jackie mtr

RW Bird Teapot by W.Powell
Powell, William. b. 1878, at factory from 1900 to 1950. Fine specialist painter of British bird subjects and flowers. He spent most of his spare time in the country and devoted many years to the study of birds, painting them with great accuracy. He was a hunchback and a dwarf, but the most cheerful of men that one could meet. The Company put him to paint in the gilding room so that visitors (who were not allowed to go through the men's painting department) could see a painter at work and his cheerful personality greatly impressed by the visitors, many of whom, returning to the factory in recent years, ask about the little hunchback who was perched upon his specially high stool doing his beautiful birds, always willing to stop and talk. His contented approach to his work is typified by one remark he made to a visitor who asked him why he did not ask for more than 6d. per plate for his paintings, to be met with the answer, 'I am well contented'. A box camera would always be with him when he went for a walk in the country so that he could photograph the birds for future study. In his last years he got very slow and Ted Townsend clearly remembers the first sight he had of the men's painting department on returning from the Second World War and seeing Powell surrounded by huge piles of plates requiring bird paintings to complete an order for Canada. Ted was put onto the job of helping to complete the order, even though the pattern book of this pattern to this day notes 'Birds by Powell'.
Mark : Royal Worcester
Artist : W. Powell
Year : 1926