Ian Sprague (1920-1994) trained as an architect, but took up pottery after a serious car accident in England. He studied for three years at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, London, before returning to Australia in 1962. In 1964, he started the Craft Centre, Melbourne, and, with the English potter Robin Welch, set up the Mungeribar Pottery in Upper Beaconsfield, Victoria. Mungeribar was an Aboriginal word meaning 'red clay'. His apprentices included Victor Greenaway (1969-73) and Christopher Sanders (1976-78). In 1981, he moved to Mooney-Mooney, NSW (Mungeribar was gutted by bushfires shortly after he left), and to Noosa in 1992. He has entries in Geoff Ford's Encyclopedia of Potters' Marks and in the 1974 potters' directory, and articles by and about him in Pottery in Australia. The Mungeribar Pottery mark is an impressed 'm', and Sprague's own mark is an impressed morse code version of his initials.