Ursula Frances Elinor Mommens (née Darwin, first married name Trevelyan) (20 August 1908 – 30 January 2010) was a British potter

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...

. Mommens studied at the Royal College of Art

Royal College of Art

The Royal College of Art is an art school located in London, United Kingdom. It is the world’s only wholly postgraduate university of art and design, offering the degrees of Master of Arts , Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy...

, under William Staite Murray

William Staite Murray

William Staite Murray was an English studio potter.He was born in Deptford, London and attended pottery classes at Camberwell College of Arts from 1909 - 1912. He worked with Cuthbert Hamilton, a member of the Vorticist group, at the Yeoman Pottery in Kensington before joining the army in 1915...

, and later worked with Michael Cardew

Michael Cardew

Michael Cardew, OBE, was an English studio potter who worked in West Africa for twenty years.Cardew was the fourth child of Arthur Cardew, a civil servant, and Alexandra Kitchin, the eldest daughter of G.W.Kitchin, the first Chancellor of Durham University...

 at Winchcombe Pottery

Winchcombe Pottery

Winchcombe Pottery, near Winchcombe in Northern Gloucestershire, is an English craft pottery founded in 1926.- Early history :From 1800 there has been a pottery on the current site in Greet just one mile North of Winchcombe, which continued until 1914 when the outbreak of the Great War caused its...

  and Wenford Bridge Pottery.

She was the daughter of Bernard Darwin

Bernard Darwin

Bernard Richard Meirion Darwin CBE JP a grandson of the British naturalist Charles Darwin, was a golf writer and high-standard amateur golfer. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame.-Biography:...

 and his wife the engraver Elinor Monsell. Her brother was Sir Robert Vere Darwin. She was the great-granddaughter of Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin

Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...

 and the great-great-granddaughter of the potter Josiah Wedgwood

Josiah Wedgwood

Josiah Wedgwood was an English potter, founder of the Wedgwood company, credited with the industrialization of the manufacture of pottery. A prominent abolitionist, Wedgwood is remembered for his "Am I Not A Man And A Brother?" anti-slavery medallion. He was a member of the Darwin–Wedgwood family...

.

She married first Julian Trevelyan

Julian Trevelyan

Julian Otto Trevelyan, RA was a British artist and poet.Trevelyan was the only child of Robert Calverley Trevelyan and his wife Elizabeth van der Hoeven...

; their son is the film-maker Philip Trevelyan

Philip Trevelyan

Philip Erasmus Trevelyan is a British farmer, entrepreneur and former film editor and television director, most noted for the 1971 film The Moon and the Sledgehammer.-Personal:...

. Her second husband was Norman Mommens

Norman Mommens

Norman Mommens was a Belgian sculptor.Born in Antwerp, Belgium, Mommens was married to the English potter Ursula Trevelyan , but divorced her...

.

Mommens lived and worked in South Heighton

South Heighton

South Heighton is a village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England. The village is located seven miles south of Lewes. In the 1890s the population of the village grew from less than 100 to over 500 as a result of the opening of a nearby cement manufacturing plant...

 East Sussex

East Sussex

East Sussex is a county in South East England. It is bordered by the counties of Kent, Surrey and West Sussex, and to the south by the English Channel.-History:...

,
making both wood and gas-fired functional stoneware

Stoneware

Stoneware is a vitreous or semi-vitreous ceramic ware with a fine texture. Stoneware is made from clay that is then fired in a kiln, whether by an artisan to make homeware, or in an industrial kiln for mass-produced or specialty products...

using a clay body she developed herself with ash glazes. She lived to the age of 101.