Watts & Co - History

History

The partners were all pupils of Sir George Gilbert Scott, whose work includes the Albert Memorial, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the St Pancras Hotel, St Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh, many churches, cathedral restorations and country houses. The motivating force was Bodley, himself one of the most scholarly, fastidious and refined architects of his generation, a designer not only of such churches as the Holy Angels, Hoar Cross, Staffs, and, with his first pupil Henry Vaughan, of the National Cathedral of Ss Peter & Paul, Washington DC, but also of country houses and the restorations of castles and bishops’ palaces.

In 1868 Bodley formed a partnership with one of the most brilliant pupils in Scott’s office, Thomas Garner. Unable to find firms to carry out furnishings and wallpaper to their satisfaction they established two companies: Burlison and Grylls and Watts & Co. The former, under the aegis of Garner, produced stained glass and painted decoration for furniture, roofs and walls. The second, founded in associations with Sir Gilbert’s elder son, provided embroidery, textiles, wallpaper, domestic furniture, church candles and metalwork. Bodley was the first chairman.

The designs made by the founders for the firm were among the most original and distinctive of their time, rivalled only the work of Morris & Co., with whom Watts was in friendly competition. All three were captivated by the ethereal beauty of the late–gothic art of Northern Europe and the sturdy refinement of the English Renaissance House. Both were their inspiration and from such rich sources they produced designs of fertile invention in which the elaboration of detail is controlled by simplicity, strength and restraint, giving their work a timeless quality transcending period limitation.

Although Watt’s designs were primarily for use in the partners’ own work they have always been sold commercially and have been used extensively by many leading architects and designers, Bodley's pupil, Sir Ninian Comper, used their fabrics in his early work and in restorations after the Second World War. Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, Temple Moore and Sir Walter Tapper used Watts exclusively: the American architect, Ralph Adams Cram, imported Watt’s fabrics for many of his noble churches.