One Honor Roll Among so Many …

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First World War, Horsham, Victoria, William Montgomery

Dr Bronwyn Hughes OAM

It is hard to estimate how many Honor Rolls may have been erected across Australia in the wake of the First World War.  Temporary rolls, often made of paper, were well underway while war still raged and were periodically added to as more men enlisted and amended with a tiny cross as more men died.  During the post-war period many became permanent fixtures in churches, schools and hospitals, and even organisations such as banks, insurance companies and unions drew up long lists of their staff or members to permanently record their service.   

Horsham, and the smaller communities surrounding the town, were no less backward in honouring their enlistees.  As early as 1916, the Horsham State School listed 200 names that were painted on its Honor Roll by Mr Tom Young of Firebrace Street and in the post-years two of many more were unveiled at the Pimpinio school (50 names) and the Green Park Presbyterian Sunday School.[1]

In 1920, the Shire of Wimmera began plans to erect an Honor Roll in the Council Chamber in Firebrace Street.  This was to be an elaborate memorial that incorporated a stained-glass window as well as a Roll of Honor inscribed on the timber frame that surrounded it.  Negotiations were placed in the hands of the Shire’s architect, William Garsten Lucas, who approached Melbourne’s leading stained-glass artist, William Montgomery, to draw up a design and to seek quotes for the timber frame.[2] By mid-1920, an initial design was presented to Council.

The window was designed as a single large leadlight with a background of rectangular quarries, replacing an existing sash window in the building. The centre focus of the panel was a laurel wreath of green glass, loosely tied with a glass ribbon in shades of purple that surrounded the letters ‘A I F’, set against a red background. Below the wreath, the inscription ‘Their Names Liveth For Evermore’ was finely painted across another glass ribbon. 

The timber frame at either side of the glass was wide enough to list all the names submitted to council and was topped with a shallow triangular pediment in timber. The Commonwealth Military Forces ‘Rising Sun’ badge was designed to fill the apex of the pediment, but ultimately the Council decided to replace this with the Shire of Wimmera Coat of Arms.  Other small changes included the addition of the war years ‘1914’ and ‘1918’, one at each side of the base frame.

W G Lucas (supervisor/architect for the Shire of Wimmera) and William Montgomery (stained-glass artist) collaborated on the design. The change from timber pilasters to columns is difficult to see in the photograph.

Montgomery recommended another more significant, and costly, alteration. Timber pilasters were part of the frame’s original design, but this was changed to the more expensive option of turned columns thus adding an extra £7.10.0 to the woodwork quote and bringing the total cost of the timber framing to £42.10.0.  On top of this was the cost of signwriting- £24.7.6 – on the assumption that there were to be 300 or more names inscribed on the Honor Roll.  By comparison, the leadlight component was relatively inexpensive, a mere £21. 17.6.  It all added up to a grand total of £88.15.0 for the completed window.[3]   

Letters went back and forth between the architect, council and artist for some months, inevitably holding up the project, and it was not until Armistice Day 1920 that Montgomery received the full list of names from the Shire Secretary, James Hocking. Delays also drove up the price and the woodworker was asking an extra £24, insisting there was far more detail than originally quoted.  Montgomery asked Lucas to put the matter of the additional cost to council, as he considered ‘it would spoil the effect of a very fine piece of work to reduce the amount and quality of the carving…’.[4] With most design and technical problems solved, the timberwork was completed by February 1921, but the colour of the lettering  remained undecided; the Shire Secretary agreed with Montgomery’s recommendation to use gold lettering instead of white, and ultimately, this was approved.[5]

A small selection of the 325 names inscribed in gold leaf on the Shire of Wimmera Roll of Honor

Council invited Mr A S Rodgers, MHR to unveil the memorial but he was unavoidably detained, and   General Foott, CB, CMG, Deputy Adjutant-General, took his place on 2 December 1921.[6]  Despite poor weather, a large crowd gathered to hear speeches from Shire Presidents of Wimmera and surrounding shires, the Mayor of Horsham, the President of the Returned Soldiers and Sailors Imperial League of Australia (RSSILA), the Fathers’ Association and local clergy, before moving into the Council Chamber for the formal unveiling. The ceremonies concluded with a minute’s silent reflection and The Last Post.

As early as November 1915, the Shire Secretary was calling for relatives of servicemen to forward their names, which may give an idea of how the random collection of the 325 names who enlisted from the Shire was arrived at. It represents only a fraction of the men (and women) who, with many others, are listed in the comprehensive two volume publication, Strewth!…, compiled and edited by Gillian and John Francis on behalf of the Horsham Historical Society.[7]

The names of 320 men and five nursing sisters, roughly in alphabetical order, filled six columns on the wide timber: all 53 deaths were noted with a small gold asterisk next to the surname.  Not all Rolls of Honor included decorations, but at the Shire of Wimmera, they were recorded: Captain Thomas R Jagger MB BS, Military Cross; Private Thomas J Allen, Distinguished Conduct Medal; and Military Medals to Private Robert A E Carter who died of wounds in England; Corporal Frank S H Crafter, Gunner Eli J Ireland, Private John Matheson, Lance-Corporal Henry Leslie Pender and Lance-Bombadier John Dougald Wallace.[8]  

At  the Shire of Wimmera ceremony, the President of the Father’s Association acknowledged the pain felt by many mothers and fathers and noted that there could be no more fitting memorial to those men who went forth than ‘…a memorial that would last for all time…The window, being part of the building, would, except for an act of God, remain here for all time’.[9]  But he was not to know that more than half a century later the Firebrace Street building would be demolished.

The Borough of Horsham was also keen to see a lasting memorial to local servicemen, but it would take a different form.  In August 1918, aware that war’s end was in sight, the Mayor spoke to a large crowd that gathered to establish committees charged with the erection of  ‘a hall in memory of those who had fallen at the war, and which would also act as a club-room for those who were fortunate enough to return’.[10]  Fund-raising and collections began and by November 1919, the architect, W G Lucas, called for tenders and the contract secured by the builder, W E McGregor.[11]  Work proceeded slowly and it was not until 22 January 1921 that Brigadier-General Brand CB, CMG, DSO, laid the foundation stone of the ‘brick and tile’ building in McLachlan Street, to great ceremonial fanfare, attended by the President of the Victorian Branch of the RSSILA, Sergeant Martin, local dignitaries, parliamentarians and a large crowd of soldiers and Wimmera people.[12] The Federation-style Soldiers’ Memorial Hall opened just a month before the Roll of Honor was unveiled in the Shire of Wimmera Council Chamber.[13]

W G Lucas (architect), Returned and Services League of Australia, McLachlan Street, Horsham 2015. Note the old name – RSSILA – picked out in the pediments above the ‘Rising Sun’ dressings above the windows.

Many years later, the Roll of Honor and the Memorial Hall, now the Returned and Services League of Australia known generally as the ‘RSL’, would come together.  For the Roll of Honor to survive, it needed a new home: the leadlight was converted to a light box, still forming the centrepiece of the impressive Roll of Honor.  It’s history deserves to be better known beyond those who attend the RSL regularly, those who visit on Anzac Day and Remembrance Day each year and anyone with an interest in the military past of Horsham and the greater Wimmera district of Victoria.

This memorial, and all other Rolls of Honor, are more than a simple list of names. Every name on the list is shorthand for a personal story that reaches far beyond war service. Whether the serviceman (or woman) was killed in action, suffered injury or illness, or came home apparently unscathed, life changed irrevocably for them, their families and their friends they left in Australia and has impacted upon succeeding generations.[14]

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[1] Horsham Times, 5 September 1916, p. 3; Age,3 April 1925, p. 7; 2 June 1925, p. 7.

[2] Horsham Times, 27 July 1920, p. 6.

[3] To give some idea of the cost in today’s terms, an average wage for a factory worker was less than £4.0.0 per week in the 1920s.  Lucas was invoiced for £126.7.6, which was paid on 4 August 1921.  Montgomery ledger, Montgomery Collection, State Library of Victoria (SLV).

[4] Montgomery letterbook 18 November 1920, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra ACT.

[5] Montgomery letterbook 4 February 1921, NGA ACT.

[6] Horsham Times, 25 November 1921, p. 4; 6 December 1921, p. 6. In 1925, Mr A S Rodgers unveiled the Haven School Honour Roll. Age, 3 April 1925, p. 7.

[7] Gillian and John Francis, project managers, researchers and editors, Strewth!: an insight into local involvement in World War One, Horsham Historical Society, Horsham, 2015.

[8] National Archives of Australia war service records.  Eli John Ireland is unconfirmed as the serviceman listed at Horsham.

[9] Horsham Times, 6 December 1921, p. 6.

[10] Ballarat Courier, 2 August 1918, p. 5.

[11] Horsham Times, 21 October 1919, p. 5.

[12] Horsham Times, 25 January 1921, p. 6.

[13] Ballarat Star, 25 October 1921, p. 6.

[14] With thanks to Helen Curkpatrick for her assistance in the preparation of this post.  Some stories may be added to this brief overview in time.

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.

 

Shakespearean Characters in Stained Glass

Tags

Christopher Webb, Cumbooquepa, Norwood, Shakespeare, Somerville House, Southwark Cathedral, William Montgomery

 Beverley Sherry

Portraits of Shakespeare himself in stained glass are numerous, and in an earlier essay I wrote about a notable Australian example, Ferguson & Urie’s 1862 Shakespeare window for George Coppin’s Apollo Music Hall in Melbourne.[i] Here I wish to focus upon actual characters from the plays, those portrayed at Cumbooquepa, Brisbane and Southwark Cathedral, London.

Shakespeare’s Women at Cumbooquepa

Now part of Somerville House, a girls’ school, Cumbooquepa was built as a residence in 1890 by William Stephens for his mother, widow of a leading Brisbane pioneer, Thomas Blacket Stephens (1819-1877). Stephens, whose monogram is inscribed in the windows at Cumbooquepa, was a member of the Legislative Council and held posts as Colonial Secretary, Postmaster-General, and Secretary for Lands, and was also an influential newspaper proprietor, owning the Brisbane Courier and founding The Queenslander. The name “Cumbooquepa” was chosen by him for his first (modest) home on this site in recognition of the local Aborigines’ name for waterholes behind the house.[ii]

This first Cumbooquepa was demolished, to be replaced by the present building in 1890, designed by G.H.M. Addison of the Brisbane and Melbourne firm of Oakden, Addison & Kemp. The stained glass is attributed to William Montgomery (1850-1927), who worked with the same firm at this time in designing stained glass for North Park (1889) at Essendon, Melbourne. In 1890 Montgomery had also designed the huge Shakespeare window at Norwood in Melbourne, now unfortunately no more because Norwood was demolished in the 1950s.[iii]

The Norwood window included a vast assemblage of characters from the plays. The handling of Shakespearean characters at Cumbooquepa is quite different and more dramatic, although the design does suggest the work of Montgomery, especially the interest in costume and the handling of lead-lines.[iv] Montgomery was a masterly draughtsman and placed a high value on lead-lines, as he explained in an address to the Victorian Institute of Architects in 1907:

It is not easy to over-rate the extent of the gain this black line adds to the colour. I imagine a window, a coloured window, one blaze of contrasting hues, brilliant, as only glass can be, with the light streaming through it – how the mass of conflicting and dazzling rays could confuse and hurt the eye if they were not sorted out, as it were, and given coherence and repose by the strong, dark lead-line.[v]

Whether Montgomery was indeed the artist for Cumbooquepa or not, the stained glass there exemplifies his ideas on design.

The house was designed with an imposing foyer paved in black-and-white marble, and stained glass has been imaginatively incorporated into this architectural space.

Figure 1: Entrance of Cumbooquepa (1890), Brisbane  Photo: Courtesy of Somerville House

Set in alcoves around the foyer are four life-size figures of Shakespearean heroines: on either side of the front door, Viola from Twelfth Night and Rosalind from As You Like It; Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing and Portia from The Merchant of Venice at the opposite end of the foyer, which opens onto a breezeway.  All four figures are defined boldly through the lead-lines and rich colours; at the same time, the individual character of each heroine is skilfully evoked.

Figure 2: Rosalind  Cumbooquepa, Brisbane. Attributed to William Montgomery, c.1890. Photo: Courtesy of Somerville House

Figure 3: Detail, Rosalind  Cumbooquepa, Brisbane. Attributed to William Montgomery, c.1890. Photo: Courtesy of Somerville House

Figure 4: Detail, quotation below Rosalind  Cumbooquepa, Brisbane. Attributed to William Montgomery, c.1890.   Photo: Courtesy of Somerville House

This is a purposeful Rosalind, the dominating character of As You Like It. She holds a written paper in her hand, presumably one of Orlando’s love poems that she has removed from a tree (Act III. ii). As suggested in the play (Act III. ii), she is distinctly blonde. A strong but complex heroine, she confesses, in the quotation below her portrait, “I could find in my heart to disgrace my man’s apparel . . .” (Act II. iv), a reminder of her disguise in the Forest of Arden, although the artist has chosen not to show her in male attire. The elaborate monogram TBS is for Thomas Blacket Stephens.

Figure 5: Beatrice  Cumbooquepa, Brisbane. Attributed to William Montgomery, c.1890. Photo: Douglass Baglin

The man-hater Beatrice looks with a disdainful backward glance, presumably at Benedick, who calls her “My dear Lady Disdain” in the opening scene of Much Ado About Nothing. In a reversal, later in the play, he declares to her, “I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is that not strange?” A softened “Lady Disdain” replies edgily with the quotation (not reproduced here) below her portrait: “As strange as the thing I know not. It were as possible to say I love nothing so well as you. But believe me not, and yet I lie not; I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing” (Act IV. i).

 

Figure 6: Detail, Viola  Cumbooquepa, Brisbane. Attributed to William Montgomery, c.1890. Photo: Courtesy of Somerville House

This portrait, which can be magnified on screen, exemplifies the artistry at work in these windows: the confident handling of lead-lines and striking use of pot-metal glass, red and gold predominating, but note the two jewel-like blue buttons. In addition, details are finely painted onto the surface of the glass – the book, the pot and delicate flower, the curtain, the back of the padded chair, the fluted columns, the elaborate folds of Viola’s costume, her collar and necklace, her hands, and above all, her facial features. The artist has captured the spirit of Viola, the saddest-looking of the four heroines at Cumbooquepa. Her short hair and cap suggest her disguise as page-boy to Duke Orsino in Twelfth Night.

         

Figure 7: Detail, quotation below Viola  Cumbooquepa, Brisbane. Attributed to William Montgomery, c.1890. Photo: Douglass Baglin

The disguised Viola is in love with Duke Orsino but cannot reveal her love, as evidenced in the quotation below her portrait: “She never told her love . . . ” (Act II. iv). This is one of Viola’s most moving speeches, imbued with dramatic irony, because she is here speaking to the Duke with veiled reference to herself. The quotation applies perfectly to the mournful figure of Viola portrayed in this window.

 

Figure 8: Portia Cumbooquepa, Brisbane.  Construction behind the window obscures Portia but this photograph shows well how stained glass has been incorporated into the architecture. Attributed to William Montgomery, c.1890.    Photo: Courtesy of Somerville House

Figure 9: Portia Cumbooquepa, Brisbane. Photograph taken from behind and reversed. Attributed to William Montgomery, c.1890. Photo: Courtesy of Somerville House

A strikingly beautiful Portia holds a golden casket in her hands – “All that glisters is not gold” (The Merchant of Venice Act 11. vii). Below her portrait the quotation (not reproduced here) refers to the dictates of her father’s will and the caskets from which her suitors must choose: “In terms of choice I am not solely led / By nice direction of a maiden’s eyes. / Besides, the lottery of my destiny / Bars me the right of voluntary choosing” (Act II. i).

These four windows demonstrate the imagination and skill of an artist who knew the text of Shakespeare’s plays, understood the differences of these four heroines, portrayed them in stained glass accordingly, and chose quotations that add meaning to each portrayal.

A bust of Shakespeare appears above the four female characters. In addition, two jesters, Feste from Twelfth Night and Touchstone from As You Like It, are depicted in fanlights.

Figure 10: Shakespeare  Bust surmounting the portrait of each Shakespearean heroine Cumbooquepa, Brisbane. Attributed to William Montgomery, c.1890.Photo: Courtesy of Somerville House   

Figure 11: Touchstone   The jester from As You Like It, above the front door of Cumbooquepa, Brisbane. Attributed to William Montgomery, c.1890. Photo: Courtesy of Somerville House

That early pioneer of Brisbane, Thomas Blacket Stephens, has left his mark everywhere in the windows, his monogram TBS worked elaborately below every portrait. Stephens did not live to see this splendid residence nor was he to know that the Brisbane High School for Girls (founded in 1899) moved to Cumbooquepa in 1919. The official name of the school then became Somerville House, in honour of Mary Somerville (1780-1872), a distinguished Scottish scientist and mathematician. There is a nice fitness that the stained glass portrays four of Shakespeare’s characteristically enterprising women.  

Shakespearean Characters in Southwark Cathedral, London

The later nineteenth century, when the Cumbooquepa windows were made, was a buoyant period for stained glass and in 1897 a Shakespeare memorial window was made for St Saviour’s Church in Southwark; the church became Southwark Cathedral in 1905. Historically, Southwark is known as Shakespeare’s stamping ground, where his plays were performed in the Globe Theatre on the south bank of the Thames. In more recent times, the association with Shakespeare has been strongly revived through the New Globe Theatre, which opened in 1997 and is a few blocks from Southwark Cathedral.[vi]

The 1897 window was made by the firm of Charles Eamer Kempe in three lights. It depicted the Muse of poetry in the centre light with the dove of the Holy Spirit above her, flanked by Shakespeare in the left light and the poet Spenser in the right.[vii] This window was destroyed in an air raid during World War II. A sculpture beneath it, portraying a relaxed Shakespeare, survived.

Figure 12: Statue of Shakespeare, Southwark Cathedral.   By Henry McCarthy, 1912. Photo: Christopher Parkinson

To replace the lost 1897 Shakespeare window, a new window was made, and signed, by Christopher Webb (1886-1966) and installed in 1954. It has been considered “stunningly unusual”.[viii] Also in three lights, this window has no religious associations and does not include a portrait of Shakespeare. Rather, it is devoted solely to celebrating Shakespeare’s creative genius: 21 characters from the plays are portrayed and, across the base of the window, Jaques’ “Seven Ages of Man” from As You Like It are represented. When magnified, the photographic image reproduced here reveals the mass of detail delineated by the artist.

Figure 13: Shakespeare window, Southwark Cathedral, London   By Christopher Webb, 1954.  Photo: Christopher Parkinson

The dominating figure is Prospero in the centre light, the lordly magician of The Tempest, sometimes seen as the older Shakespeare’s alter ego. The figure of Ariel flies upwards in a stream of light above Prospero and a grotesque Caliban cringes at his feet. To the left and right of Ariel, the initials W and S (for William Shakespeare) appear, and worked across two quatrefoils at the top are lines from a speech of Prospero, “These our actors, / As I foretold you…” (The Tempest Act IV.i).  With his mouth open, eyes and hands directed upward, he seems to be speaking the lines. Flanking Prospero, in the left and right lights, are characters from the comedies and the tragedies. From the top of the left light these appear in order: Bottom, Puck, and Titania (A Midsummer Night’s Dream); Malvolio, Olivia, and Maria (Twelfth Night); Falstaff (Henry IV); Portia (The Merchant of Venice); and Jaques and Touchstone (As You Like It). The right light portrays: Romeo and Juliet; Richard II; Richard III; Othello; King Lear; Lady Macbeth; and Hamlet.[ix]

The photographing of this window – as of all stained glass and works of art in general – relates to a landmark essay of the twentieth century, Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1935). Benjamin laments the depreciation of the authenticity, the “aura”, of an original work of art through photographic reproduction. At the same time he acknowledges that photography “can bring out those aspects of the original that are unattainable to the naked eye yet accessible to the lens”.[x] Benjamin lived too early for the internet and might have marvelled at today’s digital technology. True, the unique “aura” of Christopher Webb’s window exists only in its setting at Southwark Cathedral but the extraordinary detail of his work is accessible through Christopher Parkinson’s photography.

The artist, Christopher Webb, has endeavoured to encompass as much as possible in this window and, while the overall effect might seem crowded, the work has been meticulously planned.

Figure 14: Detail, Shakespeare window, Southwark Cathedral   From A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Bottom, Puck, and Titania; from Twelfth Night: Malvolio, Olivia, and Maria. By Christopher Webb, 1954. Photo: Christopher Parkinson

Figure 14 shows Bottom with his ass’s head, the trickster Puck who has managed this metamorphosis, and Titania asleep. The scene from Twelfth Night shows Malvolio smiling, in yellow stockings, and cross-gartered – three things Olivia cannot abide (Act II. v) – while Maria, the deviser of the joke, titters in the background.

 Figure 15: Detail, Shakespeare window, Southwark Cathedral    Falstaff (Henry IV); Portia (The Merchant of Venice); Jaques and Touchstone (As You Like It). By Christopher Webb, 1954. Photo: Christopher Parkinson

Figure 15 shows Falstaff typically larger than life. Portia is disguised as a young lawyer for the trial scene in The Merchant of Venice (Act IV. i). The philosophical Jaques, who gives us the “Seven of Ages of Man” (As You Like It Act II. vii), is deep in thought; his subdued attire and rather cynical expression contrast with the gaiety of the jester Touchstone, whose colourful costume is in tune with Falstaff’s.

 

Figure 16: Detail, Shakespeare window, Southwark Cathedral   Romeo and Juliet; Richard II; Richard III; Othello. By Christopher Webb, 1954. Photo: Christopher Parkinson

In Figure 16, the little tableau of Romeo and Juliet at the top, in gentle golden colours, suggests the balcony scene (Romeo and Juliet Act II. ii). Richard II is anguished, looking in a mirror as in Richard II Act IV. i; and a despairing Richard III is un-horsed (Richard III Act V. iv). Othello, a figure of heroic dignity, has a darker skin tone than the other characters; his stockings match the pink of his Moorish cummerbund; and he is tense, speaking in anger.

Figure 17: Detail, Shakespeare window, Southwark Cathedral   King Lear; Hamlet; Lady Macbeth. By Christopher Webb, 1954. Photo: Christopher Parkinson

King Lear is portrayed as a wild old man who has discarded his crown. A serious young Hamlet contemplates Yorick’s skull as in the graveyard scene of Hamlet (Act V. i). The barefoot, blank-eyed Lady Macbeth, her hair down in plaits and a long taper in her hand, is sleep-walking (and talking). All this is noted, particularly her eyes, by witnesses (Macbeth Act V. i). The crow and bat are her appropriate companions.

Conclusion

The Shakespeare windows at Southwark Cathedral and Cumbooquepa share a delight in Shakespeare’s characters and manifest both artists’ knowledge of the plays. Yet they are very different works. The Cumbooquepa windows focus upon women, four individual characters in four separate windows that are defining elements of an architectural interior; stained glass as an architectural art is on display here. The Southwark work provides a cornucopia of characters – the noble, the vile, the comic, the tragic – within one window, all drawn with acute attention to detail. The unique “aura” of both works can never be lifted out of their respective contexts in Brisbane and London, but digital photography and the internet have made possible the pictorial reproduction offered here.

Finally, the Cumbooquepa and Southwark Cathedral Shakespeare windows have a common connection with the Second World War. The original 1897 Shakespeare window in the Cathedral was destroyed by German bombing in 1941 and replaced with the new window by Christopher Webb. In 1942, Australia was under threat of Japanese bombing and Cumbooquepa was commandeered by the United States Army, East Asian Command as their Headquarters. Brisbane did not suffer bombing but the 1890s Shakespeare windows at Cumbooquepa were carefully removed and stored. At the end of the war, the school returned to Somerville House and the windows were reinstalled in Cumbooquepa.[xi]

[i]  “Shakespeare in Stained Glass”, Glaas Inc Research 2016: https://glaasincresearch.wordpress.com/2016 here /06/22/shakespeare-in-stained-glass/

[ii]  An interesting article on Cumbooquepa appeared in The Queenslander 11 February 1932, p. 5: http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/23146436?searchTerm=Cumbooquepa%20Shakespeare&searchLimits; see also Elgin Reid’s entry on Stephens in the Australian Dictionary of Biography http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/stephens-thomas-blacket-4644

[iii]  On Norwood, see my essay, “Shakespeare in Stained Glass” https://glaasincresearch.wordpress.com/2016/06/22/shakespeare-in-stained-glass/

[iv]   I have made this tentative attribution in my book Australia’s Historic Stained Glass (Sydney: Murray Child, 1991), p.45.  For a comprehensive study of Montgomery, see Bronwyn Hughes, “Designing Stained Glass for Australia 1887-1927: The Art and Professional Life of William Montgomery” (PhD thesis, University of Melbourne, 2007).

[v]  Royal Victorian Institute of Architects’ Journal, 5 (1907), p. 156.

[vi]  Southwark Cathedral has long claimed Shakespeare as its “most distinguished parishioner” – Kenneth London, Stained Glass in Southwark Cathedral (London: Southwark Cathedral, 1993), p. 32.  Shakespeare’s birth place naturally claims him too and stained glass windows in the Swan Wing of the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon portray particular actors dressed for their favourite Shakespearean roles, while another series of windows depicts the “Seven Ages of Man’ – see http://theshakespeareblog.com/2014/12/the-swan-wing-takes-flight/

[vii]  For a photograph of the 1897 window, see Brian Walsh, “Shakespeare in Stained Glass: The Shakespeare Memorials of Southwark Cathedral and ‘Local’ Bardolatry”, Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation 7.1 (2012): http://www.borrowers.uga.edu/783058/show. This essay focuses mainly on the appropriation of Shakespeare by the Cathedral in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.

[viii]  Walsh, “Shakespeare in Stained Glass”, p. 22.

[ix]  London, Stained Glass in Southwark Cathedral, identifies the characters more fully than Walsh.

[x]  Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1935), in Illuminations, trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken Books, 1968), p. 220. Also at http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/benjamin.pdf;

[xi]  Janet Hogan, Historic Homes of Brisbane (Brisbane: National Trust of Queensland, 1979), p.79.

Acknowledgements. Thanks to Somerville House, especially the school’s archivist Kate Bottger, for help with the Cumbooquepa windows. Photographs by the late Douglass Baglin are gratefully acknowledged. Christopher Parkinson has generously provided his photographs of the Shakespeare window at Southwark Cathedral.

Beverley Sherry is an Honorary Associate at the University of Sydney

Shakespeare in Stained Glass

Tags

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.