Harry Hems

Harry Hems (12 June 1842 – 5 January 1916) was an English architectural and ecclesiastical sculptor who was particularly inspired by Gothic architecture and a practitioner of Gothic Revival. He founded and ran a large workshop in Exeter, Devon, which produced woodwork and sculpture for churches all over the country and abroad. He was also a philanthropist and an eager self-promoter. A large part of the collection of medieval woodwork that he accumulated during his working life is now in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter.

Born in Islington, London, the son of Henry Hems, an ironmonger and cutler, Harry Hems started work as a cutler before taking at age fourteen a seven-year apprenticeship as a woodcarver in Sheffield. Returning to London, he found employment in the construction of the Foreign Office building and the Langham Hotel. He then spent two years seeking inspiration in Italy, but was supposedly arrested as a spy and had to return to England penniless. On his return, however, he soon found work on the building of the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, in Exeter, Devon. When he arrived in Exeter on 4 December 1866 by train he said that he found a horseshoe on his way from the railway station, and kept it as a lucky charm.

Hems married Charlotte Presswell Turner at Littleham, Exmouth in 1868, and settled in Exeter. He started a company there that specialised in ecclesiastical sculpture and church fittings, and named it "The Ecclesiastical Art Works". It benefited from the widespread restoration of churches that was taking place at the time: by 1879 more than 400 churches and 100 public buildings contained work that had been created by the company. The 1881 census recorded that he was employing 23 men and 7 boys, and because of the need for more space he commissioned the building of a new workshop on a two-acre plot at 84 Longbrook Street, Exeter. The architect was Robert Medley Fulford who had already worked with Hems on several ecclesiastical designs.

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