Mairet, Ethel

Ethel Mairet was born Ethel Mary Partridge in Barnstaple, Devon in 1872 . At that time several prominent figures associated with the arts and crafts movement were located in and around the town: W.R.Lethaby, the Brannam Pottery and the Fishley Pottery at Fremington and Jack Bailey who was associated with C.R. Ashbee's Guild of Handicraft. She studied at the Municipal Science and Art School, Barnstaple. She then went onto the Royal Academy of Music during the 1890's, where she gained a teaching diploma in pianoforte, and took a post as a governess in London, and then Germany.

She returned to England in 1902, met and married the Anglo-Ceylonese geologist Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy and, after meeting C.R.Ashbee, moved to the community based in Chipping Campden in the Cotswolds. Ethel and Ananda, who was employed on a geological survey, moved to Ceylon in 1903 and it was there that her interest in textiles developed. She studied and collected indigenous arts and crafts and began writing articles.

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