Crown Lynn Pottery New Zealand

Thank you Gillybean for your comment on the china. This is what I Googled and it's amazing where a piece of thrifted china can lead you.

In my previous post I wrote about finding a piece of Crown Lynn, called Green Bamboo. It seems the Crown Lynn Potteries started in 1940. During WWII, New Zealand was running out of cup and saucers, they were not being imported, so the government, realising they would soon be drinking out of jam jars, went to Grey Lynn Potteries, where they were making tiles to ask them to start making china ware. This is Tom Clark's story here. He later became Sir Thomas Edwin Clark.

The above photograph is of boy being given ‘Free replacement’ china in a shop. This photograph shows a boy being presented with some china, while Crown Lynn Assistant Sales Manager Barry Grant looks on. The sign behind reads “Free replacements.”

This was probably a publicity shot taken to promote Crown Lynn’s ‘Free replacement’ policy. The policy allowed people to have free replacements for accidental breakages of pieces in their ‘stock patterns.’ Initially there were five stock patterns: ‘Autumn splendour’, ‘Golden fall’, ‘Shasta daisy’, ‘Green bamboo’ and ‘Fashion rose’ although the number of stock patterns was soon increased. The scheme was advertised in magazines like ‘New Zealand Woman’s Weekly’, and sales skyrocketed.