James Powell and Sons
Encyclopedia
Architectural glass
Architectural glass is glass that is used as a building material. It is most typically used as transparent glazing material in the building envelope, including windows in the external walls. Glass is also used for internal partitions and as an architectural feature...
, leadlight
Leadlight
Leadlights or leaded lights are decorative windows made of small sections of glass supported in lead cames. The technique of creating windows using glass and lead came is discussed at lead came and copper foil glasswork...
ers and stained glass
Stained glass
The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...
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
In 1834 James Powell (1774–1840), a London wine merchant and entrepreneur, purchased the Whitefriars Glass Company, a small glassworks off Fleet StreetFleet Street
Fleet Street is a street in central London, United Kingdom, named after the River Fleet, a stream that now flows underground. It was the home of the British press until the 1980s...
in London, believed to have been established in 1680. Powell and his sons 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 Powells manufactured stained glass windows, they 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
Silver stain
Silver staining is the use of silver to selectively alter the appearance of the target.-Use in medicine:It is used to stain histologic sections. This kind of staining is important especially to show proteins and DNA. It is used to show both substances inside and outside cells...
. 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 organ
Pipe organ
The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each organ pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass...
s. St Philip's Church, Sydney
St Philip's Church, Sydney
St Philip's Church, Sydney is the oldest Anglican church parish in Australia. The church is located in the Sydney CBD, between York Street, Clarence and Jamison Streets on a location known as Church Hill. St Philip's is part of the Diocese of Sydney, Australia...
, retains a full set of Powell quarry windows. Powell also produced many windows in which pictorial mandorlas or roundels are set against a background of quarries. See picture right
During the latter part of the 1800s the firm formed a close association with leading architects and designers such as T G Jackson
Thomas Graham Jackson
Sir Thomas Graham Jackson, 1st Baronet RA was one of the most distinguished English architects of his generation...
, Edward Burne Jones, William De Morgan
William De Morgan
William Frend De Morgan was an English potter and tile designer. A lifelong friend of William Morris, he designed tiles, stained glass and furniture for Morris & Co. from 1863 to 1872. His tiles are often based on medieval designs or Persian patterns, and he experimented with innovative glazes and...
and James Doyle. Whitefriars produced the glass that Philip Webb
Philip Webb
Another Philip Webb — Philip Edward Webb was the architect son of leading architect Sir Aston Webb. Along with his brother, Maurice, he assisted his father towards the end of his career....
used in his designs for William Morris
William Morris
William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...
. The firm’s production diversified in the 1850s to include domestic table glass after supplying the glassware for William Morris's Red House
Red House (London)
Red House in Bexleyheath in southeast London, England, is a major building of the history of the Arts and Crafts style and of 19th century British architecture. It was designed during 1859 by its owner, William Morris, and the architect Philip Webb, with wall paintings and stained glass by Edward...
.
X-ray tube
An X-ray tube is a vacuum tube that produces X-rays. They are used in X-ray machines. X-rays are part of the electromagnetic spectrum, an ionizing radiation with wavelengths shorter than ultraviolet light...
s and light bulbs.
New production lines such as opalescent 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. Harry Powell, an admirer of Ruskin
John Ruskin
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...
delivered numerous lectures on glass manufacture.
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
Wealdstone is a largely working-class and recent immigrant district in the London Borough of Harrow, north west London.-History and name:The eponymous Weald Stone is a sarsen stone, formerly marking the boundary between the parish of Harrow and Harrow Weald...
. 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
Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...
.
In the years between World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, 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
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
style to the middle and upper classes.
It was during this period that James Humphries Hogan (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 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 January 3, 1948, and slipped in a coma-like state. He died on January 12, 1948, without ever regaining consciousness.
In the 1930s the firm started production of millefiori
Millefiori
Millefiori is a glasswork technique which produces distinctive decorative patterns on glassware.The term millefiori is a combination of the Italian words "mille" and "fiori" . Apsley Pellatt was the first to use the term "millefiori", which appeared in the Oxford Dictionary in 1849...
paperweights, characterised by shallow domes and wide bases. This period of prosperity was ended with the onset of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Glass manufacture was restricted to that aiding the war effort. Cessation of hostilities found the company in a desperate struggle for survival, aggravated by the loss of key personnel who had enlisted and not returned.
The Festival of Britain
Festival of Britain
The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition in Britain in the summer of 1951. It was organised by the government to give Britons a feeling of recovery in the aftermath of war and to promote good quality design in the rebuilding of British towns and cities. The Festival's centrepiece was in...
of 1951 led to a much-needed financial infusion for the economy. 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
Selfridges, AKA Selfridges & Co, is a chain of high end department stores in the United Kingdom. It was founded by Harry Gordon Selfridge. The flagship store in London's Oxford Street is the second largest shop in the UK and was opened on 15 March 1909.More recently, three other stores have been...
and Fortnum & Mason
Fortnum & Mason
Fortnum & Mason, often shortened to just "Fortnum's" is a department store, situated in central London, with two other branches in Japan. Its headquarters is located at 181 Piccadilly, where it was established in 1707 by William Fortnum and Hugh Mason...
. The arrival of glass brick
Glass brick
Glass brick, also known as glass block, is an architectural element made from glass. Glass bricks provide visual obscuration while admitting light...
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 1962 the company name was changed back to Whitefriars Glass Ltd. and specialised in freeform domestic glass ware until its purchase in 1981 by Caithness Glass.
See also
- Stained glassStained glassThe term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...
- Stained glass - British glass, 1811-1918
- Victorian EraVictorian eraThe Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
- Gothic Revival