Paul Atterbury
Paul leading a guided walk in the Somme region in France
Born (1945-04-08) 8 April 1945
Occupations
  • Writer
  • lecturer
  • curator
  • historian
  • broadcaster
Known forSpecialism in the arts, architecture, design and decorative arts of the 19th and 20th centuries
TelevisionAntiques Roadshow
Parent(s)Audrey Atterbury
Rowley Atterbury
Websitewww.paulatterbury.com

Paul Rowley Atterbury, FRSA (born 8 April 1945) is a British antiques expert, known for his many appearances since 1979 on the BBC TV programme Antiques Roadshow. He specialises in the art, architecture, design and decorative arts of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Biography

He is the oldest son of Rowley Atterbury and puppeteer Audrey Atterbury (née Holman),[1] who worked on the 1950s children's Watch With Mother programme Andy Pandy for the BBC and who, it is claimed, based the character's appearance on that of her son.[1]

He was educated at Westminster School and the University of East Anglia (BA, 1972).[2] Originally training as a graphic designer, he later went on to work for Sotheby Publications. He became an historical advisor for Royal Doulton and was the editor of Connoisseur magazine from 1980 to 1981.

Since 1981, Atterbury has been a freelance writer, lecturer, broadcaster and exhibition curator. He most frequently curates for the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, his exhibitions there including "Pugin: a Gothic Passion" (1994) and "Inventing New Britain: the Victorian Vision" (2001).

Atterbury has written or edited over 30 books, mostly on ceramics. He has published books of old postcards showing Eype and West Bay, two Dorset villages. He is also known for his travel writing, and has written books on railways and canals. When British Waterways commissioned Robert Nicholson Publications to produce a series of guides to their waterways in the early 1970s, Atterbury and Andrew Darwin were supplied with a chartered boat and a student to drive it, in which they toured the canal network, producing the material for what became the first edition of the Nicholson Guides.[3]

Until 2003, Atterbury was chairman of the Little Angel Theatre puppet theatre in Islington, north London.[1] He has toured the country with his stage show 'Have You Had it Long Madam?' with fellow Antiques Roadshow expert Hilary Kay; the show visited Australia in 2009.[4]

In 2007, Atterbury appeared on Channel 4's archaeology series Time Team talking about Augustus Pugin, and in 2009 he narrated BBC Four's documentary The Last Days of the Liners which examined how, in the years following World War II, countries competed to launch the most magnificent passenger ships on the great ocean routes.[5] He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

The 1978 rescue of the Gilbert Bayes Doulton House Frieze during demolition of the former Royal Doulton Pottery premises in the Albert Embankment, Lambeth, was only made possible by the efforts of Atterbury.[6]

Atterbury is the owner of the only remaining Teddy puppet from the television series Andy Pandy that is not kept as part of a museum collection; it was originally a gift to his mother.

He lives in Weymouth in Dorset with his second wife, Chrissie, whom he married in 2002.[7][8]

Selected publications

  • 1994: Pugin: a Gothic Passion. New Haven: Yale University Press (as co-editor) ISBN 978-0-300-06014-0
  • 2001: Victorians at Home and Abroad. London: V & A Publications. ISBN 978-1-85177-329-9 (With Suzanne Fagence Cooper)
  • 2002: Poole Pottery: Carter and Co. and Their Successors 1873–2002. Richard Dennis ISBN 978-0-903685-86-3
  • 2006: Branch Line Britain: A Nostalgic Journey Celebrating a Golden Age. Newton Abbot: David & Charles (2006) ISBN 978-0-7153-2416-5
  • 2007: Along Lost Lines. Newton Abbot: David & Charles ISBN 978-0-7153-2568-1
  • 2007: Victorian House Style Handbook. Newton Abbot: David & Charles ISBN 978-0-7153-2705-0 (as editor)
  • 2008: Tickets Please: A Nostalgic Journey Through Railway Station Life. Newton Abbot: David & Charles ISBN 978-0-7153-2876-7
  • 2008: Moorcroft: a Guide to Moorcroft Pottery 1897–1993. Richard Dennis ISBN 978-0-9553741-0-4
  • 2009: All Change! (AA Illustrated Reference). Automobile Association ISBN 978-0-7495-5785-0
  • 2013: Mapping Britain's Lost Branch Lines. David & Charles ISBN 978-1-4463-0283-5

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Biography of Audrey Atterbury". Telegoons.org. Archived from the original on 8 September 2009.
  2. ↑ 'ATTERBURY, Paul Rowley', Who's Who 2014, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2014; online edn, Oxford University Press, December 2013
  3. ↑ Mosse, Jonathan (July 2019). "Fifty years of Nicholson's". Waterways World. p. 103. ISSN 0309-1422.
  4. ↑ Winfield, Grady (9 November 2009). "Have you had it long, madam?". ABC Radio Perth. Retrieved 16 September 2018.
  5. ↑ "The Last Days of the Liners". BBC Four. Retrieved 24 September 2010.
  6. ↑ "Gilbert Bayes and the Doulton House frieze". Vauxhall History Stories. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  7. ↑ Paul Atterbury and Hilary Kay, The Wedding: 150 Years of Down-the-Aisle Style, David & Charles (2005) – Google Books pg 128
  8. ↑ Why Paul Atterbury from Antiques Roadshow loves Dorset – Dorset Magazine 20 December 2009
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