Designer Biography

Henry Wilson

Born: 1864

Died: 1934

See items in our stock by Henry Wilson

Wilson was in the offices of the architects John Oldrid Scott and John Belcher before becoming chief assistant to J. D. Sedding, where he met E. Gimson and A. H. Powell; he took over the practice at the time of Sedding's death in 1891. His interest in metalwork dates from about 1890, and he taught the subject at the Central School of Arts and Crafts from 1896 under W. R. Lethaby. He had the services of professional jewellers in his studio, preferring this to the more usual Arts and Crafts ideal of trial and error by untrained workmen. John Paul Cooper and Harry G. Murphy both started their metalworking careers in Wilson's studio. Wilson also designed fireplaces for Longden & Co., who had made Sedding's metalwork; furniture, which was made by C. Trask & Co.; and wallpapers for Jeffrey & Co. Wilson was the first editor of the Architectural Review and an indefatigable organizer in the Arts and Crafts cause. His was the moving spirit behind the exhibition of British decorative art in Paris in 1914, and the by now anachronistic show at the Royal Academy in 1917. He was Master of the Arts Workers' Guild in 1917. In 1922 he went to live in France.