Educated at Bryanston School, Dorset, under the artist and potter Donald Potter, Richard Batterham served a two-year apprenticeship at the Leach Pottery, St Ives, under Bernard Leach, in the mid 1950s. In 1959 he set up independently at Durweston, Dorset, where he continues to make thrown domestic stoneware and some very large-scale individual pots, with either a wood-ash or a salt glaze. In the mid 1960s he built a new pottery and a four-chambered oil and wood-fired climbing kiln at Durweston. He has remained faithful to the pottery tradition of Bernard Leach and has never wavered from the life of full-time potter making useful wares. His work is exhibited and sold widely and is represented in many private and public collections in the UK.