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Chronology

A timeline of the life of Ernest Gimson

1860s

  • 1861 Formation of William Morris’s firm – Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Company.
  • 1863 Ernest Barnsley born in Birmingham.
  • 1864 Ernest Gimson born in Leicester.
  • 1865 Sidney Barnsley born in Birmingham.

1870s

  • 1870 Peter Waals born in The Hague.
  • 1877 Morris gave his first public lecture.

1880s

  • 1881 Leicester Secular Hall opened.
  • 1881 Democratic Federation founded – Morris joins in 1883.
  • 1884 Gimson met William Morris in Leicester.
  • 1884 Art Workers’ Guild set up.
  • 1886 Gimson went to London to complete his architectural training with J D Sedding.
  • 1887 Bloody Sunday demonstration in London.
  • 1887 Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society set up, first exhibition held in 1888.
  • 1888 Guild and School of Handicraft set up by C R Ashbee in London’s East End.

1890s

  • 1890 Gimson learns chairmaking from Philip Clissett and plasterwork from Whitcombe and Priestly.
  • 1890 Kenton and Company founded.
  • 1893 Gimson and the Barnsleys move to the Cotswolds.
  • 1894 Gimson and the Barnsleys settle at Pinbury Park.
  • 1896 William Morris died.
  • 1896 Central School of Arts and Crafts founded. 
  • 1897 John Paul Cooper set up a studio workshop in London.
  • 1898 Gimson designed Stoneywell and Lea Cottages in the Charnwood Forest.
  • 1899 George P Bankart joined the Bromsgrove Guild.
  • 1899-1902 Boer War.

1900s

  • 1900 Gimson married Emily Ann Thompson.
  • 1900 Benjamin Fletcher appointed head of Leicester School of Art.
  • 1901 Death of Queen Victoria, succeeded by Edward VII.
  • 1901 Gimson went into short-lived partnership with Ernest Barnsley and set up workshops at Daneway House. Peter Waals appointed foreman-manager.
  • 1902 C R Ashbee’s Guild of Handicraft moved to Chipping Campden, Glos.
  • 1903 Gimson moved into the house he designed at Sapperton.
  • 1907 Norman Jewson became Gimson’s architectural assistant.
  • 1907 Exhibition of Gimson’s work at Debenham and Freebody’s, London.
  • 1907 German designers, Josef Hoffman and Peter Behrens, founded the Deutsche Werkbund.
  • 1907 Harry Peach set up Dryad.
  • 1908 Guild of Handicraft dissolved as a limited company.

1910s

  • 1910 John Paul Cooper built his house and workshop in Kent.
  • 1915 Design and Industries Association founded by W R Lethaby, Harry Peach, Harold Stabler and others.
  • 1919 Death of Ernest Gimson.

1920s

  • 1920 Peter Waals set up workshop at Chalford.
  • 1926 death of Ernest and Sidney Barnsley.

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Leicester Designers