Designer Biography

William Butterfield

Born: 1814

Died: 1900

See items in our stock by William Butterfield

Butterfield was working in London from 1840; in 1843, on his own suggestion, the Cambridge Camden Society retained him as arbiter in the design of church fittings. His designs were published in Instrumenta Ecclesiastica (1844-7). He supervised the production of his church plate by John Keith & Son, who won a medal at the Great Exhibition in 1851, and metalwork by Potter. In the 1870s many of his silver plate designs were made by Hart, Son & Peard. Butterfield was responsible for some of the most intricate polychromatic buildings of his time but, beyond the highly original church art - his fonts are outstandingly memorable - he was not much involved with decorative design.