Really First Class

“Really First Class” - Crown Lynn 20 years on.Initially I began this project to nostalgically celebrate an industry and its employees. It soon became apparent however, that it could be so much more than that. This study is an opportunity to record and reflect on how Crown Lynn really operated for its workers and how outside economic conditions, culture and class influenced their experiences. Through this work I have endeavoured to represent the full diversity of employees that made up the Crown Lynn workforce, including factory workers, designers, craftsmen and mem-bers of middle and upper management. Through the use of oral interview’s I was better able to gain insight into their experiences, I could not have achieved this through images alone. I have included extracts from these interviews and I hope their words are suggestive of Crown Lynn as a work place, rather than simply the home of a much-celebrated product.The title, “Really First Class”, comes from my interview with Val Hewson. Val worked in the seconds shop attached to the factory. She was very enthusiastic regarding her job and the product, hence her quote. It was not only her ardor that influenced my choice however; “Really First Class” stands for more than Val’s intended reference to Crown Lynn’s wares and reputation for design and quality. I adopted Val’s words as a somewhat ironic title for two rea-

sons, firstly as a comment on the wages for factory floor workers, which were anything but first class. Secondly as a reference to the economic factors that aided the closure and were beyond Crown Lynn’s control. Namely the New Zealand’s government “race to the bottom” style of socio-economics, the lifting of import tariffs and the embracing of free trade agree-ments. These liberalisation polices were introduced to create a leaner and more efficient econ-omy but in the process they unfortunately made factories such as Crown Lynn redundant. There were many common threads running through the stories I heard of social ex-ploits and comradery. Everyone was sad to see it close but when it came to the reasons why, opinions differed. There was no consensus regarding the inevitability of its demise.It certainly seems as if men like Tom Clark were a dying breed, an industrial-ist of a bygone era. At least the Crown Lynn ceramics are enjoying a reviv-al, finally benefiting from competitive markets through galleries and auctions. I would like to thank everyone I interviewed and photographed for their time and gen-erosity. I would also like to thank my friends Desmond Burdon and Stephen Roke who along with Creative Communities and Robyn Mason enabled this project to happen. Catherine Davidson

I worked for the clay department, I worked on the machine. I am from Samoa, I find out [about] the job by going to the office. It was not too bad, and good depart-

ment, working overtime. Sometimes there was not very much for my department and I would pick up work spraying for staining for the kiln. I didn’t get the payoff, be-cause I was on leave to have my last baby, then it closed down before I went back.

Tinei Esane

Tom Clark approached me with an offer of employment, I’d left McKenzies and he was aware I was unhappy working for a small family business in Wel-

lington. I came up to Auckland to say no, it was at Tom’s second wife’s funeral. He wouldn’t accept my refusal, and I had always admired Tom, I thought he did amazing things for a small business in NZ. So we packed up and moved to Auckland. Before I even arrived I had became Sales manager, then I had ten years as general manager, in 1969 we had seven hundred people at our peak. Then the government started allowing more imports, we were shattered every time we had to lay people off. Tom called people snobs because they had to have Wedgwood. When Tom changed passports the government said he had to take ‘British made’ off the back. I was there for twenty years, I had two heart operations while I was general manager at Crown Lynn, five hundred people de-pended on you making the right decisions, I think it nearly killed me. But I have no regrets it was rewarding work. I never dreamt that Crown Lynn would close down, it was really after Roger Douglas lifted all the protection and removed the tariffs. A group of us, Chris Harvey, John Heap, Colin leech and myself, we considered buying the business, but without the protection [it wasn’t viable].

Alan Topham

I was a maintenance electrician, in a team of three plus two apprentices. We were extremely busy with instrumentation, it was very dusty and high wear and tear on

all the machinery. I moved to the Furnace and Combustion Division, we were con-tracted out all over New Zealand. My forte was the combustion side. Crown Lynn had agencies for international refractory products; our division was formed to com-plement that. There were a few explosions - you can’t work with gas and oil without accidents; a bit of singed hair and black face, nothing serious. We were separate from the majority of the workforce; I wasn’t involved in the social side. We never had Christmas holidays; we had to do all the maintenance work when the factory closed.

Graham Wingate

Initially Tom Clark Senior’s stamped his ceramics‘British made’, he had trouble sell-ing it and in his mind he had British passport so that was enough. We never really

sort of left Crown Lynn, all our equipment was brought here. There were six came from Crown Lynn, my brother one of them, Frank and I of course. The biggest thing about Crown Lynn was the people; it was a society in itself. It was a big meeting place. The Crown Lynn party was infamous, people would start getting ready for the Christmas party in September, the pay wasn’t good but everyone looked for-ward to the party. There was a massive turnover of staff, 300% per year. People just couldn’t stick it for the money. Some of the work was hard, they were tough jobs. A lot of those trades have disappeared. It was an ultimately an industry that relied on cheap labour. Investment bankers weren’t interested in the hassle of employing a lot of people, they saw things in different ways. And for Crown Lynn to be successful we needed protection, and exporting we were at the mercy of the the dollar. It was very difficult to compete. I’d say there were a range of things that caused it to close.

Frank Fitzpatrick Tom Clark Jnr

I’ve been a mould maker all my life; I’m still making pottery today. When I started at Crown Lynn in 1956, our wages were 15 pounds a week. Monday Wednesday

and Saturday we worked overtime. They were a good bunch to work with; all the English lot came to my wedding. We mould makers had an excellent boss that didn’t tell us how to do our job. We knew our job. I walked straight in at age 14 and they taught me in a week. It’s like driving a car, once you learn you’ve got it for life. My father made bowls at Crown Lynn, my two sisters worked there and all my cousins. My son’s like me, he had his own ceramic factory at the age of 14 in Henderson, we set him up. I moved from Crown Lynn to Titian in Takanini.

Hemera Hemara

As a designer in the decorating studio we just got to draw all day, it was so much fun. If the sales reps liked your design then you had to do the hard graft.

We were upstairs; our windows overlooked the railway lines. I was straight out of tech. My claim to fame is probably ‘Last Wave’: it’s the design I am most proud of due to its popularity. I was made redundant in 84; I was one of the fi rst lot to go.

Juliet Hawkins

Iwas on the shop floor as a worker. We enjoyed ourselves because we were young. I got $7.50 an hour and I saved for my home. . There were heaps of

Island people in the factory. If a palangi boss spoke, I felt shy, then I learn English. It was my first job in New Zealand. The union helped a lot, they helped to get us all something when we ended, a redundancy. They even gave us a reference.

Taumanogi Noue

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For forty years I was with Ceramco Limited. The last four as Tom Clark’s personnel assistant. He was very much a hands-on man. I was an accountant, but I wasn’t

overly keen on figure work. We started ‘time and motion’ studies. It was an incentive scheme: I would go around with a stopwatch timing the workers, they could earn a bonus, up to a third of their weekly wage. We also had a scheme for people who turned up on a Friday or for people who turned up five days a week. It all helped.

Colin Leech

I was fi fteen when I started; I was paid under the table. No one ever kept anything from you. I idolised Tom Clark. I went to the UK and got the qualifi cation, they

thought I wasn’t bright enough for the cadet scheme. Met the wife at Crown Lynn, she worked in the brick works. Pottery is in my blood. There were major fi res there, but we all wanted to contain them, because that was our job. I was always in man-agement but I thought the unions were realists. We [Crown Lynn] had a dream, but the reality was the country was too small. People worked as a team because of Tom Clark whether he was there or not. One thing I do remember clearly is what a frightening experience it was to drive with Tom Clark, seriously you needed sedating.

Tom Hodgson

I was there for thirty years, I worked under Maud Bowls and then I ran my own section in the decorating department. My first job was at the end of the belt at

eighteen; my cousin said come and work at Crown Lynn and I loved it. I loved the mixed culture; I was the only Cook Island lady. Tongan and Samoan, I don’t remem-ber how many I trained. The faster I trained them the faster they left. In 1989 I was made redundant, [Crown Lynn] was like a home to me. I went back to the Cook Islands after that for sixteen years. That helped. Good memories – it’s sad when I go past. Good times, very sociable. I loved the work under Maud Bowls, I learnt a lot from her. I learnt how to speak English there. My son was a Crown Lynn baby. In 1985 he had a car accident and passed away. Sandra had a baby at that time she offered to me, but two years later we adopted a girl. We were all strong in the union in those days. I was lucky I was one of the first to be offered a redundancy.

Moeroa Tangiia Brothers

People would visit from all over New Zealand and their first stop in Auck-land was to me at the Crockery Barn. They usually brought a piece of

their crockery wanting replacements. It was a lovely job but very dusty. I came home and was glad to get out of my smock. There were over 100 designs, so many patterns to choose from. They were lovely things, really first class.

Val Hewson

Evo: I worked in all different departments, glaze first and made my way to the decorating. Wherever they needed me in a department I would go, I was

adaptable. It was my first job in Auckland I was 22 years old. Crown Lynn got me interested in pottery, I collect Wedgwood. When we did the picket line, the strike before the closure, I was outside with the workers and Jeff was inside. It was hard sometimes; maybe that’s what makes us strong. It was not a major [conflict of interest] but sometimes friends used to joke, “I’d like to be a fly on the wall in your room”. They would ask me for information about the firm. Within a month of the picket, they gave us our notice it was over and we were blaming the union, we were all of us out there blaming the union. Even now I have no faith in the union anymore, I belong but I do it for work mates, [otherwise] it wouldn’t be fair on them.

Jeff: I came to New Zealand in 1974 from Stroke-on-Trent. I was offered the job from England, I saw it advertised in the local paper. I was in charge of the

automatic flatware-making department. I met Evo in the factory, we married in ‘83, we lived together for six years first to see if it worked! When they talked to us about the closure in the cafeteria, they issued us all with the pink redundancy slips, giving us a month’s notice. We closed because people were interested in money not the business. We were still making a profit when they closed us down, but they wanted more – but you can’t get more the same year there was a market crash. It was moneyman’s greed not the union that closed Crown Lynn down. I’ve been management and I still supported the union. Crown Lynn didn’t pay well. Even the strike: the workers were only after 4% increase.

Jeff and Evo Myatt

For eighteen years I was contracted to do brick maintenance on the kilns. I did repairs over the Christmas period, there were four kilns, double tunnelled, and

each year we would have to take it all out and rebuild it from the floor right up. The tunnels were seventy feet in length. The firebox was in the middle; you could stand up inside it. I would work on my own and Crown Lynn would supply a la-bourer, they would knock it down and I would rebuild it. There was just one kiln being used towards the end, and we demolished one half and just lined one tunnel with fibre. [By then] it was cheaper to bring in a container load of plates and add transfers, or that’s how it seemed to me. I did the ball mills also, they came from the gold mines in Thames originally. I lined them with flint rocks and they would make the clay in them, all the powder, then your fluids, and you had the slips for making the moulds. They used to make all their own glazes as well, in a different type of kiln again. They made their own glass for the glaze. So they did it all, I started at the beginning of the chain and ended at the firing. It was interesting work.

Ken HodderJnr

You ask anyone in West Auckland, they either worked or knew someone who worked for Crown Lynn. Maud Bowls was my lead supervisor in the decorat-

ing room, we put transfers on the dinnerware. I have good memories of mucking around and taking off to the pub. The boss locking the door on us after lunch and she never knew all our bottles of lemonade were filled with vodka. I don’t drink any-more now but back then I was a big drinker. It was more a fun time for me being at that age. Plenty of good socials I tell you. My friend there who is now God Mother to my children actually introduced me to my husband; we haven’t been apart for twenty eight years since that day. I left to have children, it was cheaper to stay home rather than pay childcare. Later I returned as a cleaner at night. All my kids think my friends from Crown Lynn are Aunties and Uncles even though they are no relation.

Sandra Hart

I was there as a maintenance engineer for twenty-two years I think, obviously there was a heaps of machinery there, there was heaps to do. It was a busy busy

time. We had to keep it running, it was running 24 hours day and if something went wrong we were there all night if we had to be. Often I’d get a call at 2am. We couldn’t compete with the wages from overseas. Tom called them [the peo-ple who took over] “money people, number punches” all they were interested in was profit; Tom was a worker he would work all night too with the engineers. Be-fore it closed we pulled all the machinery out of the place, crated it up and sent it in containers to Malaysia where as far as I know its never been used. It was huge heavy stuff, a colleague Bill in fact died during it, we were physically working very hard and I think we were all a bit stressed anyway, we [had all hoped] to stay on until sixty-five or more, if they would have us, but then it all folded. But that’s what happens. I mean we did get redundancy those that were on salary got a better spin redundancy wise. It broke Tom’s [Clark] heart I think, it was his baby.

Peter Clark

Everyone got on. We all believed in the one thing, that everyone was the same; no one was better than anyone else, even if in some departments you got paid

more. I’m talking about the shop floor here, I can’t speak for the management. I was a grader for twenty years. It was a very sad day for a lot of people the day it closed. We knew we were going, we had heard the rumours, we stuck it out. They wanted us to drop wages, but if we did that we were giving the green light for the rest of the country’s employers to do the same. As far as I’m concerned people work hard for their money, there were a lot of men working hard and em-ployers tried to take away their rights, their sick pay, their overtime. We [went on] strike because they were eroding our rights, the union didn’t force us. We made our own decisions. They were good to us the union, they just told us what could happen and before long it did. The redundancy was only $75 a year, we had lots of orders when we shut, we could have stayed open for many years. The ‘Round Table’ (the New Zealand Business Round Table) have a lot to answer for. It’s all about money, it wasn’t only Crown Lynn that suffered. It’s the ‘Round Tabel’: shoot them all.

Shirley Musin

Tom Clark had a vision. I served my cadetship in Stoke, stayed in the UK for four years before I began in earnest at Crown Lynn. Tom Clark had huge

foresight and was extremely involved in the running of the factory. We were a major employer in the district. The Commercial buses would line up outside at the end of the day to take the workers into town. The closest pub was the Kings Arms. That’s why the social club was such a hit. On a Friday afternoon a truckload of meat would arrive, once there was eighteen tons of Kumara. We socialized in the Carpenters Arms or the Engineers workshop. Tom was larg-er than life, huge in stature. He was sharp, and with Tom it always had to be done yesterday. Men like him, ‘industrialists’…well, those days have gone.

Chris Harvey

I went as a temp for four months to work in Accounts Payable and ended up staying for thirteen years; I was there till 1989 when Crown Lynn closed. I

used to take the wages round and they would all be chattering away in their lingoes. I met my husband there; he was shift worker that worked on the kilns. Bill Skinner, the personnel manager, married us. Ours was one of many unions that formed at Crown Lynn. I have great memories of Crown Lynn, I was on the social club. Wednesday was social club night after work down in the cafeteria: pool and darts. It was very nice, great lot of people.

Marian Pie

I began straight from school at sixteen as a cadet in February 1971, it was a two-year course. The first year you would spend roughly a month in each depart-

ment. The second year they placed you. I ended up in the Mould and Design Department under Tam Mitchell. I still make moulds today. Work was always in-teresting in the modelling department. Working with Tam and making the Carbine trophy was the funnest thing I did there; I still produce them. It was a very so-ciable place to work. Social club nights were quite wild, a hundred people could turn up and a lot of people were not at work the next day. Management had Fri-day drinks, we cadets used to gate crash, all the cadets were the management side of things and [as a result] we had no involvement with the union. It was sad to see it close, especially when you saw the quality of the stuff being imported.

Bruce Yallop

It was a very vibrant company. I commenced employment at Crown Lynn in March 1961. I lived in Albany then, I caught a bus to Bayswater and then a fer-

ry. Mondays and Wednesday were overtime and I didn’t get home till 9.30pm. Tom Clark was a tough guy to work for but very fair. He would argue like hell with you, he would give you enough rope to hang yourself, but if your idea came to fruition and worked well he asked why you didn’t do it sooner. If it didn’t work he would not hold recriminations against you. After nineteen years I thought it was time to move on into private business. It was undergoing tough times then. With the take over of Ceramco, the two controlling directors had an interest in liquidat-ing assets of land, business, plant and equipment, while avoiding getting into the business of employing a whole lot of people. Crown Lynn’s days were numbered.

John Heap