William Harrison Cowlishaw

Infobox Architect


caption = The Cloisters in Letchworth
name = W H Cowlishaw
nationality = British
birth_date = 1869
birth_place =
death_date = 1957
significant_buildings= The Cloisters (Letchworth)
significant_projects = Commonwealth War Graves Commission sites around Ieper

William Harrison Cowlishaw (1869-1957) was a British architect of the European Arts and Crafts school and a follower of William Morris."William Harrison Cowlishaw." "A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture". Oxford University Press, 1999, 2006. [http://www.answers.com/topic/william-harrison-cowlishaw Answers.com] accessed 13 October 2007]

He lived in Norton, Hertfordshire, at that time something of an artists' colony.cite web |url=http://lgcs.amolad.net/georgeadams.htm |title=George Adams, Socialist sandal maker and Letchworth pioneer |accessdate=2007-10-13 |author=Owen Hardisty |date=March 1997 |work=The Letchworth Garden City Society Journal |publisher=The Letchworth Garden City Society] One of his most famous works is the unusual towered The Cloisters in neighbouring Letchworth Garden City, planned as a theosophical meditation centre and open-air school and which opened in 1907.cite web |url=http://www.utopia-britannica.org.uk/pages/Cloisters.htm |title=A Cloistered Life |accessdate=2007-10-13 |work=Utopia Britannica: British Utopian Experiments 1325 - 1945]

An earlier work was "The Cearne" in Crockham Hill, Kent, a house designed for Russian-translator Constance Garnett and her literary-editor husband Edward Garnett. It was built in 1896.

At the end of World War I, like many Arts and Crafts architects of the period, he was commissioned by the Imperial (now Commonwealth) War Graves Commission to design memorials and cemetery layout in Flanders and France under Sir Frederic G. Kenyon, the Commission's advisor on architecture and layout.cite book | last = Summers | first = Julie | title = Remembered | publisher = Merrell | location = London | year = 2007 | isbn = 1858943744 | pages=pp 17-19]

Amongst these smaller cemeteries were Prowse Point, Rifle House and Devonshire, all around the area of Ypres.

At the Commission, he worked with Charles Holden, a relationship that continued after the memorial work was completed.

References

Persondata
NAME = Cowlishaw, William Harrison
ALTERNATIVE NAMES = Cowlishaw, W H
SHORT DESCRIPTION = Architect
DATE OF BIRTH = 1869
PLACE OF BIRTH =
DATE OF DEATH = 1957
PLACE OF DEATH =