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THE PINWILL SISTERS Dr Helen Wilson started her
presentation with a picture (opposite) of the sisters, Mary, Violet and Ethel, each having in their laps a chisel and a mallet about to embark on their careers as professional woodcarvers. The photograph also featured William Giles, their instructor, a local joiner and Edmund H. Sedding, an archi- tect who was instrumental in the formation and success of the Pinwill woodcarving business. Helen’s fascination began when she visited Morwenstow church and was intrigued by the fact that women could have produced such beautiful carvings for the altar and reredos. The Church of St Morwenna and St John the Baptist in Morwenstow has, in the Chancel, a large reredos dated 1908 which was carved by the Pinwill sisters. The fact that the sisters were from Plymouth, plus the genealogy of their unusual name, fuelled her desire to conduct re- search, and even more so when she realised that this was not a solitary work but that their craft featured across Devon and Cornwall. In 1884 a team of craftsmen
came to restore Ermington Church and the girls’ mother asked the Head Woodcarver on the project, William Giles, if he would teach her daughters to carve. This was done in the evenings and in his spare time. Research revealed that, in Victorian times, it was not at all unusual for women to wood carve. It was considered that the greater range of accomplishments a woman
undertook, the more marriageable she was. The sisters took the extraordinary
step to set up a company ent by the name of Rashleigh, Pinwill and Co.
“the girls’ mother asked the
Head Woodcarver on the project, William Giles, if he would teach her daughters to carve”
possibly in an attempt to hide the fact that they were women. At this time a lot of church restoration was going on and the girls emphasized their skills by copying from the old masters. As it was unheard of for a married woman to work, Mary left the business in 1900 allowing Ethel and Violet to continue. Ethel taking care of Ermington and Violet Plymouth. Ethel left Devon in 1911 furthering her career in Surrey, but later returned to live with one of her sisters in the Vicarage at Ermington. All Saints Church, Malborough,
was the parish church for previous generations of the Pinwill family
when they lived in Salcombe. Great grandfather of the sisters, Andrew Pinwill, commerated his first and second wives in the East Window and several relatives are buried in the cemetery there. The existence of a carved pulpit in the church by V Pinwill, although not as exciting as her other work, is described as ‘Gothic in character and quite sim- ple, making the elaborate carved vine cornice and foliated heads of the panels stand out in a very attractive manner’. Many photographic slides of the
Pinwill Sisters’ work were shown to encourage investigative visits to be made. We were told that the best church in which to see the work of the sisters is at Crantock. Helen excitedly told how she could not resist the temptation of a Pinwill family bible offered for sale on ebay! Violet eventually became the sole owner of the business and travelled over Devon and Cornwall to meet with vicars and churchwar- dens. By the time she died in 1957 over 185 churches in Devon and Cornwall contained work by the Pinwill Sisters.•
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