Compton Potters' Arts Guild

A follower of the Home Arts and Industries Association, set up by Earl Brownlow in 1885 to encourage handicrafts among the lower classes, Fraser-Tytler, the wife of Victorian era painter and sculptor George Frederic Watts, had offered to design and build a new mortuary chapel when the council in Compton, Surrey were developing a new cemetery.

[1] Setting up a local evening class,[2] led by Louis Deuchars, Mary got them designing and modelling designs guided by her and influenced by friends and crafts people: Edward Burne-Jones, Walter Crane, Alexander Fisher, William De Morgan and Phoebe Traquair.

[4] After World War I, many pairs of bookends were made including Archers, Sunburst, Galleon, Fruit and Flowers.

The majority of the pottery was made from a soft white body and decorated with tempera, an egg-based paint susceptible to wear and which washes off.

[6] After the death of its founder, the Guild continued until 1954, by which time competition from more modern designs had severely reduced its sales.