Reginald Fairfax Wells (1877 – 29 June 1951) was an English sculptor, potter, aviator, aircraft designer, aircraft manufacturer, and architect. Reginald Wells was born a British subject in 1877 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; at that time his father James William Wells (1847–1902) was a British explorer of the Brazilian Amazon region. After studying sculpture at the South Kensington School of Art and ceramics at Camberwell, Reginald Wells married Clarissa Rawlings in London in 1899 and then the couple moved to the county of

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

, near

Wrotham Wrotham ( ) is a village on the Pilgrims' Way in Kent, England, at the foot of the North Downs. It is north of Borough Green and approximately east of Sevenoaks. It is between the M20 motorway, M20 and M26 motorway, M26 motorways. History T ...

. Wells established the Coldrum Pottery in Kent and in 1909 moved the business to

Chelsea, London Chelsea is an area in West London, England, due south-west of Kilometre zero#Great Britain, Charing Cross by approximately . It lies on the north bank of the River Thames and for postal purposes is part of the SW postcode area, south-western p ...

. Wells's pottery business was successful, but during WWI he started the Wells Aviation Company alongside his pottery in Chelsea and also started a subsidiary aircraft factory near

Chichester Chichester ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parish in the Chichester District, Chichester district of West Sussex, England.OS Explorer map 120: Chichester, South Harting and Selsey Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher ...

. He designed and built the Wells Reo, a single-seat biplane. However, the aviation company went bankrupt in 1917 and was sold to

Waring & Gillow Waring & Gillow (also written as Waring and Gillow) was a noted firm of English furniture manufacturers and antique dealers formed in 1897 by the merger of Gillows of Lancaster and London and Waring of Liverpool. Background Gillow & Co. The fi ...

. After WWI he moved his pottery business to

King's Road King's Road or Kings Road (or sometimes the King's Road, especially when it was the king's private road until 1830, or as a colloquialism by middle/upper class London residents) is a major street stretching through Chelsea and Fulham, both ...

, replaced the trademark Coldrum® by Soon®, and changed the name of the company to the London Pottery Company. In 1923 he moved the pottery business to Storrington. In the 1920s Wells designed replicas of 17th-century thatched cottages. His business venture built, in Kent and

Sussex Sussex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈsʌsɪks/; from the Old English ''Sūþseaxe''; lit. 'South Saxons'; 'Sussex') is an area within South East England that was historically a kingdom of Sussex, kingdom and, later, a Historic counties of England, ...

, almost 200 cottages, intended as weekend retreats for artistic people or proto-hippies who wanted to occasionally experience a rustic existence. During WWII Wells returned to making aircraft parts. There were three children from Wells's first marriage. In 1938 in London, Wells married Resca Ospovat, whose orthodox Jewish parents with a number of children immigrated to Manchester from

Dvinsk Daugavpils (see also other names) is a state city in southeastern Latvia, located on the banks of the Daugava River, from which the city derives its name. The parts of the city to the north of the river belong to the historical Latvian region ...

around 1891. The artist Henry Ospovat (1877–1909) was one of her brothers.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wells, Reginald Fairfax 1877 births 1951 deaths English potters 20th-century ceramists Artists from Rio de Janeiro (city)