THE GREAT DESIGNERS EDWARD WILLIAM GODWIN
An armchair offered for sale at a local auction house in 2017 reached a somewhat staggering £44,000 hammer price. Dating from around 1876, the chair was characterised by two parallel ‘sunrise’ curved arm rails with gently sloping back legs cleverly formed as part of the bottom rail of the chair. Both elegant and comfortable, it was an aesthetically pleasing looking piece of furniture and nicely designed, but the result of the sale strongly brought into focus the importance of an enigmatic and little publicised 19th-century architect and designer called Edward William Godwin.
The chair, designed by Godwin and made by William Watt & Co, an art furniture maker based in Grafton Street, London, and producer of some of
