Christopher Whall - 19th century glass

Three scenes from Genesis 1, designed by Christopher Whall, made by Saunders and Co.

This project has an extraordinary background. An advertisement in a journal of 1878 listed locations of windows by Saunders and Co. In researching the career of Gualbert Saunders (1837 - 1923), David Lawrence visited one of these locations in 1993, Our Lady's Convent, Loughborough, finding not only two Saunders windows in the chapel but also three further damaged panels abandoned in the boiler room.

Peter Cormack, of the William Morris Gallery, London E17, identified them as being parts of a scheme of windows of 1879 for St. Etheldreda's church, London, designed by Christopher Whall (1849 - 1924) and made by Saunders.

The windows were thought to have been totally destroyed by wartime bombing. The panels are of considerable significance: Whall was the most important figure in the Arts and Crafts Movement in stained glass and these panels are all that remain of his first commission. Their removal to Loughborough, for whatever reason, had secured their survival. The Sisters donated them to the William Morris Gallery. With the aid of a grant from the Glaziers' Trust, Lawrence & Co. carried out conservation work in 1999 and they

 


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