The firm of James Powell and Sons, also known as Whitefriars Glass, were London-based English
glassmakers
Glass production involves two main methods – the float glass process that produces sheet glass, and glassblowing that produces bottles and other containers. It has been done in a variety of ways during the history of glass.
Glass container ...
,
leadlight
Leadlights, leaded lights or leaded windows are decorative windows made of small sections of glass supported in lead cames. The technique of creating windows using glass and lead came to be known as came glasswork. The term 'leadlight' could be ...
ers and
stained glass window manufacturers. As ''Whitefriars Glass'', the company existed from the 17th century, but became well known as a result of the 19th-century
Gothic Revival and the demand for stained glass windows.
History
Early years
In 1834 James Powell (1774–1840), then a 60-year-old London wine merchant and entrepreneur of the same family as the founder of the
Scout movement
Scouting, also known as the Scout Movement, is a worldwide youth movement employing the Scout method, a program of informal education with an emphasis on practical outdoor activities, including camping, woodcraft, aquatics, hiking, backpackin ...
,
Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, purchased the Whitefriars Glass Company, a small glassworks off
Fleet Street in London, believed to have been established in 1680. Powell, and his sons Arthur and Nathanael, were newcomers to glass making, but soon acquired the necessary expertise. They experimented and developed new techniques, devoting a large part of their production to the creating of church stained glass windows. The firm acquired a large number of patents for their new ideas and became world leaders in their field, business being boosted by the building of hundreds of new churches during the Victorian era. While Powell manufactured stained glass windows, it also provided glass to other stained glass firms.
A major product of the factory was decorative quarry glass which was mass-produced by moulding and printing, rather than
hand-cutting and painting. This product could be used in church windows as a cheap substitute for stained glass. It was often installed in new churches, to be later replaced by pictorial windows. Most of this quarry glass was clear, printed in black and detailed in bright yellow ''
silver stain In pathology, silver staining is the use of silver to selectively alter the appearance of a target in microscopy of histological sections; in temperature gradient gel electrophoresis; and in polyacrylamide gels.
In traditional stained glass, silv ...
''. Occasionally the quarries were produced in red, blue or pink glass, but these are rare. Surprisingly few entire windows of Powell quarries are to be seen in English churches, although they survive in little-seen locations such as vestries, ringing chambers and behind
pipe organs.
St Philip's Church, Sydney, retains a full set of Powell quarry windows, as does St Matthew's Church in
Surbiton which was built in 1875 – a relatively late date for quarry windows, which may account for their survival. Powell also produced many windows in which pictorial mandorlas or roundels are set against a background of quarries.
Later Victorian period
During the latter part of the nineteenth century, the firm formed a close association with leading architects and designers such as
T. G. Jackson,
Edward Burne-Jones
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman ...
,
William De Morgan
William Frend De Morgan (16 November 1839 – 15 January 1917) was an English potter, tile designer and novelist. A lifelong friend of William Morris, he designed tiles, stained glass and furniture for Morris & Co. from 1863 to 1872. His tiles ...
and James Doyle. Whitefriars produced the glass that
Philip Webb
Philip Speakman Webb (12 January 1831 – 17 April 1915) was a British architect and designer sometimes called the Father of Arts and Crafts Architecture. His use of vernacular architecture demonstrated his commitment to "the art of commo ...
used in his designs for
William Morris
William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...
. The firm's production diversified in the 1850s to include domestic table glass after supplying the glassware for William Morris's
Red House.
![Powellvanda](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Powellvanda.jpg)
In 1875 Harry James Powell, grandson of the founder and an Oxford graduate in chemistry, joined the business. His training, which led to more scientific production and innovations such as previously unattainable colours and heat-resistant glass, for applications in science and industry, like
X-ray tube
An X-ray tube is a vacuum tube that converts electrical input power into X-rays. The availability of this controllable source of X-rays created the field of radiography, the imaging of partly opaque objects with penetrating radiation. In contrast ...
s and
light bulbs
An electric light, lamp, or light bulb is an electrical component that produces light. It is the most common form of artificial lighting. Lamps usually have a base made of ceramic, metal, glass, or plastic, which secures the lamp in the soc ...
.
New production lines such as
opalescent
Opalescence refers to the optical phenomena displayed by the mineraloid gemstone opalopalescent. 2019. In Noah Webster's 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language. Retrieved January 7, 2019, from https://1828.mshaffer.com/d/word/opale ...
glass proved to be extremely successful. The firm took part in major exhibitions around the world. Designs were copied from historical Venetian and Roman glass found in European museums and art galleries. Nathanael Powell's eldest surviving son, Harry, an admirer of
Ruskin, delivered numerous lectures on glass manufacture.
Between the wars
The firm's name was changed to Powell & Sons (Whitefriars) Ltd in 1919 and the growth in business demanded new premises. In 1923 the new factory was opened in
Wealdstone
Wealdstone () is a district located in the centre of the London Borough of Harrow, England. It is located just north of Harrow town centre and is south of Harrow Weald, west of Belmont and Kenton, and east of Headstone.
The area accommodates ...
. Despite a flourishing business, the great expense of the new factory scuttled plans to construct a village to house the workers in a style fashionable during the
Arts and Crafts movement.
![Cowfold north nave first window](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Cowfold_north_nave_first_window.jpg)
In the years between
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
and
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, business and the financial situation were much improved.
Glassware trended to the colourful and heavy, and optic moulding and wheel engraving played a major part in bringing the
Art Deco
Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...
style to the middle and upper classes.
It was during this period that
James Humphries Hogan
James Humphries Hogan RDI FSGT FRS (20 December 1883 – 12 January 1948) was an English stained glass designer with the firm of James Powell and Sons throughout his career, rising from apprentice to be managing director of the company. He ma ...
(1883–1948), a designer with the firm, had the most impact on Powell & Sons. Hogan was apprenticed to the Powell & Sons firm at the age of fifteen, and it was the sole employer in his career. He designed extremely important windows for many cathedrals in England, and the finest of these are the two windows in the great central space of
Liverpool Cathedral
Liverpool Cathedral is the Cathedral of the Anglican Diocese of Liverpool, built on St James's Mount in Liverpool, and the seat of the Bishop of Liverpool. It may be referred to as the Cathedral Church of Christ in Liverpool (as recorded in th ...
and the windows in
St. Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, New York City, which were fabricated between the World Wars. His influence in the area of stained glass is legendary, and his designs for tableware and serviceware, including the stemmed glassware he created specifically for the British Embassies over all the world, are without peer. He rose in the company, becoming Chief Designer in 1913, Art Director in 1928, Managing Director in 1933, and finally Chairman of the firm in 1946. In addition, Hogan traveled throughout the United States, as primary sales agent for the Powell & Sons firm. From the period between 1926 and 1928, he produced a ten-fold increase in the Powell & Sons stained glass sales in America. Unquestionably, he was a workaholic, and literally worked himself to death: returning from a long sales trip to the United States in late December 1947, he collapsed on 3 January 1948, and slipped in a coma-like state. He died on 12 January 1948, without ever regaining consciousness.
In the 1930s the firm started production of
millefiori
Millefiori () is a glasswork technique which produces distinctive decorative patterns on glassware. The term millefiori is a combination of the Italian words "mille" (thousand) and "fiori" (flowers). Apsley Pellatt in his book ''Curiosities of ...
paperweights, characterised by shallow domes and wide bases. This period of prosperity ended with
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
. Glass manufacture was restricted to that aiding the war effort. By the end of the war, the company was struggling to survive.
Postwar
![Banjo vase, Walker Art Gallery](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Banjo_vase%2C_Walker_Art_Gallery.png)
The
Festival of Britain
The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition and fair that reached millions of visitors throughout the United Kingdom in the summer of 1951. Historian Kenneth O. Morgan says the Festival was a "triumphant success" during which people:
...
of 1951 helped the British economy to recover. Whitefriars was selected as an outstanding example of modern British industry. The following years saw austere and functional Scandinavian design sweeping Europe, and dominating stock purchases by major outlets such as
Selfridges
Selfridges, also known as Selfridges & Co., is a chain of high-end department stores in the United Kingdom that is operated by Selfridges Retail Limited, part of the Selfridges Group of department stores. It was founded by Harry Gordon Selfridg ...
and
Fortnum & Mason
Fortnum & Mason (colloquially often shortened to just Fortnum's) is an upmarket department store in Piccadilly, London, with additional stores at The Royal Exchange, St Pancras railway station, Heathrow Airport in London and K11 Musea In Hong ...
. The arrival of
glass brick
Glass brick, also known as glass block, is an architectural element made from glass. The appearance of glass blocks can vary in color, size, texture and form. Glass bricks provide visual obscuration while admitting light. The modern glass block w ...
s which were cheap, thick slabs of coloured glass set in concrete bricks, dispensed with the need for expensive stained glass in new churches.
In 1952 the company was acquired by GH Zeal Limited who in 1962 changed the company's name back to Whitefriars Glass Ltd, specializing in freeform domestic glassware. In 1981
Caithness Glass
Caithness Glass is a Scottish artistic glassware manufacturing company. It was established in Wick, Caithness, Scotland in 1961 by Robin Sinclair, 2nd Viscount Thurso. It was by George Mackie, Baron Mackie of Benshie in 1966. Mackie was chairman ...
purchased a 25 year license to use the Whitefriars name for its paperweights.
Former art student of the
Royal College of Art
The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It o ...
, where he obtained a first class degree, Geoffrey Baxter was employed as a designer in 1954 by Chief Designer, William Wilson. Baxter introduced a range of textured vases in 1967.
Among the large range of new designs were included the iconic 'drunken bricklayer' vases, 'TV' vases, ' bark' vases, 'coffin' vases, and 'banjo' vases. Nicknames for other designs in the textured range include nailhead, mobile phone, bamboo, basket weave, shoulder, cello, cucumber, nuts & bolts, totem pole, sunburst, pyramid, volcano, hooped, onion, double diamond, zig zag, pinecone, bottle, traffic light, stitched cube, Greek key, mallet, chessboard, Aztec, nipple, tulip, haemorrhoid, pot belly, tapered, and chalice vases.
Baxter used found objects including bark and nails to produce moulds for soda-lime glass. The bark effect vases and others in the textured range introduced colours including willow, cinnamon and indigo, and then additional colours such as tangerine, meadow green, aubergine, pewter, ruby, lilac, sage green, aqua, gold, flint (clear) and kingfisher blue.
The coloured glass was encased in clear glass. Baxter stayed with Whitefriars Glass until production ceased in 1980. The high labour costs of handmade glass and late 1970s economic problems in the UK had made Whitefriars uncompetitive. The factory site was bulldozed. Baxter died on 22 August 1995.
Dalle de Verre and Pierre Fourmaintraux
Whitefriars was a leading producer of
Dalle de verre
''Dalle de verre'', from French: "glass slab", is a glass art technique that uses pieces of coloured glass set in a matrix of concrete and epoxy resin or other supporting material.
Technique
The technique was developed by Jean Gaudin in Paris i ...
glass in Britain.
Pierre Fourmaintraux
Francois Pierre Fourmaintraux (known as Pierre) (1896-1974) was a renowned glass artist who is credited with having introduced the dalle de verre technique to the UK and having taught other influential glass artists such as Dom Charles Norris.
Pe ...
brought the technique to the country from France and while at Whitefriars designed, produced and taught the technique. He is credited with teaching leading dalle de verre artist
Dom Charles Norris
Dom Charles Norris OSB (1909-2004) was an influential artist who created works in stained glass and dalle de verre for Roman Catholic churches in the UK. He is thought to be the most prolific artist working in dalle de verre in the UK in the 20t ...
.
Fourmaintraux became James Powell & Sons (later Whitefriars Glass) chief designer of slab glass and abstract windows from 1956. His first dalle de verre piece for the UK was said to be two small windows for St Peter's
Reigate
Reigate ( ) is a town in Surrey, England, around south of central London. The settlement is recorded in Domesday Book in 1086 as ''Cherchefelle'' and first appears with its modern name in the 1190s. The earliest archaeological evidence for huma ...
. Whitefriars identified their glass with a small image of a hooded friar, usually in a bottom corner of the window. Fourmaintraux identified his own glass by adding his initials PF near the friar.
Archives
The firm's archives are split between several museums: the business records are held by the
Museum of London
The Museum of London is a museum in London, covering the history of the UK's capital city from prehistoric to modern times. It was formed in 1976 by amalgamating collections previously held by the City Corporation at the Guildhall Museum (fou ...
, their designs are in the Archive of Art & Design at the
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
, and their cartoons (or, preparatory drawings) are at the Rakow Research Library of the
Corning Museum of Glass
The Corning Museum of Glass is a museum in Corning, New York in the United States, dedicated to the art, history, and science of glass. It was founded in 1951 by Corning Glass Works and currently has a collection of more than 50,000 glass obje ...
.
In 2008 the
Museum of London
The Museum of London is a museum in London, covering the history of the UK's capital city from prehistoric to modern times. It was formed in 1976 by amalgamating collections previously held by the City Corporation at the Guildhall Museum (fou ...
gifted the Rakow Library the Whitefriars Collection, consisting of 1,800 cartoons (or working drawings). The Rakow Library received a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to develop an innovative methodology for preserving, digitizing, and making accessible this collection. Preservation work undertaken includes cartoons from Fourmaintraux's windows in St. Peter’s Church, Lawrence Weston, Bristol, and for the War Memorial in Auckland, New Zealand.
A pen and ink and watercolour drawing for Fourmaintraux's design of an abstract dalle de verre window for the 'Golden Ball', public house, Campo Lane,
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire a ...
is now in the
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
, London. The museum also holds a pen and ink and watercolour drawing for 15 small stained-glass windows of abstract design for
Narberth Crematorium, near
Porthcawl
Porthcawl (, ) is a town and community on the south coast of Wales in the county borough of Bridgend, west of the capital city, Cardiff and southeast of Swansea. Historically part of Glamorgan and situated on a low limestone headland on the S ...
.
List of Works (incomplete)
* St. Peter & St. Paul's Church,
Carbrooke
Carbrooke is a village and civil parish in the Breckland district of Norfolk, England. It is from the centre of Watton and from Thetford. In the 2011 Census, Carbrooke had a population of 2,073 people in 835 households.
History
Carbrooke's n ...
,
Norfolk
Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...
* St. John the Baptist's Church,
Coltishall
Coltishall is a village on the River Bure, west of Wroxham, in the English county of Norfolk. The village is located within the Norfolk Broads.
History
Coltishall's name is of Anglo-Saxon origin and derives from the Old English for Cohhede's la ...
, Norfolk
* St. Nicholas' Church,
Dersingham
Dersingham is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It is situated some north of the town of King's Lynn and north-west of the city of Norwich, opening onto The Wash.Ordnance Survey (2002). ''OS Explorer Map 250 - Norfolk ...
, Norfolk
Gallery
File:James Powell and Sons01.jpg, James Powell (1774-1840)
File:James Powell and Sons02.jpg, The Old Glass House in Tudor St
File:James Powell and Sons03.jpg, Harry James Powell
File:James Powell and Sons04.jpg, The new factory in Wealdstone
See also
*
British and Irish stained glass (1811–1918)
A revival of the art and craft of stained-glass window manufacture took place in early 19th-century Britain, beginning with an armorial window created by Thomas Willement in 1811–12. The revival led to stained-glass windows becoming such a c ...
*
Victorian era
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...
*
Gothic Revival architecture
Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an Architectural style, architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th cent ...
Bibliography
*''Whitefriars Glass – James Powell & Sons'', Wendy Evans, The Museum of London
References
External links
Whitefriars paperweights
{{DEFAULTSORT:Powell, James
British stained glass artists and manufacturers
Defunct glassmaking companies
Glassmaking companies of England