Howard Martin Otho Travers (19 February 1886 – 25 July 1948) was an English church artist and designer. Travers was born in

Margate Margate is a seaside resort, seaside town on the north coast of Kent in south-east England. The town is estimated to be 1.5 miles long, north-east of Canterbury and includes Cliftonville, Garlinge, Palm Bay, UK, Palm Bay and Westbrook, Kent, ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, educated at

Tonbridge School (God Giveth the Increase) , established = , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent day and boarding , religion = , president = , head_label ...

, entered 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 offe ...

in 1904, and was awarded its Diploma in Architecture in 1908. At the RCA his teachers included

Edward Johnston Edward Johnston, CBE (11 February 1872 – 26 November 1944) was a British craftsman who is regarded, with Rudolf Koch, as the father of modern calligraphy, in the particular form of the broad-edged pen as a writing tool. He is most famo ...

(calligraphy),

William Lethaby William Richard Lethaby (18 January 1857 – 17 July 1931) was an English architect and architectural historian whose ideas were highly influential on the late Arts and Crafts and early Modern movements in architecture, and in the fields of con ...

(design),

Arthur Beresford Pite Arthur Beresford Pite (2 September 1861 – 27 November 1934) was a British architect known for creating Edwardian buildings in Baroque Revival, Byzantine Revival and Greek Revival styles. The early years Arthur Beresford Pite was born on 2 Se ...

(architecture), and

Christopher Whall Christopher Whitworth Whall (1849 – 23 December 1924) was a British stained-glass artist who worked from the 1880s and on into the 20th century. He is widely recognised as a leader in the Arts and Crafts Movement and a key figure in th ...

(stained glass). He worked for a time as an assistant to

Ninian Comper Sir John Ninian Comper (10 June 1864 – 22 December 1960) was a Scottish architect; one of the last of the great Gothic Revival architects. His work almost entirely focused on the design, restoration and embellishment of churches, and the des ...

. Martin Travers was one of the most influential British stained glass artists of the twentieth century. From around 1918 until 1926 he rented a studio from

Lowndes & Drury The Glass House building was a "purpose-built stained-glass studio and workshop" for stained glass artists in Fulham, London. Having gone into partnership in 1897, Mary Lowndes and Alfred Drury had The Glass House built in 1906 for use by indepe ...

at the Glass House, Fulham. Lowndes & Drury continued to cut, fire, glaze and fix his windows after he established his own studio. Travers was awarded the Grand Prix for stained glass at the 1925

International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts The International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts (french: Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes) was a World's fair held in Paris, France, from April to October 1925. It was designed by the Fren ...

in Paris (French: Exposition internationale des Arts décoratifs et industriels modernes) – the exhibition which gave rise to the term '

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 ...

'. In the same year he was appointed chief instructor in stained glass at the Royal College of Art: a position he held until his death in London in 1948. Travers, who came to regard Whall's approach to stained glass design as over-personal, developed a refined, eclectic style which can appear at once both modern and traditional. His long-standing chief assistan
John E Crawford
wrote that, as features of architectural decoration, Travers' windows were designed and made to harmonise with their surroundings, and that "his glass was of no fixed period, but became one with architecture of every different period". Significant large five-light and tracery windows may be seen a

and the Great Hall of

Christchurch Arts Centre The Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora is a hub for arts, culture, education, creativity and entrepreneurship in Christchurch, New Zealand. It is located in the Gothic Revival former Canterbury College (now the University of Canterbury), Christchur ...

(originally Canterbury College), New Zealand, installed in 1937 and 1938 respectively. His agnosticism notwithstanding, Martin Travers' name is often connected with the

Anglo-Catholic Anglo-Catholicism comprises beliefs and practices that emphasise the Catholic heritage and identity of the various Anglican churches. The term was coined in the early 19th century, although movements emphasising the Catholic nature of Anglican ...

movement, especially the ultramontane wing which favoured a

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

style of church furnishing. In the 1920s he designed and constructed a number of spectacular

reredos A reredos ( , , ) is a large altarpiece, a screen, or decoration placed behind the altar in a church. It often includes religious images. The term ''reredos'' may also be used for similar structures, if elaborate, in secular architecture, for ex ...

for this constituency, often employing affordable materials such as

plywood Plywood is a material manufactured from thin layers or "plies" of wood veneer that are glued together with adjacent layers having their wood grain rotated up to 90 degrees to one another. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured ...

, whitewood,

papier mache Papier may refer to : *paper in French, Dutch, Afrikaans, Polish or German, word that can be found in the following expressions: **Papier-mâché, a construction material made of pieces of paper stuck together using a wet paste **Papier collé, a p ...

, embossed

wallpaper Wallpaper is a material used in interior decoration to decorate the interior walls of domestic and public buildings. It is usually sold in rolls and is applied onto a wall using wallpaper paste. Wallpapers can come plain as "lining paper" (so t ...

, and tinted varnished

foil Foil may refer to: Materials * Foil (metal), a quite thin sheet of metal, usually manufactured with a rolling mill machine * Metal leaf, a very thin sheet of decorative metal * Aluminium foil, a type of wrapping for food * Tin foil, metal foil ma ...

to achieve the desired effect; which has meant that some of this work has not weathered well. The most notable examples of these furnishings are in central London: the re-fashioned

i
St Mary's, Bourne Street
Pimlico, c. 1920, and the remarkable Art Deco

Churrigueresque Churrigueresque (; Spanish: ''Churrigueresco''), also but less commonly "Ultra Baroque", refers to a Spanish Baroque style of elaborate sculptural architectural ornament which emerged as a manner of stucco decoration in Spain in the late 17th c ...

altarpiece An altarpiece is an artwork such as a painting, sculpture or relief representing a religious subject made for placing at the back of or behind the altar of a Christian church. Though most commonly used for a single work of art such as a painting o ...

i
St Augustine's, Queen's Gate
South Kensington, 1927. A facet of the past glory of th
Anglo-Catholic Congresses
depicted by

John Betjeman Sir John Betjeman (; 28 August 190619 May 1984) was an English poet, writer, and broadcaster. He was Poet Laureate from 1972 until his death. He was a founding member of The Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture, ...

, Travers' stage sets included a huge

triptych A triptych ( ; from the Greek language, Greek adjective ''τρίπτυχον'' "''triptukhon''" ("three-fold"), from ''tri'', i.e., "three" and ''ptysso'', i.e., "to fold" or ''ptyx'', i.e., "fold") is a work of art (usually a panel painting) t ...

erected in the

Royal Albert Hall The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London. One of the UK's most treasured and distinctive buildings, it is held in trust for the nation and managed by a registered charity which receives no govern ...

in 1927: such was the "Travers baroque" under which, in those "waking days", the "Faith was taught and fanned to a golden blaze". Emmanuel, Lea Bridge Road, Leyton, London E17 - East end - geograph

Emmanuel, Lea Bridge Road, Leyton, London E17 - East end - geograph

Church furnishing designer and stained glass artist John Hayward considered Travers' later interiors, "freed from the demands of his more extreme Anglo-Catholic Congress patrons", to have aged better than the earlier furnishings. Hayward is nonetheless clear that Travers' enduring legacy lies in his stained glass, which has "so much more vitality" than that of his former master, Comper. He contends that this is partly due to Travers being "essentially a two-dimensional artist": a quality evident in his carefully designed sanctuary arrangements, conceived as liturgical scenery for "the theatre of the proscenium arch".John Hayward, 'Martin Travers (1886-1948)', ''Church Building'', issue 84, 2003, pp 52-54. As a graphic artist, Travers is best known for his illustrations for publications by the Society of SS. Peter and Paul (SSPP). Perhaps his most celebrated work for SSPP
''Pictures of the English Liturgy''
was published in two volumes: ''Low Mass'' in 1916 and ''High Mass'' in 1922. Drawings he produced for the

Anglican Missal The Anglican Missal is a liturgical book used liturgically by some Anglo-Catholics and other High Church Anglicans as a alternative or supplement to editions of the ''Book of Common Prayer''. The ''Anglican Missal'' is distinct from the similarl ...

are included in the 2015

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

personal ordinariate A personal ordinariate for former Anglicans, shortened as personal ordinariate or Anglican ordinariate,"...the liturgies approved for the Anglican ordinariates..." "Bishop Stephen Lopes of the Anglican Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter..." ...

s' Divine Worship: The Missal, which gives expression to Anglican Catholic patrimony. Buildings designed by Travers include St Cuthman's Church, Brighton and, in collaboration with architect Thomas F W Grant, The Good Shepherd,

Carshalton Carshalton () is a town, with a historic village centre, in south London, England, within the London Borough of Sutton. It is situated south-southwest of Charing Cross, in the valley of the River Wandle, one of the sources of which is Carshalton ...

Emmanuel Parish Church, Leyton The Emmanuel Parish Church, Leyton, is a Grade II listed Church of England parish church in Lea Bridge Road, Leyton, in Greater London. History The origins of the church began in about 1902, when mission services began to be held in Sybourn Stree ...

, and Holy Redeemer, Streatham Vale. Martin Travers' chief assistants were Joseph E Nuttgens (glass-painting, c 1920–1922),

Francis Spear Francis Howard Spear (22 December 1902 in South Norwood, London – 7 November 1979) was an English stained glass artist and lithographer. He produced more than 300 stained glass windows in over 130 public locations, including six cathedrals. ...

(glass-painting, 1922–24), John E Crawford (glass-painting, sculpting, carving and decorating furnishings, some designing, 1924–1948), and

Lawrence Lee Lawrence Stanley Lee (18 September 1909 – 25 April 2011) was a British stained glass artist whose work spanned the latter half of the 20th century. He was best known for leading the project to create ten windows for the nave of t ...

(glass-painting, 1946–1948).

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Travers, Martin English Anglo-Catholics English stained glass artists and manufacturers English designers 1886 births 1948 deaths People from Margate People educated at Tonbridge School Alumni of the Royal College of Art Academics of the Royal College of Art