(Arthur) Eric Rowton Gill ARA, Hon ARIBA
Born 22 February 1882
Died 17 November 1940
Active: 1897 - 1940
Country of birth and death: England
Sculptor, woodworker, engraver, draughtsman, architect, letter-cutter and type designer
Born at 32 Hamilton Road, Brighton, Sussex. He was the son of the Reverend Arthur Tidman Gill (1848–1933), minister of the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion, a Calvinist Methodist church and later of the Church of England. Eric attended a local kindergarten and then Arnold House School, Hove. When the family moved to Chichester in 1897, Gill studied at Chichester Technical and Art School.
Between 1900-04 Gill trained as an architect in the office of William Douglas Caroe (1857-1938), architect to the ecclesiastical commissioners. During this time he took classes in masonry at Westminster Technical Institute and calligraphy at Central School of Arts and Crafts. From 1902 Gill shared rooms with Edward Johnson, his tutor in lettering and calligraphy at Central. In 1904 Gill gave up his pupillage and married Ethel Hester Moore (1878–1961) who he had met whilst a student in Chichester. After a brief period living in a small tenement flat in Battersea Bridge Buildings, Gill and his family took a house in Hammersmith. He was teaching at Central School and Paddington Institute and had already received a number of commissions, including one for lettering from a German client, Count Harry Kessler. Gill took on first apprentice, Joseph Cribb, at this time.
In 1907 Gill established his home and workshop in Ditchling, Sussex. After spending a short time as an apprentice to Aristide Maillol he returned to Sussex. In January 1911 Gill had his first solo exhibition of sculptures at the Chenil Gallery, Chelsea which was a critical success and led to further sales and commissions. In 1913, he converted to Catholicism and moved to Ditchling Common attracting other Catholic craft workers to settle nearby. This was later developed into The Guild of Saints Joseph and Dominic and had forty-one members by 1922. Meanwhile Gill continued to develop the stone carving side of his practice as well as his graphic work, particularly lettering and engraving. In 1915 Douglas (later Hilary) Pepler moved from Hammersmith to Ditchling Common and established St Dominic's Press. Over the next few years, Gill worked with Pepler contributing engravings and texts for the new private press. Towards the end of the First World War Gill worked as a driver in the RAF mechanical transport camp at Blandford, Dorset. In 1918 he took on Desmond Chute as an apprentice-assistant and they worked together until 1927.
In 1924 Gill resigned from the Guild of Saints Joseph and Dominic and moved to a former Benedictine monastery at Capel-y-ffin in the Black Mountains, Wales. Here he continued to carve, although the workshop facilities were small in comparison to Ditchling. Gill also began printing his own engravings and collaborated with Robert Gibbings, proprietor of the Golden Cockerel Press. Four years later, in 1928, Gill made his final move to Pigotts, near High Wycombe. This marked the beginning of his greatest critical and financial success. At Pigotts, Gill took on many more apprentices who worked in a more formal teacher-pupil relationship with him. These included: Donald Potter, Walter Ritchie, David Kindersley, Ralph Beyer and John Skelton. Gill's health declined during the 1930s and he died of cancer at Harefield Hospital, Uxbridge in 1940.
Gill was a prolific artist, among his many commissions were: fourteen carved stone stations of the cross for Westminster Cathedral (1913); Bryantspuddle war memorial (1918); Chirk and South Harting war memorials (1919); Trumpington war memorial, near Cambridge (1921); New College, Oxford was memorial (1921); stations of the cross for St Cuthbert's Church, Bradford (1921); Leeds University war memorial 'Christ Driving the Moneychangers from the Temple' (1923); war memorial altarpiece in oak relief for Rossall School (1927); reliefs on London Underground headquarters, St James's Park (1928-9); figures of Prospero and Ariel for BBC headquarters in Langham Place (begun in 1931); reliefs on the new archaeological museum, Jerusalem (1934); stations of the cross for St Alban's, Oxford (1938); St John the Baptist for Guidlford Cathedral (1939); and the stone altarpiece for the English martyrs in St George's Chapel, Westminster Cathedral which was completed posthumously (installed in 1947).
He also designed a number of typefaces several of which are among the most widely used of the twentieth century: Perpetua (1925); Gill Sans-serif (1927 onwards); Solus (1929); Golden Cockerel Roman (1930); Joanna (1930); Aries (1932); Jubilee (1934); and Bunyan (1934), a version of which was issued under the name Pilgrim by Linotype in 1953.
Wealth at death: £7,568 15s. 5d.
Probate date: 18 August 1942
Works
Dates are usually the year a work was exhibited so may differ from date of production.
New entries have been made each time a work was exhibited. Click here for more information.
Contributed to making of Gilt framed mirror
Alphabets of lower case and italics
Piper and Children
1935
Locations
Address 32 Hamilton Road Brighton England | View on map
1882 - 1897
Home address
Address Arnold House 51 Cromwell Road Hove England | View on map
1891 (Circa) - 1897 (Circa)
Address 68 Victoria Road Clapham London England | View on map
1901
Boarding with Henry Woollett, Verger of St Saviour's, Clapham
Address 16 Old Buildings Lincoln's Inn London England | View on map
1902 (Presumed) - 1904 (Presumed)
Address 20 Black Lion Lane Hammersmith London England | View on map
1905 (Presumed) - 1907 (Presumed)
Address Soper's Ditchling England | View on map
1907 - 1913
Address Capel-y-ffin Wales | View on map
1924 - 1928
Address Pigott's High Wycombe England | View on map
1928 - 1940
Address 11 Berkeley Square London England | View on map
1935 (Circa)
Address given as c/o St George's Gallery 32A George Street London England | View on map
1924 - 1935
Exhibitions, Meetings, Awards and other Events
Exhibited at Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society: Ninth Exhibition, 1910
Multiple works
Exhibited at Loan Exhibition of Works Organised by the Contemporary Art Society (Manchester City Art Gallery), Winter 1911
'Crucifixion'
Exhibited at The Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts Seventy-Fourth Annual Exhibition, 1935
'Piper and Children'
Exhibited at Art Workers Guild, Third Exhibition, 1905
Exhibited at Exhibition of Modern Paintings and Sculpture lent by The Corporation of Manchester, Rutherston Loan Scheme (Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery), 1929
16 September 1929 - 7 December 1929
Exhibited two sculptures in brass and stone; the works are undated in the exhibition catalogue, p. 3 (16-17).
Exhibited at The Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts (Summer Exhibition), 1768-
1938 - 1940
Exhibited 3 times, twelve works (statue, designs, models and drawings), a further two drawings were shown posthumously in 1941 (portraits of Maillol and his patron Count Harry Kessler)
Exhibited at Exhibition of Open Air Sculpture, Battersea Park (London County Council), 1948
1948
Work exhibited posthumously.
Exhibited at Festival of Britain, London: Ten Decades, a Review of British Taste, 1851-1951, 1951
1951
Gill's 'Adam and Eve' (1920, sandstone) was lent by the executors of the late Sir William Rothenstein.
Speaker at Inscriptions (Art Workers Guild), 1905
Speaker at The Arts and Crafts Movement (Art Workers Guild), 1909
Speaker at Lettering for Public Purposes (Art Workers Guild), 1911
Speaker at Sculpture, Carved and Modelled (Art Workers Guild), 1933
Institutional and Business Connections
Associate member of Royal Society of British Sculptors
29 March 1938 - 1939
Resigned in 1939.
Elected ARA Royal Academy of Arts
22 April 1937 - 17 November 1940
Elected RA in 1937.
Honorary member of Royal Institute of British Architects
1935
Gill was made an Honorary Associate of the RIBA
Member of Art Workers Guild
November 1904 - 1909
Resigned 1909.
Teacher at Central School of Arts and Crafts
September 1906 - June 1910
Listed as a teacher of 'Design for Monumental Masons' from 1906. From 1908 Gill is listed as teacher of 'Stonecarving and Inscriptions'. Last listed in the 1909 prospectus.
Teacher at Birmingham Municipal School of Art, Central School
1939 - 1940
Guest teacher, described as 'Visitor'
Personal and Professional Connections
Apprenticed (Herbert) Joseph Cribb
1904 (Circa)
At the age of fourteen Cribb became Gill's first assistant and apprentice. They worked together until 1924.
Apprenticed David Guy Barnabus Kindersley
1934 - 1936
The term apprentice was used to describe Kindersley's role at Gill's Pigotts workshop, near High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, even though studio assistant may have been a more accurate description of his role.
Assistant was Donald Potter
1931 (Circa) - 1940 (Circa)
Assistant was David McFall
1939
Collaborated with Ethel Gill
Influenced Thomas W. Whalen
1930 (Circa) - 1975 (Circa)
Nominated by David Young Cameron
5 December 1928
For RA.
Nominated by Philip Connard
10 December 1928
For RA.
Nominated by Henry Poole
4 April 1928
For RA.
Nominated by Henry George Rushbury
26 April 1928
For RA.
Nominated by Charles Shannon
5 December 1928
For RA.
Nominated by George Henry
10 December 1928
For RA.
Nominated by Giles Gilbert Scott
10 December 1928
For RA.
Nominated by William Reid Dick
4 April 1928
For RA.
Nominated by Robert Anning Bell
7 February 1930
For RA.
Nominated by Reginald Theodore Blomfield
28 March 1930
For RA.
Nominated by Laura Knight
10 December 1931
For RA.
Nominated by Sydney Lee
14 December 1931
For RA.
Nominated by Gerald Kelly
14 December 1931
For RA.
Nominated by Alfred Turner
8 January 1932
For RA.
Nominated by William McMillan
2 December 1933
For RA.
Nominated by Gilbert Ledward
2 December 1933 - 22 April 1937
Two nominations for RA, in 1933 and 1937.
Nominated by Thomas Monnington
2 December 1933
For RA.
Nominated by Thomas Cantrell Dugdale
22 April 1937
For RA.
Nominated by Alfred Frank Hardiman
15 March 1937
For RA.
Nominated by Charles Thomas Wheeler
22 April 1937
For RA.
Nominator of Herbert William Palliser
28 March 1939
For Associate of the Royal Academy [ARA]; unsuccessful.
Nominator of Mark Wilfred Batten
1939
For membership of the Royal Society of British Sculptors
Teacher to Hew Martin Lorimer
1934 (Circa)
For three months
Worked with Charles James Smith Snr
1910 (Circa) - 1922 (Circa)
Gill employed Charles Smith to cast a number of works including 'Mother and Child', 1910 and various versions of 'Madonna and Child'
Descriptions of Practice
Occupation given in Census Returns of England and Wales, 1901
'Architect'
Occupation given in Census Returns of England and Wales, 1911
'Letter-cutter & Sculptor' employer working at home, assistant, Herbert Joseph Cribb 'Letter-cutter & Sculptor' worker
Sources
Art Workers Guild Annual Reports, 1901-1912
1904, p.8; 1905, p.6, p.9; 1909, p.5; 1911, p.7.
Art Workers Guild Annual Reports, 1913-1933
1933, p.9.
Arts and Crafts Society: Catalogue of the Ninth Exhibition.
1910
p.135, p.143.
Catalogue of the Loan Exhibition of Works Organised by the Contemporary Art Society, Winter 1911
1911
Cat. No. 273, p. 41
Census Returns of England and Wales, 1891
2004
Class: RG12; Piece: 818; Folio: 97; Page: 10; GSU roll: 6095928.
Census Returns of England and Wales, 1901
2005
Class: RG13; Piece: 461; Folio: 83; Page: 24
Census Returns of England and Wales, 1911
2011
RG14PN5039 RG78PN223 RD77 SD1 ED2 SN116
England & Wales, FreeBMD Birth Index, 1837-1915
2006
Name: Arthur Eric R Gill
Date of registration: Jan-Feb-Mar 1882
Registration district: Steyning
Inferred County: Sussex
Volume: 2b
Page: 327
England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1966
2010
Name: Arthur Eric Rowton Gill
Probate Date: 18 Aug 1942
Death Date: 17 Nov 1940
Death Place: Buckinghamshire, England
Registry: Llandudno
London County Council Central School of Arts and Crafts. Prospectus & Time-Table for the Session Commencing 21 September 1908
21 September 1908
p. 2.
London County Council Central School of Arts and Crafts. Prospectus and Time-Table of the Eleventh Session 1906-1907, Commencing 24 September 1906
24 September 1906
p. 3.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
2004
Fiona MacCarthy, ‘Gill, (Arthur) Eric Rowton (1882–1940)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Oct 2007 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/33403, accessed 3 Feb 2009]
Royal Academy of Arts Nominations for Associateship, 1927-1938
1938
p.149.
Royal Academy of Arts Nominations for Associateship, c.1939-c.1961
1961 (Circa)
p.118.
The fifty-eighth annual report of the committee of the Art-Workers' Guild, 1942
1942
p.6.
Citing this record
'(Arthur) Eric Rowton Gill ARA, Hon ARIBA', Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951, University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, online database 2011 [http://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/person.php?id=msib2_1207251323, accessed 24 Sep 2023]