David Ross was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada on the 27th of June, 1925, grew up and received his early education in Winnipeg.  His mother, Barbara  Robertson Ross, was born on, March, 19th, 1885, in Mortlach parish, Dufftown, Scotland.  She, was the granddaughter of a John Robertson, and a Jean McWillie, of Mortlach parish, Scotland and a third cousin once removed of, John McWillie, this authors father.    Barbara was employed as a nurse in a Winnipeg hospital, while David's father, James, was employed as a train engineer and  worked out of Winnipeg.   On the completion of  his public  education in Winnipeg, David enrolled in the advanced education program with the Fine Arts Program at the University of Manitoba, from which he graduated with a Masters degree in 1954.  He  selected Pottery as his vocation and in 1954 he attended the Handicraft School of Gothenburg, Sweden, following which he went to work in several small workshops in Copenhagen, Denmark.  While employed at the Copenhagen Clayworks he met and worked briefly with a Folmer Hansen, a local potterer and a native of Denmark.

 In 1956 David again moved, this time to England, were he worked for six months with a John Shelly, at the famous Bath Pottery in England.  While back in Canada,  the Province of Saskatchewan had established the Saskatchewan Arts Board  in 1954 and it in turn had established a Craft House in a large three storey residence type building in Fort Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan. It was essentially a place of residence for practicing craft artists and persons, who would at the same time extend their operations towards stimulating and providing guidance to other craft artists throughout the province. On David's return to Canada in 1956 the Saskatchewan Government offered him employment as a pottery consultant-instructor with the Sask. Arts Board  at the Fort Qu'Appelle, Craft House.  While instructing  classes at the craft center in Fort Qu'Appelle, he also travelled extensively throughout the province conducting pottery workshops in almost every major community. In 1958 to enhance his skills he spent three months with the noted American teacher and potter, Carlton F. Ball, at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, back in Copenhagen, his friend, Folmer Hansen  had become disillusioned with things in Denmark,  immigrated to the Province of New Brunswick, in Canada, where he took work in a local pottery studio. Coincidentlly, while reading to improve his English he discovered an article on ceramics written by a Potter, by the name of David Ross. On investigation he found that, David Ross was the potterer he had earlier met and worked with in Copenhagen.  Folmer contacted his friend and accepted David's invitation to visit Fort Qu'appelle in 1958.  That  friendship lead into a business partnership which was to last for over twenty years.

Folmer Hansen and David Ross continued to work for  the Sask Arts Board until the pottery program was discontinued by the government in 1960. The pair then purchased the craft center from the Provincial Arts Board and converted it into their own facility.  The building still remains the same to this very day.  The partnership ended  in 1974 on the untimely death of David Ross in a car accident..

Their Craft work can still be found on the lawn of the Hansen-Ross Craft House at Fort Qu'Appelle, Sask. Canada.