The Cotswold tradition in Britain 2

The young Gordon Russell ran his father’s antique business in Broadway, Worcestershire before serving in the First World War. On returning to Broadway in 1919 he set up workshops designing furniture very much in the Cotswold tradition. He also set up a smithy and employed the blacksmith, Harry Gardiner, who had worked for Gimson. Russell’s metalwork designs were inspired by and developed from Gimson’s. During the Second World War Russell was involved with the Utility Furniture Scheme. The philosophy of the Cotswold tradition – the emphasis on good materials, quality workmanship and simple, well-proportioned designs – was fundamental to Utility Furniture, the only furniture which could be purchased during the war.

 

 

A number of small scale manufacturers continued to produce furniture in the Cotswold style. Heal and Son produced work in the same idiom through the first half of the twentieth century. Others in the 1920s and ‘30s included Percy A Wells for Oetzmann and Co., E Arthur Brown for Crossley and Brown, John Stark for Stark Brothers Ltd, and Shirley B Wainwright.

 

 

The work of Gimson and Sidney Barnsley was known internationally through exhibitions and magazines. It was a source of inspiration for continental designers, especially the Deutsche Werkbund in Germany and Wiener Werkstatte in Austria, and the American Arts and Crafts Movement.

 

 

The Swedish designer-maker, Carl Malmsten, visited Gimson in the Cotswolds and was inspired by the Cotswold tradition. One of his pupils was the American craftsman, James Krenov, who had a tremendous influence throughout the United States. Alan Peters based in Devon, Steven Lamont in Hampshire, and Nicholas Hobbs in Derbyshire are just a few of the contemporary makers working in the Cotswold tradition. Christopher Vickers in Somerset specialises in making furniture and metalwork inspired by Gimson and Sidney Barnsley. Chair-making is still being carried on including by Lawrence Neal in Stockton near Rugby and Paul Spriggs in South Cerney, Gloucestershire.