Watts,Blake,Bearne - Directors Shareholding

RNS No 3058u
WATTS BLAKE BEARNE & CO PLC
21st April 1998

                       WATTS BLAKE BEARNE & COMPANY PLC:
                         SENIOR MANAGEMENT APPOINTMENT
        Dr. Mike Woodfine becomes Managing Director WBB Eastern Europe


Watts  Blake  Bearne  & Company ("WBB"), the leading international  ball  clay
producer,  announces  that  Dr.  Mike Woodfine  has  been  appointed  Managing
Director of WBB Eastern Europe, its newly formed division.

Dr.  Woodfine, aged 58, joined WBB as Group Technology Manager  in  1990.   In
1994,  he  was responsible for the establishment of WBB's Donbas  Clays  joint
venture,  an  initiative in collaboration with Ukrainian partners  to  extract
ball  clays  from  the  deposits of the Donetsk region in  the  south  eastern
Ukraine.  In 1995, he was appointed as the WBB Group's Head of Technology.

He  joined  WBB from the Thyssen Group in Germany, where he had worked  as  an
adviser  in  ceramic  technology and raw materials.   Previously,  he  was  at
Hepworth Iron Co. (now Hepworth Plc), where he had established a Research  and
Development department which won the Queen's Award for Technology in 1982, for
the successful development of a novel heat treatment process for ceramics.

Dr.  Woodfine  has  a PhD in Physics from the University  of  London.   He  is
married with two children.


For further information please contact:

Steve Carreck, Publicity Manager
Watts Blake Bearne & Company PLC
Park House, Courtney Park, Newton Abbot TQ12 4PS
Tel: [phone]     Fax: [phone]

or via Group's web site: www.wbb.co.uk


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