Sedding was born in 1838, at
Eton in Berkshire. He was the son of a village schoolmaster, who spent much of his youth in
Derbyshire. He was 15 when "The Nature of Gothic" first appeared in
John Ruskin's
Stones of Venice (1853). In 1858, like
William Morris,
Philip Webb and
Norman Shaw before him, Sedding became a pupil of the Gothic Revival architect,
George Edmund Street (1824–1881). His elder brother,
Edmund Sedding, had also trained as an architect with Street. Street had studied in the office of Sir
Gilbert Scott (1811–1878), and his own practice was a cradle of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Sedding left Street in 1863 and by about 1865 he had joined his brother
Edmund Sedding, who had set up as an architect in
Penzance, Cornwall. The brothers shared an interest in church music, and Edmund is remembered as the composer of the music for the hymn,
Jerusalem the Golden. Edmund suffered from
tuberculosis and died young in 1868. Sedding moved first to Bristol, and then to London, though he always retained an affection for Cornwall, the West Country and country life. One of his first churches was the Anglo-Catholic St Martin's at
Marple in Cheshire completed in 1872. The interior was designed by William Morris with contributions from
Dante Gabriel Rossetti,
Ford Madox Brown,
Edward Burne-Jones and
William Holman Hunt. In 1873 Sedding designed
St Clements Church Boscombe, Bournemouth, now a Grade One listed church. The reredos, high altar, candlesticks, church plate, pulpit, lectern, choir stalls, encaustic tiles, statue of St Clement and rood screen were all designed by Sedding. In 1875, he was elected a fellow of the
Royal Institute of British Architects and moved from Bristol to set up in practice in London the following year, taking offices on the upper floors of 447
Oxford Street, next door to the premises of
Morris & Co. In 1876 Sedding met Ruskin under whose influence he developed a freer Gothic style, introducing natural ornament into his designs. Sedding encouraged his students to study old buildings at first hand, focusing on the practicalities of craft techniques. He placed an emphasis on texture and ornament; the naturalistic treatment of flowers, leaves and animals, always drawn from life; and the close involvement of the architect in the simple processes of building and in the supervision of a team of craftsmen employed direct. He was elected a member of the
Art Workers Guild in 1884, the year of its foundation, and was elected as its second master in 1886. ==Buildings and church work==