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.

Biography 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. 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. a "freely-treated Jacobean character", and also had staff in London, Oxford and Ireland. He was survived by seven children; a son whom he christened Lord Archibald died young. In Bristol, he completed the statues for the replacement of the Bristol High Cross in 1889. Probably his most notable work was the restoration of the large medieval screen at St Alban's Cathedral, Hertfordshire, which was dedicated on 1 November 1899, and the construction of a similar screen in Christ Church Cathedral in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He was also a benefactor of the poor—amongst other charitable work, for many years he held Christmas lunches in his workshop for the elderly poor people of Exeter, inviting as many each year as his age. ); and supported the Rifle Volunteer force.

Personality Hems was a hard worker – a report of 1879 said that "he is 'always at it' from six in the morning until nine at night, and often much later", and he expected the same level of commitment from his workforce, apparently resorting to violence against them if they would not comply. In October 1878 he was charged £1 plus costs for fighting with one of his employees, and the following year a court was told that he had said that he would "break [William Mears] in as he had several of his other apprentices". He has at least two well-known disputes with the Tax Commissioners. In September 1888 an auction of his goods on account of unpaid taxes took place at his workshop in which one of the lots was a life-sized statue of St Matthew the Taxgatherer.

After he again refused to pay the assessed amount of tax in 1907, another auction of his goods was arranged. It took place on 29 April that year, and he prepared the auction catalogue himself. The sale items included the crowbar that had been used by the bailiffs to gain entry to his workshop, a set of old stocks ("offering accommodation for three malefactors"), three "second-hand tombstones (slightly damaged) ... suitable for the graves of Income Tax Commissioners or other Revenue Officials", and his bulldog named Bob.

Hems was also a prolific contributor to newspapers, and journals such as Notes and Queries, and he retained cuttings of everything published that referred to him, in a series of at least 15 volumes of 400 pages each.

Legacy Apart from the large quantity of sculpture produced by his company, some of which is detailed above and which also includes the large bronze statue of William III on Clifton Street Orange Hall in Belfast, unveiled in 1889; and a memorial to R. D. Blackmore in Exeter Cathedral, and a Green Man sculpture, and is described on the museum's website as one of the most important collections of medieval woodwork in a British museum. For some years the company continued to flourish: it built many war memorials after the First World War, and in 1921 it was commissioned by the Canadian Government to create a speaker's chair for the House of Commons chamber in Ottawa, and a duplicate for the Australian Government in 1926. It still displays Hems's "luck ie horseshoe" above the main entrance.