From humble beginnings as a potteries apprentice Arnold Machin rose to become an acclaimed sculptor creating the iconic bas-relief portrait of Her Majesty the Queen used on all Royal Mail definitive issue stamps.
Patricia Machin was born in 1921 and studied painting at Goldsmith's where her tutor was Leonard Applebee. Finding inspiration from the Old Masters and still-life, she was an established painter, illustrator, designer and author.
Architect, sculptor, businessman and painter, Francis Machin was a talented designer responsible for a range of conservatories and garden buildings still seen throughout the United Kingdom, United States and Europe.
Arnold was living alone in his mother's house, his mother having passed away from a massive stroke in 1944, and he was finding it increasingly difficult to cope with life there. Needing somewhere to to live and work in peace without the problems of maintenance, he moved in with the Baker family.
By 1940 Arnold was desperate for money. Through Mr Jowett, the principal at the RCA, he had been previously engaged to do a small amount of work for Wedgwood. Knowing this, Gordon Forsyth got in touch with Josiah Wedgwood to inform him of Arnold's situation. Josiah was sympathetic and asked Arnold to see their Art Director, Victor Skellern, who employed Arnold as a designer.
In 1925, at the age of fourteen, Arnold Machin was interviewed by an employment officer from the Education Office who recommended Minton's China Factory. He was immediately taken on as an apprentice when the manager saw the work Arnold had produced, and he began a seven year apprenticeship learning to decorate china.
On starting at the King Street China Works, Arnold had decided to enrol for evening classes at Derby School of Art, attending every night after work. He had started a Ministry of Education art course, and when he was made unemployed, the principal at the art school offered to take him on full-time with a view to eventually taking the Ministry exams. The course included life drawing, drawing from antique, perspective, architecture, memory drawing and creative design.
Arnold Machin was born on 30th September 1911 at Oak Hill in Stoke on Trent into a family of 12. Soon after his birth, the family moved to a terrace house in the village of Trent Vale on the edge of the Potteries, the collective name given to the six pottery manufacturing towns situated in North Staffordshire. Arnold was a sickly child, often away from school and consequently became rather solitary.