Table of Contents
Members of the Guild
| Name | Born | Died | Joined Guild | Left Guild | Skills | Comments |
| Eric Gill | 1882 | 1940 | 1920 (founder) | 1921 (resigned) | Sculptor, stone- cutter, engraver, font designer, writer | Inspiration behind the Guild and the best known figure. Also deeply controversial. |
| Hilary Pepler | 1878 | 1951 | 1920 (founder) | 1934 (expelled) | Printer, publisher | Abandoned a career as a civil servant to follow Gill. Established a private printing press at the Guild. A man of wide-ranging interests. |
| Desmond Chute | 1895 | 1962 | 1920 (founder) | 1921 (resigned) | Poet, artist, stone-cutter, assistant to Gill | Left the Guild soon after formation to become a catholic priest. Spent his much of his life in rarefied company on the Italian Riviera. |
| Joseph Cribb | 1892 | 1967 | 1920 | 1967 (died) | Sculptor, stone-cutter | Brilliant stone cutter, worked closely with Gill on many projects. Central figure in the Guild’s history. |
| George Maxwell | 1890 | 1957 | 1921 | 1957 (died) | Wheelwright, builder, carpenter, loom-maker | Joined the Guild from Birmingham as the Guild’s builder and carpenter. Autodidactic distributionist and theologian. After the war concentrated on loom-making. |
| Philip Baker | ?1900 | ?1975 | 1932 | 1939 (resigned) | Carpenter | Brother-in-law to George Maxwell. He continued working as a carpenter until retirement. He died on holiday in Spain, at the Abbey of Santa Maria de Montserrat. |
| Philip Hagreen | 1890 | 1988 | 1930 (briefly a postulant in 1924) | 1955 (retired) | Painter, engraver | An artist and engraver of great skill. When joining he Guild, he withdrew from the mainstream artistic community content to live a modest devout life. |
| Valentine KilBride | 1897 | 1982 | 1926 | 1982 (died) | Weaver and dyer | Born in Bradford and worked at his family’s industrial dyeworks. In 1924 applied to join the guild as weaver. |
| Bernard Brocklehurst | 1904 | 1996 | 1930 | 1941 (resigned) | Weaver and dyer | Worked with Valentine KilBride, but did not return after a hiatus caused by the war. Continued to work as a much-respected weaver. |
| Dunstan Pruden | 1907 | 1974 | 1934 | 1974 (died) | Silversmith | Brilliant ecclesiastical silversmith; well read and cosmopolitan individual. His grandson, Anton Pruden, jointly-founded the Ditchling bespoke jewelers, Pruden and Smith. |
| Mark Pepler | 1911 | 1958 | 1932 | 1933 (resigned) | Printer, publisher | Son of Hilary Pepler. Carried on St Dominic’s Press after leaving the Guild, renamed as The Ditchling Press. |
| Cyril Costick | 1932 | 1933 (resigned) | Printer | Assistant to Hilary Pepler, mainstay of the operation. Continued to work for the Ditchling Press. | ||
| John Maxwell | 1928 | 1984 | 1958 | 1979 (retired due to ill-health) | Carpenter | Son of George Maxwell. Became a postulant in 1943 but did not become a member until his father died when he took over the workshop. |
| Noel Knapp Tabbenor | 2000 | 1968 | 1978 (resigned) | Stone-cutter | Assistant to Joseph Cribb, apprenticed 1936. Described by his son as follows: “He was a sculptor and letterer by trade, in either stone or wood… he worked on many churches, cathedrals and businesses throughout the south east. Long gone but never forgotten.” | |
| Edgar Holloway | 1970 | 1941 | 1950 | 1989 (closure) | Engraver, illustrator, painter, and sign-writer | Final chair of the Guild. |
| Thomas Kilbride | c1940 | 1960 | 1989 (closure) | Weaver | Assistant to his father, Valentine KilBride. Had relocated to the Northern West Highlands of Scotland well before the Guild finished. setting up with his wife as crofters, using wool from their flock of grey Gotland sheep, dyes from the local rocks and plants and weaving them on a traditional loom. | |
| Kenneth Eager | 1929 | 2013 | 1974 | 1989 (closure) | Stone-cutter | Assistant to Joseph Cribb, first apprenticed 1945. |
| Jenny KilBride | 1948 | 1974 | 1989 (closure) | Weaver and Dyer | The daughter of Valentine KilBride, the first female member of the Guild. | |
| Winefride Pruden | 1913 | 2008 | 1975 | 1989 (closure) | Silversmith | Second wife, later the widow of Dunstan Pruden, who taught her silversmithing. |
| Ewan Clayton | 1956 | 1983 | 1989 (closure) | Calligrapher | Grandson of Valentine KilBride, caligrapher |
Postulants
| Name | Born | Died | Postulant | Left | Comments |
| William Tull | 1921 | 1922 | Assistant to Hilary Pepler. Nothing else known to me. | ||
| David Jones | 1895 | 1974 | 1924 | 1925 | Painter, engraver, assistant to George Maxwell, later poet. An outstanding talent, bordering on genius. Other than Gill, the most important figure associated with the Guild. |
| Michael Sewell, later Fr Brocard Sewell | 1912 | 2000 | 1932 | 1933 | One time assistant to Hilary Pepler, later Carmelite friar and writer. Erudite figure, well known outside religious circles. Guilty of enigmatic fascist sympathies. |
| Aubrey David | 1932 | 1933 | Assistant to Hilary Pepler. Nothing else known to me. | ||
| John Hagreen | 1919 | 2003 | 1937 | 1941 | Printer and book-binder, son of Philip Hagreen. Ordained as priest 1952. |
| John Mohr | 1957 | 1957 | Assistant to George Maxwell. Nothing else known to me. |
Others connected to the Guild
| Name | Born | Died | Comments |
| Edward Johnson | 1872 | 1944 | Followed Gill from London to Ditchling where he spent the left of his life. Did not share Gill’s religious beliefs so was not involved in the formation of the Guild. Designed the Typeface for the London Underground. |
| Father Vincent McNab | 1868 | 1943 | Fr. McNabb was a member of the Dominican order for 58 years and served as professor of philosophy at Hawkesyard Priory, prior at Woodchester, parish priest at St. Dominic’s Priory, and prior and librarian at Holy Cross Priory, Leicester, as well as in various other official capacities for his Dominican province .Fr. McNabb was among the early Catholic ecumenists, seeking in particular to promote reunion between the Catholic Church and the Anglicans. McNabb sought also to promote a vision of social justice inspired by St. Thomas Aquinas and by Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum novarum, which called upon “every minister of holy religion… to bring to the struggle [for broad distribution of property] the full energy of his mind and all his powers of endurance”, as well as to shore up both faith and reason against the threat of modernism. This led him to promote distributism, especially those aspects relating to land ownership, and he was a key figure in the Catholic Land Movement. He was an important influence on Gill when he first became a Catholic, although this influence waned as the Guild were not able to pursue his ideas in agricultural self-sufficiency. |
| Herbert Shove | 1886 | 1943 | WW1 naval officer, convert to Catholicism, Ditchling resident, distributist thinker, general eccentric and Guild supporter. Successfully returned to naval duties in WW2, notwithstanding fascist sympathies. |
| Ethel Mairet | 1872 | 1952 | Ethel Mairet was born in Devon. Marriage to Ananda Coomaraswamy took her to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) where she became interested in weaving and dyeing. She acquired her first loom in 1909, when she and her husband returned to Chipping Campden. Mairet’s publication A Book on Vegetable Dyes was printed by Hilary Pepler at the Hampshire House Press, London. It was so successful it led to another 3 editions and her association with Pepler led her to Ditchling. Gospels was her new home with her second husband, Philip Mairet, and included a workshop and sale room. It was situated at the bottom of Ditchling Beacon and was built to her sketches. Her many eminent students and apprentices included Hilary Bourne, Valentine KilBride, Petra Gill, Peter Collingwood and Marianne Scrub. In 1937 Mairet was the first woman to be awarded the title Royal Designer for Industry. Her approach to weaving was that you should be sensitive to the texture and of the yarns, and colour of the dies and vary designs accordingly. |
| Hilary Bourne | 1909 | 2004 | Bourne spent much of her childhood in Ditchling. She learnt to weave in Palestine and worked briefly as a designer for Ethel Mairet just after World War II, later leaing airline dyeing at Mairet’s Gospels workshop. In London, Bourne worked at Muriel Rose’s Little Gallery selling contemporary craft by new makers and met her life partner, costume and set designer Barbara Allen, in the late 1930s. Working together, they were particularly successful in the 1950s creating rich woollen textiles for important new buildings including London’s Royal Festival Hall, South Bank Cinema and the new Heathrow Airport. They also designed, wove and dyed (using natural dyes) many of the costumes for the 1959 blockbuster film Ben Hur. In 1972, Allen tragically died in a hotel fire in Cambridge; Bourne survived but was severely injured. She founded the village museum with her sister Joanna Bourne in 1985. The lives and work of Bourne and Allen were celebrated in an exhibition at the Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft in 2023 entitled Double Weave: Bourne and Allen’s Modernist Textiles. |
| Sir Frank Brangwyn | 1867 | 1956 | A renowned Welsh artist, painter, watercolourist, printmaker, illustrator, and designer. His life strangely shadows that of the Guild founders. He was part of the artistic community in Hammersmith before moving to Ditchling, also he had a Catholic background. Sometimes he commissioned work from Guild members. His work often celebrated Empire; for this reason perhaps, its popularity has declined over time. |
| John Skelton | 1923 | 1999 | Skelton was a nephew of Eric Gill and was first apprenticed to his uncle, shortly before Gill’s death. He continued his training under Joseph Cribb. He set up his workshop at Streat, near Ditchling and had many prestigious commissions. His daughter Helen Skelton also became a sculptor and continues the workshop. |
Other Ditchling artists
There have been numerous other artists resident in Ditchling for at least part of their lives. It seems that the general ambiance and history of the village and, indeed the South Downs generally is conducive to creative effort. Such artists include:
- Amy Sawyer – 1863-1945 – painter, playwright – friend of Gill
- Frank Partridge – 1871-1952 – jeweler, silversmith – brother of Ethel Mairet,
- Lawrence Christie – 1872-1941 – calligrapher
- Arthur Penty – 1875-1937 – architect, distributionist
- Louis Ginnet – 1875-1946 – painter, stained glass designer
- Bernard Leach – 1887-1979 – painter and writer
- Charles Knight – 1901-1990 – painter and lecturer
- Rowland Emmet – 1906-1990 – cartoonist, sculptor
- Vera Lynn – 1917-2020 – singer
- Donald Sinden – 1923-2014 – actor
- Raymond Briggs – 1934-2022 – illustrator and writer, famous for The Snowman
- John Lord – 1939-present day – artist, illustrator
- Luke Holland – 1948-2020 – filmmaker