It was in 1927 that Queen Mary appointed W.Moorcroft Ltd Potters to HM The Queen, an honour which William accepted on behalf of the company and which Walter Moorcroft also accepted in 1946 following his father's death. The quality of Moorcroft's design and decoration means that more than one hundred years later the company is still supplying Liberty of London but by the millennium many other prestigious retailer names have been added to
the list.

With the aid of substantial funds from Liberty of London made available in 1913, William was able to move the site of the present potworks at Cobridge with the entire art pottery department of Macintyre's. William's relationship with his former emplyers had become tense and it was at Cobridge, in a joint venture with Liberty. that Moorcroft started to produce ware enriched with superb flambe glazes. It was the chemistry of the flambe glaze which Walter Moorcroft further developed to a level of artistic excellence which may never be surpassed. A combination of Clean
Air Legislation and the conversion of British gas supplies from the coal gas to North Sea gas put an end to flambe production at Cobridge. After building the Cobridge works, production of Moorcroft pottery continued through two World Wars with William in charge right up until his death in 1945. Moorcroft pottery from this era can be found in museums throughout the world including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Walter Moorcroft took over his father's role in 1945. In 1961, he bought out the Liberty stock and the Moorcroft family assumed total control of
the company. During a lifetime of contribution to the applied arts, Walter not only brought exotic colour to a drab post-war Britain with his famous lily, magnolia and hibiscus designs but also a rapid improvement in
working conditions for his employees. In 1984 when the company was at a low ebb financially, the Moorcroft family sold a controlling shareholding in their company to Michael, Stephen and Andrew Roper, well-known and respected names in the ceramic industry.

The Roper brothers involvement was short. The company's fortunes did not improve and their drive to take the pottery down market into mass production failed. It was in 1986 that the brothers sold their shareholding to Hugh Edwards and Richard Dennis and their wives, Maureen and Sally. Sally took over as design director when Walter retired in 1987 and her work during the six years that she was with the company made a significant contribution towards the restoration of a once great name. Following the Dennises departure from Moorcroft in 1992, control of
Moorcroft has been vested in the Edwards family.

Until 1996, design was solely in the skilled hands of ceramic graduate Rachel Bishop. Appointed at the age of 24 (the same age that William Moorcroft was employed as designer at James Macintyre and Co. Ltd in 1897), Rachel continued to enhance Moorcroft's international reputation, building stongly on the work of her predecessor. In early 1997, the Moorcroft Design Studio was formed. It now comprises no less than nine designers with Rachel at their head. Through the medium of this new initiative, and with added value coming from the design experience and
artistic vision of the Design Studio, plus total support from the skills and craftsmanship of a dedicated workforce, Moorcroft is selling more of its magnificent ware all over the world today than it did even in its previous heyday in the mid 1920's. With a strong belief in it's own destiny, Moorcroft has moved past the millennium and into the 21st century with an ever-increasing reputation for quality and value first established more than a century ago.