Arthur Berry (playwright)

Arthur Berry (7 February 1925 – 4 July 1994) was an English playwright, poet, teacher and artist, who was born in Smallthorne, Stoke-on-Trent. His individual creative work became deeply rooted in the culture, people and landscape of the industrial pottery town of Burslem.

Berry was the son of a publican and grew up in the potteries city of Stoke-on-Trent during the Depression. He was born with a crippled arm; as he could not work as a miner or manual labourer Berry was enrolled at the Burslem School of Art in the city. Despite a rebellious start there, he came under the care of Gordon Mitchell Forsyth (1879–1952), director of art education and a successful pottery designer.

Berry gained a place at the Royal College of Art, as did a number of the more talented Burslem students. During his time at the Royal College the institution was evacuated from Kensington to Ambleside in the Lake District, to escape the German bombing of London during the Second World War.

Berry, who suffered from agoraphobia, did not find the rural surroundings of Ambleside particularly to his taste. However, he appreciated the intense Autumn colours which are characteristic of the locality. He spent the last year of the course in London.

After the war, Berry became an art teacher. He worked in London and Manchester, but as a teacher he is best known for his long association with Burslem School of Art, where he had studied. Burslem School of Art was absorbed within Stoke-on-Trent College of Art, which in turn became part of North Staffordshire Polytechnic in 1971. Berry was lecturer in painting at the Polytechnic until 1985. Berry's second wife, Cynthia, was one of his students. They married in 1966 and lived at Wolstanton, Newcastle-under-Lyme.

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