Denis Moore, a Brief History (Part 1)

According to what I have gleaned from various sources. I will try and piece together some sort of timeline.

Denis was born near the start of the twentieth century in 1908, possibly at Haigh near Wigan in Lancashire. At 13 he attended St Bede’s Catholic college in Manchester. There he studied History, Greek, Latin and Chemistry. This last subject, being useful later during experimentation with glazes and reduction firing.

This typical middle class upbringing leads him towards the study of law and in 1931 he passed his final exam. He applied for various jobs including teaching with the Egyptian Ministry of Education, but he was unsuccessful. Around this time he discovered the little plot of land and small house at Greendene and settled there along with his mother. The whereabouts of his father was unknown.

The grounds at Greendene were split and Denis just had the west side of the driveway and only later bought the other piece of land as described in his description “Pennies from Heaven and Earth”, an article written for the Pottery Quarterly in 1959.

It was just after the war that, he began an interest in living off the land. He had suffered during the conflict from several illnesses including the serious rheumatic fever and also a duodenal ulcer. I think that this was to some extent an effect of the trauma of the war and influenced him to find a less stressful job out in his country retreat. Leading later to try and live a more sustainable, and rural existence on the land and live a more healthy life.

His interests were also musical and he took Cello lessons and was involved in the Surrey orchestra. Later, it drew a number of musicians up the little windy path including well known cellist Julian Lloyd Webber and during the sixties the rock group Moody Blues.

At some point during his upbringing he had stayed with a wealthy family in London, who had a collection of Chinese ceramics which must have stuck in his mind when he was considering how to supplement his income from the market garden. He entered into correspondence with the now famous Bernard Leach, who more than anyone revived the craft of “Studio” pottery in Britain after the war.

Coincidently, also around that time in 1949 there was an important exhibition of Sung dynasty ceramics at the Oriental Ceramics Society. This too, must have encouraged Denis to get building a small studio