Mary Lowndes (1857–1929) was a British
stained-glass
Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...
artist who co-founded the stained glass studio and workshop
Lowndes and Drury in 1897. She was an influential leader in the
Arts and Crafts movement, not only for her stained glass work and successful studio-workshop, but also for opening doors for other women stained glass artists. She was an active participant in the
suffragette
A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...
movement, acting as Chair of the
Artists' Suffrage League
The Artists' Suffrage League (ASL) (1907–c.1918) was a suffrage society formed to change parliamentary opinion and engage in public demonstrations and other propaganda activities.
Activities
The ASL was established in Jan 1907 to assist with ...
, and creating poster art to assist the movement.
Early life and work
![M Lowndes St Andrew, Meonstoke, Hampshire](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/M_Lowndes_St_Andrew%2C_Meonstoke%2C_Hampshire.jpg)
She was born in 1857, the daughter of
Richard Lowndes, the rector of St Mary's Church,
Sturminster Newton in
Dorset
Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset (unitary authority), Dors ...
, and his wife Annie Harriet Kaye. She received her art training at the
Slade School of Fine Art
The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...
in London.
When Lowndes completed her art classes, she became an assistant to prominent stained glass designer,
Henry Holiday
Henry Holiday (17 June 183915 April 1927) was a British historical genre and landscape painter, stained-glass designer, illustrator, and sculptor. He is part of the Pre-Raphaelite school of art.
Life Early years and training
Holiday was born ...
. She worked at his studio-workshop where she drew cartoons (designs) for stained glass commissions. While working for Holiday, Lowndes taught herself the techniques of stained glass. The first window she painted was a two-light window titled "Feed my sheep", completed in 1893 for St. Peter's church,
Hinton St. Mary, Dorset.
Lowndes lived and worked in
Chelsea
Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to:
Places Australia
* Chelsea, Victoria
Canada
* Chelsea, Nova Scotia
* Chelsea, Quebec
United Kingdom
* Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames
** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...
, where she had her own studio to work on designs, but there was no workshop nearby to complete her stained glass work. She would travel to
Southwark
Southwark ( ) is a district of Central London situated on the south bank of the River Thames, forming the north-western part of the wider modern London Borough of Southwark. The district, which is the oldest part of South London, developed ...
, to the Britten and Gilson studio-workshop, where she would select the coloured glass for her commissions, paint the glass and supervise the firing and glazing of the windows. Lowdes worked as a stained glass designer for
James Powell & Sons from 1887 to 1892.
Lowndes was one of the first women to work professionally in stained glass in the 1890s. "Women, generally amateurs, might occasionally design windows and even take some part in their execution, but they rarely if ever practiced the whole art independently as a full time professional occupation".
Lowndes and Drury
![M Lowndes Sturminster Dorset](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/M_Lowndes_Sturminster_Dorset.jpg)
While working at the Britten and Gilson workshop, Lowndes met renowned stained glass artist
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 t ...
. Lowndes admired his innovative stained glass, and her early work shows his artistic influence.
In 1897, with the encouragement of Whall, Lowndes established her own studio-workshop with
Alfred J. Drury.
Drury was the foreman at the Britten and Gilson workshop, and co-instructor of stained glass with Whall at the
Central School of Arts and Crafts
The Central School of Art and Design was a public art school, school of fine arts, fine and applied arts in London, England. It offered foundation and degree level courses. It was established in 1896 by the London County Council as the Central ...
.
The new studio-workshop in Chelsea was named Lowndes and Drury.
The venture developed out of Lowndes and Drury's shared experience of working for a big studio, and they created their new enterprise to meet the needs of the new school of independent artists associated with the emerging
Arts and Crafts movement. The studio-workshop would provide the technical facilities to allow artists to work on all stages of their stained glass commissions, from design to glass selection, painting and glazing.
![Mary Lowndes Holy Innocents 1896](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Mary_Lowndes_Holy_Innocents_1896.jpg)
The partnership was established with an initial investment of £30 from each partner. Lowndes also provided a £200 loan and additional loans of £280 came from Lowndes's companion, Barbara Forbes, her aunt, Miss Alice Vivian Kaye and friend, Miss J.F. Pearson. Along with Drury's small investment, the new firm was financed in its early years by these four women.
Lowndes managed the new business with Drury, but chose not to be chief designer of the workshop. Like other workshop clients, she primarily used the facilities to work on her own stained glass commissions. Her stained glass was highly regarded and in great demand at the time, and her work can be seen in parish churches throughout England and Wales.
In 1906, with the need for bigger facilities, Lowndes and Drury founded
the Glass House in Lettice Street,
Fulham
Fulham () is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham in West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea. The area faces Wandsworth ...
. The building at 9, 10, 11 and 12 Lettice Street was established as a stained glass studio for works commissioned by Lowndes and Drury and for use by independent artists. It was a purpose-built stained glass studio and workshop, designed by Christopher Whall and Drury. The Glass House attracted many artists, including
Wilhelmina Geddes
Wilhelmina Geddes ''HRUA'' (25 May 1887 – 10 August 1955) was an Irish stained glass artist who was an important figure within the Irish Arts and Crafts movement and also the twentieth century British stained glass revival. Notable works includ ...
and
Robert Anning Bell
Robert Anning Bell (14 April 1863 – 27 November 1933) was an English artist and designer.
Early life
Robert Anning Bell was born in London on 14 April 1863, the son of Robert George Bell, a cheesemonger, and Mary Charlotte Knight. He studied ...
. In the early twentieth century, it was considered the most important studio-workshop for stained glass associated with the Arts and Crafts movement.
[''The Glass House, Hammersmith and Fulham.'']
British Listed Buildings. Retrieved 10 September 2012.
Suffragette movement
![M_lowndes_Suffragette_poster_justice](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/M_lowndes_Suffragette_poster_justice.jpg)
Lowndes became involved in the
Women's suffrage movement
Women's suffrage is the women's rights, right of women to Suffrage, vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to gran ...
in the 1890s. In 1899, she attended the
International Congress of Women
The International Congress of Women was created so that groups of existing women's suffrage movements could come together with other women's groups around the world. It served as a way for women organizations across the nation to establish formal m ...
in London.
In January 1907, Lowndes established The
Artists' Suffrage League
The Artists' Suffrage League (ASL) (1907–c.1918) was a suffrage society formed to change parliamentary opinion and engage in public demonstrations and other propaganda activities.
Activities
The ASL was established in Jan 1907 to assist with ...
(ASL) to create dramatic posters, postcards, Christmas cards, and banners for
suffrage
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in representative democracy, public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally i ...
events.
She became its chair and Barbara Forbes, her companion, was the secretary.
Lisa Tickner
Lisa Tickner FBA is a British art historian. She has taught at Middlesex University (where she is now Emeritus Professor), Northwestern University, and the Courtauld Institute of Art (where she is now Honorary Professor). In 2008 she was elected ...
"Banners and Banner-Making". In Vanessa R. Schwartz and Jeannene M. Przyblyski, "The Nineteenth Century Visual Culture Reader". Routledge, 2004, London and New York.
![Elizabeth fry](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Elizabeth_Fry.jpg)
Between 1903 and 1914, the methods used by the women's suffrage movement began to change and they began to engage in public demonstrations and other propaganda activities. Lowndes' training as an artist and stained-glass designer encouraged the use of bold shapes and a love of full, rich colours, using striking combinations of green and blue, magenta and orange.
[ She wrote a guide in 1910 to help women create their own ''Banners and Banner-Making'', saying of the suffrage banners: "you do not want to read it, you want to worship it. Choose purple and gold for ambition, red for courage, green for long-cherished hopes ... It is a declaration." Such banners were designed with female images like flowers, lit lamps, shells, sunrays, winged hearts; and to honour female heroines like Boadicea, Elizabeth Fry, Florence Nightingale, Marie Curie, Josephine Butler, Jane Austen, Mary Wollstonecraft, Charlotte Brontë and even 'Victoria, Queen and Mother'. These were carried in their hundreds or thousands in London's Pageant of Great Women 1909, Hyde Park Rally 1910, From Prison to Citizenship 1911, Pilgrimage for Women's Suffrage 1913, and later that year at the grand funeral procession of ]Emily Wilding Davison
Emily Wilding Davison (11 October 1872 – 8 June 1913) was an English suffragette who fought for Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, votes for women in Britain in the early twentieth century. A member of the Women's Social and Polit ...
, the suffrage movement's martyr who threw herself under the King's horse at the Epsom Derby. An album of Lowndes' original banner designs (detailed on paper in watercolour and often accompanied by fabric swatches) resides at the Women's Library
The Women's Library is England's main library and museum resource on women and the women's movement, concentrating on Britain in the 19th and 20th centuries. It has an institutional history as a coherent collection dating back to the mid-1920s, ...
at the London School of Economics.
Lowndes was also personally active in the national Suffragette movement, including her leadership of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies
The National Union of Women Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), also known as the ''suffragists'' (not to be confused with the suffragettes) was an organisation founded in 1897 of women's suffrage societies around the United Kingdom. In 1919 it was ren ...
executive committee.[Lago, Mary. (1995). ''Christiana Herringham and the Edwardian Art Scene.'' University of Missouri Press. p. 287 ]
She was a member of the committee of the feminist magazine ''The Englishwoman's Review
''The Englishwoman's Review'' was a feminism, feminist periodical published in England between 1866 and 1910.
Until 1869 called in full ''The Englishwoman's Review: a journal of woman's work'', in 1870 (after a break in publication) it was renam ...
'' and contributed regularly to it.
Personal life
Lowndes' lifelong companion was Barbara Forbes, the secretary of the Artists' Suffrage League founded by Lowndes. Throughout her life, Lowndes suffered from chronic asthma.
Lowndes died in 1929 and was buried in Buxted
Buxted is a village and civil parish in the Wealden district of East Sussex in England. The parish is situated on the Weald, north of Uckfield; the settlements of Five Ash Down, Heron's Ghyll and High Hurstwood are included within its boundarie ...
, East Sussex, England. She left Forbes a sum of money, all her pictures, prints, cartoons, studio effects and her shares in The Englishwoman Ltd.
Selected stained glass work
Posthumous recognition
Lowndes's name and picture (and those of 58 other women's suffrage supporters) are on the plinth
A pedestal (from French ''piédestal'', Italian ''piedistallo'' 'foot of a stall') or plinth is a support at the bottom of a statue, vase, column, or certain altars. Smaller pedestals, especially if round in shape, may be called socles. In c ...
of the statue of Millicent Fawcett
The statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, London, honours the British suffragist leader and social campaigner Dame Millicent Fawcett. It was made in 2018 by Gillian Wearing. Following a campaign and petition by the activist Caroline ...
in Parliament Square
Parliament Square is a square at the northwest end of the Palace of Westminster in the City of Westminster in central London. Laid out in the 19th century, it features a large open green area in the centre with trees to its west, and it contai ...
, London, unveiled in 2018.
Gallery
File:MLowndes Feed my sheep.jpg, Lowndes's first stained glass window, Hinton St Mary
Hinton St Mary is a village and civil parish in Dorset, southern England. It is sited on a low Corallian limestone ridge beside the River Stour, north of the market town Sturminster Newton. In 2001 the parish had 97 households and a populatio ...
, Dorset (1893)
File:The church of SS Peter and Paul in Shropham - glass by M Lowndes - geograph.org.uk - 1761436.jpg, Sts Peter and Paul, Shropham, Norfolk (1898)
File:Sts_Peter_and_Paul,_West_Mersea,_Mersea_Island,_Essex.jpg, Sts Peter and Paul, Mersea Island
Mersea Island is an island in Essex, England, in the Blackwater and Colne estuaries to the south-east of Colchester. Its name comes from the Old English word ''meresig'', meaning "island of the pool" and thus is tautological. The island is s ...
, Essex (1905)
File:M Lowndes St Erme Cornwall 1906.jpg, St Erme
St Erme ( kw, Egloserm (village), Pluw Erm (parish)) is a civil parishes in England, civil parish and village in Cornwall, England, in the United Kingdom. The parish of St Erme, has a population of approximately 1200. This had increased to 1,36 ...
, Cornwall (1906)
File:Stained glass Aesthetic.jpg, Taplow
Taplow is a village and civil parish in the Unitary Authority of Buckinghamshire, England. It sits on the left bank of the River Thames, facing Maidenhead in the neighbouring county of Berkshire, with Cippenham and Burnham to the east. It is th ...
, Buckinghamshire, (1912)
References
Further reading
* M. Lowndes: ''Banners and Banner-Making'', Appendix 5 in The Spectacle of Women by Lisa Tickner, University of Chicago Press. March 1988.
* Gerda Breuer and Julia Meer: ''Women in Graphic Design'', Jovis/Berlin 2012, , p. 505.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lowndes, Mary
1857 births
1929 deaths
19th-century English women artists
20th-century English women artists
Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art
Arts and Crafts movement artists
English stained glass artists and manufacturers
English suffragettes
English suffragists
International Congress of Women people
People from Buxted
People from Dorset