Like many of his Arts and Crafts associates, Charles Robert Ashbee worked across a range of different design disciplines, ranging from interior decoration to jewellery. He established the Guild and School of Handicraft in 1888 to help realise the potential of craftspeople working in the East End of London. This organisation specialised in metalworking, and in the late 1890s Ashbee and his associates began to design and produce silver tableware. Reacting deliberately against factory production, the Guild produced pieces whose hand-made status was emphasised by details such as visible hammer marks. Ashbee's designs were celebrated for their simplicity and focus, and his restrained aesthetic had a significant influence on contemporary silver design not only in Britain but also Europe and America. As he grew older Gimson became more and more uncomfortable in big cities. After his death, the architect and engraver Fred Griggs remembered how once:

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.’You are placed on two Sub Committees of the Secular Society and I ditto. The Conference was very firey. One speaker ventured to describe the clergy of today as ‘a horde of bandits’ and another as ‘lowering mankind below the brutes’. Nothing could better please our audience, to them it was about the most enjoyable evening they had had for some time.’ Gimson’s main concern was the provision of useful and rewarding work for his craftsmen, using local materials and traditions of making. At Marchmont House, we saw how contemporary handwork can still provide a worthwhile and rewarding occupation. Nicholas Hobbs’ thoughts on the day offer a fitting conclusion: Harry Davoll (1876-1963) was the second craftsman taken on by Gimson in November 1901. He was one of a number of trade cabinet-makers who became part of this new craft community. He had been born in Derbyshire, served his apprenticeship in Hereford before moving to Waring & Gillow in Liverpool. He was temporarily out of work when he heard about openings in a new country workshop. It was Waals who wrote this offer of employment:

Principal bedroom, exposed roof trusses, beams and purlins, hand built double hanging wardrobes and matching dressing table, chest of drawers, corner cupboard and beside cabinets. Secondary double glazed lead windows with panoramic views over the garden and Charnwood Forest towards Old John. The Leicester School of Art was built next to New Walk Museum and became part of the museum in the 1890s. First Floor - Landing, heavily beamed ceiling, exposed timber wall beams and built-in linen cupboard.

Medieval Leicester

I knew you would be delighted with Auberon Herbert. As you say there is no logical halting place between his individualism and Communism. I think there can be no doubt that the most perfect state of social union is that in which everyone does the right thing willingly, and if that is granted what alternative is there but to work for that state – that is of course provided that they see some chances of approaching it. Ruskin and Morris grumble because now we manufacture everything but men and women. How can you manufacture them better than under a system of Individualism? … The debates at the office have all been on Individualism lately and it is remarkable, the progress it is making. At first I was the only one who was not a Ruskin Socialist now I have the majority with me. It is only a matter of time to make them all Atheists as well. But I don’t discuss that subject unless specially appealed to.‘ Ernest William Gimson was born in Leicester in 1864, the fourth child of Josiah and Sarah Gimson. Josiah was an iron-founder who had established the Vulcan Works in Leicester. Ernest attended Franklin's School in Stoneygate, Leicester, before being articled to a local architect, Isaac Barradale. He also attended a course on architecture at the Leicester School of Art, winning national medals for suburban housing and furniture design. Two years later, aged 21, Gimson had both architectural experience and a first class result from classes at Leicester School of Art. He moved to London to gain wider experience, and William Morris wrote him letters of recommendation. The first architectural practice he approached was John Dando Sedding, where he was taken on, and stayed for two years. [4] From Sedding, Gimson derived his interest in craft techniques, the stress on textures and surfaces, naturalistic detail of flowers, leaves and animals, always drawn from life, the close involvement of the architect in the simple processes of building and in the supervision of a team of craftsmen employed direct. Seddings offices were next door to the showrooms of Morris & Co., providing opportunity to see first hand the first flourishing of Arts and Crafts design. He met Ernest Barnsley at Sedding's studio, and through him, Sidney Barnsley, a friendship that was to last the rest of his life. [5] It is fascinating to speculate whether Gimson’s uncompromising stance could have survived the upheavals of post-war society had he not died in August 1919. His views on standardised housing (‘Wrong, wrong’) reveal the growing gulf between his view of essential human needs and the practical requirements of the modern world. Nonetheless, his legacy continued through the incomparable craftsmanship of his furniture and the interest it aroused in European designers of the next generation, such as Josef Frank and Carl Malmsten. This book, similar in scope and importance to Sheila Kirk’s 2005 biography of Philip Webb, is an invaluable resource for those interested in Gimson’s life and work – and for understanding the impossibility of separating the two.