FIVEMILETOWN, COUNTY TYRONE ARTS & CRAFTS BRASS FENDER, CIRCA 1895pierced and repoussé-decorated to three sides with panels of opposed squirrels with acorn branches (146cm wide, 31cm high, 47cm deep) Footnote: Literature: Larmour, Patrick The Arts & Crafts Movement in Ireland, Friar’s Bush Press 1992, pp.39-44 and p. 42 where a similar example is illustrated on the Fivemiletown stand at the ‘Home Arts’ exhibition in London, 1897. Note: John Williams trained at C.R. Ashbee's Guild of Handicraft. In 1892 he went on to teach at Hammersmith School of Arts and also Fivemiletown Art Metalwork classes in County Tyrone where he supplied most of the designs and where this fender was made. In 1899 The Studio said of John Williams: “In designing for pewter and for somewhat heavier applications of brass and copper, John Williams is still the tutelary genius of Fivemiletown. The designs of so able and judicious an artist must be invaluable alike to the native and the more advanced craftsman, for they have a breadth and dignity of line which cannot fail to react well upon the growing style of the executant”.