Who was Edward William Godwin? (1833-1886)

Born in Bristol, Edward William Godwin began his career working in the 'Ruskinian Gothic' style of mid-Victorian Britain, he then moved on to work in the old English and then the Anglo-Japanese style of the Aesthetic movement in the 1870s, it is for this style that he is most famous today. Godwin's influence can also be detected in the later Arts and Crafts movement.

He provided furniture designs to William Watt, Collinson & Lock and Gillow & Co. and used Hart, Son, Peard and Co. to make his designs in metalwork to accompany his architectural commissions. He designed wallpapers for Jeffrey &Co. and fabrics for Warner & Ramm, ceramics and tiles for Brownfields, Minton, Hollins & Co. and Ellcock & Co. 

In 2025 we sold a pair of bronze andirons, designed by Godwin, to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston; this was the first time any museum worldwide had acquired any metalwork designed by Godwin.

Ref. Charlotte Gere and Michael Whiteway, Nineteenth-Century Design, From Pugin to Mackintosh, Appendix of Architects, Designers and Manufacturers, pages 280-298, George Weidenfeld and Nicholson Ltd, 1993.

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