John Moyr Smith was a Scottish architect and designer whose decorative and functional designs signify the height of nineteenth-century fashion. Indeed, Moyr was particularly well-known for the manufacture of decorative ceramic tiles, which are now housed at several public institutions including the British Museum and the V&A and are an expression of the artisanal focus of the Arts & Crafts Movement.
Having enrolled at the Glasgow School of Art in 1857, Moyr went on to become president of the Glasgow Architectural (Assistants) Association. His involvement in the Association let to his significant contribution to the construction of the Stirling's library, before he moved to Manchester to work under the gothicist Alfred Derbyshire. It was here that his historicist impulses and education truly prevailed: he would later move to London in 1866 to assist George Gilbert Scott, another pioneer of the Gothic Revival.