Charles Bray

Early years

He was brought up, an only child, in a two-up-two-down terraced house, in Salford, where his father worked as a lorry driver. A strong artistic influence came through his mother, who was musical and his maternal great-grandfather, a stonemason. He failed the scholarship exam for Grammar school, but became top of his secondary school, Halton Bank School, by the age of 13. He later attended Openshaw Technical College and studied to belong to the Society of Designer Craftsmen. He began employment with a firm of church furnishers.

When he turned 18, Charles Bray joined the Royal Navy, at the start of World War II, and served on HMS Rodney and HMS Diomede. After the end of the war, he attended Freckleton Teacher training college, under the Emergency Teacher Training Scheme , set up after the implementation of the Education Act 1944.

Teaching

He taught for two years in Manchester, specialising in music, woodwork and metalwork and then entered Goldsmiths College to study painting and sculpture. Upon returning to teach at Manchester, Charles Bray then moved to Cumberland (Cumbria) in 1955, to teach art at Eden School, Carlisle. He married Margaret Ingram, a textile artist (who died in 1995). In 1962, Charles Bray worked at Sunderland Teacher Training College, and then became Head of Ceramic Art at Sunderland College of Art. Charles Bray set up courses on ceramic glazes for teachers, and established a glass degree course at SCA. In 1976, he attended the Hot Glass Conference at the Royal College of Art which proved a major watershed in the development of Studio Glass in England. Subsequently, he was instrumental in setting up British Artists in Glass (now the Contemporary Glass Society) to promote and support the work of glass artists in the UK.