Between 1890 and his untimely death in 1919 Ernest Gimson built such a reputation as a furniture designer that he was hailed as ‘the presiding genius’ of the 1916 Arts & Crafts exhibition. His furniture is well known from museum collections in Cheltenham, Leicester and London, but new research has revealed more about his workshops and the cabinetmakers who worked for him. This talk will focus on the organisation of Gimson’s furniture production, from his earliest experiments to the wartime years which brought new challenges and bold plans.

Annette Carruthers worked as a curator of decorative arts in Leicester and Cheltenham and taught at the University of St Andrews until 2014. She has published widely on the Arts & Crafts Movement, most recently as co-author with Mary Greensted and Barley Roscoe of a new book entitled Ernest Gimson Arts & Crafts Designer and Architect (Yale University Press, 2019).