Edward Middleton Manigault

[2] His parents were Americans originally from South Carolina who had settled in London, Ontario after the Civil War.

[4] Despite being emotionally unstable and prone to episodes of depression, Manigault volunteered to serve as an ambulance driver with the British Expeditionary Force in 1915, displaying his spontaneity in marrying Gertrude Buffington Phillips just two days before he shipped out, whereupon he served as an ambulance driver in Flanders from April to November 1915.

Having suffered a nervous breakdown, he was deemed “incapacitated for service", and his health would continue to decline for the remainder of his life.

At around this time in his life, Manigault had begun to practice fasting, in the hopes that starvation and meditation would allow him “to approach the spiritual plane and see colors not perceptible to the physical eye.” Ignoring the entreaties of his friends and family, in August 1922, Manigault fasted for two weeks, his health rapidly declining before he was admitted to the hospital on the 24th, where he died one week later, of starvation and neurasthenia, at the age of thirty-five.

Manigault subsequently became inspired by the Arts and Crafts Movement, and began to produce decorative works, including ceramics and furniture.