Edmund Harold Sedding [also known as E.H. Sedding] was born in London, England on 26 October 1863 and was the son of the architect Edmund Sedding (1836-1868). He was articled to his uncle John Dando Sedding (1838-1891). He also attended the Royal Academy Schools in London. He commenced independent practice as an architect in Plymouth, Devon, England in 1891. He was in partnership with Reginald Francis Wheatley (1879-1959) from 1911 to 1914, and later with Basil Thorold Stallybrass (1879-?).
Sedding exhibited at the Royal Academy in London from 1886 to 1905. He also participated in the 3rd exhibition of the Arts & Crafts Exhibition Society in London in 1890 at which he exhibited a design for wallpaper.
In collaboration with Henry Wilson, Sedding painted the ceiling panels of St Mary's church, Stamford, Lincolnshire as part of the 1890 alterations to the church by Sedding.
Sedding worked primarly on the design or restoration of a number of churches and church buildings. He commissioned the Pinwell Sisters (Mary (1871–1962), Ethel (1872–1951) and Violet (1874–1957), who were acclaimed woodcarvers, to produce woodcarvings for a number of his projects, notably a pulpit for the church of St Peter and St Paul in Ermington, Devon.
He was awarded the Royal Academy medal in 1884; the Royal Institute of British Architects medal on 1885; the Royal Academy Travelling Fellowship in 1886; and the Pugin medal in 1887. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA) in 1901.
He was the author of Norman Architecture In Cornwall – A Handbook To Old Cornish Ecclesiastical Architecture (London: Ward & Co., 1909).
Sedding's career as an architect was blighted by failing eyesight and by 1917 he was virtually blind.
His address was given as 18 Charlotte Street, London in 1886 and 1888; 7 Buckland Terrace, Plymouth, Devon in 1892; and 11 Queen Anne Terrace, Plymouth, Devon in 1905 and 1910; 3 Gwendrock Villas, Wadebridge, Cornwall in 1911. He died in Clapham, Surrey [now London] on 21 February 1921 and is buried at St Carantoc Church in Crantock, Cornwall
A biographical file on Edmund Harold Sedding is available on request from the Enquiry Desk, Royal Institute of British Architects Library in London.
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