What was Ernest Gimson like?
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Only a few photographs of Gimson have survived. One shows him with his friend W R Butler photographed in York in 1888. Both men were on a sketching tour of northern England having just completed their architectural training. In a letter to his sister Margaret, known as Maggie, the 24-year old Gimson wrote:
‘I hope you admire the hat and waistcoat in the photo I send you. The waistcoat is blue with spots; the hat (worn by Butler) is light brown lined with green. It has caused immense sensation in every town we have been to.’
Norman Jewson, who first met Gimson in the summer of 1907, subsequently described his first impressions:
‘He was a tall, well-built man with a slight stoop, a large rather heavy face, except when he smiled, a brown moustache and wide-open contemplative eyes. His expression was that of a man entirely at peace with himself and all the world. His tweed suit hung loosely over a soft shirt and collar, with a silk tie threaded through a ring. Being summer he wore a panama hat instead of his usual cloth cap, but in all seasons he wore heavy hobnailed boots made for him by a cobbler in Chalford.’