Godwin, Edward William 1833-86
English architect and designer

Born in Bristol, he trained there and from 1854 practised as an architect. Northampton Town Hall (1861) dates from his early Gothic period. In 1865 he moved his practice to London. His mainly domestic architecture included the White House (1877), a studio house in Chelsea for his friend James McNeill Whistler. He was a central figure in the Aesthetic movement, and his furniture designs after 1875 were much influenced by the Japanese style which that movement made fashionable. Much of it, in ebonized pine, was remarkably advanced in its simple unornamented structure. He was also a theatrical designer, dress reformer and journalist. He was the lover of Ellen Terry, and their son was Edward Gordon Craig.