourie....

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. The outputs of the Compton group resulted in the formation in 1899 of the Compton Potters' Arts Guild.

Production

The innovative terracotta garden ornaments produced by the evening class group, recommended by Gertrude Jekyll

Gertrude Jekyll

Gertrude Jekyll was an influential British garden designer, writer, and artist. She created over 400 gardens in the UK, Europe and the USA and contributed over 1,000 articles to Country Life, The Garden and other magazines.-Early life:...

, expanded into a production centre of mainly Gothic Revival, Arts and Crafts

Arts and Crafts movement

Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...

 and latterly Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...

 style pottery, with many of its designs involved Celtic knots. The pottery's output was extensive, from large terracotta garden

Garden

A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the display, cultivation, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The garden can incorporate both natural and man-made materials. The most common form today is known as a residential garden, but the term garden has...

 pottery to smaller household figures, jugs, plaques and pendants. In Green Lane cemetery, Farnham

Farnham

Farnham is a town in Surrey, England, within the Borough of Waverley. The town is situated some 42 miles southwest of London in the extreme west of Surrey, adjacent to the border with Hampshire...

, there is a Compton Pottery memorial

Headstone

A headstone, tombstone, or gravestone is a marker, usually stone, that is placed over a grave. In most cases they have the deceased's name, date of birth, and date of death inscribed on them, along with a personal message, or prayer.- Use :...

 to May Margaret Barber, widow of Charles Burton Barber

Charles Burton Barber

Charles Burton Barber , was an English painter who attained great success with his paintings of children and their pets.Barber was born in Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, and studied from the age of 18 at the Royal Academy, London - receiving a silver medal for drawing in 1864, and first exhibiting...

, the Victorian artist.

After World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, many pairs of bookends

Bookends

-Charts:-Personnel:*Paul Simon - Vocals, Guitar, Producer*Art Garfunkel - Vocals, Producer*Hal Blaine - Drums, Percussion*Joe Osborn - Bass*Larry Knechtel - Piano, Keyboards*John Simon - Production Assistant...

 were made including Archers, Sunburst, Galleon, Fruit and Flowers. The majority of the pottery was made from a soft white body and decorated with tempera

Tempera

Tempera, also known as egg tempera, is a permanent fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigment mixed with a water-soluble binder medium . Tempera also refers to the paintings done in this medium. Tempera paintings are very long lasting, and examples from the 1st centuries AD still exist...

, an egg

Egg (food)

Eggs are laid by females of many different species, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, and have probably been eaten by mankind for millennia. Bird and reptile eggs consist of a protective eggshell, albumen , and vitellus , contained within various thin membranes...

-based paint susceptible to wear and which washes off.

Its designs and products were featured by many London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 shops, including Liberty & Co. One of its potters was featured in the first BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 filler intermission

Filler (media)

In media, filler is material that is combined with material of greater relevance or quality to "fill out" a certain volume.-Early television:...

film, the well known 'Potter's Wheel'.

In light of the death of its founder, the Guild continued until 1954, but which time more modern designs had severely reduced its sales.