The Pinwill sisters (consisting of Mary (1871–1962), Ethel (1872–1951) and Violet (1874–1957)) were British professional woodcarvers in Devon from 1890 onwards. Although in their era there were women who produced stained glass, sculpture, wood and metalwork for churches, those women were largely unacclaimed and regarded as amateurs. The profession of ecclesiastical wood carving was one entirely carried out by men. The sisters not only became skilled at the craft, but also set up a professional workshop business. Despite the challenges of two world wars, two fires and the departure of two of the sisters, the Pinwill workshop produced innovative ecclesiastical carvings in wood and stone for more than 60 years and for over 180 churches in Devon, and Cornwall and further afield, becoming one of the most successful wood carving businesses in the South-West of England. Their vast body of work, gradually adapting from the complex, intricate designs of the Gothic Revival through to the pared-down, plainer style of twentieth-century Modern, is recognised as being of great skill, flair and worth.
Early life and training
Mary, Ethel and Violet were three of seven daughters born to Elizabeth Annie Greatorex, a musical woman and church organist, after her marriage in 1867 to the Rev. Edmund Pinwill, who became vicar at Ermington, Devon, when she was 28 years old in 1880. The daughters did not attend the local primary school but were home tutored by governesses. Several factors supported the emergence of the Pinwill sisters as professional woodcarvers. During the restoration of their father's church at Ermington, the architect E. H. Sedding often stayed with the Pinwill family and became a long-term family friend. He worked with his uncle J. D. Sedding, who employed a team of masons, builders and carvers for the work. Elizabeth invited the head of the carving team to teach woodcarving to her daughters, the oldest of whom was 13 in 1884, in the evenings, in a workshop set up in a harness room above stables and furnished with benches and tools. The girls' grandfather had been an amateur carver and his books and tools were helpful to them in their studies. It was also considered quite ordinary at that time for young women to learn woodcarving alongside other skills such as sewing, drawing and singing in order that they might be considered more accomplished and thus more marriageable. For Elizabeth, though, marrying off her daughters was not her main concern. She was preparing at least some of them for an alternative to marriage. Of the seven girls, Mary, Ethel and Violet took to the carving lessons and became expert professionals in an era when there was a demand, especially within the Anglo Catholic community, for ecclesiastical artwork in churches.
Professional ecclesiastical carving
The carving of a pulpit for Ermington church by the three sisters in 1889 received excellent reviews. Their three-panelled reredos showing the Nativity, the Ascension and the Last Supper, designed for the East end of Chilthorne Domer church in Somerset, England, produced in the same year also received outstanding reviews.
By September 1890, Mary had set up a workshop in Plymouth and also offered lessons in carving. Not long afterwards Edmund H. Sedding located the offices of his architectural practice in Plymouth at the same address. Sedding worked in the context of the Arts and Crafts movement, which emphasised localness, the promotion of crafts to the status of art, and which was relatively open to women.
It was their mother's initial idea and she arranged for her daughters to have wood carving lessons. The daughters were encouraged by the training, the positive response to their work and their father in their choice of profession. He was the "head of the household", he would have been the person who filled in the 1891 census where the name and age of each of the three sisters is followed by the occupation listed as, 'Professional carver (wood)'.