The Wedgwood Museum

Meet our trustees - they bring the Wedgwood Museum a wonderful source of advice and support.

George Stonier - Chairman of the Wedgwood Museum Trust 

George joined the Wedgwood Group in 1970 as an accountant and worked his way up through the company until in 1997 he became Operations Director. He retired from Waterford Wedgwood in April 2001. As well as being chairman of the Wedgwood Museum Trust from 31^st March 2005, George is also a key figure in other local organisations. He is chairman of Newcastle-under-Lyme College, non-executive director of the North Staffordshire District Business Initiative, director of the Staffordshire Black Country Innovation Centre and a member of the Board of the North Staffordshire Chamber of Commerce. George is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

John Mohin OBE

John joined Wedgwood straight from business school as a graduate management trainee in 1974. He has since served in a variety of management roles around the world.  When Waterford Crystal and Wedgwood merged in 1986 John was recruited to join the new head office in Ireland as Head of Production Development, where he remained for four years. He spent eight years as Wedgwood's Chief Executive in Australia. He has honorary doctorates from Staffordshire University and Liverpool John Moores University.

 Mark Pemberton

After studying history at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, Mark joined the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust where he worked for 12 years rising from the role of Museum Assistant to Deputy Director. He then joined the National Museum of Science and Industry in London as Assistant Director & Head of Public Affairs. He was also Chief Executive of the museum's trading company. He is currently the Director of National Collections for English Heritage.  He is the Chairman of the Walton Abbey Gunpowder Mills Charitable Foundation.  He is a Fellow of the Museums Association and was made an OBE in the 2001 New Years Honours List.

Sir David Wilson

Sir David brings to the Trust a wealth of knowledge from his extensive museum career, including his directorship of the British Museum from 1977 to 1992. He shares this knowledge with a number of other organisations where he is also a trustee - including National Museums Liverpool, the Barber Institute at Birmingham University and the Pelican History of the Buildings of England. Sir David is a historian, archaeologist and scholar and is also a much-published author of many books on archaeology, art and museums.  He is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.  His Fellowships include the British Academy, the Society of Antiquaries and the Museums Association.

Derek Miller

Having artfully just scraped a first at University College, London, the successful formula was repeated with Honours in the Solicitors’ professional exams. I was admitted as a solicitor in September 1971 and, with an obvious shortage of partners in the firm, was admitted to partnership on 1 January 1973.

As with most people my age, on qualifying I started with a wide range of work. As it soon became clear to me that this involved having to know an awful lot of law on an awful lot of subjects, I was instrumental in driving through specialisation, thereby hoping that the little that I knew in some subjects disguised the mountain of ignorance in others. This led me into a life of what became known as a corporate lawyer, the description only becoming remotely accurate with an ever increasing waistline in middle age. Having worked out that lawyers feed off both the good and ill fortune that visits mankind, I supplemented the good times as a corporate lawyer with a specialisation in corporate insolvency.

Following the golden rule of saying little at meetings and never disagreeing with the Chairman, I was invited to be a director of Staffordshire Business Link, a founding director of Staffordshire & Black Country Business and Innovation Centre, a member of the Lord Stafford Awards steering committee, a member of the local management committee of Business Initiative (enterprise agency) and for some years now as honorary solicitor to and a member of the Council of North Staffordshire Chamber of Commerce and Industry. I am a founding Trustee of the Donna Louise Trust which provides hospice and community care services to children with life limiting illnesses and which has kept me from attaching too great an importance to the work that I do as a lawyer.

Lord Wedgwood

Lord Piers Wedgwood started at Wedgwood Barlaston in 1970 as a summer ‘intern’ and has been associated with the Company ever since.  Educated at Marlborough College before he joined RMA Sandhurst.  From 1973 until 1980 he was in the Royal Scots.  After 25 years in Westminster, he left in 2000 following the House of Lords reform.  Since 1980 he has travelled extensively supporting the marketing and sales efforts of the Wedgwood Company and continues to do so.  Made a Director of Waterford Wedgwood 2000-2009.  Honorary Doctor of DePaul University, Chicago and Staffordshire University.

Mark Downie – Company Secretary

Mark Downie qualified as a solicitor in 1985.  After a period of time in private practice he joined the in-house Legal Department at Wedgwood in 1988 becoming Group Secretary of Waterford Wedgwood Plc in 2008 and was later appointed legal counsel for Europe when WWRD was created.  In January 2010 he joined the company and commercial department at Knights solicitors.  Having been responsible for the global portfolio of the Waterford Wedgwood brands his particular focus is on intellectual property.

Outside of that he has been involved with school governing for about 20 years including several years as Chair of Governors at both primary and high school levels.  He is currently Chair of Governors at Painsley Catholic College in Cheadle and also a member of the governing committee of the Moorlands 6^th Form in Cheadle.  He served for several years as a community representative on Staffordshire Moorlands District Council group known as the Market Towns Initiative.  The purpose of this was to encourage tourism, economic and community development in the three market towns of the Moorlands (Leek, Cheadle and Biddulph).  

Gaye Blake Roberts

Gaye is Director of the Wedgwood Museum as well as sitting on the board of the Trust. Gaye's career started at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. During this time she was given special leave to assist in the formation of the Coalport China Works Museum at Ironbridge. Gaye is now a trustee of the Ironbridge Gorge Museums Trust as well as the Raven Mason Trust at Keele University and Staffordshire Environmental Fund. Gaye is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Fellow of the Museums Association.  2010 awarded Honorary Doctorate from Keele University.