The papers of Heber Mathews

Exhibition catalogues, 1948, 1959, and related lists, leaflets, etc; 1949 catalogue of machinery and apparatus for the manufacture of pottery; appreciations; certificates; press cuttings; correspondence about exhibitions, 1958, 1959; and report of an interview, 1949, for John Farleigh's projected book on craftsmen.

Heber William G. Mathews was born in London in 1905. After some study and practice as a painter and designer, he entered the Royal College of Art, London, in 1927, and came to concentrate on pottery under W. Staite Murray. He was a student demonstrator at the RCA for a year, 1930-1931, and in 1932 set up his own pottery in Lee, Kent. He designed and built an oil-fired kiln for the production of high-fired stoneware.

He taught at Woolwich Polytechnic, 1932-1959, ending as Head of the Art School. In the 1940s he taught Hans Coper to throw pots on a wheel.

He was a member of Council of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society from 1942, and was elected President in 1950. He was a founder member of the Council of the Crafts Centre of Great Britain, Advisor to the Council of Industrial Design on handmade pottery, and Pottery Consultant to the Rural Industries Bureau. He was one of the founders of Blackheath Art Society in 1947.

The material is divided into:
Printed material, 1945-1959
Exhibition catalogues, etc. 1948, 1958, 1959
Press cuttings, 1958-1959
Certificates 1939, 1952
Correspondence 1958-1959
Report of discussion with John Farleigh, with typescript c.v. 1949
Photographs [1940s]

Archive material may be viewed by appointment only.

Accession number: 2018.36

This entry was compiled by Shirley Dixon, Crafts Study Centre Archivist, August 2021.

Typescript list available.

Written permission must be sought before any archival material is published.

None timetabled.

None expected.