A pea-green tureen dated 1991 and bearing Mary Boys-Adams’s personal monogram was presented to her distant cousin Richard J. Goulden who then presented it to the British Deaf History Museum in 2019.
Who was Mary Boys-Adams?
Mary Boys-Adams worked with various well-known potters such as Bernard Leach and wares from their pottery studios bear factory stamps so Mary’s pots and tablewares bearing her personal initials are uncommon. The example here, a pea-green tureen, has on its base the date [19]91 and Mary’s initials: M B A. Mary presented this tureen to a distant cousin. Of her life, Mary as Constance Mary Gibson-Horrocks was born on 23 June 1923 in the Kingston area, Surrey, the daughter of George Gibson Horrocks and his wife Mabel Constance (née Lepine) who was descended from the Canterbury Lepines as was her distant cousin. Despite her deafness since birth Mary attended the Holy Cross Convent’s school in imbledon before training at the Wimbledon School of Art, her teacher being Robert Baker. On leaving the art school Mary was persuaded by Robert Baker to work at the Bulmer Brickworks in Sudbury, Suffolk, as its owner wanted her to show him how to produce pots: she had her own pottery there.

This pottery was then taken over by a very promising potter, Sam Hailes, who later died in a road accident and Mary moved to Truro, Cornwall, to work at Lake’s Pottery, a very happy time there. Bernard Leach was much influenced by the pots and dishes produced at Lake’s Pottery and with his staff was a regular visitor to the pottery. In 1944 Mary was accepted as a student of Bernard Leach and Margaret Leach taught her to throw and glaze. She and Michael Cardew were then persuaded to form a pottery at Kingswood in Surrey but this did not last long and both moved to Wenford Bridge, Cornwall, in 1949 to continue as potters. Lowerdown in Bovey Tracey, Devon, was her next stay until 1955 when the pottery was sold to Bernard Leach’s son David. Mary’s final pottery was in Devon, the Buckfast Abbey Pottery, in which she taught the monks and sold her ceramics in the monastic shop. While there she married Terence Boys-Adams in 1969, Terence being another distant cousin and also deaf.