Barbara Hanley obituary

My wife, Barbara Hanley, who has died aged 76 of cancer, was a potter of distinction and member of the Craft Potters Association. Under the name Barbara Lock she exhibited her ceramics all over the UK. She also taught pottery to young people with special needs and was a campaigner for the rights of descendants of Nazi persecution in Germany.

Born in Bushey, Hertfordshire, she was the daughter of Barbara Isralowicz, a Jewish refugee who escaped Germany in 1938, and George Seymour, a teacher of deaf people. Her early years were spent in various parts of the UK before the family settled in north London, where she always felt most at home. She went to Willesden county grammar school.

Married young to Desmond Lock, a campaigner of the political left, and living in Bournemouth, she raised three sons while managing to graduate in ceramics at Bournemouth College of Art (now part of Bournemouth University). She combined being a busy mother with developing her own pottery, and also branching out into teaching pottery to young adults with special needs, at the Strathcona centre in Wembley, after the family moved to London in 1982, and qualifying as an art therapist.

She divorced and moved around 1990 to south Wales, where I met her and we became partners, marrying in 2002.

Her pottery blossomed, with subtle variations of style and innovation. She had a preference for using raku clay, low-fired and unglazed, and subtle colours inspired by the land and seascapes of Wales and France; latterly her approach was more sculptural, and she created forms reminiscent of birds.

A member of the Craft Potters Association, the leading organisation for ceramics, she had her last exhibition at their London gallery in 2018. She was instrumental in founding the Makers’ Guild in Wales and was an active member of South Wales Potters. In recent years she showed at the Kooywood gallery in Cardiff and the Attic gallery in Swansea.

In 2017 Barbara wrote a remarkable letter to the Guardian denouncing Germany’s failure to award nationality to all descendants of Nazi persecution, not just those with a Jewish father. Her protest led to the foundation of the Article 116 Exclusions Group, whose work under the leadership of Felix and Isabelle Couchman finally led to a change. Many new German citizens thus owe Barbara a debt.

With firm republican, socialist and internationalist convictions, Barbara had razor sharp intelligence and a vast range of cultural interests. She also had empathy for others and an instinctive generosity, all reinforced by a keen sense of humour.

She is survived by me, her children, Michael, Alex and Ben, five grandchildren and her brother, Tony.