My blog - CL and Titian and Orzel relationship

I have revitalised my poor neglected blog in an effort to explain the relationship between CL and Titian and Orzel. I am having technical probs getting a link onto the FB page, but meanwhile I will put it on this site.
http://valputaruru.blogspot.co.nz/
This is a complex issue - if there is anything I haven't got right in my blog post, please let me know.
Yours
ValM

Val just one thing. 
So did Crown Lynn start manufacturing at the Titian factory in 1969? 
Then the Brown's left in 1972 and started Orzel?

Thanks for that Ev, I have checked your questions. The takeover was 1968 (not 1969) according to the CL newsletters. And I have re-written the bit about the Brown's move from CL and the set-up of Orzel. I think it makes sense now but please let me know if not. Cam Jnr was not very sure of his dates, but hopefully there is enough documentation elsewhere to get it right.

The thing is that I have this niggling feeling that the Browns only stayed for about a year after the takeover and it doesn't add up??? The new date makes it even longer, so I will do some digging to see if I can find anything helpful.

I think the move was gradual - Young Cam and Beverley worked part-time in their parents' garage until they had enough capital to buy a site at Drury. Hemara came to work for them in the garage 'almost straight away' said Cam in the interview I recorded. Cam was a bit vague though about dates - so I hope your digging bears fruit (or should that be finds potatoes?)
Gail Henry says that Orzel Industries was "formally established" at Firth St in Drury in 1972, so it was possible the factory was in operation before that date and the company was formally registered in 1972? However Cam and Beverley also told us it was 1972. I will flick you some interview transcripts from the time you and I had a talk to Cam and Bev.
Good luck with your digging.

Val,
I consider Titianware to be Titian, that while Crown Lynn owned a majority shareholding and used the Titian factory for much of its castware production some items made there were (still) sold as Titian. This may of course have been merely a marketing ploy.

That is illustrated in this tm listing:
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=1364697616

The box for a coffee set we would refer to as Crown Lynn, and which has Crown Lynn numbering is marked "Handcrafted by Titian Pottery New Zealand".

Do note that the set illustrated ON the box is not the set IN the box.

The above does not necessarily imply involvement by the Brown family in all wares made by Titian after the Crown Lynn buy-in/takeover.

My opinion is coloured by comments by Mark Cleverley that he didn't know what those people at Titian were doing.

While chatting with a former CL colour lab technician, Ray Corrigan, at the Te Toi Uku Public Share CL workers and friends event he told me that Titian would single fire much of its work such as the honey glaze mugs, which was not a typical CL practice. I think Ray said he started his employment at CL in 1970.

Titian continued to make some of its pre-CL lines, some of which we know were given CL numbers, but I'm wondering whether some items avoided the new numbering and remained exclusively Titian items.

After the Browns' departure from Titian they continued to make some Titian shapes as Orzel and I think Crown Lynn continued to make some pre-CL Titian shapes. One Titian-Orzel example is a tankard first made after takeover which I have in Orzel glazes. I also note pre-CL Titian mug shapes made as Orzel, eg the Titian-Auckland-Airport-Orzel-Graffiti-mug. A finer example of Orzel making pre-CL Titian lines is the Egyptian range.

The separation and distinction of Crown Lynn and Titian wares is tricky, even when we attempt to define Titian only as Titian under the Browns or Titian with the Browns. It is impossible to exclude Titian post-CL as Titian because of the Browns' overlap, and, as per the tm example, wares marketed as Titian under CL ownership. Even on a shape by shape basis distinction is not clear. The Browns' creative input into Titian did not come crushing to a halt when Crown Lynn took ownership.

Jeremy that coffee set was first made in 1977, long after the Brown's had left. The drawings for the set are in the Crown Lynn records.

I have been doing some digging through the records as there is no clarity about the takeover from start to finish. I have already shared this with Val, but will add it here for further discussion:

An item in a paper June 1969 (not the Ceramics one) saying that Crown Lynn had an interest in Titian Potteries, but insisted that it wasn't a takeover and that they had plans for smaller runs that were not economical at the main factory.
By Sept 1969 Crown Lynn were making that Expo ware at the Titian factory and Cam said that they made copious pieces of that ware. Also the Seagars 1071 Ashtray shows up as being made at Titian 23.9.69.  The 1075 Lamp Shade was made there in Dec 1969.  Then nothing else until the Chequered Coffee Set in Dec 1970.  This is rather sketchy production for the new owners with only a few items being produced in that time frame.

From January 1971 Crown Lynn began full production there.  The four digit swans were first produced there in Feb small and March large 1971, the 2147 Med wasn't made until 1981.

Also a collector of New Zealand pottery found a glaze recipe book at an opshop with the inscription Orzel Industries Ltd August 1971 this was returned to the Brown family as she knows them well.

More thoughts on this .....

Yes Crown Lynn did continue to make some Titian Potteries shapes and these all have the Crown Lynn shape number and the old Titian number in the records. I have recorded all of these in the Galleries. The 2000 vases tell an excellent story of when things were changed to Crown Lynn numbers and what the Titian numbers were, starting from January 1971 there were so many.
Yes it is a well known fact that Titian only once fired their ware and this economical tactic continued after the takeover and after the Brown family moved on.

I don't know of any shapes that Crown Lynn continued to make that were Titian and not marked with four digits in the Crown Lynn way. Using the Crown Lynn Galleries I find it relatively easy to work out who made what and when. There are no Titian Potteries records that I am aware of unfortunately. However all is not cut and dried as I keep finding Hobby Ceramics pieces from both the Titian era and Crown Lynn shapes which confuse the issue and I wonder how this happened, though I know who would have been responsible for this and I want to kick them in the backside.

All of the ware made at Titian by Crown Lynn was modelled at the Crown Lynn factory and even the glazes came from Crown Lynn and I heard this recently from an ex-worker at the Crown Lynn Museum.

Wow Ev and Jeremy what a lot of research and thinking! I have just got home from a few days away. I will digest your thoughts on Monday if not before.

Thanks Ev. Very helpful.

I guess the thing I get stuck on is Mark Cleverley's comment, however I must keep reminding myself that there was a great deal happening, even at New Lynn, that Mark was unaware of, including the marketing, as (without checking his exact position title) he was in charge of design development, not all design within CL.

I just pick up snippets from people and lack your solid grounding in research. I do hope that what I pick up adds to the story eventually.

Hi Jeremy and Ev.

Finn from the museum told me that Bruce Yallop visited while ago. (Bruce is a modeller and mould maker). I think Bruce could be very helpful here - Jeremy maybe we keep the items we have questions about and ask Bruce. Finn said that Bruce recognised some of the honey glaze coffee mugs from the Titian factory as his design. This dovetails nicely with Mark Cleverley's assertion to both Jeremy and me that he had nothing to do with the design of the honey glaze mugs - or the 'squares' coffee set (link below) which is commonly attributed to him.
https://www.newzealandpottery.net/gallery/Crown-Lynn-Shapes-Catalogue-with-Four-Digits/Castware-Earthenware-1000-1599/1248-squares-coffee-pot-lid-1249-pic_6931.htm
Ev your pathway through the paperwork gives us the best possible attibutions to everything - long may you continue digging! Lots to find out.

I guess I could be going off-subject now but I am enjoying this conversation and how it is shaping the bigger picture.


Ev wrote "...  nothing else until the Chequered Coffee Set in Dec 1970.."


I find this a very significant point to ponder.


As I focus on mugs more than other shapes what this indicates to me is the start of something new.


Up until that coffee set the four digit castware mugs may be divided into what are possibly genuine Titian shapes, the tankards that commence the 1000s, and Crown Lynn mug shapes, those initially produced at the Luke Adams factory.


Following the chequered set I think all new castware mug shapes were produced at Titian, and maybe it was at the same time that production of the mug shapes that had until then been made in Christchurch also moved to Titian.


Ray Corrigan, who I mentioned above, told me that the Crown Lynn laboratories were never party to the Luke Adams glaze recipes, Basalt, Lucow and [the other one], and I have an idea that the comment about single firing might have referred not just to the honey glaze wares but also to the Luke-Adams-lookalike glazes used on the mugs (etc) produced at the Titian factory, possibly including also the vitrified Expo wares.


Thanks again Ev for all your hard work here.


Val, it would be nice to be able to sit down one day with Bruce Yallop and go through the shapes galleries identifying his work. I don't even know when he started at CL but I would particularly like to know about the Adams mugs.

The copy of Gail Lambert's book Richard gave me has been signed and annotated by various people associated with Crown Lynn. Bruce Yallop wrote alongside his signature "1971-1989 Modeller & Head mouldmaker".