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Royal Doultons Peggy Davies was one of their foremost and
most highly regarded figure modellers. She suffered from tuberculosis which she contracted when she
was a young girl and was forced to spend much of her young
life in hospitals.
As a result she fell behind with her schoolwork but luckily a
teacher spotted her artistic talent and was happy to let her
concentrate on this instead of her more academic studies.
The 1920s were a hard decade and
Peggy Davies was sent to live with her grandparents as they were
better able to cope with her special needs. Her grandfather was
a working engineer in a local potbank and lived in a large house
attached to the works.
At the age twelve she won a scholarship to the Burslem College
of Art and she studied full time for several years under the tutolage
of Gordon Forsyth. Family circumstances forced her to seek employment
before her course ended and she found a part time assistants position
with a local ceramic designer called Clarice
Cliff.
In 1939, she took a position with Royal Doulton as assistant to Cecil
Noke son of the renowned Charles
Noke, and simultaneously set up a small workshop at home.
The Second World War interrupted her employment with doulton
when a bomb partly destroyed her home and she decided to join
the war effort and became a nurse. After the war peggy returned
to her first love and set up a new workshop at home. From
here she worked freelance under contract to Royal Doulton
and produced a long stream of new figure models for the Doulton
HN series.
In 1945, her first model 'HN1976
Easter Day' was released. A charming model of a young girl
in a full length dress and bonnet tied with long ribbons..
In 1947 she followed this with 'HN1992 Christmas Morn'.
Peggy Davies went on to produce a superb series of eight figures
portraying the Important Ladies in English History and numbered
HN2005 to HN2012 and she invested an enormous amount of time and
work in making sure the various costumes were realistice and historically
accurate.
 Although
peggy produced a seemingly endless flow of enchanting lady figures,
child studies and character figures, her first love was for the
larger more intricate pieces such as HN2041 The Broken Lance and
HN2051 St George. Both pieces being released before 1962. She then
went on to produce other superb figures such as; HN2261 The Marriage
of Art and Industry; HN2324 The Matador and the Bull, and HN2428
The Palio.
The versatility of Peggy Davies has
amazed collectors ever since her doulton career began and peggys
figurines portray all periods of fashion from medieval to modern
times. Among her best loved figurines are Southern Belle, Christmas
Morn, Ninette and Victoria.
In addition to her artistic career,
Peggy Davies was a devoted wife and mother and she brought
up three sons who often posed for her child figures like the
River Boy.
Her husband and father also appear as characters in the
Town Crier and The Master.
After her retirement from Royal
Doulton, Peggy kept working and took on new challenges. She
produced the collection of character jugs commissioned by
Pascoe and Company in 1987.
In 1988, she made her only
visit to the United States to meet collectors at the Doulton
show in Florida.
Peggy Davies died in 1999;
sixty years to the year after she started work with royal
doulton. Peggy always strived for perfection in her work and
not only the quantity but the quality of her superb doulton
figures testify to just how well she succeeded.
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