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Throughout the history of Royal Worcester there have been many
highly skilled artists but at no time was this more evident than
with the talented and exciting group of painters assembled there
in the 1920s.
The likes of Reginald (Harry) Austin and his brother Walter Austin,
Harry Ayrton and William Bagnall, John Freeman and Thomas Lockyer,
George Moseley, William Bee, Horace Price, William Ricketts, the
superb Sebright, together with Shuck, Townsend and Twilton, provided
worcester with a pool of extraordinary talent. That, under the foremanship
of the renowned William Hawkins, has not been matched at any other
time or by any other porcelain works since.
For royal worcester the 1920s started with a bang and with post
WWI euphoria running riot, but hard times were to follow swiftly
on its heals and many of their fine painters were forced into finding
alternative incomes or alternative employment.
Born in 1890 Reginald Austin, better known as Harry, studied art
at Worcester college.
He specialised in fruit painting, along with flowers and birds,
the latter becoming his best known subjects.
He remained at Royal Worcester throughout the 1920s supplementing
his income by selling watercolours locally but left in 1930 during
the height of the depression to do freelance work where he could
earn more money.
He later went to work in the potteries where he painted a service
for the birth of Princess Margaret before returning to the city
of Worcester, although not the royal worcester factory.
He died in 1955
Walter Austin was Harry Austin’s younger brother and was
one year younger. Like Harry he won several medals for his drawings
of plants including the Kings Prize and these were to be his major
area of excellence.
He was however a fine fruit painter and produced many pieces during
his stay at Royal Worcester.
Like his brother he produced many water colours as a side line
to boost his earnings during the difficult times and finally left
the Royal Worcester factory in 1930.
He worked for some years as a painter of flowers on furniture,
a very popular fashion at the time.
He lived until 1971 and it is said that he never once worked during
the month of September when he would upsticks to Scotland to follow
his love of fishing
Harry Ayrton, or Tim, was born in 1905 and started at the Royal
Worcester factory in 1920 where he stayed until his retirement in
1970.
He continued to paint there part time, until his death in 1976.
He was a member of the group of apprentices that became known as
the ‘Terrible Seven’ who, in the most playful and harmless
of manner, would terrorise the other Royal Worcester workers and
‘skive off’ to play football whenever the opportunity
arose.
He was also a very keen member of the works cycling club and participated
in many of their works outings and races.
Although trained to paint many different subjects Harry was most
skilful at fruit painting and this was his major topic throughout
the 1920s.
William Bagnall was another of the ‘Terrible Seven’
apprentices.
He started at Royal Worcester in 1918 and became a fine fruit painter
and a master of still life's.
William Bagnall didn't fair as well as some of the others during
the hard times of the 1920's and although he stayed at the Royal
Worcester factory throughout, he left in the early 30s to take over
a fish and chip shop in Guildford.
Yet another of the ‘Terrible Seven’, William Bee was
a great fruit painter whose talents were wasted by the severe depression
that swept the world. He left in 1932 and nothing significant is
known about his later life.
Kitty
Blake
Kitty Blake worked at the Royal Worcester factory for 48 years
from 1905 until 1953. She specialized in flowers and small fruits.
She also created several designs featuring blackberries and buttercups.
she had previously spent time at James Hadleys factory in Diglis
road and her Hadley style rendering of bunches of blackberries,
have become the Kitty Blake signature pieces, much sought after
by collectors and mouth-wateringly real. 
Like so many other famous ceramic painters, Kitty Blake seems to
have come from an artistically talented family, her brother Edward
worked for the Locke factory as a painter of Pheasants.
She was seen as a team player with a good sense of humour and Kitty
Blake became very popular at the Royal Worcester factory.
She was considered to be a bit of a live wire in her younger days
and were the male painters of the time, had their terrible seven
apprentices, then the female painters had their Saucy Six who would
terrorise any male staff that upset them. Kitty Blake was a leading
light in this group and they made their presence felt both inside
and outside the Worcester factory.
Kitty Blake was a driving force at the factory throughout her long
stay. Times were hard for much of it and she would spend her spare
time making advertising posters for events held at the Royal Worcester
works. She is said to have had that common touch and was never been
seen without her red lipstick and cigarette.
John Freeman was born in 1911 and joined the royal Worcester factory
in 1925 just as the major problems started. He became an extremely
talented fruit and still life's painter and was probably the most
prolific of all the fruit painters of his time. He stayed at the
Royal Worcester factory throughout his long working life and became
the senior fruit painter in the men’s painting room. John
Freeman was known among his colleagues as 'The Fruit Machine', due
to the speed of his output.
Thomas Lockyer worked at the Royal Worcester factory from just before
the first World War as a specialist fruit painter.
He had his own style of painting dessert fruits against a mossy
background that was mouth-wateringly real.
He left the factory temporarily to serve in the armed forces during
the first world war and returned in 1918, wounded in the leg and
with a permanent limp.
He stayed at the Royal Worcester factory, producing his stunning
fruit paintings until his death in 1935.
George Moseley
was another of the ‘Terrible Seven’ apprentices.
He started in
1919 and became an adept, if slightly less well known, painter of
fruit and small birds. He stayed at the Royal Worcester factory
until 1935, when he left to join the Army.
Born in 1898 Horace Price started work at the Royal Worcester
factory in 1912 and stayed there throughout his working life.
He was a keen and well respected fruit painter that could also
turn his hand to flowers in both the general Royal Worcester and
the Hadley styles.
He served in the first world war where he lost a finger on his
right hand but this made no difference to his life or his work and
he was greatly admired by the factory management.
Horace Price later became foreman of all the apprentice painters.
William Ricketts worked at the Royal Worcester factory from around
1877 until the early 1930s.
He was a skilled painter of flowers but was best known for his
fruit painting. He would usually paint this as a composition including
a vase or other ornament and developed his own style using oils
that broke up the paints to provide a unique ‘mottled’
background to his work.
William Ricketts was also a skilled water colourist and produced
many still life's in this medium.
He is, perhaps, one of the most highly regarded of the Royal Worcester
fruit painters.
Frank Roberts was born in 1857 and started work at the Royal worcester
factory in 1872. 
He was an exceptional painter of fruit in the traditional worcester
style but was also noted for his superb renditions of flowers (particulary
orchids) and would sometimes produce raised gold work.
He was a man noted for being very insular and with strong religious
convictions. In later days, many of his pieces were used in the
training of new apprentices.
Frank stayed with the royal worcester factory until just before
he died in 1920.
Richard Sebright is possibly the most highly regarded fruit painter
of all time. He worked at the Royal Worcester factory painting fruit
for a total of fifty six years and during all of that time was never
to make what you might call a decent living at it. 
Painters were paid piecemeal, i.e. the more they produced the more
they earned, but Richard Sebright was so painstaking in his work,
so determined that each piece he did would be the best that he could
produce, that he was never able to work fast enough to earn as much
as many of the others did.
It is said that he was a very religious man who never married.
His religion and work were all that mattered to him and the level
of his earnings was considered to be of only minor importance. He
was considered to be the best living painter of fruit by his fellow
fruit painters
Born in 1880 Albert Shuck painted fruit and flowers at Royal Worcester
throughout the 1920s.
He was regarded as a very shy and reserved man and his workmates
knew very little about him.
 Another
of the ‘Terrible Seven’, Edward Townsend, or Ted, started
at the Royal Worcester factory in 1918 and stayed there until he
retired in 1971.
He loved painting fruit but was also skilled in many other areas.
He became assistant foreman to Harry Davis and then became foreman
in 1954 when Davis retired.
Yet another of the ‘Terrible Seven’, Charlie Twilton
started as an apprentice at Royal Worcester in 1918 but although
he was a fine fruit painter he was always much too slow and was
unable to survive by painting during the depression.
He left in the late 20s or early 30s to follow some other occupation.
William Hawkins was the foreman of the men’s painting room
throughout most of the 1920s until his retirement in 1928. He is
one of the most respected painters to have worked at Royal Worcester.
He is not renowned for his fruit paintings, although he was certainly
more than competent.
His real love and his best work was in portrait and figural subjects.
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It
is believed that worcester artist Octar H. Copson, was the first
to paint Worcester Fruit, when he painted a large plaque commissioned
by a local farmer to celebrate the introduction of the pershore
plum in 1880.
1)
The Artist 
2)
The Gilder
3)
The Burnisher 
4)
Quality Control
