The company was founded in Revere, Massachusetts, by William Henry Grueby (Boston 1867—New York 1925), who had been inspired by the matte glazes on French pottery and the refined simplicity of Japanese ceramics he had seen at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago the previous year, and the architect-designer William Graves.
William S. Graves (1865–1940), US general and commander of the Siberia expedition
William Shakespeare | William Laud | William Blake | William | William III of England | William Morris | William McKinley | William Howard Taft | William Ewart Gladstone | William the Conqueror | William S. Burroughs | William Shatner | William Faulkner | William Randolph Hearst | William Wordsworth | William Tecumseh Sherman | William Hogarth | Prince William, Duke of Cambridge | William Penn | William Jennings Bryan | William Gibson | William Wilberforce | William James | William Makepeace Thackeray | Fort William | William Hanna | William Hague | William III | William Hurt | Robert Graves |
Graves was the son of William Graves and his wife Sarah Elly daughter of Samuel Elly of New Ross.