Stained Glass

The earliest manufacture of glass probably occurred in Mesopotamia during the early part of the third millennium BC. Early glass finds consist of relatively crude beads usually formed by winding softened glass around a metal wire. They are blue and green suggesting that the earliest glass was used to replace or evoke semiprecious stones such as lapis lazuli and turquoise. Although glass is an ancient material, the Romans appear to have been the first to use glass in windows. Prior to this glass was known only in jewelry and articles like bottles, of which there was a significant use expansion in the early first century following the development of glass blowing techniques. Early Roman vessels were probably restricted to high value items like perfume and other cosmetic containers, with tableware only coming along when use became more widespread. Roman glass may have found its way as far north as Cheshire through trade during the pre-Roman period, although glass in Britain is virtually unknown before the Claudian invasion of 43 CE and appears to be a very rare novelty.

Stained Glass in Chester
The Romans could have used window glass in Chester although no local evidence of this has been discovered, the nearest being at Wigan. Roman glass, probably from vessels, has been found at Chester (including an ungeunt jar) and Poulton (including a bead) and there is some evidence that glass may have been made in the Weaver valley. The basic ingredients for making glass are sand (silicon oxide), lime (calcium oxide) and wood ash (sodium oxide, or soda). Hardwood produces particularly good soda and it is believed that glass was made from the wood of Delamere Forest in 1346/7 for the abbey at Vale Royal, such as at Kingswood which was excavated in 1935 and 1947. The mixture of ingredients is melted into liquid which, when cooled, becomes glass. To color the glass, certain powdered materials are added to the mixture while the glass is still molten. Copper-bearing minerals can produce a red or sky-blue glass, manganese pink or purple, and iron various greens or a bright yellow glass. These colours were used to great effect by ancient glaziers, even though they had no inkling what caused them. Minerals often made their way into glass as impurities in sand, giving faint colours such as green (iron) and purple (manganese) that can often be seen in "clear" cathedral glass and in some lightly tinted domestic glass. Molten glass can be blown into a sausage shape, then slit on the side before being flattened into a sheet; it can also be spun with a pontil iron into a round sheet (crown).

Early Stained Glass
In the UK, fragments of coloured window glass dating to the 7th century have been excavated at sites of monasteries in Monkwearmouth and Jarrow in Northumbria. The Anglo-Saxons may have been making stained glass windows, using coloured glass and lead. Theophilus Presbyter (fl. c. 1070–1125) is the pseudonymous author or compiler of a Latin text containing detailed descriptions of various medieval arts, a text commonly known as the Schedula diversarum artium ("List of various arts") or De diversis artibus ("On various arts"), probably first compiled between 1100 and 1120. He describes the production of windows as follows:


 * "if you want to assemble simple windows, first mark out the dimensions of their length and breadth on a wooden board, then draw scroll work or anything else that pleases you, and select colors that are to be put in. Cut the glass and fit the pieces together with the grozing iron. Enclose them with lead cames….. and solder on both sides. Surround it with a wooden frame strengthened with mails and set it up in the place where you wish."

The panels would be made weatherproof by rubbing a putty-like mixture of lime, lead and linseed oil into the joints. If stories were to be told human images were required, including details such as hands, faces and the folds of drapery. These were added to the surface of the coloured glass sheets using a black enamel pigment based on copper or iron oxide. This mixture was painted onto the glass with different thickness and textures to give different shading effects, allowing control of light and providing artistic detail. After painting, the pieces were fired to fuse the paint to the surface of the glass.

The Romanesque architecture of the Normans had little space for glass. This form of architecture can be best seen in Chester at St Johns and consists of thick walls and massive supporting pillars and arches. Essentially, stained glass as we know it was a later medieval art form which was widely used in gothic architecture when the "clerestory" of "clear storey" was added. The term "stained glass" derives from the silver stain that after the 13th century was often applied to the side of the window that would face the outside of the building. When the glass was fired, the silver stain (a sulphide or chloride) passed into the body of the glass and turned a yellow color that could range from lemon to gold or even red. A common misconception is that the glass in these ancient cathedral windows has flowed over time, now being thicker at the bottom than the top. This is not true: Cathedral windows are sometimes thicker in one place than another because forming glass into perfectly flat sheets is a very difficult process that has only become practical in the recent past. One important development being the invention of the float glass process at St Helens by Pilkingtons. The availability of cheap float glass had a significant consequence for architecture.

The Reformation greatly slowed the development of stained glass in England, especially in religious contexts, and the Puritans would bring about its wholesale destruction with John Bruen, for example, removing the stained glass at Tarvin church as one of his many acts of iconoclasm. In the 17th and 18th centuries there was an increasing use of stained glass for heraldic purposes, with pictorial glass not being produced in any quantity until the 18th century. Among these later developments was the use of enameling to allow windows to be painted like easel pictures on clear rectangular glass. This reduced lead usage with the metal often being used merely to hold the large panes together, the designer's aim being to conceal the lead rather than integrate it.

One interesting local example is the "Barnston Window" at Farndon which dates from 1658.

Gothic Revival
In the 19th Century the "Gothic Revival" led many artists and architects to investigate the methods and techniques of medieval stained glass, about which hardly anything was then known, and gradually the old skills were relearned. Applied mainly in the fields of architecture, interior design and painting, it was largely based on forms and patterns used in the Late Medieval period (about 1250 – 1500). Artists combined the serious study of historical examples with a more fanciful vision of medieval chivalry and romance. The "pot-metal" process which involved the production of coloured glass in the melt rather than by surface enamelling was re-discovered after very little use since the sixteenth century.

Twin passions for the medieval "gothic" style and church restoration produced an enormous demand for glazing which exceeded the supply of glaziers. The stained glass industry was prolific during this period, and many new firms and studios were established who supplied local, national and international clientele. Much of the glass at Chester Cathedral dates from the Victorian period, with some being even more modern (see below).

Both the Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau movements included stained glass amongst other furnishings and interior design. The cultural promotion of medieval stained glass in Victorian high society no doubt had a huge influence on the work of the celebrated designer William Morris. A man who began his career looking for more 'honest' forms of art, Morris was drawn to the intense colours and bold composition of historical church windows. In 1861, he established the firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. – as well as supplying windows as part of interior schemes for a number of England's new ecclesiastical buildings, the firm also took private commissions for decorated windows, and was instrumental in the reintroduction of stained glass into domestic design.

In April 1920 Frank Selwyn Macaulay Bennett (1866–1947) was appointed Dean of Chester. He was installed on the 2nd June and only four days later he laid out his strategic plan for the Cathedral in the form of a sermon. An important part of his plan was the re-glazing of the cloister. The work was entrusted to two artists, Frederick Charles Eden (1864-1944), who was a pupil of William Butterfield and GF Bodley and Archibald Keightley Nicholson (1871-1937). Of the two, Nicholson was the better known and windows by him can be still seen in the cathedrals of Newcastle, Lincoln, Norwich, Southwell, Bradford, Worcester and Wells.



One of windows was designed by a local artist, Gilbert P Gamon (1871-1941). Another local artist, Trena Mary Cox (1895-1980) designed two smaller windows containing images of historical figures relating some to the monastery. Trena Mary Cox-was born in Lower Bebbington on the Wirral in 1895 and brought up near Birkenhead, mostly at Oxton. She was a student at the Laird School of Art and moved to Chester in 1924. by the end of that year her first designs had been realised in glass and installed in Chester College Chapel. At least one of the windows, of King David and St Theodore, was actually contracted to Williams, Gamon & Co (Kaleyards) Ltd.[6] However, the window includes a monogram of two cockerels (or ‘cocks’) above an intertwined T and M, strongly suggesting Cox’s involvement. The design style is more traditional than any of her later windows, but can be related to two of her known windows. One of these, of Mary and the infant Jesus at St Mary Without-the-Walls, Chester, is also known to be a Williams, Gamon & Co contract, but is clearly designed by Cox. She set up her studio in or near the Kaleyards Works of Williams, Gamon and Co with whom she remained associated until the Second World War. Her headed notepaper lists Geoffrey P Gamon, one of the directors of Williams, Gamon & Co, as the other director of TM Cox & Co. Several authors give he address as Victoria Road, but this is some distance from the Kayeyards and was possibly in Victoria Place which is off Frodsham Street. She then moved to 96 Watergate Street which remained her home and studio until she retired in 1972, aged 77. She died on 11 February 1980.

Almost all the windows around the cloister at the Cathedral contain a dedication which suggests that the glazing was financed by donations with each donor being allowed to write the text. Many interesting details can be found in the cloister windows and at least one major blunder was avoided: the original cartoon of the E2 window exists in the Victoria and Albert Museum and shows that the designer (Frederick Charles Eden) had confused Thomas the Apostle with Thomas of Canterbury and originally placed a sword through the figure's head. There are other minor mistakes and clever additions: E6 has the zodiacal glyph for Aquarius and the figure of Sagittarius used for a saints day which falls in Capricorn. E6 is the one designed by Gamon and commemorates Sidney Percival Gamon who was killed in a flying accident - it features both the RFC badge and a pig as a heraldic pun. E8 features St Patrick and lines from the Catholic mass - almost unique in an Anglican cathedral. Dean Bennet himself is represented by the rebus of a bee and a net. The N3 window dedicated to Robert Yerburgh, a Chester MP who died in 1916 also features HMS Chester which took part in the Battle of Jutland the same year, it also features St Ælfheah (with axe) who may have been killed by a group of Vikings including the later St Olave, who has his own church in Chester - where the stained glass also features an axe!

After the Second World War, the gradual acceleration away from realism put a significant distance between new designers and the work of their Arts and Crafts predecessors.

Williams and others
Williams and Williams was formed in 1910 and became a public company in 1928. They were based at the "Reliance Works" in Liverpool Road and the founders were the sons of the proprietor of Williams & Gamon. In 1934 Alln Williams broke away to found the Rustproof Metal Box Company in Saltney. The Reliance Works closed in 1996.

Related Pages

 * Cathedral;
 * St Johns;

Online

 * Chester at Work;
 * The Cloister Windows at the Cathedral;
 * Trena Cox;

Books

 * P. Hebgin-Barnes, The Medieval Stained Glass of Cheshire, CVMA (GB), Summary Catalogue 9, Oxford, 2010