Dora Billington

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Dora Billington (1890-1968) was an English teacher of ceramics and a potter. She was born in Stoke-on-Trent into a family of potters and studied at Hanley School of Art. She worked as a decorator for Bernard Moore, 1912-1915, and then took a diploma in ceramics at the Royal College of Art 1915-1916. As the ceramics department was in danger of closure because of the war, she helped to run it with John Adams (who later ran the Poole Pottery). On completion of her diploma, she became head of department. She continued to design for industry, working with J. & G. Meakin during the 1920s and 1930s.

She left the Royal College in 1924 to take up full time teaching at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, where she later became head of the pottery department. She emphasised the importance of handbuilding as the first stage of working with clay. Under her tuition, students at the Central School of Arts and Crafts were encouraged to experiment with tin-glaze decoration. She had an extensive knowledge of glaze technology and of the history of ceramics. Among her students were William Newland, Margaret Hine, Nicholas Vergette, Gordon Baldwin, Lord Queensberry, Ruth Duckworth, John Colbeck and Alan Caiger-Smith. She retired from the Central School in 1955.

She was President of the Arts and Crafts Society from 1940-1956 and was involved with the Craft Centre at Hay Hill, where she was in charge of selecting the ceramics shown there. She was also involved with the Smithsonian touring Exhibition of British Artist Craftsmen in the 1950s.

Her book The Art of the Potter (1937), was the first book to relate contemporary craft practice to its historical context.

Since the 1990s there has been an increased interest in her influence on twentieth century British ceramics.