Ethel Mairet
| Ethel Mairet | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
Ethel Mary Partridge 17 February 1872 Barnstaple, Devon, England |
| Died | 18 November 1952 (aged 80) Ditchling, East Sussex, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Other names | Ethel Coomaraswamy |
| Known for | Hand loom weaving designer |
Ethel Mary Mairet RDI or Ethel Mary Coomaraswamy (17 February 1872 – 18 November 1952) was a British hand loom weaver, significant in the development of the craft during the first half of the twentieth century. Her life is seen as a series of contradictions.
Ethel Mary Partridge was born in Barnstaple, Devon, in 1872. Her parents were David (a pharmacist) and Mary Ann (born Hunt) Partridge. She was educated locally and in 1899 she qualified to teach piano at the Royal Academy of Music. She then took up work as a governess.
She met the famed art historian and geologist Ananda Coomaraswamy, a wealthy Hindu man of Anglo-Ceylonese heritage. The couple married on 19 June 1902 and travelled to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where he conducted a mineral survey. They returned to England in 1907 and published their investigations into Ceylon crafts.
Until 1910 they lived in Broad Campden where the arts and crafts architect Charles Robert Ashbee had established a community of artists and craftspeople. This Guild and School of Handicraft in Chipping Campden included Ethel's brother Fred Partridge, a jeweller. Ashbee renovated a Norman chapel as the Coomaraswamy home. The couple visited India, where they added to the textile collection they had begun whilst in Ceylon. Ethel learned how to weave by hand.
Her husband met Alice Richardson, then still a teenager, when she visited her friend Philip Mairet in 1907. Coomaraswamy began openly having an affair with her; because he wanted a child he suggested that he should take her as his second wife. Ethel found this unforgivable. Her husband committed himself to Alice Richardson and they were then married. Alice visited India with her new husband and returned as the musician Ratna Devi after embracing a Hindu lifestyle. Ethel went away alone and built a house near Barnstaple complete with studios for textile dyeing and weaving.
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