Edward Mansell was born on Handsworth, Birmingham, Warwickshire, England on 24 November 1860 and was the son of Thomas Henry Mansell (1833-1911). After training in the office of J. Barnsey & Sons, a firm of contractors from 1878 to 1881, he was articled to his father in Birmingham. He then worked as an assistant to Widnell & Trollope.
He commenced independent practice in Birmingham in 1887. By 1892 he had formed a partnersip with his father and with his brother, Thomas Gildart Mansell (1866-1929) as Mansell and Mansell. They had an offices at 7 Temple Row, Birmingham. Mansell senior retired leaving his sons to run the business.
In the early 1900s Edward and Thomas Gildart Mansell were briefly in partnership with (?) Dixon as Mansell, Mansell & Dixon. They submitted designs for a competition for an extension to Birmingham Council House in 1906. The designs are illustrated in British Competitions in Architecture vol. 1, no. 10, September 1906 pp. 41-46. The partnership may have only been formed in order to enter this competition.
In 1908 Mansell & Mansell entered a competition to design municipal buildings in Bethnal Green, London. Their designs are illustrated in British Competitions in Architecture vol. 2, no. 15, February 1908 (pp. 120, 121).
Edward Mansell was Diocesan Surveyor for Birmingham and Coventry. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Brish Architects (FRIBA) in 1908.
His address was given as 47 Temple Row, Birmingham in 1908 and 1926; 31 Craven Street, Strand, London in 1909 and 1926; and Flat. 17 Clarendon Square. Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, in 1939 and 1941.
Mansell & Mansell ceased business in 1934. Edward Mandell died in Hatton, Warwickshire on 11 March 1941
Works by Mansell & Mansell included Tudor Grange, a house for Alfred Lovekin at Blossomfield, Solihull (1887); a coach house and stables for James adie at the rear of 33 Hagley Road, Birmingham (1890); shops for Ward & Sons at St. Paul's Square, Birmingham (1891); premises for Lipscombe& Bayley at Stanhope Street, Birmingham (1891); warehouse and workshop for Adie & Lovekin Ltd., jewellers at Frederick Street/Regent Street, Birmingham (1895); premises for Mary Bolton, ships' births manufacturers at 19 Newhall Hill, Birmingham (1896); a house for Rev. G. Litting at Edgbaston Road, Birmingham (1896); two houses in Park Hill Road, Harbourne for S. J. Green (1897); a house for Alice Thompson at Hermitage Road, Edgbaston (1899); premises for the Ocean Accident Insurance Company at Waterloo Street/Temple Row West, Birmingham (1900); premises and shops for Simplex Steel Conduit Company at Maxstoke Street, Birmingham (1905); and a house for T. H. Smith at Stanmore Road, Edgbaston (1906).
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See also list of works by Mansell & Mansell in Evans, Allan. ‘Mansell and Mansell’ pp. 320-321 [see Bibliography below]
Directory of British Architects 1834-1914. Compiled by Antonia Brodie, et al. Volume 2: L-Z. London; New York: British Architectural Library, Royal Institute of British Architects/Continuum, 2001
Evans, Allan. ‘Mansell and Mansell’ in Birmingham’s Victorian and Edwardian Architects, edited by Phillada Ballard. Wetherby: Oblong Creative Ltd. for the Birmingham and West Midlands Group of the Victorian Society, 2009 pp. 313-322
‘Obituary’. The Builder vol. 160, 21 March 1941 p. 289