Leach St Ives Pottery mystery L dots mark

Came across this mark recently on a jug with a decorative style that looked a very like Janet Leach's, but with a weak handle, and also bearing the St Ives mark. I read recently that Bernard Leach liked to christen a new kiln with a salt firing. I also recall reading that Janet Leach was using a cut-down version of Bernard Leach's mark at one point, I think when she first knew him, until he got fed up and made her make her own one. The fact that both pots are a little crudely made might indicate they were early ones of Janet's, but I haven’t researched Janet’s early work yet to compare them


see more examples here

https://www.20thcenturyforum.com/t31682-l-mark-leach-st-ives-pottery

Chatting with Mike Dodd last weekend and he was talking about Janet Leach so I asked him about this mark. He didn’t think it was Janet’s but he said David Leach used a stamp that was just an L. Seems a logical explanation

Yes. I suspect it’s the mark David used as a teenager. Bernard only allowed potters to use a personal stamp after years of training, and these pots are too crude. He wouldn’t have allowed someone who wasn’t family to have used one so like his own. If it wasn’t David then it might have been another son, or his first wife, or all of them, and keep them separate from the commercial pieces

The Marks book says he was officially potting at St Ives from 1930 before he went to Dartington Hall in 1933-37 and then back to St Ives, so, yes, if the theory holds true then it dates from the 1920s-early '30s