Page 38 - Constructing Craft

living practising crafts such as pottery. The dominance of pottery, for instance,

continued during the Second World War, because imports of British pottery could
not be guaranteed, and partly explains the strong position that pottery held in the

craft world after the war. Weaving had the potential to provide a means of artistic
expression and had been an important part of craft programmes in schools. These

developments resulted in the history of pottery and weaving, for example, being
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given more attention in the literature on craft. It is only in recent times that the
‘humbler’ crafts such as tapestry, quilting, spinning and knitting – considered crafts

largely associated with women and the home ‒ have had more attention from
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historians. Jane Clifton, a feature writer in the New Zealand Listener, observed
that: ‘until recently, these items [quilts] were mocked as kitsch. Now, they’re widely

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admired and increasingly emulated’.

Clay
The history of pottery in New Zealand began almost from the time that Europeans

first arrived. Sometimes potteries were set up by businessmen who employed
skilled potters and often these craftsmen – there is no evidence that any women

potters were working in New Zealand in the nineteenth century – would establish

their own potteries. Here we look at a few of the earliest potters in New Zealand.

Daniel Pollen, a doctor, who arrived in Auckland in late 1839 or January 1840 and
immediately became involved in the political and commercial life of the new colony,

established a manufacturing business that could supply bricks and pottery to the
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growing settlement. Pollen was not a potter but he founded Whau Pottery in
Auckland in the 1870s. He had previously won a medal at the New Zealand

Exhibition in 1865 for his efforts to foster pottery manufacturing. At the same
exhibition James Wright, a Staffordshire pottery manager who had emigrated to

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New Zealand in 1863 and worked for Pollen, received an honorary certificate.
Wright went on to establish his own pottery at Paparoa in the mid 1870s and his

sons later established another pottery in Hamilton.

Constructing Craft