Educated at Bryanston and Princeton University, USA, Michael was first introduced to pottery in 1941 by Donald Potter (his teacher at Bryanston) and became a serious potter while still at school, exhibiting at the first Heals School Exhibition. 

In 1943 he worked at the LEACH POTTERY. Returning home in 1949, after reading Chemistry at Princeton University, he potted at the Central Arts School with Dora Billington, and worked with Lucie Rie. Between 1950 and 1956 he traveled widely working in Copenhagen and Helsinki; he started a pottery in Kibbutz Sasa in Israel, and in Joan Metheys' studio in South Africa produced stoneware and porcelain. In Australia and NZ he built kilns and developed glazes.

From 1956-1966 he set up a pottery and craft centre for potters on behalf of the Ugandan Development Corporation.  Back in England Michael taught pottery part-time, but from 1982-1984 he was invited to run a pottery for the Transkei development Corporation. Michael 'retired' in 1990, after a spell of Chemistry and Physics teaching, to manage fifty acres of woodland in Dorset and return to making his own pots. In 2005 he moved to Australia.