Waitakere Library Crown Lynn History....

As it was my birthday today I decided to do something just for me...
I went to Henderson to visit the Waitakere Library to see what they had on Crown Lynn.
The Reference Section had 6 large envelopes of material ...

There was a written report about the cycle from clay to end product by one of the supervisors;

One copy of Ceramics their monthly magazine - Summer 1980;

Many newspaper clippings;

A piece from the West Auckland Historical Society on Crown Lynn by John Heap -
ex Factory Manager ..... with coloured photos..... 2 waka's !!!!

A many paged article from North & South magazine November 2005 .....
Jim Drummond ..... Richard Quinn .... Chris Harvey... it would be worth trying to get a copy.

NZ House and Garden November 2006 p82 - Antiques and Offerings:
Wharetana vase sold for $2000 at Cordys ... photo of it...
Wharetana trinket box sold for $1700.00 at Webbs.... must look up the number for it.
[Found the number - 1008 from Titian's pics]

Your Home and Garden cutting from June 2007 -
photos of swans and vases and two wall pockets
one a shell shape and one looked like it had cherry blossoms on it ..... [I want it!]

The last folder was a photocopy of Gail Henry's book ??

After lunch I checked out what they had in the archives....
and they gave me two plastic folders with J T Diamonds clipping collection !!
I had to put on white gloves and carefully looked at them all.

An article by Richard Quinn about his Crown Lynn collection in the Historical Society's 1990 booklet.....

The Making of Crown Lynn Dinnerware Poster....

Floor plans of the Crown Lynn Factory...

Adverts for workers .....

A cutting about Crown Lynn Sales Booming in the US - NZ Herald 15th July 1973
naming Sears, Penney's, Macy's Gimbles and Broadway department stores that carry their wares....

The 4 page Herald spread of the celebration of the 100 millionth piece made.

The Listener 30th June - 6th July 1984 by Rosemary McLeod -
'Meringue Ware' ..... 'New Zealand Ming' when you could get a pair of swans at an auction for $10...... photos as well.



Out of all this material - I only saw three shapes that I hadn't seen before,
but I will check out the shape guide to see if I had missed them.
There is more detail to come.....
even the nice man from Timaru gets a mention ::::::
What the ??? I wrote f o f f ..... not the nice man!

Ha ha ha ha!! You and I did that Ev!!

Happy Birthday, sounds like you had a wonderful day! Lots of hugs from Feather

There was one well documented fire at Crown Lynn -
on November 13th per their Ceramic's mag Summer 1980 as well as in the Western Leader.
This damaged plant and machinery and destroyed valuable stocks of transfers. There was damage to the silk screening and printing areas and the store.
Photos showed charred and blackened dinnerware by the truckload...
it looked a real mess all round... but they bounced back in no time!
Mark Cleverly was Chief designer at this time.....

Designs are carved out of a solid block of Plaster of Paris!!
Moulds are then taken from the master design.
I came across this a couple of times......
wow that is amazing as I thought they would have used clay!!

Excerpts taken from North & South November 2005:
Jim Drummond: His father Colin worked for Almagamated Brick and Pipe as an engineer 1955-1970 Jim collected 2nds from the pit as a youngster before they were buried. Jim had 5,000 pieces of Crown Lynn which he collected over a period of 30 years.... he now is down to 500. He says if you wanted one of everything you'd end up with 20,000 pieces!
He also says that Wanganui's Slater family and Auckland artist Rodney Fumpston have magnificent Crown Lynn collections that have graced many galleries.
He mentioned that meanwhile someone mysterious in Timaru is buying hugely on TradeMe under the name 'Temuka' and possibly with the second identity of 'Crown Lynn'. Drummond figures 'Temuka' as the most voracious collector currently working.

Memories from Lennie Thomas:
Who worked at Crown Lynn for 30 odd years. Lovely photos including one piece the same as the jusgawfings unusual pot and a Toby cookie jar... he has a bow tie and teeny glasses.

Richard Quinn:
This article covers his collection and his Bob Harvey troubles.
The Ombudsman deemed the councils actions 'somewhat unreasonable' and RQ was given an apology and $130,000 dispute settlement.
Richards treasure included 14 four drawer filing cabinets full of company records and thousands of photographs dating back to the building of the kilns -
a private Crown Lynn collector in Australia is negotiating to buy it. [omg!!]
The New Lynn's Portage Ceramic Trust will buy and uplift 40,000 pieces of Crown Lynn
from Richard Quinn any day now.

Another detail from the RQ/Bob Harvey saga - the council was directed by the Ombudsman to formally apologise to Richard but instead contacted him setting conditions on the apology. His lawyer advised him to ignore the conditions and restrictions as they were a breach of the ombudsman's directive - consequently no apology was ever made.

You may like to contact North and South or the writer of the 2005 article to get their source for the "a private Crown Lynn collector in Australia is negotiating to buy it" comment.