Visions of Captain Cook in Stained Glass

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Captain Cook, Christchurch NZ, Clayton & Bell, Lyon Cottier & Co, New South Wales, Norman St. Clair Carter, Sydney Town Hall, Sydney University, William Montgomery, Young Australia League Perth

by Karla Whitmore

James Cook RN, the renowned navigator and mapmaker, has been commemorated in several stained glass windows in Australia and one each in New Zealand and England.  This reflects the perception of Cook as integral to European settlement in Australia, a perception that has been subject to a progression of prevailing views of him and his influence following his death. The stained glass windows depicting James Cook RN were installed in Australia between 1859 and 1937, the New Zealand one in 1938 and the one in England in 1951.  There were other windows in Australia that have not survived.

Cook’s death in 1779 at Kealakakua Bay, Hawaii, was followed by accounts of his voyages and death by different authors, an authorised edited version of his journals published from 1773, and continuing scholarly debate about the man and his influence. The Life of Captain Cook by Andrew Kippax published in 1788 remained in print for over a century. Cook’s journals edited by Dr J.C. Beaglehole, published from 1955-1974, are based on his original journals.  Paintings of Cook were done by Nathaniel Dance in 1776 following the second voyage and, in 1874, by John Webber who was official artist on the third voyage.  Different versions of his death were painted in the decade following, including one by Webber who was not an eyewitness to the event.

Public memorials in the form of statues were initiated in Australia, the earliest being erected in 1874 in the Sydney suburb of Randwick.  A larger than life statue in Hyde Park, Sydney unveiled in 1879 before a crowd of thousands, includes an inscription of Cook as the discoverer of the land before him which overlooks the earlier visits of William Dampier and  Dutch navigators and the existence of the country’s original inhabitants.  Controversy continues around his reputed responsibility for colonisation.

The statue in the Mall, London, was erected in 1908 on the recommendation of the then Premier of New South Wales Sir Joseph Carruthers, an avid Cook supporter. Statues in England, Victoria, New Zealand and Hawaii typically show Cook as the explorer gazing outward.

Following his death Cook was celebrated, not only in England, but across Europe in the papers, poems and theatrical events. In death ‘the explorer was accorded tributes he had never known in life’.[1] Recent studies look at the heroizing of his reputation and the idea of unified national myth-making as a contested one.[2] A controversial aspect of his reputation has been the suggestion of the veneration of Cook by natives in Hawaii.  In 1785 a pantomime was staged at Covent Garden called ‘Omai, or, a Trip round the World’ based on Omai, a native from Huahine who travelled with Cook to England. The ending had a backcloth based on an engraving called The Apotheosis of Captain Cook which showed Cook being lifted to heaven on a cloud by Britannia. La Mort du Capitaine Cook, a grand-serious-pantomimic-ballet was staged in Paris in 1788 and in London the following year.

Cook was commemorated at the 1870 centenary in New South Wales by a public holiday, the Metropolitan Intercolonial Exhibition and music and sports festivals.  News reports focused on his life, discoveries and progress made in the colony. In 1874 a pageant was advertised at Queen’s Theatre, Sydney depicting Captain Cook’s landing at Botany Bay where he supposedly planted the English flag.[3] A re-enactment of Cook’s landing there was the main event of the 1970 bicentennial commemoration in Sydney attended by members of the Royal Family. An interpretive centre at Kurnell, Botany Bay in Sydney, including a statue, is proposed for 2020.

Fig. 1: Clayton and Bell, Captain Cook, Great Hall, University of Sydney 1859  Photograph: Karla Whitmore

From theatrical spectacle, Cook became the subject of scholarly debate from the second half of the nineteenth century and continues to be subject to reassessment. A recent study focuses on the geopolitical factors of national, particularly Anglo-French, rivalry in exploration of the Pacific in framing Cook’s account of his 1770 voyage and posits strategic considerations in the recording of some events.[4]

The earliest depiction of Cook in a stained glass window is in the Great Hall at Sydney University.  It was installed in mid-1859 as part of a suite of windows with life-size figures of historical, literary and scientific figures from British history, from the Venerable Bede to Cook.  They were made by the London firm, Clayton and Bell, which also made the 14-light Cambridge and Oxford windows and the Royal Window depicting monarchs from William the Conqueror to Queen Victoria for the Great Hall.  In the nineteenth century England was the main source of cultural imports and colonists took pride in being part of a greater Britain. As Federation approached the emphasis widened to express national sentiment within this context.

The southwestern window in the Great Hall has physician and chemist Dr Joseph Black, judge Sir William Blackstone and Captain James Cook. The figure based on the portrait by Nathaniel Dance, standing rather than seated, is a realistic portrayal. Cook’s hand gesturing over an outline map of Australia has been emphasised in the only instance in the windows of proportion being of secondary importance to the message. Cook’s hand is over the east coast which he was seen as visiting and then as discovering.  The gesture reflected, as noted in a lecture given in the hall in 1947, the passage in Cook’s journal about the land being ‘ín a pure state of nature’ with potential for agricultural development.[5] It is a restrained depiction which focuses on the possibilities of a harsh but still largely unknown land. The window sets Cook among the esteemed men of history in a public building earlier than in England where the memorial to navigators Drake, Chichester and Cook was installed in Westminster Abbey in 1979.

The University of Melbourne had the large Stevens (South) window in Wilson Hall from 1928 until its destruction by fire in 1952.  Twenty-four lights contained figures from English literature, arts and science, half being full-size figures and the rest were busts set into medallions.  Four lights depicted navigators James Cook and Matthew Flinders. The original design was incomplete when its artist, William Montgomery, died in 1927 and it was completed by Mervyn Napier Waller and realised by Brooks, Robinson and Co. Waller’s design included more figures around Cook and Flinders in a naturalistic yet formalised grouping style which he refined in his later memorial windows and art deco murals. At the unveiling ceremony the window’s donor, Edward Stevens, noted with pride that it was designed and made in Melbourne.[6] 

Like the windows at Sydney University, the Stevens window expresses Australia’s cultural ties with England seventy years on.  The subject was in line with the university’s view of its place, aspirations and attainments.  At the unveiling ceremony Stevens noted that arts and sciences were the province of all while stressing the English connection and the inspiration the men shown would be to future graduates.  Cook and crew members were depicted taking possession of the east coast by planting a flag, a subject that reinforces the idea of Cook as discoverer.

Fig. 2: John Ashwin and Co. Captain Cook landing at Botany Bay, Hillside, Edgecliff, (NSW) 1935        Photograph: Karla Whitmore

The landing of Cook at Botany Bay is the subject of a residential window in Sydney’s eastern suburbs and two roundels at Sydney University.  The five-storey ‘Hillside’ in Edgecliff has stairwell windows which extend over 18m.  In an unusual combination, two figurative panels are set in art deco backgrounds of amber and pale cathedral glass with Renaissance touches. They have Australian wildflowers in narrow side panels.  The figurative panels depict Cook’s landing and Governor Arthur Phillip.  Cook is shown extending a conciliatory arm towards his crew facing two menacing Aboriginals after the painting by E. Phillips Fox (1902) in the National Gallery of Victoria.  Colour is sparingly used with Cook shown in a white jacket and breeches indicated by flesh tone shading on clear glass. The depiction suggests Cook as portrayed following his death as a moral figure of the Enlightenment. His own journal describes the initial contact as friendly with a less than friendly exchange with two Aboriginals, although no one was killed, when shots were fired.[7] The brightly garbed figure of Governor Phillip is based on the painting by Francis Wheatley in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

The painting on which Cook’s landing is based infers the Red Ensign (the Union Jack is shown minus blue) is to be planted in the act of possession.  From the 1870s reports in the colonial press asserted that this took place at Botany Bay rather than at Possession Island off Cape York as recorded in Cook’s journal.  One report queried this interpretation some thirty years later on the basis of Cook’s journals, suggesting it may have come from the painting by T.A. Gilfillan[8], an image that was circulated as a print and engraving from the 1880s.  Nonetheless, the idea continued into the 1920s.

Fig. 3: John Ashwin and Co., Cook’s coat of arms, Hillside, Edgecliff, (NSW) 1935        Photograph: Karla Whitmore

The lowest of the ‘Hillside’ windows has a depiction of Cook’s coat of arms which were awarded in 1785, the only award made posthumously.  It contains the signature ‘Made in Australia by John Ashwin & Co. (J. Radecki) Studio Dixon Street Sydney 1935’.  John Radecki had trained with Frederick Ashwin at Ashwin and Falconer before setting up in business with John Ashwin in 1910.  The choice of subject suggests the pending 150^th anniversary of Phillip’s arrival in 1938.  A design with the same figure of Phillip plus coats of arms and naval ships and flags was prepared by John Ashwin & Co. for this anniversary but   it is not known where this window was to be located.[9] 

The coat of arms has a shield with two polar stars above and below the globe.  On either side are two flags and below four cannons and cannon balls.  Above the shield a naval uniformed arm on a wreath holds the Union Jack.  Inscriptions in banners are Circa Orbem (around the world) and Nil Intentatum Reliquit (he left nothing unattempted). The city of Sydney’s coat of arms granted in 1908 included the globe and pole stars. Curiously the shield and adjacent flags are shown in the window in monochrome and Cook’s voyages are not outlined on the globe.  The shield is azure and the two rear adjacent flags blue and red respectively.  A panel below the coat of arms with Renaissance style design seems to have been included to compensate for the lack of colour.  Although those of the Union Jack would be known, the artist may not have had access to a source showing the colours of the coat of arms.

Fig. 4: Detail St Nicholas window, Nicholson vestibule, University of Sydney (NSW) 1921      Photograph: Karla Whitmore

Two World War I memorial windows from 1920 at Sydney University are situated in the Nicholson Vestibule stairwell.  They were made by Archibald Keightley Nicholson, the son of the first Chancellor Sir Charles Nicholson and are signed AKN, 105 Gower Street, London.  The main figures in the 3-light windows are set in a neo-classical architectural setting with wreaths, coats of arms, badges and cherubs.  Curiously, there are some anomalies of detail in the roundels.  In the depiction of Cook’s landing, colours are restricted to yellow, black, white, brown against a blue background. His attire of loose black jacket, long yellow tunic with a musket in his waist sash is at odds with his naval uniform. Non-menacing Aboriginals are shown with one kneeling before Cook in a gesture that can be seen as welcoming.

Two stairwell windows at St Andrew’s College, Sydney University were installed in 1937. These triple lancet windows are designed with scenes in roundels and quatrefoils set in patterned backgrounds and borders to complement the earlier windows by Lyon, Cottier & Co. in the adjacent library.  The roundels include historical and contemporary Australian subjects.  In one Cook is shown handing beads to an Aboriginal while a crew member looks on.  The artist was Norman Carter, a successful portrait painter who also taught drawing and art history at the university for twenty-five years.[10]  Cook noted in his journal that on landing he threw nails and beads to the natives, who were initially non-menacing, and later that ‘they seem’d to set no value upon any thing that we gave them’.[11]

Fig. 5: Norman St Clair Carter, Detail staircase window, St Andrew’s College, University of Sydney (NSW) 1937   Photograph: Karla Whitmore

Carter had designed similarly on this theme in 1930 for in a window at All Saints’ Cathedral, Bathurst.  The windows in the Warrior’s Chapel were to be designed by William Montgomery but again had to be completed after his death.  Carter’s heroes’ series include explorers in the Heroes of the Lonely Way window.  Cook is depicted as the solid naval figure of history handing beads to a kneeling Aboriginal amid decoratively lush foliage with waratahs.  Between 1945 and 1956 Carter designed a series of windows for St Andrew’s Cathedral clerestory including the mission to indigenous Australians. In this depiction the kneeling figure of an Aboriginal before a bishop is balanced in the adjoining light by a soldier kneeling before an Aboriginal.

From earliest encounters Aboriginals were represented in different ways by artists and in the 1930s some sought to record individuals who were seen as part of a dying race. This idea was, however, starting to change.  Later paintings by artists such as Russell Drysdale and Sidney Nolan saw them more as an part of an ‘authentic national vision’.[12]  Carter’s depictions correspond to the artistic context of their time.

A window with Cook was made for the residence of John Lamb Lyon who ran the prominent interior decorating and stained glass firm Lyon, Cottier & Co. in Sydney.  Lyon, Cottier & Co. was established in 1873 by John Lamb Lyon and Daniel Cottier, who was based in London, with a branch also in New York. Prominent in interior design and stained glass the firm introduced a decorative style influenced by aestheticism in their work for public buildings, residences and churches in New South Wales. The window made for Lyon was exhibited in Melbourne in 1875 and 1878, in Queensland in 1876 and the same year in Philadelphia.  It remained in place from c.1884 when he moved to Birchgrove till 1950 when it was destroyed in a gale.

The window was described as Cook seated at a table ‘in deep meditation…quadrant in hand, and nearby a globe with his latest achievement – Australia – conspicuously brought out’[13] with his hand  resting on the globe.  The borders featured wildflowers, possum and kangaroo reflecting the botanizing of Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander during the voyage.  On the Endeavour’s return to England they quickly became celebrities; Banks went on to become President of the Royal Society, a baronet and was knighted. They can be seen in the window made by Lyon, Cottier & Co for Cranbrook, a residence at Bellevue Hill in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.[14] It was installed in 1874 for parliamentarian and racehorse owner and breeder James White. Subsequently Cranbrook was home to state governors and Governors-General before becoming a private school for boys in 1918. The window is notable for its narrative design and decorative quality.

Fig.6 and 7: Lyon, Cottier & Co., Details from Captain Cook window, Cranbrook School (NSW) 1874    Photographs: Karla Whitmore

Fig. 8: Lyon,Cottier & Co., Banks and Solander, Cranbrook School (NSW) 1874     Photograph: Karla Whitmore

The window is composed of three rectangular panels deeply recessed in masonry, each with three scenes.  Five feature Cook on board, in a longboat and looking through a telescope.  Two depict his ship, one Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander botanizing and one a slightly out of proportion kangaroo as in early illustrations.  Realistic portrayals are second to the activities portrayed: Cook is shown directing his crew and Banks and Solander show intense interest in a plant specimen which, like the luxuriantly large flowers at their feet, is exotic rather than realistic.[15] The background colouring is soft with darker browns and blues for garments and vibrant yellow in the Renaissance style borders with flowers, fruit, shells and garlands.  The painting is detailed and realistic.

Rather than the seasons, English pastoral scenes or heraldry that were popular in domestic settings the residential window at Cranbrook has romanticised depictions of Cook at Botany Bay.  It shows the virtue of leadership of his men, whom he kept free of scurvy, and his connection with national identity.

A five-light window at the Great Hall at Brisbane Grammar School has a young Queen Victoria portrayed as a scholar in the central light with twelve portrait busts in roundels of statesmen, men of letters and science.  English coats of arms and those of Brisbane, the Governor and the school seal and add to the imperial connection also seen in Sydney University’s Great Hall windows.  This sense of connection and its importance to students was prevalent in the country’s colonial academic institutions. The window was made by prominent Melbourne firm Ferguson & Urie in 1880.[16] The depiction of Cook follows the Nathaniel Dance portrait, and line engravings based on it, and the sepia coloured portrait is set in a geometrical patterned background of glowing colours.

The heritage-listed former Young Australia League memorial hall in central Perth, Western Australia, has busts of eight Australian historical figures including Captain Cook in large circular windows installed from 1924-28. The Young Australia League was an Australian initiative designed to foster patriotic ideals of citizenship.  The windows are now obscured. The one with Cook was dedicated in 1927 by Colonel Amery, Secretary of State for the Dominions, on a visit from England. Cook appears among Australian statesmen, literary, artistic and scientific figures from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. They represent nation building in the time of strong ties with and allegiance to Britain.

Cook is shown after the portrait by Dance in a medallion-style setting framed by a wreath and anchor against a ruby and blue background with a pale border and outer ring of clear ripple glass bordered by green.[17]  The windows were designed by Perth artist Arthur Clarke and one of Sir Galahad in the same location is by H.H. Eastcourt.[18]  Both Clarke and Eastcourt worked for Perth stained glass studio Barnett Bros.

Fig. 9: Goodlet and Smith, Captain Cook staircase window, Sydney Town Hall (NSW) 1889      Photograph: Karla Whitmore

The centenary of 1888 was marked in stained glass by two windows in Sydney Town Hall installed in 1889, one depicting Cook and the other an allegorical figure Oceania representing New South Wales.  They were designed by French artist, Lucien Henry, who came to Sydney after being deported as a communard from France to New Caledonia.  Henry’s decorative designs were executed by the Sydney firm of Goodlet and Smith.  A European perspective is seen in the figure of Cook who is a resolute but more refined figure than the sturdy Yorkshireman depicted by Dance or Webber.  He is portrayed on board ship, spyglass in hand with the other resting on a railing.  The border of the central round-headed window has rose and thistle floral emblems, the ships Endeavour and Discovery, seven pointed stars, ship’s wheels and anchors.  The seven-pointed star predates the seven-pointed Commonwealth star on the Australian flag and coat of arms.  The inscription commemorates Cook 1728 to 1779, John Harris, Mayor of Sydney and Lord Carrington, Governor of NSW.  Exuberant English floral displays in urns are in the rectangular side panels. The companion Oceania window has Australian wildflowers, particularly the waratah, which appears in later windows by Goodlet and Smith.

The Cook window is an illustration of civic pride and progress. A French artist with a flair for design showcased Cook as forerunner of colonial settlement in the lead up to Federation.

Fig. 10: Martin Travers, Central section of War Memorial window, Christchurch Arts Centre (NZ) 1938      Photograph: Karla Whitmore

Cook’s place in imperial and national myth-making is clearly seen in the large 5-light window in Canterbury College Hall, now the Christchurch Arts Centre, New Zealand.  It was designed by Martin Travers who from 1925 to 1948 taught stained glass at the Royal College of Arts, London and also designed churches and church furniture.  Travers’ original design for the war memorial window from 1924 showed humanity’s upward progress to a female figure representing the mother of virtues.  Cook is one of many figures moving up a rocky outcrop projecting from the sea.  Most of the historical figures are based on portraits at the National Portrait Gallery, London with modifications to suit the design of the window.[19]

The College Council thought this war memorial window should have greater emphasis on English men of letters and science and New Zealand soldiers keeping the enemy at bay. The window is signed MT (letters overlaid) 1938.  Cook has become a major figure in the design, featured in the central light to the fore of Scott of the Antarctic and above a banner remembering the sacrifice of 1914-18 and soldiers repelling the red dragons of brutality and ignorance.  He holds a telescope and compass and his ship Resolution is shown in a side light. At the apex of the design are figures representing the mother of humanity and values action, justice, truth and thought.

The need to incorporate layers of meaning resulted in a busy design but, by skilful draughtsmanship and painting, the window maintains clarity and interest in its details.  It reflects a post-war celebration of British and imperial civilisation; even the shape of the rocky outcrop has been suggested to represent Britain.[20]

The most recent window featuring Cook was installed in 1951 at St Cuthbert’s, Marton in Middlesborough, England, the church where he was baptised.  It was made by Gerald Edward Roberts Smith of London. Smith worked at the studio of A.K. Nicholson and in 1937 took over running the firm.

Fig. 10: G.E.R. Smith, St Cuthbert’s Church, Marton (UK) 1951                    Photograph courtesy of St Cuthbert’s Church

The window depicting Cook is signed G.E.R. Smith with the London studio address.  It commemorates members of the Bolckow family who were prominent in industry and local development.  The Hon. H.W.F. Bolckow had in his library at Marton Hall Cook’s journals, the Admiralty’s secret instructions and other manuscripts for fifty years until they were sold at auction in 1923 to the Australian Government and deposited in the Australian National Library.[21]

This round-headed window focuses on Cook as explorer and navigator.  He is shown striding forward, hat and sword in hand, while a sailor raises a Red Ensign. Above Cook is a roundel with New Zealand, which Cook circumnavigated, and which may have been chosen for design reasons as it complements the curve of the roundel through to Cook’s outstretched leg. The decoration draws on early maps with sea creatures, a cherub blowing wind, ship’s anchor and Renaissance style border.  The design in red, blue, yellow and white on a clear glass background conveys a sense of lively activity and purpose.

The Red Ensign features prominently in the design. Cook’s journal notes that he took formal possession of two localities at Mercury Bay and Queen Charlotte Sound.  New Zealand press reports from around 1900 diverge as to the time and place, status and scope of these events from specific locales to the whole country.  Notwithstanding, the defining moment in the relationship with England was the ceding of sovereignty in 1840 by Maori chiefs under the Treaty of Waitangi, a document that is subject to ongoing debate.[22]

Depictions of Captain Cook in stained glass reflect sentiment at the time of their creation; Cook as navigator, geographic and scientific discoverer, symbol of membership of the British Empire and of national identity.  In this milieu the windows’ makers used their artistic and design skills to adapt and create a notable series of representations of Cook in the medium of stained glass.

Notes

[1] Glyn Williams (2008), The Death of Captain Cook, a hero made and unmade, Profile Books, London, p.61.

[2] Ruth Scobie (2013), ‘The Many Deaths of Captain Cook, a Study in Metropolitan Mass Culture 1780-1810’, PhD thesis, University of York, p.20.

[3] Sydney Morning Herald, 22 April 1874, p.12.

[4] Margaret Cameron-Ash (2018), Lying for the Admiralty, Captain Cook’s Endeavour Voyage, Rosenberg Publishing, Sydney.

[5] F.W. Robinson MA, PhD (1947), ‘The Great Hall of the University of Sydney and Voices of the Past’, Sydney University Extension Board, Sydney University Archives, p.7.

[6] Waller’s c.1935 art deco window made for Wilson Hall survived the fire and is in the Ian Potter Museum of Art at the University of Melbourne.

[7] A. Grenfell Price (Ed.) (1958), The Explorations of Captain James Cook in the Pacific as Told by Selections of his own Journals, Georgian House, Melbourne, p.65.

[8] The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 6 May 1908, p. 1192.

[9] The design, which is signed, is in the collection of Kevin Little, formerly of Arncliffe Glass.

[10] The windows by Norman Carter were funded from a bequest by Roy Noel Teece, an alumnus of St Andrew’s College who had a distinguished career in law.

[11] Grenfell Price, p.85.

[12] Geoffrey Dutton (1974), White on Black, the Australian Aborigine Portrayed in Art, MacMillan, Melbourne, pp.58, 65.

[13] Clarence and Richmond Examiner and New England Advertiser, 4 May 1878, p.5.

[14] The window is listed as by Lyon, Cottier & Co. in The Australasian Decorator and Painter, 1 August 1909, p.264.

[15] The panel with Banks and Solander featured on an Australian stamp in the 1986 bicentennial series of Cook’s voyage to New Holland.

[16] Before coming to Sydney John Lamb Lyon had been a partner at Ferguson & Urie, Melbourne.

[17] Email from Tammy Rae-Schaper, Chief Executive, Young Australia League, 22 March 2019.

[18] Register of Heritage Place Assessment Documentation, Young Australia League, 13 December 1996 . https://inherit.stateheritage.wa.gov.

[19] Fiona Ciaran (1998), Stained Glass Windows of  Canterbury, New Zealand, University of Otago Press, Dunedin, p.84.

[20] Arthur Pomeroy (2014), The Portrayal of the First World War and the Development of a National Mythology in New Zealand, Journal of  New Zealand Studies NS18, p.46. https://ojs.victoria.ac.nz.

[21] Peter Cochrane (Ed.) (2001), Remarkable Occurrences: The National Library’s First 100 Years 1901-2001, National Library of Australia, Canberra, p.6.

[22] Michael King (2003), The Penguin History of New Zealand, Penguin Books, Auckland, p.157.

 

William Warrington’s Connections with Australasia

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Christchurch NZ, Cobbitty, New South Wales, New Zealand, William Warrington

by Karla Whitmore

William Warrington (1796-1869) was a stained glass artist working in the Gothic Revival style whose one known window in Australia is at St Paul’s Church, Cobbitty, southwest of Sydney. Another one in New Zealand, now at the Christchurch Art Gallery, appears to be by his son James Perry Warrington. The lancet window at Cobbitty depicts the Raising of Jairus’ Daughter, installed in 1857, and in Christchurch Three Angels Carrying a Child to Heaven, installed in a church there in 1864.

William Warrington trained with his father as an armorial shield painter and was a pupil of Thomas Willement, the well-known early Gothic Revival stained glass artist. In the 1830s Warrington made windows for A.W.N. Pugin.  In the 1840s Pugin and John Hardman established the stained glass department of John Hardman & Co. which became one of the largest studios of the time. In the London Post Office Directory of 1839 Warrington was listed as Artist in Stained Glass, Heraldic and Decorative Painter, Plumber, Glazier and Paperhanger. It was after working for Pugin that Warrington’s career in stained glass developed. In the 1840s he was elected to the Cambridge Camden Society (the Ecclesiological Society from 1845) becoming its most influential arbiter of a return to medieval ecclesiastical architecture.  He fell out of favour with the Ecclesiological Society as it became known when he published a History of Stained Glass in 1848 which he illustrated with his own designs. At the International Exhibition of 1862 in London he exhibited  examples of stained glass from the twelfth century.

Warrington retired in 1866 and the firm carried on under his son James Perry Warrington, who joined the firm in the 1860s, for around another decade. Warrington is known in England for windows such as the one he donated in Ely Cathedral depicting the Annunciation and Birth of our Lord and the Salutation of Mary and Elizabeth. The firm’s windows that are signed have variations on the name Warrington.

The window at Cobbitty was commissioned by John Perry (1802-1880) who was a warden at St Paul’s, Cobbitty when his youngest daughter, Caroline Isabella Perry, died of scarlet fever in 1855.[1] Caroline’s death was followed by her brother Alfred in 1856 and mother Susannah in 1857.  Their gravestones are in St Paul’s Church cemetery.

Perry arrived in New South Wales as a convict in 1820, was pardoned and became a businessman and landowner.  In 1847 he purchased Orielton Park at Narellan NSW which comprised around 160 hectares (400 acres) of farm and grazing land, a homestead and steam mill which he was already operating. The property was described as resembling the beautiful scenery of the mother country. It was advertised for lease in 1859 and later for sale. Perry was also involved in coach services, one of which passed to son Thomas, and was landlord of hotels at Penrith and one at Mt Victoria at the time of his death.

In the window an angel holds a banner that is inscribed with Caroline Perry’s name.[2] Warrington was reportedly Caroline Perry’s uncle, as noted in a news report of the visit of descendants to see the memorials to the Perry family in the church.[3]

There is another connection with John Frederick Warrington, ‘son of late Wm Warrington, artist in stained glass London’ who was working in Sydney as a law stationer in the 1860s.[4]   He is listed as being at 128 Elizabeth Street in Sands Directory for 1865. Two years earlier Warrington married Mary Gertrude Boyd in Sydney and had two children, Mary and Maud. Intriguingly his family in England, who reported him missing to the police, advertised for news of him in a Sydney paper in 1909.[5] However, it seems he died in 1901 at St Leonards (NSW).  John Frederick Warrington appears to have had some experience in stained glass as ‘T.F. [sic] Warrington, Elizabeth-street’ was reported as having two stained glass exhibits  in the Sydney Intercolonial Exhibition of 1870.[6]

Fig. 1: William Warrington, The Raising of Jairus’ Daughter, St Paul’s Church, Cobbitty (NSW) 1856         Photograph: Karla Whitmore

A letter to the editor of a Sydney paper in 1857 by an unnamed writer describes the window at Cobbitty as by William Warrington and designed in the perpendicular style of the fifteenth century.[7] The style of tall canopy used developed in the fourteenth century when windows became larger with long thin panels of glass. Above the figures a grape vine and leaves form a canopy below an architectural one.  Photos provided by Christopher Parkinson shows a grape vine and leaf design canopy in Warrington’s 1853 baptistery window at Kendal Holy Trinity Church, Cumbria. Warrington espoused medieval style decorative design using more naturalistic figures with muted painted features and deep folds in garments. The limited colours used in the Cobbitty window – bright brown, green, red and mulberry with touches of yellow – are typical of the High Victorian period and hark back to the medieval. The well balanced colouring is a prominent aspect of the window. It is signed in script ‘Wm Warrington. London 1856’. The panel below the angel with symbols of the Eucharist is not by Warrington and was added later to fill the aperture.[8]

Fig. 2: Warrington’s signature on the window at St. Paul’s Church, Cobbitty (NSW) Photograph: Courtesy of Jill Lummis

The letter identifying the window as by Warrington serves as an advertisement for him suggesting that anyone interested view the window and see John Perry for information on it. Yet this window appears to be the only one by him in Australia.

The lancet window in Christchurch was made for the Barbadoes Street Cemetery Chapel which was demolished in 1955 but the window preserved through the efforts of Dr Fiona Ciaran.  It commemorates the infant son of Dr Edward Batt and has the inscription ‘Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven’.[9]  Dr Batt worked as a surgeon in Cathedral Square, Christchurch where he became Surgeon of the Canterbury Rifle Volunteers in 1862.  In early 1864 he applied for the position of surgeon of Christchurch hospital, noting in his application experience in charge of a large private practice and lunatic asylum in England.  However, he returned to England with his wife and two children a month later.[10]

The window is signed in script ‘Warrington. London 1864’. It has three angels beneath an architectural canopy with an angel above holding a flag with a St George cross and banner and inscription below. The angel holding the child may have been inspired by an engraving of The Mother’s Dream by Thomas Brooks which was for produced for sale in 1853.[11] A grape vine design features in the border and geometric design in the background. Mauve, red, green and yellow predominate with the similar treatment of hair and faces to the Cobbitty window but more contemporary features, less detailing in garments and broader treatment of backgrounds. Similar treatment and colour scheme can be seen in the windows of St Peter’s Church, Brampton, Suffolk from 1863, most of which are by J.P. Warrington (www.suffolkchurches.co.uk). Judging by the date and style, the Christchurch window is his work. Later windows of his are signed with joined initials JP and W.

Fig. 3: Manufactured by Warrington, Three Angels Carrying a Child to Heaven, Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū

There is another connection with William Warrington in the arrival in Sydney in 1856 of John Falconer from Glasgow who established the first professional stained glass firm in Sydney.  Falconer was reported as having worked for Gibbs and Warrington in London.[12] This refers to the studios run by Alexander and Charles Gibbs and that by William Warrington. In Sydney Falconer’s brightly coloured patterned and figurative windows were noted for their craftsmanship.  In 1875 he was joined by Frederick Ashwin from London. They ran a successful partnership in Sydney, which later became F. Ashwin & Co., fostering the careers of other artists and designers.

The window at St Paul’s, Cobbitty is a rare example of an early medieval-inspired style window in a small church on the outskirts of Sydney, and the later window in Christchurch is the only recorded example by the same studio in New Zealand.

Notes

[1] Sydney Morning Herald, 31 July 1855, p.8.

[2] Cobbitty 1827-1927, Records of the Parish of Narellan (2^nd ed.), compiled by Rev.A.F. Pain, p.25. http//digital.slv.vic.gov.au. The 11-year-old girl commemorated is noted here as ‘Charlotte (Sophia in register)’. Sophia was born in 1829 whereas Caroline was born in 1844.

[3] Camden News, 19 November 1953, p.10.

[4] Sunday Times, 4 April 1909, p.4.

[5] Evening News, 23 September 1909, p.3.

[6] Australian Town and Country Journal, 3 September 1870, p.11.

[7] Empire, 3 October 1857, p.5.

[8] Cobbitty 1827-1927, p.25.

[9] Lyttleton Times, vol. XXIII, issue 1399, 13 May 1865.

[10] Lyttleton Times, vol. XXI, issue 1207, 10 March 1864 and issue 1216, 31 March 1864.

[11] Fiona Ciaran, Stained Glass Windows of Canterbury, New Zealand, University of Otago Press, Dunedin, 1998, p.128.

[12] The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 29 April 1871, p.281.

With thanks to Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū for permission to publish the image of the Warrington window held in its collection.

George Hedgeland: one life – in two parts

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Ely, England, Hasfield, New South Wales, Norwich, Sharow

Angela Phippen

George Hedgeland’s stained glass has divided opinion. Charles Winston, barrister, stained glass artist and historian, considered him the only true artist amongst stained glass artists, the rest of them being ‘a herd of glass-wrights’^[i]; others considered George incompetent and his work a ‘travesty on stained glass’.^[ii] Not only did his work divide opinion but his life was divided between two hemispheres: his first 34 years spent in England, his last 38 years in Australia. What is his story?

George Caleb Hedgeland was baptised at St Mary’s, Guildford in Surrey on 22 September 1826, the son of John Pike Hedgeland and Harriet Hedgeland (née Taylor).^[iii] He was one of seven children, four of whom survived into adulthood.

His father, John, was an architect, later a stained-glass artist. His work included the restoration of the medieval windows of St. Neots in Cornwall; creation of windows in the Dining Hall of Kings College, Cambridge and a new window, The Brazen Serpent (1847), in Kings College Chapel. His most significant commission was the restoration of eight windows in that location. This work, undertaken during the 1840s, proved to be so controversial that he was dismissed by the College. From 1830 John lived in and worked from 2 Grove Place, 43 Lisson Grove, London.^[iv]

Fig. 1: George Hedgeland, as a young man, date unknown.  Photographer unknown

In 1845 George was admitted to the Royal Academy of Arts as an artist. Tuition was free, though students had to have lodgings in London. Commencing as a probationer on 15 January, he had three months to prepare, within the Academy, a set of chalk drawings, and was accepted as a student on 2 April.^[v]  Full tuition of ten years was rarely completed, as was the case with George. In the 1850 London Post Office Directory ^[vi] he was listed as a stained-glass artist, so, at least from 1849, George was working in the trade, which probably means he worked with his father on the Kings College Chapel window restorations.

George became a stained-glass artist at an exciting time. The late 1840s/early 1850s was a period of investigation and experimentation by chemists, glass manufacturers and interested individuals to discover and recreate the qualities of medieval glass, the result of which was James Powell’s ‘re-discovery’ of pot metal glass. Foremost of these was Charles Winston, George’s mentor.

George submitted an entry to the Great Exhibition in 1851. It was described by Winston as ‘the best piece of English glass there’,^[vii] though that praise is not as significant as it sounds as many major firms were not represented. A newspaper report referred to George having ‘made a late application’ and that ‘he was a young artist working against difficulties’. ^[viii] The nature of those difficulties is unknown.

As a result of his Great Exhibition entry, George received the commission for the west window of Norwich Cathedral, preliminary drawings for which were on display by the end of 1851.^[ix]

From 1852 to 1859 he created at least 36 windows in 27 locations, initially working out of Grove Place and later from York Place, now part of Baker Street near Portman Square.^[x] When George emigrated to Australia in 1859 the York Place studio was taken over by architect and stained-glass artist Frederick Preedy.^[xi]

In terms of identifying George’s stained-glass work, there are four broad categories:

1. Windows which are signed or for which there is contemporary source material that confirms the identification;
2. Windows for which there is non-contemporary attribution (for example, surveys of churches from the 1860s);
3. Windows attributed on stylistic grounds by modern commentators;
4. Windows described as being by ‘Hedgeland’, but it is unclear if the reference means father or son

Also, there are ‘phantom’ windows; those ascribed to him that he did not create, for instance, windows for Glasgow Cathedral. There may be more windows in England yet to be identified as being by George. There is the strong possibility that there are windows in Wales that fall into this category. In an obituary published in 1898 there is reference to his windows in ‘England and Wales’.^[xii]

In this brief survey of George’s work four windows will be highlighted: the earliest (Hasfield); his first use of the newly developed James Powell pot metal glass (Sharow); his largest commission (Norwich Cathedral) and the most interesting, archaeologically speaking (Ely Cathedral).

Hasfield

The earliest known George Hedgeland window is in St Mary’s, Hasfield in Gloucestershire.^[xiii] This is signed and dated 1852. It is a two-light window and depicts two angels with scrolls; similar images would later be used in the tracery of the west window of Norwich Cathedral. There is no memorial dedication obvious on the photographs of this window nor contemporary newspaper reports to provide any further detail.

Sharow

George used the newly developed James Powell pot metal glass for the first time in his window at St John’s, Sharow, a small village outside Ripon in Yorkshire. The use at Sharow, whilst the first by Hedgeland, was the fourth time it had been used, the three earlier instances being at the Temple Church, a church in Staffordshire and the east window of Buckland church near Dover.^[xiv]

Fig. 2: George Hedgeland, east window, 1853, St John’s, Sharow, Yorkshire, England. Photographer: Angela Phippen

Figs. 3, 4, 5: George Hedgeland, Descent from the Cross (after Raphael); The Ascension (after Raphael); The Resurrection (after Raphael); details of east window, 1853, St John’s, Sharow, Yorkshire, England. Photographer: Angela Phippen

Figs. 6, 7, 8: George Hedgeland, Christ disputing with the doctors; Nativity (after Guido Reni); Christ’s baptism by John the Baptist (after Raphael); details of east window, 1853, St John’s Sharow, Yorkshire, England. Photographer: Angela Phippen

The Sharow window consists of six major images: Descent from the Cross; Ascension; Resurrection; Christ disputing with the doctors; Nativity; Christ’s baptism by John the Baptist. It was the gift of Catherine Mason of Copt Hewick in 1853. Four of these images Descent from the Cross, Ascension, Resurrection and Christ’s baptism are after Raphael; the Nativity, after Guido Reni and no artistic match has been located for Christ disputing with the doctors. At some point in its history it was covered with a wash to dull its colours. Now, as part of a Heritage Lottery funding grant, that wash has been removed and the original colours revealed, though the images reproduced in this article were taken before that occurred.

Norwich

In September 1854, George’s masterpiece, the west window of Norwich Cathedral, was unveiled. It was a memorial to Bishop Edward Stanley who had died in 1849. It consists of six major scenes, each of which is based on a known artwork: Adoration of the Magi (after Raphael); Ascension (after Raphael); Christ blessing little children (after Benjamin West); Finding of Moses (after Raphael); The Brazen Serpent (after Charles Le Brun); Moses and the Tablets of the Law (after Raphael).

Fig. 9: George Hedgeland, west window of Norwich Cathedral, 1854, Norfolk, England.  Photographer: Angela Phippen

 This window was heavily criticized by Mr Harrod, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (FSA).^[xv] He espoused artistic, philosophical and ecclesiastical arguments including the disunity of the subjects, the unnatural size of the human figure, and the inappropriate use of the ‘spreading picture’ whereby figures were being ‘impaled and amputated by the mullions’. Sir Samuel Bignold, while neither agreeing nor disagreeing with Mr Harrod’s thesis, stated it would be difficult to raise £1500 to replace the newly installed window!^[xvi] Though a lively debate with counter arguments ensued in later issues of the Gentleman’s Magazine, Harrod was by no means the only critic.

Figs. 10, 11, 12: George Hedgeland, Adoration of the magi (after Raphael); The Ascension (after Raphael); Christ blessing little children (after Benjamin West); details of west window Norwich Cathedral 1854, Norfolk, England.  Photographer: Angela Phippen 

Figs. 13, 14, 15: George Hedgeland, Finding of Moses (after Raphael); The Brazen Serpent (after Charles le Brun); Moses and the Tablets of the Law (after Raphael), details of west window Norwich Cathedral, 1854, Norfolk, England. Photographer: Angela Phippen

‘Mr Hedgeland, a friend of Mr Winston’s, labours in the naturalistic style, having unfortunately been led away by the delusion that stained glass is to be regarded as a kind of transparent canvas, and to be dealt with accordingly. The great western window of Norwich Cathedral, the memorial to the late amiable Bishop Stanley, is this gentleman’s most ambitious work.’^[xvii]

Fig. 16: George Hedgeland, Signature, west window, Norwich Cathedral, Norfolk, England. Photographer: Angela Phippen

It was not merely an argument of the 1850s:

It was filled by Hedgeland nearly sixty years ago with the strangest medley of stained glass ever passed by a complaisant memorial committee. In one hotchpotch are jumbled together feeble copies of half a dozen paintings by men as diverse as Raphael, Le Brun and Benjamin West. This travesty on stained glass serves as a memorial of good Bishop Edward Stanley, Evangelical divine and ornithologist, father of the more distinguished Dean of Westminster. ^[xviii]

Similar to Sharow, the window suffered insensitive restoration during the second half of the nineteenth century, whereby its vivid colours were diluted in accordance with the taste of the times.

In 1980, Martin Harrison FSA, in his seminal work Victorian stained glass, commented ‘While the end result undeniably takes little account of its architectural setting it is nevertheless a triumph in its own way, glittering and dramatic’.^[xix] During the 1990s Keith Roy Darby FSA was employed to remove the effect of the ‘restoration’ and the window was restored to its original colours.^[xx] Now, visitors to the Cathedral see an explosion of colour, which is so bright, the window appears to be back-lit, even on dull Norfolk days.

Ely

In the north aisle of Ely Cathedral is a window dedicated to the memory of Maria Mendham Steggall née Kempton who died in 1857; the window was installed in 1858. She was the wife of Charles Steggall, and the daughter of William Kempton. It depicts Jonah and the Ninevites. This window is interesting because George visited the British Museum and used some of the archaeological finds that had been excavated by Henry Layard as models for details such as costumes and architecture.^[xxi]

Fig. 17: George Hedgeland, The repentance of Jonah or Jonah and the Ninevites, north aisle, 1858, Ely Cathedral, Cambridgeshire, England.  Photograph: Angela Phippen.

 Fig. 18: George Hedgeland, detail of the Iamassu, The repentance of Jonah or Jonah and the Ninevites, north aisle, 1858, Ely Cathedral, Cambridgeshire, England. Photograph: Angela Phippen 

Fig. 19: Stone Iamassu, Nimrud, northwest palace, room S, door E, British Museum, London, England. Photograph: Angela Phippen 

George had a pictorial or naturalistic style which, as noted, was criticised at the time and by many subsequent commentators. While Martin Harrison called on him to be better appreciated, he was not the only author of the 1980s who appreciated George’s work. Birkin Haward’s monumental surveys of the stained glass of Suffolk and Norfolk contained comments such as ‘he made many outstandingly original and interesting works’ and referred to a ‘fine later window’.^[xxii] Both Harrison and Haward are a long way from considering George’s work ‘a travesty on stained glass’.

In Australia

George emigrated to Australia in 1859, leaving England on board the Lincolnshire in September and arriving in Hobson’s Bay (Melbourne) in December.^[xxiii] Rev. Gatty, the longtime minister at Ecclesfield in Yorkshire where George had created a window, said he left England ‘because of his health’, though the nature of his ailment/s is unknown.^[xxiv] However, George’s brother James Frederick had already emigrated as had members of the Tucker and Henning families who had lived close to George’s extended family in Exeter, Devon.

From 1860-1868 George lived in Queensland, working with and for Edmund Biddulph Henning (known as Biddulph) on three of his properties: Marlborough, south of modern-day Marlborough; Exmoor, south-west of Bowen and Lara, north of Julia Creek. In addition, George had interests in other properties though no evidence has been found of properties in his own name, so they were probably held in association with his brother.

Some of the details of his life on these properties are known from The Letters of Rachel Henning, first published in 1952, a book of the letters sent by Biddulph’s sister Rachel to various family members.^[xxv] In 1866 George married Annie Henning (Biddulph and Rachel’s sister) in Sydney at St Mark’s, Darling Point and in 1867 their first and only child, a son, Edmund Woodhouse Hedgeland was born, also in Sydney.^[xxvi] After each of these events they returned to Queensland. By 1868 Biddulph had relinquished his leases on his properties and George and Annie relocated permanently to Sydney.

Fig. 20: George Hedgeland, date unknown. Photographic studio: D. Scott, 140 Pitt Street, Sydney NSW.

George’s artistic life did come to the fore for a brief time in 1870. In that year there was an Intercolonial Exhibition staged in Sydney, in a newly built exhibition building in Prince Alfred Park, near modern day Central Railway Station. There was a Fine Arts division which consisted of a competitive section and a non-competitive section. George exhibited two oil paintings in the latter section: one of the Norwich window, the other of his window from St Leonard’s, Rockingham in Northamptonshire.^[xxvii]

By July 1871 he had retrained as a surveyor and spent the next 16 years undertaking street alignment surveys in newly created municipalities in the Sydney area on behalf of the New South Wales Surveyor-General.^[xxviii]

One wonders whether he tried his hand at his former profession, but there is no evidence to suggest this is the case. By the time of George’s relocation in 1868, there was one professional stained-glass artist in Sydney: John Falconer from Glasgow, who had opened a studio in Pitt Street in 1863. It was not until 1875 that there was a second stained glass artist operating in Sydney: Frederick Ashwin from Birmingham.^[xxix] There would have been an opportunity for George to establish such a business: perhaps he simply didn’t want to.

Why did he choose surveying? It could have been because Annie’s relative Lindon Biddulph was a surveyor or because a family friend, George Armytage, was a clerk in the Surveyor-General’s Department. Whatever the reason, his sister-in-law Rachel commented frequently that he was being very well paid.

Because he wanted to live close to where he worked, he and Annie moved – often. In his 16 years as a surveyor they moved ten times.^[xxx] After his retirement they lived at Canley Vale, in what was then the urban fringe of Sydney with George being described as a ‘fruitgrower’.^[xxxi] Later they moved to Denistone, a suburb of Sydney, and lived with Rachel and her husband Deighton.

Fig. 21: George Hedgeland, 1898. Photographic studio: Creelman, Sydney Arcade, Sydney, NSW.

It was here on 28 September 1898 that George died of cardiac failure, though he had been ill for several weeks with influenza. He was buried in the Field of Mars Cemetery, in North Ryde, Sydney.^[xxxii]

There is no evidence that George undertook any stained-glass work in Australia. However, there may be Hedgeland work in Australia, that is, created in England and shipped out. In 1866 a Resurrection window was inserted in St John’s, Launceston.^[xxxiii]  ‘The gift of the Rev. Dr Browne, chaplain in memory of the Venerable Archdeacon Hutchins, the first Archdeacon appointed to the Diocese. This window is of common glass by Headsland of London’.

‘Headsland’ is obviously Hedgeland but which one, John Pike or George? Research suggests it was by John.^[xxxiv]  Also, in 1866, a window depicting the Crucifixion, originally intended for another Victorian church was inserted in St Peter’s, Tarrawingee. There have been suggestions that it too may be a Hedgeland window. The window is no longer in situ and when it was examined in 1998 no definite conclusions were drawn.^[xxxv]

A plaque installed in St Paul’s Anglican Church, Canley Vale to honour George’s memory quoted Hebrews 11:4, He being dead, yet speaketh. The major re-appraisal of his work began 80 years after his death and continues into the 21^st century. The recent restoration of the Sharow window and a publication about the west window of Norwich Cathedral (both the tracery and the glass) planned for 2019 prove that he is speaking to us still.

 

^[i] Charles Winston, Memoirs illustrative of the art of glass-painting, (London: John Murray, 1865) p. 23.

^[ii] E. W. Harvey Piper (Hon Member), ‘Two Benedictine Minsters’, a lecture given before the Society, 16 May 1907 in The Architect’s Magazine, July 1907, p. 166; also, in The British Architect, 24 May 1907.

^[iii]  Church registers of St Mary’s Guildford, Surrey accessed on ancestry.com

^[iv] In the baptismal register of Christ Church, Marylebone for his son William Martin who was baptised 16 July 1830, the abode is given as Grove Place.

^[v] Royal Academy of Arts admission register, information provided by research assistant Royal Academy of Arts Library.

^[vi] London Post Office directory, 1850.

^[vii] Charles Winston, Memoirs illustrative of the art of glass-painting, (London: John Murray, 1865), p. 22.

^[viii] Bury and Norwich Post and Suffolk Herald, 12 November 1851.

^[ix] The Norfolk Chronicle and Norwich Gazette, 8 November 1851.

^[x] London Post Office directories, 1852-1858.

^[xi] Michael Kerney, The stained glass of Frederick Preedy, (1820-1898); a catalogue of designs, (London: Ecclesiological Society, 2001) p. 6.

^[xii] The Surveyor, vol. 11, No. 11, 11 November 1898, p. 274.

^[xiii] The east window at St Nicholas’, Gayton, attributed to George on stylistic grounds, is likewise dated to 1852 because the dedication intimates it was placed there (posuit) in that year. The window at Hasfield, however, is the earliest signed and dated work known to be by George.

^[xiv] Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 15 October 1853.

^[xv] Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. 196, December 1854, p. 574-578.

^[xvi] Comment about the cost of replacing the window by Sir S Bignold in The Builder, 11 November 1854, p. 586.

^[xvii] The art journal, no. 50, February 1859, p. 39.

^[xviii] E. W. Harvey Piper (Hon Member), ‘Two Benedictine Minsters’, a lecture given before the Society, 16 May 1907 in The Architect’s Magazine, July 1907 p. 166; also, in The British Architect, 24 May 1907.

^[xix] Martin Harrison, Victorian stained glass, (London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1980), p. 37.

^[xx] Obituary of Keith Roy Darby who died 6 February 1996 was published on the website of the Society of Antiquaries.

^[xxi] Cambridge Independent Press, 11 September 1858, p. 7.

^[xxii] Birkin Haward, Nineteenth century Suffolk stained glass: gazetteer, directory: an account of Suffolk stained glass painters, (Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 1989) and Birkin Haward, Nineteenth century Norfolk stained glass: gazetteer, directory: an account of Norfolk stained glass painters, (Norwich: Geo Books, Centre of East Anglian Studies, 1984).

^[xxiii] Public Record Office of Victoria, shipping list of the Lincolnshire. Victorian unassisted passenger lists record series number VPRS 947 for 1859.

^[xxiv] Dr Alfred Gatty A life at one living, (London: Bell & Sons, 1884) p. 155.

^[xxv] The original letters are held at the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales. Edited versions were serialized in The Bulletin, 1951-1952 with pen drawings by Norman Lindsay. In late 1952 the edited letters and the pen drawings were published as a book The Letters of Rachel Henning. There have been many subsequent print editions. It is now also available as a free download, minus the pen drawings, from Project Gutenberg Australia and digitised versions of The Bulletin serialisations are available on Trove

^[xxvi] NSW Registry of BDMs: marriage registration 1157/1866; birth registration 3750/1867.

^[xxvii] Catalogue of exhibits, Metropolitan Intercolonial Exhibition, held in Prince Alfred Park, August 1870, (Printed by Gibbs, Shallard and Co., 1870).

^[xxviii] George’s appointment New South Wales Government Gazette, 14 July 1871 p. 1535; his career has been traced in subsequent NSW Government Gazettes, survey field books and correspondence files held at New South Wales State Archives and Records.

^[xxix] Beverley Sherry, Stained glass, Dictionary of Sydney, 2011 http://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/stained_glass Viewed 29 August 2017

^[xxx] Traced through Sydney Sands directories and entries from The Letters of Rachel Henning.

^[xxxi] Hall’s Mercantile Agency, Business, Professional and Pastoral Directory of New South Wales for 1895, (Sydney: James Best, no date), p. 498. In the profession section under Fruitgrowers, Geo. Hedgeland and Edmund Hedgeland, both of Canley Vale, are listed.

^[xxxii] NSW Registry of BDMs death registration 11305/1898.

^[xxxiii] Launceston Examiner, 25 September 1866, p. 2.

^[xxxiv] ‘Window on our sacred past’ by Jenny Gill in The Examiner, 11 February 2018.

^[xxxv] Email correspondence between the author and Martin Harrison FSA and the author and Dr Bronwyn Hughes.

Note from the Editors

Since writing the excellent article on George Hedgeland for Glaas Inc Research, Angela Phippen has completed another, which was uploaded to the Dictionary of Sydney in March 2019. Naturally, it has a different emphasis and concentrates more on George’s Australian life. Angela has received constructive feedback through the web articles, and she is now in contact with others, including a researcher who completed his Masters on 18th and 19th century Norwich churches. She is delighted that aspects of her extensive research reach out and touch fellow researchers in adjacent and intersecting fields of study.  A very positive outcome after years of research into George Caleb Hedgeland and maybe the start of a new phase in her research.

See Angela’s DoS article here: https://dictionaryofsydney.org/person/hedgeland_george_caleb

The story continues… Angela Phippen encouraged George Hedgeland’s descendants to place his surviving works on paper into repositories where they could be conserved and potentially used by other researchers.  Some works are now with the Stained Glass Museum at Ely in England (See link in Ray Brown’s comment below) and also in Norwich Cathedral.  A short article can be viewed here:

https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/research-leads-discovery-drawing-norwich-cathedral-window-1-6100351

 

The Long and the Short of Heaton, Butler and Bayne Windows in Sydney

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Heaton Butler & Bayne, Killara, Neutral Bay, New South Wales, Woollahra

Karla Whitmore

Heaton, Butler and Bayne’s work in New South Wales can be found in seven locations, four in Sydney and three in the regional towns of Young and Scone and Goulburn’s Anglican Cathedral. In Sydney they are in St Augustine’s Church, Neutral Bay, All Saints Church, Woollahra, St Martin’s Church, Killara and St Andrew’s Cathedral.[1] Although a relatively short list, it includes examples of styles from the 1860s to the early twentieth century plus some interesting local references.

St Augustine’s Church, Neutral Bay has twelve windows installed from 1926 to c.1940. The 1926 windows were reported in the press as far afield as Cairns and Hobart. The majority of the windows follow the firm’s Gothic Revival style with groups of carefully modelled figures whose gestures and flowing robes create a sense of movement, decorative architectural canopies and borders and bright attractive colours. A three-light window in the north transept, Sermon on the Mount, (Fig. 1) has waratahs, Christmas bells and bottlebrush nestled in foliage beneath the figure of Christ. A two-light window on the north wall Christ Preaching from the Boat (Fig. 2) c.1940 recalls the clear colours and linear painting of Robert Bayne’s earlier designs.

Fig. 1: Sermon on the Mount, St. Augustine’s Anglican Church, Neutral Bay, NSW c.1932     Photograph: Karla Whitmore

Fig. 2: Christ Preaching from the Boat, St. Augustine’s Anglican Church, Neutral Bay, NSW c.1940     Photograph: Karla Whitmore

Bayne joined Clement Heaton and glazier James Butler in their London studio becoming a partner and their designer of ecclesiastical windows from 1862 producing aesthetically pleasing designs. Three years earlier they shared premises with Clayton & Bell whose designs they executed for a time. Clement Heaton designed secular and heraldic windows and pursued research on techniques of glass making and pigmentation, considerably expanding the range of colours available. The firm increased in size and range to include church decoration, mosaics and tiles and memorial brasses. Its artists trained at art school at the same time as they trained with the firm.[2] It continued into the twentieth century with the involvement of the sons of the founders finally closing in 1953.

First World War memorial windows on the south side at St Augustine’s are of particular interest. The 3-light window at the entrance to the church depicts Christ with figures representing the branches of the armed services and, prominently, a nurse. The significance of the iconography has been discussed in detail in a thesis.[3] Heraldic motifs feature in the tracery and lower band: the State Badge of Western Australia and South Australia, the arms of Victoria and Tasmania, New South Wales, Australia and Queensland[4] and Australian Military Force badges. In the south nave is a memorial to William Charles Jones (Fig. 3) whose death in 1919 the inscription places at Chanak. It includes the arms of New South Wales and Australia and Christmas bells. The style of figures in both windows is similar to those of the firm’s contemporary war memorial windows in English churches.

Fig. 3: William Charles Jones Memorial, St. Augustine’s Anglican Church, Neutral Bay, NSW 1926     Photograph: Karla Whitmore

St Martin’s Church, Killara has six windows dating from c. 1930-1940, two of which are signed.   In the two-light window, I am the Resurrection and the Life, (Fig. 4) the figure of Christ is again shown in a red robe beneath stylised architectural canopies and the background colours denote early morning. Interestingly, the window based on the Pre-Raphaelite artist’s Holman Hunt’s celebrated painting The Light of the World (Fig. 5) is not dark and atmospheric, places Christ further forward and includes a snake at his feet. The same figure, without the snake, appears in an earlier Heaton, Butler and Bayne window in the Church of St Cadfarch, Penegoes, Wales c.1904.[5]

  

Fig. 4: I am the Resurrection and the Life, and detail of Heaton, Butler and Bayne signature, St. Martin’s Anglican Church, Killara, NSW 1935 Photograph: Karla Whitmore

Fig. 5: The Light of the World, St. Martin’s Anglican Church, Killara NSW 1930s     Photograph: Karla Whitmore

The artistic value of contemporary movements such as the Pre-Raphaelites and Arts and Crafts Movement exemplified by William Morris was acknowledged by the firm and some influence can be seen in their work in Sydney. Although the impressive window of St Martin (Fig. 6) on the west wall at St Martin’s Church is undocumented there are stylistic pointers to its being by Heaton, Butler and Bayne. The life-sized figures of St George, St Martin and St Michael have some of the romantic flourish of Morris & Co. That of St George is seen in some of the firm’s English windows dressed in the same garments and in St Peter’s Church, Glenelg in South Australia.[6] The crown with shimmering stars appears in the Jones window at Neutral Bay and in English windows which have similar foliage and background treatment. The window commemorates Lieutenant Geoffrey Campbell Scarr RAF who was killed in an aircraft accident in England in 1918.  Above the figure of St Martin is the RAF insignia of gold crown and bird with outstretched wings over four feathers. During the Second World War the window was removed and stored for safekeeping.[7]

Fig. 6: St. Martin, St. George and St. Michael, St. Martin’s Anglican Church, Killara NSW 1922     Photograph: Karla Whitmore

The Women at the Sepulchre (Fig. 7), a 3-light chancel clerestory window nearest the south transept in St Andrew’s Cathedral, Sydney, commemorates Michael Metcalfe, businessman and active supporter of the cathedral and church organisations who died in 1890. The window was the gift of Metcalfe’s eight children and the design was selected by one of his daughters during a visit to England.[8] The window is a Pre-Raphaelite style depiction of the Women at the Sepulchre, Mary Magdalene in the central light with the Virgin Mary, Mary Salome to their right and the angel and tomb to their left. Behind the figures is a landscape of hills, trees and three crosses in the distance. The figure of Mary Magdalene also appears in the window by Heaton, Butler & Bayne c.1893 at Christ Church, Chalford in England and the same angel and Mary Magdalene, mirror reversed, are in two lights of their west window at St Mary Magdalene Church, Chewton Medip.[9]  

Fig. 7: The Women at the Sepulchre, St. Andrew’s Anglican Cathedral, Sydney NSW 1894     Photograph: Karla Whitmore

The window has deep colouring of browns, greens and yellow with white to suggest sunrise.  The figures are expressively drawn with great attention paid to folds of garments which swirl around the bodies. Above the figures are tracery windows containing symbols relating to Metcalfe’s business and religious affiliations: a crossed hammer and pliers indicating industry and honour and a shield with spear and sponge, the instruments of the passion of Christ.  The shield also has the Latin SPQR (the Senate and People of Rome) indicating the Roman state.  Gold crowns are in the two outer tracery windows.

The largest number of windows were made for All Saints Anglican Church, Woollahra, and installed over a long period of time from 1876 to 1926. On their completion one interstate news report suggested that church authorities may be unaware of the capability of local firms when they continue to approach English ones.[10] However, as with St Augustine’s, the idea was to have a uniform set of windows from the same studio which is seen in the city’s cathedrals rather than churches. The scheme of the All Saints’ windows as laid out by the first rector, Canon Mort, was adhered to; the only modification was that one figure was redone by Sydney artist Norman Carter.^11[11] Two windows by him were added in the 1930s.

Fig. 8: Ascension, All Saints Anglican Church, Woollahra NSW 1876   Photograph: Karla Whitmore

The longevity of manufacture is evidenced in some variations of style. The five 3-light chancel windows from 1876, including the central one of the Ascension, (Fig. 8) are brightly coloured as is the south transept window. Twelve 3-light nave windows with sextfoil tracery mostly have saints depicted sedately in more muted colours including Moses, David and Melchizedek (Fig. 9). Some are more animated biblical scenes such as the Martyrdom of St Stephen (Fig. 10) and St Paul Preaching at Athens. Two adjacent windows on the north wall differ again, one in using light bright colouring and decorative rather than architectural canopies above Saints Matthew, Mark and Luke. The other has richer colouring, particularly an undecorated ultramarine background, to frame St John the Baptist. Stylistically, this window may have come from another firm, possibly Mayer of Munich.

Fig. 9: Moses, David and Melchizedek, All Saints Anglican Church, Woollahra NSW   Photograph: Karla Whitmore

Three narrow lancet windows on the west wall sit below a rose window with strongly defined sandstone tracery. It depicts Christ in Glory above the Angel of Judgement surrounded by archangels. Overglazing was applied to the rose window in 1934 and in 1946 a fire destroyed the roof and two small window panels at the western end, the stained glass otherwise escaping damage.

Fig. 10: Martyrdom of St. Stephen, All Saints Anglican Church, Woollahra NSW     Photograph: Karla Whitmore

Heaton, Butler and Bayne’s windows in Sydney display their ability to produce attractive, varied and high quality windows over half a century. Also notable amongst their Australian windows during this period are the 7-light east window at St Saviour’s Cathedral, Goulburn in New South Wales (1885) and the Great West Window at St Peter’s Glenelg in South Australia (1913).

[1] Mrs S.B.M. Bayne (1986), Heaton, Butler & Bayne: Un Siecle d’Art du Vitrail, Mrs S.B.M. Bayne, Switzerland.

[2] Advertiser (Adelaide). 2 January 1900, p.5

[3] Susan Kellett, ‘Australia’s Martial Madonna: the army nurse’s commemoration in stained glass windows (1919-1951)’, PhD thesis, the University of Queensland, 2016, p.67-74. www:espace.library.uq.edu.au

[4] Email from Stephen Szabo, Secretary of the Australian Heraldry Society, 12 September 2017.

[5] http://stainedglass.llgc/org/uk/person/188.

[6] Heaton Butler and Bayne photo pool. www/flickr.com/groups.

[7] St Martin’s Church, Killara Record of Church Furnishings, Australian Decorative and Fine Arts Society 2003.

[8] Clarence and Richmond Examiner, 17 February 1894, p.7.

[9] Heaton, Butler and Bayne photo pool. www/flickr.com/groups.

[10] The Advertiser (Adelaide), 16 June 1926, p.11.

[11] Watchman, 29 April 1926, p.8.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The low key career of Frederick Tarrant

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Frederick James Tarrant, New South Wales, Norman St. Clair Carter, Tarrant & Anderson, Tarrant & Co., Victoria

Karla Whitmore

A glass painter and maker of stained glass windows in early twentieth-century Sydney, Frederick James Tarrant was responsible for a larger body of work than is immediately apparent.  He was originally from Melbourne where in the 1890s he was head journeyman painter at Hughes and Rogers of Carlton where he had been apprenticed.  There he formed an ongoing friendship with Norman St. Clair Carter who went on to a successful career in Sydney as a portrait painter and stained glass designer and maker.[1]

Tarrant moved to Sydney where he advertised as Tarrant & Anderson in 1898 at 191 Elizabeth Street, near the Great Synagogue.[2]  In 1898 the firm was reported as making a window at the Presbyterian, now Uniting Church, Waverley and the Catholic Church, Wee Waa. The following year he advertised for apprentice ‘Glass Stainers and Art Painters’ for Tarrant & Co., located at 83 William Street, Sydney.[3]  In 1906 he wrote to the Melbourne-based stained glass artist William Montgomery to say he was doing fairly well but had little glass painting work.[4]

The firm expanded with a move to 24 Taylor Street, Darlinghurst around 1913. Tarrant made windows for Norman Carter, the earliest being two 1917 windows for the Presbyterian, now Uniting Church, Neutral Bay. They commemorate an elder of the church who was a sea captain with lively depictions of Viking ships. The windows are signed designed by Carter and painted by Tarrant.  The east window at Christ Church, Queanbeyan (1923) and two windows at St James’ Church, Pitt Town (1928) were made by Tarrant to Carter’s designs. A window depicting the Good Shepherd was made for the Methodist Church, Young (1921).

Tarrant made a 4-light window for St Stephen’s Church, Willoughby (1911), to a design by J.S. Watkins, a member of the Royal Art Society who ran ‘Wattie’s’ art studio in Sydney. Four depictions of Christ are painted in strong linear style.

 

 

 

 

Figure 1: J.S. Watkins (designer), F.J. Tarrant (glass-painter), Christ (detail), St. Stephen’s Anglican Church, Willoughby, N.S.W. 1911

Three lights of a 5-light window at St Michael’s Church, Surry Hills, depicting the Good Shepherd (1918) are signed by Tarrant. The outer two lights were much later 1940 additions which are signed by John Ashwin. Three windows with saints at St John’s Church, Darlinghurst (c.1916) have been attributed to Tarrant by stained glass artist and restorer Kevin Little.  A signed window depicting St George at St George’s Church, Hurstville (1918) is a memorial to soldiers who died in World War I. The rich red, magenta and blue complemented by yellow and bright green make an effective colour scheme.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 2: F.J. Tarrant, St. George, St. George’s Anglican Church, Hurstville (NSW) 1918

 

 

 

 

The only interstate windows appear to be those designed by art teacher Amalie Field which were made for St Andrew’s Kirk, Ballarat (1921).  More work was done for regional churches in New South Wales.

The largest number of windows by Tarrant are in the Baptist Church, Auburn (1928), including six lancet nave windows, two triple transept windows a triple-light window above the choir gallery depicting the Christ as the Light of the World, the Sower and Reaper as naturalistic figures with a sense of movement and vibrant colours. Tarrant collaborated with the architect and pastor in selecting subjects for the windows which include Hope and Light of the World.  An unusual arched leadlight skylight framing the sanctuary has the same border pattern as other windows around the words ‘I am the vine ye are the branches’.  It has regular and irregular shapes of textured and opalescent glass, a contrast also seen in his painted windows.

Figure 3: F.J. Tarrant, detail of the Sower, Auburn Baptist Church, (NSW) 1928

A striking window was made for historic St Luke’s Church, Liverpool. It was dedicated in 1913 and is signed ‘F. Tarrant Stained glass artist Taylor Street Surry Hills’. The bold design and colour scheme emphasise the richly garbed three-quarter figure of a knight in the foreground being blessed by Christ. The knight has a blue suit of armour with gold trim, garland of leaves and a standard with the flag of St George who is usually depicted in armour with a white tunic and red cross. The figures are set in a landscape with water and distant green and brown mountains.

Figure 4: F.J. Tarrant, St. Luke’s Anglican Church, Liverpool (NSW) 1913

Tarrant’s large-scale work can be seen at All Saints’ Church, Singleton, where he remade Clayton & Bell’s windows from the original church and designed and made an additional two windows (1913). One donated by F.H. Dangar of London is a 5-light window which has Christ holding the banner of Christianity with around thirty figures including apostles, prophets, wise men, crusaders and angels in a sweeping arc below.  Their focus is the Celestial City on a hill to which Christ gestures. An interesting feature of the design is a sole figure in a small boat in the far right panel while the figures occupy the other four panels.

The Masonic Hall in Castlereagh Street, Sydney, was remodelled in 1915 including a dome with masonic symbols in stained glass by F.J. Tarrant.[v] The building was demolished but 24 of the symbols of Masonic office in the border have been remade as a panel in the present Masonic Centre by Kevin Little. The colouring is muted brown on a pale green background.

Figure 5: F.J. Tarrant, Masonic Hall, Sydney (NSW) 1915 (remade in the 1970s)

A stained-glass ceiling survives intact in the former Bank of NSW building, now retail premises, in Pitt Street, Sydney. Opened in 1913 it has a tiled entrance floor by the well-known Melocco Bros. The ceiling ‘was made by W.F. Tarrant (sic)’.[6] The colouring and glass are similar to the skylight at Auburn, though the design is more delicate. The central focal point is the Advance Australia coat of arms, an unofficial one widely used since the nineteenth century up to 1908. This depiction includes an atypical ox in place of a garb of wheat along with the fleece and sailing ship and an anchor in place of a miner’s pick and axe.

Figure 6: F.J. Tarrant, Skylight, former Bank of NSW, Pitt Street, Sydney (NSW) 1913

Figure 6a: F.J. Tarrant, Detail of skylight, former Bank of NSW, Pitt Street, Sydney (NSW) 1913

An art nouveau window was made for the former Presbyterian Church, Katoomba, now a café, in 1914.  It has three rectangular panels, the semicircular topped central one with a motif of a particularly lush burning bush set in art nouveau leadlight designs with opalescent glass and bullseyes. Three similar art nouveau panels are between the interior doors to the former church.

Figure 7: F.J. Tarrant, Burning Bush, former Presbyterian Church, Katoomba (NSW) 1914

Tarrant’s largest church window is the 6-light altar window at Holy Trinity Church, Dulwich Hill (1925) which depicts Christ Feeding the Multitude. The focus is on the five large-scale figures in the four central lights facing inwards while smaller figures in the background represent the multitude.

Bright red, blue and green of garments and landscape are balanced across the design and opalescent glass used for the rocks in the distance adds interest. The composition is framed by bunches of grapes in the tracery above religious symbols and in the lower border. The window is signed Tarrant & Co. Taylor Street. A single lancet window depicting the Baptism of Christ at the rear of the church (1925) is also signed by Tarrant.

Figure 8: F.J. Tarrant, Christ Feeding the Multitude, Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Dulwich Hill, N.S.W. 1925

As well as stained glass Tarrant designed and painted a tiled mural behind the altar at St Luke’s chapel, Sydney Hospital in Macquarie Street. The mural is signed ‘F. Tarrant, Taylor St Darlinghurst 1913’. It depicts the Good Shepherd rescuing a sheep which has become entangled in a bush. The figure is painted in Tarrant’s strong linear style and the treatment and colouring is reminiscent of nineteenth century religious painting.

Figure 9: F.J. Tarrant, Good Shepherd, Sydney Hospital, Macquarie Street, Sydney (NSW) 1913

Tarrant’s firm continued into the 1920s but after a few years he advertised glass counters, mirrors and shelves for sale. Two years later, Tarrant and Co. was declared bankrupt and the firm’s contents auctioned.[7] J.C. Chalmers and J.H. Kirkpatrick were named as partners along with Tarrant, who died in 1929.[8]  His work demonstrates the significance of versatility and collaboration to sustain a 30-year career in Sydney.

[1] Norman Carter, Notes for an Autobiography, p.19, ML MSS 471/5, Mitchell Library, Sydney.

[2] See The Catholic Press throughout 1898 -99, for example, 20 August 1898, p. 12.

[3] Sydney Morning Herald, 28 September 1899, p. 10.

[4] Email from Bronwyn Hughes, 15 November 2016. Correspondence from Herbert Grimbly to Montgomery, 4 October 1906. William Montgomery Collection MS15414 Box 6/3, State Library of Victoria.

[5] Sydney Morning Herald, 21 September 1915, p.4.

[6] Building, vol 6, no 69, 12 May 1913, p.52.

[7] Sydney Morning Herald, 26 July 1928, p.13.

[8] Sydney Morning Herald, 20 April 1929, p. 1

Klaus Zimmer at Parramatta Cathedral

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Derix Glasstudio, Klaus Zimmer, New South Wales, Parramatta

In March 2012, on the good advice of Sydney glass artist, Jeff Hamilton, I took the opportunity to visit St. Patrick’s Catholic Cathedral at Parramatta  to see the last significant commission of Klaus Zimmer (1928-2007) – a superb example of contemporary architectural glass.

When fire destroyed a large portion of St. Patrick’s in 1996, the community of Parramatta vowed to rebuild.  Romaldo Giurgola (1920-2016), best known in Australia for MGT Architects new Parliament House in Canberra, designed a light, ethereal sandstone building that has the atmosphere and ambience required of a spiritual centre for the twenty-first century.[1]  He incorporated the remnants of the old building, a Gothic Revival shell, as a re-ordered Chapel that leads one into the nave of the new Cathedral.  The completed building was dedicated on 29 November 2003.

Romaldo Giurgola and Klaus Zimmer had collaborated previously when Zimmer produced windows for the stairwell and private dining room at Parliament House in 1986.  The same energy and rapport is evident in the seventy-eight windows that Zimmer designed for the new Cathedral.  Each design is an individual work of art, but also clearly part of a carefully orchestrated suite that has a strong dynamic presence totally in harmony with the surrounding architecture.  These are not traditional ‘stained glass’ windows as lead has not been used and, as a result, the abstract shapes and patterns appear to float in the window openings, reflecting the lightness of the building itself.

Not in good health, Zimmer, who had previously undertaken much of his work independently or with a small team, worked in partnership with Derix Glasstudio, Taunusstein, Germany to produce his magnum opus.[2]  The last window to seen as one leaves by the old ‘west’ door, is the Eternity Window, a joyous finale to the completed cycle.

If you live in Sydney, or have an opportunity to visit, it is well worth the ferry ride to Parramatta to see a contemporary religious building that responds to the needs of those who worship there now and future generations will appreciate its glory well into the future.

[1] The firm GMB Architects evolved from the former MGT Architects. See http://www.gmbarchitects.com/

[2] See www.derix.com/

See also, Romaldo Giurgola, Luminous Simplicity: the architecture and art of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Parramatta, Macmillan Art Publishing, South Yarra, 2006.

The English designer who almost set up a studio in Sydney

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Alexander Gascoyne, James Moroney, New South Wales

by Karla Whitmore

Alexander Gascoyne ran an ‘Ecclesiastical artist’s business’ established by his father George Frederick in Nottingham, England. Born in 1877 he became well known as a designer of stained glass and has numerous windows in English churches.  He was a member of the British Society of Master Glass Painters and exhibited at the Royal Academy.

Figure 1: Advertisement placed in Catholic Press, 30 July 1925, p. 32. Later the same year, the advertisement offered personal appointments with Gascoyne.

In 1925, Gascoyne visited Australia, the visit being announced by advertisements in the press two months before his arrival. The advertisement was placed by James Moroney, a New Zealand-born Sydney based designer of art nouveau leadlight windows. The Caroline Simpson Library at Sydney Living Museums has a number of his designs.  Gascoyne designed both ecclesiastical and art nouveau windows and examples can be seen online.¹

A few years after federation imported stained glass windows for churches and public buildings were to be free of duty as works of art whereas glass, such as from Belgium, was subject to duty. After hearing from the industry and debating the subject the government in 1908 imposed a tariff of 20% on imported stained glass. According to a report on the glass industry in Britain at this time English stained glass was facing price competition from Europe and America in exporting to overseas clients. These conditions provided an opportunity as Gascoyne reportedly planned on setting up a studio in Sydney, probably bringing out skilled craftsmen and employing local assistants.²   He was reported as having visited Sydney in 1926, the year before his early death.  It is interesting to think of the ecclesiastical and elegant art nouveau windows that would have been created had been able to set up a studio in Sydney.

 

Figure 2: Alexander Gascoyne (designer)/ John Hardman & Company, Birmingham (maker), Scenes from the Life of the Blessed Virgin, 1925-28, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, Catholic Church, Randwick, NSW.  Photograph: Karla Whitmore

One of his designs can be seen in a church at Randwick where James Moroney’s studio was located.  Gascoyne reportedly designed the altar window while in Sydney and Moroney probably installed it. The 5-light east window is based on Gascoyne’s design and made by the Birmingham based studio with an international clientele, John Hardman & Co.³  The window cost over £2000. In an unusual commissioning process Gascoyne’s design was bought and made by Hardman for less than the price quoted by Gascoyne.  John T. Hardman who ran the firm at the time was a friend of Gascoyne.

The window has a trefoil cusped central light, four cusped lights and sextfoil and quatrefoil tracery. Our Lady holds the infant Jesus in the central light with saints and angels arranged in a semi-circle around her in the adjacent lights and biblical scenes including the Nativity and Crucifixion. Other figures are in horizontal bands beneath architectural canopies in Gothic Revival style. The window is notable for its rich colouring of ultramarine, scarlet and gold. The Catholic Press at the time enthusiastically described the window as ‘a credit to the British glassmakers of to-day, and compares favourably with the ancient art of colouring’⁴. The richly detailed appearance accords with the original design intent which was for the window to be instructional as well as beautiful.

Figure 3: Alexander Gascoyne (designer)/ John Hardman & Company, Birmingham (maker), detail from Scenes from the Life of the Blessed Virgin, 1925-28, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, Catholic Church, Randwick, NSW.  Photograph: Karla Whitmore

¹ A Gascoyne art nouveau design is on http://www.victorianweb.org/victorian/art/stainedglass/ .

^{2 ‘}Stained Glass Production in Australia’, The Argus (Melbourne), 4 September 1925, p. 16.

³ ‘Glassmakers’Art, Fine Work by British Firm’, Sydney Morning Herald, 20 June 1928, p. 7.

⁴ ‘Magnificent Stained Glass Window’, Catholic Press, 21 June 1928, p. 27.

Shakespeare in Stained Glass

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Arthur Benfield, Clayton & Bell, Cottier & Co., Ferguson & Urie, Lyon, New South Wales, Shakespeare, Sydney University, William Montgomery

by Beverley Sherry

Shakespeare (1564-1616) has been much in the news this year, the four hundredth anniversary of his death. Anniversaries of his birth, however, are more cause for celebration. In Australia, the three hundredth anniversary of his birth in 1864 was such an occasion, and it was a time when local stained glass firms were beginning to be established, designing glass not only for churches but also for public buildings and houses.[1]

Shakespeare in public and institutional buildings

In 1862, looking forward to the tercentenary of Shakespeare’s birth in 1864, Australia’s earliest stained glass firm, Ferguson & Urie of Melbourne, designed a unique Shakespeare window, a full-length portrait showing Shakespeare with pen in hand and holding a page inscribed “All the World’s a Stage” (from Jacques’ speech on “The Seven Ages of Man” from As You Like It).

Figure 1 Shakespeare, State Library of Victoria, originally in Apollo Music Hall, Melbourne. By Ferguson & Urie, 1862. Photo: Geoffrey Wallace

Appropriately, the window was commissioned by the theatrical entrepreneur George Coppin (1819-1906) and installed in the Apollo Music Hall of his newly built Haymarket Theatre in Bourke Street, Melbourne. Shakespeare dominated the centre light, more than three metres high, and was flanked by side lights portraying Hamlet, Falstaff, Lady Macbeth, and Beatrice. Ferguson & Urie took the figure of Shakespeare from a marble sculpture made by the French artist Louis-François Roubiliac in 1758. The sculpture had been commissioned by the great Shakespearean actor David Garrick (1717-1779) and installed in his Palladian “Temple to Shakespeare” near his villa on the Thames at Hampton.[2]

Figure 2  Shakespeare, British Library, originally in Garrick’s “Temple to Shakespeare” on the Thames at Hampton. By Louis-François Roubiliac, 1758.  Photo: Jennifer Howes

The stance of Shakespeare and even the details of buttons left undone have been copied by Ferguson & Urie from Roubiliac’s sculpture, but the page with “All the World’s a Stage” has been added. Most striking, though, is the radical difference in medium: Roubiliac’s cool marble, right for Garrick’s Palladian temple, is in stark contrast to the hectic colours of Ferguson & Urie’s stained glass version. Their Shakespeare is showy, flamboyant, and just right for a theatrical setting.

The window remained in the Apollo Music Hall until about 1870, when it was removed to Coppin’s residences and suffered varying fortunes during which the side lights were lost. Miss Lucy Coppin at least had the foresight to bequeath the Shakespeare portrait to the State Library of Victoria. In 2005 it was restored by Geoffrey Wallace and installed at the top of the La Trobe Reading Room.[3]

A few years before the Shakespeare of Coppin’s theatre, another portrait of Shakespeare had appeared in the Great Hall of the University of Sydney as part of the grand program of windows designed by Clayton & Bell of London and installed in 1859.

Figure 3 Shakespeare, flanked by other dramatists Beaumont & Fletcher and Ford & Massinger, Great Hall University of Sydney. By Clayton & Bell, 1859. Photo: Jasmine Allen

In all kinds of educational buildings – universities, schools, libraries – Shakespeare was a favourite.  In 1880 Ferguson & Urie portrayed Shakespeare again in the large window they designed for the Great Hall of the Brisbane Grammar School. The twentieth century saw the State Library of New South Wales recognising Shakespeare through the Shakespeare Place sculptural group (1926) and the Shakespeare windows (c.1940) in the Shakespeare Room. This is a small gem of a room that houses the Tercentenary Shakespeare Library and is replete with linen-fold panelling and an elaborate Tudor ceiling.  Directly in view as one enters the room are the stained glass windows designed by the Sydney artist Arthur Benfield (1912-1988) portraying “The Seven Ages of Man”.

Figure 4  The Infant and the Schoolboy from Shakespeare’s Seven Ages of Man. Shakespeare Room, State Library of NSW. By Arthur Benfield, c.1940. Photo: Douglass Baglin

Figure 5  The Soldier from Shakespeare’s Seven Ages of Man. Shakespeare Room, State Library of NSW. By Arthur Benfield, c.1940. Photo: Douglass Baglin

Shakespeare in residential buildings

When we turn to residential buildings, various themes from the arts were lavishly depicted in stained glass in the nineteenth and early twentieth century as a way of expressing social and cultural values and aspirations, and the Bard of Avon was a favourite.

The most impressive example was surely at Norwood (1891), a mansion built in the Melbourne suburb of Brighton for the Jewish financier Mark Moss, one of the wealthiest of Melbourne’s merchant princes of the nineteenth-century boom years. It was a massive seven-light window designed by the Melbourne artist William Montgomery (1850-1927) and placed in the baronial entrance hall of Norwood.  Intended to pull up the visitor in his tracks, it was composed of 35 panels, portraying characters from Shakespeare, a view of Stratford-upon-Avon, a portrait of Shakespeare, and seven figures  representing Jacques’ ‘Seven Ages of Man’.  The artist Montgomery was an enthusiastic advocate and spokesman for the use of stained glass in residences and his Shakespeare window at Norwood must have been, in terms of magnitude at least, his pièce de résistance. Lamentably, Norwood was demolished in the 1950s and the windows lost and or dispersed, but Roland Johnson, who lived in the house, has written a history on Norwood that leaves us in no doubt as to the effect of the stained glass.  He writes “These windows dominate the hall: in fact they dominate the house itself, almost as if the house was built around them’, and he remembers best of all ‘Shakespeare’s “Seven Ages of Man” stretching across the seven columns of windows, in the middle row’.[4]

Figure 6 Norwood interior with the Shakespeare window by William Montgomery, 1891. Reproduced from Roland Johnson, Norwood, p. 3

Norwood was lost, but fortunately Shakespearean figures designed by Montgomery survive around the front door of Cullymont (c.1890) in the Melbourne suburb of Canterbury, and stunning Shakespeare windows, attributed to Montgomery, grace the entrance of Cumbooquepa, now Somerville House School in Brisbane. Cumbooquepa was built as a residence in 1889 for William Stephens, son of Thomas Blacket Stephens, an early pioneer of Brisbane, and the entrance was designed to impress. The foyer is paved in black and white marble, and set in four alcoves around the foyer are windows portraying full-length figures of Shakespearean heroines – Rosalind, Beatrice, Viola, and Portia – with their names and appropriate quotations beneath each figure together with Thomas Blacket Stephens’ monogram TBS.

Figure 7 Viola, Cumbooquepa, now Somerville House School, Brisbane. Attributed to William Montgomery, c.1890. Photo: Douglass Baglin

In residences, the mere presence of Shakespeare was fashionable, socially impressive, and evocative of old England and the romantic past, themes beloved of William Montgomery. The Queenslander was even running a column in the 1890s entitled “In Shakespeare’s Day”. Shakespearean themes were depicted not only in stained glass but on tiles around fireplaces and on ceilings. The Sydney firm of Lyon, Cottier & Co. had a standard portrait of Shakespeare which they executed in stained glass for St Andrew’s College, University of Sydney in 1876 and for the library of Booloominbah (1888) in Armidale (NSW), and also as part of a painted ceiling in the library of Glenleigh (c.1882) on the Nepean River (NSW).[5]

Figure 8 Shakespeare, St Andrew’s College, University of Sydney. By Lyon, Cottier & Co., 1876. Photo: Douglass Baglin

Figure 9 Shakespeare, Glenleigh, Regentville (NSW). By Lyon, Cottier & Co., c.1882. Photo: Beverley Sherry

Shakespeare has been celebrated throughout the world in stained glass and notable examples are in Harvard’s Memorial Hall; the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC (the Seven Ages of Man); the King Edward VI Grammar School at Chelmsford, Essex; the Carnegie Centre in Vancouver; Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon (the Seven Ages of Man); and Southwark Cathedral (21 Shakespearean characters plus the Seven Ages of Man).

 

Figure 10 Milton, Shakespeare, Spenser: central panels of staircase window Carnegie Centre, Vancouver. By Nathaniel Lyon, 1905. Photo: Dan Feeney

 

[1] See Beverley Sherry, Australia’s Historic Stained Glass (Sydney: Murray Child, 1991).

[2] In 1779 Garrick bequeathed the sculpture to the British Museum, and it now stands in the Main Hall of the British Library, St Pancras, London. His Temple to Shakespeare has recently been restored and a replica of the sculpture installed. See “Garrick’s Villa and Temple to Shakespeare”, Richmond Libraries Local Studies Collection: http://www.richmond.gov.uk/local_history_garricks_villa.pdf and Garrick’s Temple to Shakespeare Newsletter Issue 1 (Spring 2008): http://www.garrickstemple.org.uk/newsletters/newsletter%202008/index.html

[3] Mimi Colligan, “’That Window has a History’: the Shakespeare Window at the State Library”, La Trobe Journal 78 (Spring 2006): 94+ and Geoffrey Wallace, “Conservation of the Shakespeare Window,” La Trobe Journal 78 (Spring 2006): 104+.  See also Ray Brown’s valuable research on the window:   https://fergusonandurie.wordpress.com/?s=Shakespeare&submit=Search

[4] Roland Johnson, Norwood: It changed the face of Melbourne (Portarlington [Vic]: The Publishing Company, 2013). See also Bronwyn Hughes’s PhD thesis, “Designing Stained Glass for Australia 1887-1927: The Art and Professional Life of William Montgomery” (PhD thesis, University of Melbourne, 2007), see volume I, pp. 158-59 on the Shakespeare window and the ball room windows at Norwood.

[5] For stained glass expressing family, social, and cultural values, see Sherry, Australia’s Historic Stained Glass Chapter 3 (“Houses”) and Chapter 4 (“Public Buildings”). Since the publication of my book, I have discovered many more examples, including the work of Lyon & Cottier at Glenleigh. See also my essay “Stained Glass” (2011) in the online Dictionary of Sydney: http://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/stainedglass

The assistance of Ray Brown  https://fergusonandurie.wordpress.com/     Patrick Burns, Founding Director and Chief Photographer, Institute for Stained Glass in Canada and Roland Johnson, one of the last family to reside at Norwood is gratefully acknowledged.

 

Dr Beverley Sherry is a Contributor to the Glaas in Research site and a valued member of the Glaas Advisory Group.  Her career includes appointments at the University of Queensland, where she was a Senior Lecturer in English, the Australian National University, and the University of Sydney, where she is now an Honorary Associate.  Her main field is English literature, particularly the works of John Milton, and she is an internationally recognized Milton scholar.  However, her work has always been cross-disciplinary, especially in literature and the visual arts, and she considers her book Australia’s Historic Stained Glass (1991) her most pioneering work. It documents stained glass in churches, houses, and public buildings, drawing examples from every state and both rural and urban areas. The book has never been superseded and is now recognised as the authoritative work on the subject.

 

 

An Anzac Tribute

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First World War, New South Wales

 

Some time ago I was invited to look at a pair of memorial windows dedicated to two brothers who died in the First World War. They are located in a private home in Melbourne although they were probably installed originally in a church.  The current custodian, an artist and collector, has no knowledge of their past history.

The images are details of the full windows.

Although the designer/maker, and the windows’ journey to its present location remain mysteries, quite a lot can be gleaned from the subjects and inscriptions.

The subjects are St. Mary and St. John, which may hold the clue to the original setting. Most commonly these two saints are depicted on either side of the image of the crucified Christ.  This suggests that the two windows may originally have been the flanking lights for a central Crucifixion light.  In the present setting the two figures face each other, but they are looking up, indicating that the central light was likely to have been taller.

The inscriptions read:
‘Erected by his sister to the Honour and Glory of God and in loving memory of Wilfrid Foxton King-Kemp killed in battle in France, May 29th 1917’ and the other ‘… and in loving memory of Philip Sydney King-Kemp killed in battle in France Oct 19th 1917’.

Gunner Wilfred Foxton King-Kemp was a 27 year-old solicitor when he enlisted in 1916, aged 27. By May 1916 he was en route for England with 10th Australian Field Artillery Brigade, disembarking at Plymouth two months later. He transferred to the 23rd F.A.B. and proceeded to France in December 1916. His unit was in Belgium when Wilfrid received multiple gun shot wounds to his legs and arms on 10 April 1917. He was evacuated to hospital in Rouen, where he died on 29 May. He was buried at St. Sever Cemetery Extension, Rouen.  Added to his family’s distress was information that he was ‘improving’ one day, only to be visited the following day by the local clergyman with the news that he had died.

His brother, Driver Philip Gidley King-Kemp also died of wounds only months later. He was a 25 year-old insurance inspector, married to Gertrude Laura, when he enlisted on 10 May 1915. In Egypt by early 1916, he embarked for France, landing at Marseilles on 28 March 1916. He served in several units, and was wounded and gassed in France and Belgium. Serving with the 101st Howitzer Battery, he died from a severe gassing on 18 October 1917. He was buried at Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery, Flanders.

Research, mainly through the wonderful resource of the NLA’s Trove digitised newspapers, shows that there were two other brothers, Warrant Officer G. King-Kemp M.M. and Mr. R.C. King-Kemp of Coraki, a solicitor in 1918, as was their father. There were also five daughters, one of whom donated the windows, but which one is not clear.

Their parents were Richard Edgar Kemp (1849-1927) and Lily Honora, daughter of Archdeacon King, a grandson of the Governor of New South Wales, Philip Gidley King. Richard and Honora were married on 20 May 1877, in St. Luke’s Liverpool, with the bride’s father officiating along with the Headmaster of King’s School, the Rev. G.F. Macarthur.

In 1928, Hilda Sophia King Kemp, youngest of the daughters, was reported to have died on 22 May at 10 Torrington Road, Strathfield. Maybe she was the donor of the windows; research has not yet traced the other sisters. Hilda’s parents pre-deceased her, father Richard in 1927. He was interred at St. Thomas’ Anglican Cemetery, Enfield by the incumbent of St. Paul’s Burwood, assisted by Richard’s brother-in-law, the Rev. C.J. King of Camden. The family’s last home was ‘Gascoigne’, Gordon Street, Burwood.

While it has been possible to trace a part of the civilian and service lives of these two men and their family, the story of the window remains elusive.

The litany of family names and places may give some clue as to where the windows might have been previously located. This Anglican (Church of England) family was very well connected – members of the law fraternity and the clergy pepper family marriages and family names include Macarthur, Macarthur Onslow, Pring, Mullens and Elder as well as Foxton and Gidley King. As successive generations of the family spread throughout country New South Wales and to other eastern States, it is possible that the windows were installed in an Anglican church outside Sydney, but areas around Burwood, Strathfield, Enfield appear to be the most likely sites.

Despite the name of designer/maker remaining unknown, it is likely that the windows were made in the Sydney area. The style has many attributes of F. J. Tarrant & Co., a firm that operated before the First World War until 1946, building windows to designs of freelance artists.

Please add your thoughts, comments and suggestions.  One day it may be possible to tell the whole story of these commemorative windows of the First World War.