Wemyss Ware

Wemyss Ware was a line of pottery first produced in 1882 by Czech decorator Karel Nekola and Fife pottery-owner Robert Heron. The pottery took its name from the Wemyss family, titled incumbents of Wemyss Castle on the east coast of Fife, who were early and enthusiastic patrons of Nekola and Heron's ceramic creations. After being desirable in its own day, the pottery subsequently became extremely popular with collectors. Since 1985, the name has been used by the Griselda Hill Pottery in Ceres, Fife.

The Wemyss Ware name has gone through four distinct phases of use. In the period 1882-1930, it was used by the Fife Pottery in Kirkcaldy, and then from 1930 to 1957, it was used by the Bovey Pottery in Devon. From 1985 to the present day, it is used by the Griselda Hill Pottery in Ceres, Fife.

One of several potteries in Kirkcaldy, the Fife Pottery or Gallatown Pottery was founded in 1817 by Archibald and Andrew Grey. It was bought ten years later by John Methven, and from there passed to Robert Heron. When his son, Robert Methven Heron (1833-1906) took over the pottery in around 1850, it became Robert Heron and Son.

By the 1880s, Robert Heron and Son were branding their products as "Wemyss ware" in honour of the Wemyss family who were avid and lucrative patrons. Karel Nekola, a native of Bohemia, was brought over to Kirkcaldy in about 1882 by Robert Heron to become head of the decorating shop there. Aged 25, he was the only one of a group of decorators to remain in Scotland, after Heron had returned from a Grand Tour of Europe with a group of Bohemian craftsmen. Nekola married Heron's cook, and the couple had six children.

Thomas Goode of London, an upmarket tableware retailer, had the exclusive right to sell Wemyss Ware in England.

Nekola's health began to deteriorate in 1910, and a pottery was built at his home in order to allow him to continue to work. He died in 1915, and was succeeded by Edwin Sandland, a painter from Staffordshire that descended from a long line of master-potters, who worked at the pottery until he died in 1928, aged 55.

The original Fife pottery closed in 1930, during the Great Depression, and the rights to Wemyss Ware were bought by the Bovey pottery in Devon. Karel Nekola's son Joseph, himself a designer, moved to Devon, where he carried on producing Wemyss Ware and training apprentices, including Esther Weeks (née Clark). Joseph taught her painting techniques he had learned from his father.

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