Designer Biography

Archibald Knox

Born: 1864

Died: 1933

See items in our stock by Archibald Knox

Knox was a painter and designer of jewelry and metalwork.  Born on the Isle of Man, he worked with H. M. Baillie Scott before coming to London in 1897, where he taught at the Kingston School of Art. He left this post in 1912 having been ‘reprimanded’ for his advanced ideas in the teaching of design. Denise and Winifred Tuckfield along with 6 other students left the school in reaction to Knox’s resignation.   They took with them a large number of his discarded designs, with which they founded the Knox Guild of Craft and Design.

Archibald Knox was one of the principal figures behind Liberty’s pioneering design policy from 1898 to 1912.   His textile designs produced by the Silver Studios, his stunning silver ware and jewelry for the ‘Cymric’ Celtic Revival range from 1899, and his subsequent designs in pewter for the ‘Tuderic’ range from 1903, played a major part in the success of the store until the death of its founder Arthur Lasenby Liberty in 1917, by which time Knox's designs had already been sold to James Connell & Co. From 1912 Knox designed carpets for Bromley & Co. of Philadelphia and after the First World War he painted and taught.