Frederick Landseer Maur Griggs was considered to be one of the finest and most respected etchers of his generation. Influenced as a young man by the work of Samuel Palmer, he created stunning and dramatic compositions of gothic buildings and haunting landscapes, guided by his religious upbringing and training as an architectural draughtsman. Frederick Landseer Griggs was born on 30 October 1876 in Hitchen, Hertfordshire, the eldest of four children of Frederick Griggs and his wife, Jemima (neé Bailey). His parents were Baptists and he grew up in religious surroundings. His father, though a baker and confectioner by trade, was a deacon of the local church and his mother gave Bible classes. The family attended a newly built chapel and its Neo-Gothic architecture would have a lasting effect on his artistic vision across his career.
As a child, he attended school locally in Hitchen, before moving to London to study at the Slade School of Fine Art and train as an architectural draughtsman under the architect Walter Millard. In 1895, he moved to the offices of Charles Edward Mallows, working there until 1897, when he returned to Hitchin to set up his own studio. The same year he exhibited an architectural drawing for the first time at the Royal Academy.
In 1900, Frederick Landseer Griggs was commissioned by the publishers Macmillan & Co to produce drawings for the Hertfordshire book in their major series, Highways and Byways. This would become the most substantial achievement of his career. Over the remaining 37 years of his life, he would illustrate twelve volumes of the series. He was still working on the project at his death, leaving some drawings unfinished. In 1903, he moved to Chipping Campden in the Cotswolds, where the previous year, the Guild and School of Handicraft had been established by the architect and designer, Charles Robert Ashbee. Griggs became closely associated with the Guild, taking lodgings in the guild hostel in 1904 before moving to Dover’s House in the High street, where he would live until 1930.
Religion remained a significant part of Frederick Landseer Griggs’s life, and in 1912 he was received into the Catholic Church, adopting the baptismal name ‘Maur’. To mark the occasion he designed a bell, named ‘Maurus’, for the local church of St Catherine’s. The following year he produced the striking plate Maur’s Farm, with five variant states produced between 1913 and 1922. During this period of his life in Chipping Campden, he also established himself as a successful illustrator, developing a style that moved beyond architectural topography into more imaginative compositions that evoked the history and spirit of the places he recorded. In 1916, he was elected an associate member of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers. In 1918 he became a fellow, and was elected to the council two years later.
Frederick Landseer Maur Griggs continued to work as an architect, primarily on small-scale projects in and around Chipping Campden. A lasting contribution to his craft was made in 1919, when he designed a series of war memorials. These memorials, located at Broadway, Snowshill, Painswick, Upton St Leonards and Chipping Campden, were completed pro bono and still stand today.
In the postwar period, Frederick Landseer Maur Griggs’s designs became ever more ambitious and dramatic. From 1922, he established his own press to prove his plates. This allowed him to revise some of his past works, such as adding rich meteorological effects to the skies of his earlier plates. That year, he became one of the few etcher associates of the Royal Academy. On 9 January 1922, he married his studio assistant, Nina Blanche Muir at Brompton Oratory. Together they would have a son, John Coelfrid, and five daughters, Mary, Millicent, Hilda, Barbara and Agnes. In 1931, he was elected a Royal Academician and served on the Academy selection committee in 1933. In 1934, he was elected Master of the Art Workers’ Guild.
Frederick Landseer Maur Griggs struggled with his health throughout much of his adult life. The financial strains of his large family, coupled with the economic difficulties that followed the Wall Street Crash of 1929 contributed to his frailty. He died at his home on 7 June 1938 at the age of 61 and was buried at St Catherine’s Church in Chipping Campden.
