Sculptor and modeller in stoneware and terracotta, trained at Lambeth School of Art. In his unpublished autobiography, Doulton and Co’s chief modeller, George Tinworth, recalls that Ellis joined the company as his assistant shortly after 1869. At Doulton’s, Ellis specialised in terracotta figures, architectural features, garden ornaments and fountains; he also collaborated on some larger projects with another of Doulton’s modellers, John Broad. From c.1888 date his two major public sculpture jobs for Doulton: a terracotta group representing ‘South Africa’ for Doulton’s Victoria Fountain, Glasgow Green (designed by A.E. Pearce and originally shown at the 1888 Glasgow International Exhibition); and two large terracotta reliefs – St Dunstan with Masons and St Dunstan with Metalworkers – over the ground-floor windows either side of the main entrance of E.N. Clifton’s St Dunstan’s College, Catford, south London. In 1889, he won a prize in the Society of Arts’ Art Workmanship Competition, for a ewer with a Bacchanalian subject, modelled in ‘silicon’ ware. Three of his statuettes were included in an exhibition of Doulton stoneware and terracotta at Richard Dennis, Kensington Church Street, London, in 1971.
Bibliography: P. Atterbury and L. Irvine, The Doulton Story. A souvenir booklet produced originally for the exhibition held at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 30 May–12 August 1979, p. 89; V. Bergesen, Encyclopaedia of British Art Pottery 1870–1920, London, 1991; T. Cavanagh, Public Sculpture of South London, Liverpool, 2007, pp. xvi, 133–34, 434; D. Eyles and L. Irvine, The Doulton Lambeth Wares, London, 1975, pp. 186, 192; R. McKenzie, Public Sculpture of Glasgow, Liverpool, 2002, pp. 166, 167, 482; Richard Dennis, Catalogue of an Exhibition of Doulton Stoneware and Terracotta 1870–1925. Part One, London, 1971; G. Tinworth, autobiography, handwritten draft, c.1911 (Southwark Local Studies Library, ref: 920 TIN).
Terry Cavanagh, 2007; revised, July 2024