Edmund James Sherwood

• Born                      18 July 1849 at Welton,  Sculcoates, Yorkshire East Riding
• Died                       14 September 1921 at Pretoria South Africa
• Burial                     Rebecca Street Cemetery Pretoria?
• Married                  1873 Rachel Taylor (Born Rochdale 13 October 1847 Died Pretoria 13 September 1918)

Born in 1849 at the village of Welton, Yorkshire East Riding, Edmund James Sherwood was the son of John Sherwood, a gardener, and his wife, Rebecca. He was educated at the village school and trained in a small provincial town in all aspects of the building trade before moving to Manchester to become a pupil of an architect and surveyor, John Noble. He won first prize, aged 24, for the competition for the Grosvenor Hotel and Arcade in Deansgate, Manchester (c1872); he was responsible for remodelling various Manchester streets and practised for seven years in Manchester. His health having been affected, he left his practice, transferring it to his assistant, Charles Caine.

 In 1882, after two years of retirement, he moved to London, where, as Commissioner Sherwood, he was listed in the general staff of the Salvation Army headquarters as Architect and Surveyor and also described as Commissioner for Property.  For nearly nine years he worked on churches, public halls and mission buildings on behalf of the Salvation Army. This was a time of phenomenal growth within the Salvation Army with a great demand for appropriate buildings. Design was influenced by the need for large capacity seating with the cheapest methods possible. About this time, he applied for Associate membership of the RIBA but as he was also practising as a quantity surveyor he remained outside the Institute and “now feels no architect should practice as a quantity surveyor.” (SAA&B May 1905:154-55).

E J Sherwood emigrated to South Africa in 1890. He joined the Government Railway service in Port Elizabeth in 1890 and entered private practice there with his son in 1893. His son later entered the Public Works Department in Pretoria. It would seem that while Sherwood had his own practice, he was still able to work for the Railways. An account of his career in South Africa says that by 1905 he had been in South Africa for fifteen years, having come to the country in 1890; twelve of those years were spent in the service of the Government Railways. Sherwood and his son designed many prominent buildings including in St John's Wesleyan Church in Port Elizabeth, a new church and schools at Graaff-Reinet, alterations to the Wesleyan Church, Cradock, a large block of buildings in Strand St, Port Elizabeth, stores, mills and factories. Sherwood settled in Cape Town around 1897 and practised mainly as a quantity surveyor, thus working on the Valkenberg Asylum, the City Hall, large stores in Cape Town as well as other Government buildings and public buildings at Uitenhage.

He was listed in partnership with H Davidge Pitts in Cape Town in 1903. Together they obtained first prize for the Dutch Reformed Church building in Noorder Paarl in 1905.

Address
1871            J Sherwin 61 Princess Street, Manchester. (MG 24 Jan 1871 p7)
1882            Queen Victoria Street, near Blackfriars, London

Residence
1875            6 Stock Street, Cheetham, Manchester
1881            Driffield Road, Kilham, Yorkshire East Riding,
1882            London
1890            Port Elizabeth, South Africa
1897            Cape Town, South Africa
1902            Laurel Bank, Observatory, Cape Town.

Reference    The South African Architect and Builder May, 1905: Biography of E.J. Sherwood
Reference    Artefacts.co.za
Reference    Architects Journal 2 December 1999