Cotton, Sid

London & Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire; cabinet maker (b.1883-d.1915)

Cotton joined the Guild of Handicraft in 1896 at the age of 13 and was particularly liked by C. R. Ashbee. He was described by Ashbee’s wife, Janet, as ‘a summer’s day kind of boy’ and a ‘hysterical cabinetmaker’. He moved with the Guild to Chipping Campden in 1902 but emigrated to Canada in 1905, where he built railway carriages. He returned for a visit to the town in 1914 but died of consumption the following year.

Sources: Lambourne, Utopian Craftsmen, (1980); Crawford, C R Ashbee. Architect, Designer & Romantic Socialist (1985);Carruthers and Greensted, Good Citizen’s Furniture, The Arts & Crafts Collections at Cheltenham (1994); Greensted, ‘The Arts and Crafts Movement collections at Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum’, The Decorative Arts Society 1850-1932 (2000); Greensted and Wilson, Originality and Initiative.  The Arts and Crafts archives at Cheltenham (2003).