Henry Sandon, who has died of a stroke aged 95, was regarded as the world’s leading authority on Royal Worcester porcelain, known to millions of television viewers for almost 40 years as one of the experts featured on Antiques Roadshow.
Sandon joined the show as a ceramics specialist – or “potaholic”, as he called himself – in 1980 for its second run, a year after the series started on BBC One.
Jovial, with infectious enthusiasm and, according to the programme’s current presenter, Fiona Bruce, “a voice like warm treacle”, he became one of its longest serving experts, travelling the country to meet the public and value their treasured possessions, eliciting reactions ranging from joy to disappointment. He left after the 2019 series following a fall at his home.
Sandon’s most memorable find came during filming in Northampton in 1990. An item later dubbed Ozzy the Owl, in recognition of its shape and colour, was carried there on a bus by its owner, who had used it as a flower vase and was shocked when Sandon identified it as a rare 17th-century slipware jug with a removable head to use as a drinking vessel – worth £20,000. Made in Staffordshire, it was later bought by the Potteries Museum in Stoke.
One woman brought along two rare 18th-century dishes. “She had no idea what they were,” said Sandon. “They were worth £2,000 each. She went away shaking.”
In a 2007 interview with the Independent, Sandon reflected on the fame brought to him and other specialists by the programme: “We’ve got such a following on television now that we have become mini film stars. Sometimes, it can be a bit embarrassing. We did a show in Toronto recently where there was a separate queue for people who wanted to kiss me!”
Born in the East End of London, Henry was the son of Clara (nee Mellish) and her husband, Augusto Sandoni, who had come from Italy; Henry modified his surname to Sandon. Augusto trained dogs to perform on the cinema screen, and Henry appeared in some of the films, most notably playing the Jackie Coogan role as an abandoned child in The Cockney Kid, a mid-1930s version of the Charlie Chaplin classic The Kid.
At the start of the second world war, he was evacuated to High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, and attended the town’s grammar school. During national service, Sandon was resident baritone in the South East Command concert party. He then trained as a singer at the Guildhall School of Music, but started his working life in the insurance industry. Bored, he became a special constable directing traffic before moving to Worcester, where he served as a lay clerk singing in the cathedral choir (1953-82), initially combining the job with teaching music at the city’s grammar school (1953-59).
While living in an old house near the cathedral, Sandon found Roman and medieval pots in his garden. He was fired up, particularly by a Roman storage jar, to switch careers to archaeology in what he described as “a blinding flash of light, like St Paul’s on the road to Damascus”.
Between 1966 and 1983, he was curator of the Royal Worcester Porcelain company and its Dyson Perrins museum (later called the Worcester Porcelain museum and now the Museum of Royal Worcester), looking after one of Britain’s finest collections of historic porcelain, excavating the company’s factory site and researching its definitive history. He also organised museum tours for the public.
Sandon became an expert on pottery from all countries and periods, and made his broadcasting debut in 1968 by taking John Howell round the Dyson Perrins collection for listeners to Home This Afternoon on BBC Radio 4.
Seven years later, he took part in the BBC television programme Collector’s World, presented by Hugh Scully, to give a history of tea and teapots. Then he appeared in a couple of episodes of Going for a Song (in 1976 and 1977) as the guest connoisseur valuing items, alongside the resident expert Arthur Negus. Sandon also appeared in episodes of Arthur Negus Enjoys between 1984 and 1987, enthusing about the treasures in country houses.
Living With the Past, Sandon’s autobiography, was published in 1997. His other books included British Pottery and Porcelain, and Worcester Porcelain 1751–1793 (both published in 1969) and Coffee Pots and Teapots (1973).
In Who’s Who, he described his hobby as “giving pots a good home and love”, but in 2023 he auctioned his 1,000-piece “ceramic study collection” of pots ranging from 2000BC to the present day, saying: “I need other people to help care for me now and so it’s time to find new owners to care for all my beloved pots.” It sold for £106,000.
Sandon, who was appointed MBE in 2008, married Barbara Starkey in 1956; she died in 2013. He is survived by their son John, a ceramics expert on Antiques Roadshow since 1985. Two other sons, David and Peter, predeceased him.
• Henry Sandon (Henry George Sandoni), antiques expert, born 4 August 1928; died 25 December 2023
