The world’s foremost purveyor of fine ecclesiastical designs celebrates 140th anniversary

Watts & Co is the world’s foremost purveyor of fine ecclesiastical designs, textiles, furnishings and accessories. Its long and rich history is a narrative of refined taste, historic grandeur, and cutting edge style.

The Founders

Watts & Co was established by three of the nineteenth century’s most important architects. George Frederick Bodley, Thomas Garner and George Gilbert Scott junior had all trained in George Gilbert Scott’s office, though Bodley was eldest of the three. Bodley had known Scott junior from as early as his own apprenticeship with Scott in the 1840s.

Bodley’s architectural partnership with Garner was cemented in 1868, and in addition to their design ventures at Watts, they worked on over 100 commissions over three decades.

Bodley led the way for a second generation of Gothic Revival architects keen to experiment with late Gothic forms and develop a refined and eloquent Gothic stylistic vocabulary.

His finest work includes the St Swithun’s Quadrangle at Magdalen College, Oxford, Holy Angels, Hoar Cross, and – with his pupil Henry Vaughan – Washington National Cathedral. Bodley won the RIBA gold medal for architecture in 1899 and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Oxford University in 1907. His only book, humbly titled Poems, was published in 1900.

Less is known about Thomas Garner, though it is certain that his enthusiasm for Gothic and his keen eye for fine draughtsmanship made him an invaluable partner for Bodley. The only known photograph of Garner was taken in front of his and Bodley’s first major London secular commission, the London School Board offices on the Victoria Embankment.

It was in fact this building, and not the firm’s better-known ecclesiastical work, that may have planted the seed of Watts & Company’s foundation in the architects’ minds, as they wished to combine an erudite and fashionable Queen Anne architectural invention with their own interior details, exerting complete control over fabrics, furnishings and fittings. Garner, like Bodley and Scott junior, was drawn to late Gothic, Tudor and Elizabethan design. Prior to his death in 1906, he gathered copious images and information on sixteenth-century grand houses, which was published posthumously with additions by Arthur Stratton in 1911.

George Gilbert Scott junior is often referred to as ‘Middle Scott’ to distinguish him from his father Scott senior and his son Giles Gilbert Scott (of red phone box, Liverpool Anglican Cathedral and Southbank Power Station fame).

Though much of Scott junior’s architectural work is now sadly destroyed or forgotten, the Eton and Cambridge-educated designer had an ingenious facility for elasticity and grace in both his Watts & Co and his architectural commissions. On the subject of style, Scott junior was clear: ‘I yield to no one in my love of medieval art, but I recognise the merits of the really good work of all schools.’

Bound together with the rich histories of the Gothic Revival and the Aesthetic Movement, Watts rapidly established itself as providers of fabrics and furnishings of the finest quality and best possible taste. As medievalism and ‘art for art’s sake’ were simultaneously all the rage in London, Watts & Co met the challenge of creating beautiful designs for prestigious clientele with aplomb, much as it does today. But what of Watts’ name? Unlike the ethos of Morris & Co, with whom Watts were in friendly competition, the founders of Watts were wary of being identified with ‘trade’ as it compromised their position as gentlemen-artist-architects (as Bodley put it). There are two possible origins of ‘Watts & Co’. One is that the founders lighted on the witticism ‘Watts in a name?’. The perhaps more likely possibility is that Bodley, Garner and Scott junior formed their partnership under the name of Watts as a tongue-in-cheek gesture, referencing the name of a clergyman acquaintance in Hampstead who owned property where the founders lived, side by side as neighbours in fashionable Church Row.

The Early Years

Inspired by Gothic forms, Renaissance art, and the sturdy transitional quality of Elizabethan and Tudor architecture, the patterns for fabrics and textiles at Watts, as well as their metalwork, bespoke embroidery, and furnishings of all kinds, instantly found a market through the founders’ architectural commissions. Up to the present day, the names for its fabrics are derived from their inspiration, such as ‘Gothic’, ‘Holbein’ and ‘Crivelli’. From its beginnings, Watts & Co designs were also sold commercially and as such were used extensively by leading architects and designers of the day.

In its early premises at 30 Baker Street, Watts & Co offered their dazzling products for display in the shop frontage, and featured work rooms for their team of seamstresses and embroiderers. In this period, the Watts partnership included J. L. Davenport, who took care of the everyday running of the company and lived above the shop. With his violin and eccentric dress, it has been suggested that he gave Arthur Conan Doyle ample inspiration for the character of Sherlock Holmes.

At 30 Baker Street, Watts even had its own embroidery school, where experts could pass on the intricacies of their craft. Watts became widely known for its outstanding embroidery, which was a key component of the Gothic Revival’s interest in medieval textiles. Indeed, the ‘Opus Anglicanum’ style of fine needlework in the Middle Ages was the best in the world and desired by monarchs and clerics throughout Europe; Watts & Co was and is at the forefront of keeping that unique and extraordinary tradition alive.

Watts & Co’s most important projects of the nineteenth century included the first vestments worn since the Reformation at both Westminster Abbey – for Queen Victoria’s jubilee in 1887 – and at St Paul’s Cathedral, again for the Queen’s jubilee celebrations in 1897. In addition to providing fine ecclesiastical banner, frontal, and vestment designs for cathedrals and parishes throughout the UK, Watts was also invited to provide interior schemes for bishops’ palaces, Powys Castle, numerous lodgings at Cambridge and Oxford colleges, and Ham House.

The Modern Age

Watts & Co provided the sumptuous ecclesiastical vestments for the coronation of Edward VII in 1902, and have continued to produce designs for every coronation to the present day. Keith Murray’s 1953 copes for the coronation of Elizabeth II were especially striking, marking a bold transition towards embracing modernism and adapting its minimalism to traditional designs. Some of the most important church architects of the twentieth century, including John Ninian Comper, Ralph Adams Cram, Walter Tapper and Stephen Dykes-Bower, used Watts designs exclusively in both Britain and America. Further afield, Edwin Lutyens commissioned bespoke designs from Watts & Co for the viceregal thrones at Government House in New Delhi.

Elizabeth Hoare – grand-daughter of Scott junior and great-grand-niece of Bodley - became Watts & Co’s Director in 1951, ensuring that Watts would continue to flourish in the post-war years. This period saw new commissions such as Robert Maguire and Keith Murray’s collaborative interior for St Paul, Bow Common. Watts & Co also increasingly became an organization whose heritage and traditions ensured it was perfectly placed to carry out restorations and conservation work on some of the finest and most delicate ecclesiastical textiles in the world. Extensive restoration work has been carried out for the National Trust, the Palace of Westminster, and cathedrals throughout Britain. Throughout the final decades of the twentieth century, Watts & Co also amassed a fine historic collection of Victorian textiles and embroidery, resulting in the groundbreaking establishment of the Elizabeth Hoare Galleries at Liverpool Anglican Cathedral.

Under the directorship of David Gazeley since 2001, Watts & Co remains at the forefront of ecclesiastical tradition and innovation. Watts is also proud to be a family firm, as it continues to be run by the fifth generation of the founders’ descendants. Recent accolades are many, and Watts & Co’s projects of note include commissions for Westminster Cathedral, the Pope, and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Watts & Co also played a key role in the 2007 centenary exhibition George Frederick Bodley: The Beauty of Holiness at the V&A in the RIBA gallery.

Watts & Co’s present home in Westminster, the spiritual heart of England, is described often as a place of delight and surprise with its array of luxurious and everyday items, remains true to its founders’ aims to provide designs in the best possible taste. Objects of beauty and refinement continue to be expertly produced, and the Watts & Co legacy endures.

To find out more about this company visit www.wattsandco.com