The artist is known to have exhibited from 1897-1913, and was both a painter and a stained glass artist. From c1911 he lived in Falmouth, where he had moved to No 8, Park Terrace from Northwood, Middlesex.

Pownall designed the stained glass windows at All Saints Parish Church, Falmouth to consecrate the new Chancel stained glass window. Few of the congregation would have been aware that this was the first window to have been completely designed and made in Cornwall. His design was ambitious and immediately accepted by the church at a cost of £530, making it one of the most expensive windows in Cornwall, equal in price to the rose windows of the Cathedral in Truro.