Susan Williams-Ellis

Susan Williams-Ellis (6 June 1918 – 26 November 2007) was an English pottery designer, who was best known for co-founding Portmeirion Pottery. She was the eldest daughter of Clough Williams-Ellis.

Williams-Ellis was born in Guildford, Surrey, England, in the house of artist and critic Roger Fry. Her father, Sir Clough, was an eminent architect; Williams-Ellis' mother was writer Amabel Strachey, cousin of author and Bloomsbury figure Lytton Strachey. Her parents were friends of other members of the Bloomsbury Group, including Augustus John and Virginia Woolf. Williams-Ellis' godfather was Rudyard Kipling.

She was determined to be an artist from an early age. In the 1930s, Susan studied ceramics with Bernard and David Leach while she was at Dartington Hall School. At Chelsea School of Art, during the 1940s, her tutors included Graham Sutherland for painting and Henry Moore for sculpture, who helped to develop Susan's innate feeling for three-dimensional shape and form.

Williams-Ellis studied Fine Art at Chelsea Polytechnic, where her tutors included Henry Moore and Graham Sutherland. Her brother, Christopher (1923–1944), fell in action before Monte Cassino as an ensign in the Welsh Guards. He had joined up straight from King's College, Cambridge. His friend at Cambridge was Euan Cooper-Willis, who subsequently married Susan. The couple had four children: daughters Anwyl, Siân and Menna, and son Robin. Anwyl and Menna are artists who had a close involvement with Portmeirion Pottery; Siân is a peace activist; Robin is a Welsh language author.

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