Who was Lewis Foreman Day ?
Lewis Foreman Day (1845-1910)
Lewis Day was brought up in Peckham into a family with religious and philosophical influences and values, these shaped him and remained part of his life.
In 1864 he started to work for the stained glass Manufacturers Lavers & Barraud followed by Clayton & Bell and then Heaton, Butler & Bayne, where he was involved in the glass work done at Eaton Hall by the firm, the architect for the building was Alfred Waterhouse.
1970 saw him establish his own design business (based at his home of 29 years, 13 Mecklenburgh Square London) supplying wallpaper designs for W. B. Simpson and Jeffrey & Co, tiles for Maw, Pilkington and Craven Dunmill, textiles for John Wilson, Turnball & Stockdale and furniture and silver for numerous other makers.
At the 1878 Paris Exhibition his Aesthetic movement clocks and ceramics were shown by Howell, James and Co and a cabinet with panels designed by him, shown on the stand of H. J. Cooper.
Portion of Howell, James & Co's 1878 Paris Exhibition stand designed by Day.
Day's close relationships with the likes of William Morris and Walter Crane, William A. S. Benson etc placed him in the centre of design reform of the day, his career spanned the Arts and Crafts movement the Aesthetic Movement and Art Nouveau. He was a founding member of the Art Workers Guild and was its master in 1897. He was a member of the Society of Arts from 1879 and was a founding member of the Arts and Crafts Society from 1886. He wrote extensively on design and was a respected critic.
Joan Maria Hansen, Lewis Foreman Day (1845-1910) Unity In Design And Industry, 2007
Elizabeth Rycroft, Lewis Foreman Day (1845-1910), D A S Journal Number 13, 1989
Michael Whiteway and Charlotte Gere, Nineteenth Century Design, 1993