William Harrison Cowlishaw (1869–1957) was a British

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

of the European Arts and Crafts school and a follower of

William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...

."William Harrison Cowlishaw." ''A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture''. Oxford University Press, 1999, 2006
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accessed 13 October 2007 He lived in

Norton, Hertfordshire Norton is a small village and former civil parish in Hertfordshire, England, one of the three original villages which were absorbed into Letchworth Garden City, the other two being Willian and Old Letchworth. The village is known to have existed ...

, at that time something of an artists' colony. One of his most famous works is the unusual towered

The Cloisters The Cloisters, also known as the Met Cloisters, is a museum in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, New York City. The museum, situated in Fort Tryon Park, specializes in European medieval art and architecture, with a fo ...

in neighbouring

Letchworth Garden City Letchworth Garden City, commonly known as Letchworth, is a town in the North Hertfordshire district of Hertfordshire, England. It is noted for being the first garden city. The population at the time of the 2011 census was 33,249. Letchworth ...

, planned as a theosophical meditation centre and open-air school and which opened in 1907. An earlier work was "The Cearne" in

Crockham Hill Crockham Hill is a village in the Sevenoaks district of Kent, England. It is about south of Westerham, and Chartwell is nearby. The village has a population of around 270 people. It contains a 19th-century pub, the Royal Oak, and Holy Trinity ch ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, a house designed for Russian-translator

Constance Garnett Constance Clara Garnett (; 19 December 1861 – 17 December 1946) was an English translator of nineteenth-century Russian literature. She was the first English translator to render numerous volumes of Anton Chekhov's work into English and the ...

and her literary-editor husband

Edward Garnett Edward William Garnett (5 January 1868 – 19 February 1937) was an English writer, critic and literary editor, who was instrumental in the publication of D. H. Lawrence's ''Sons and Lovers''. Early life and family Edward Garnett was born i ...

. It was built in 1896. Cowlishaw married Edward Garnett's youngest sister, Lucy, in April 1897.''Constance Garnett: A Heroic Life'' by Richard Garnett At the end of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, like many Arts and Crafts architects of the period, he was commissioned by the Imperial (now Commonwealth)

War Graves Commission The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is an intergovernmental organisation of six independent member states whose principal function is to mark, record and maintain the graves and places of commemoration of Commonwealth of Nations mi ...

to design memorials and cemetery layouts in

Flanders Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture, ...

and

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

under Sir Frederic G. Kenyon, the commission's advisor on architecture and layout. His work included the

Pozières Memorial The Pozières Memorial is a World War I memorial, located near the commune of Pozières, in the Somme department of France, and unveiled in August 1930. It lists the names of 14,657 British and South African soldiers of the Fifth and Fourth ...

, in the Somme department (completed in 1930), to commemorate the missing of the Fifth and Fourth Armies, killed in 1918. Among the smaller cemeteries he designed were Prowse Point, Rifle House and

Devonshire Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is a ...

, all around the area of

Ypres Ypres ( , ; nl, Ieper ; vls, Yper; german: Ypern ) is a Belgian city and municipality in the province of West Flanders. Though the Dutch name is the official one, the city's French name is most commonly used in English. The municipality co ...

. At the commission, he worked with

Charles Holden Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was " ...

, a relationship that continued after the memorial work was completed.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cowlishaw, William Harrison 1869 births 1957 deaths 20th-century English architects Arts and Crafts architects People from North Hertfordshire District Architects from Hertfordshire