The Wedgwood Museum

Susie Cooper - Designer

Susan Vera Cooper was born on 29th October 1902 near to Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. She left school in 1917 in order to assist the family business, but the following year enrolled for evening classes at the Burslem Art School. By 1919, with a scholarship, she commenced a full-time course at the School. She began to work as a paintress with the Hanley-based pottery firm A E Gray and Company and by 1924 she became their resident designer. By the autumn of 1929 she and her brother-in-law, Albert ‘Jack’ Beeson, found a small factory in Tunstall, Stoke on Trent. With four-thousand pounds raised largely from her own family, and with Jack as a partner, Susie Cooper left Gray’s on her 27th birthday. Unfortunately the Wall Street crash of 1929 greatly affected industry in the Potteries. And in November, just three weeks after Susie Cooper and her partner had set up in business, the firm was bankrupted. However, by early 1930, a new factory premises at the Chelsea Works was located, and the Susie Cooper business was well and truly founded. Miss Susie Cooper is best remembered as a ceramic designer who developed functional but attractive designs. Promotional literature issued at the time emphasised ‘Elegance with Utility’ - a quality which Miss Cooper retained throughout her working life which spanned more than seven decades. In 1940 she was honoured by the Royal Society of Arts - receiving the accolade Royal Designer for Industry. In March 1966 the Susie Cooper factory became a member of the Wedgwood Group, and from that date Miss Cooper designed a number of successful patterns for the Wedgwood factory. Her work was successful in uniting delicacy and vigour, as well as elegance and utility. From the time that Miss Cooper worked for the Wedgwood Group, she continued to design under both the Wedgwood backstamp, and also for the William Adams factory.