CONTEXT 177 : SEPTEMBER 2023 25 WORKING WITH GLASS JEFF HOPEWELL Celebrating the everyday in stained glass Since the first world war, Scotland has had a particularly strong tradition of depicting the common man and, less frequently, woman in stained glass windows in churches. When you look at stained glass in a church, you expect to see depictions of the major elements of the Christian faith, the Nativity, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection of Jesus. You will find stories from the Old Testament and the New and saints aplenty. However, around 100 years ago, ordinary people started to find their way into stained glass.The great and the good appear in memorial windows from Victorian times, but it was the first world war that saw depictions of the common man and, less frequently, woman in churches. They can be found across England and Wales, but there was a particularly strong tradition in Scotland. Every community in Britain wanted to mark the end of the Great War and to remember the fallen, and a number chose stained glass as the appropriate medium. Usually the main figures in such windows are of Christ, frequently of his Crucifixion, or St George as patron saint of England, sometimes with scenes of warfare relegated to smaller vignettes. In a few windows, however, it is the latter that take precedence. In St John, Cupar, Fife, is a pair of lancet windows attributed to the Stephen Adam Studio, dedicated in November 1921. In the apex of one window is the Crucified Christ and in the other, Christ in Majesty. However, the focus of the left light is a group of Scots soldiers wearing kilts, two resting in their trench, while a third stands guard. In the right light, two soldiers carry their wounded colleague to a waiting ambulance. In the lower part of the left light is a smaller scene of a nurse tending a wounded soldier and, in the right, a man kneels at a grave, presumably in Flanders, while his wife stands, head bowed. A later window, of 1926, is in Laurieston Parish Church, Falkirk. Here the figure of Christ takes centre stage. He is flanked by four men at work: a docker, an agricultural labourer, a foundryman and a miner, all of whom also played a part in the war effort. The church has retained the original design of the window by Margaret Chilton and Marjorie Kemp. This shows both the miner and the foundryman naked to the waist. In the finished window, both have been given blue shirts to wear. Their labour could be celebrated and give glory to God, but their bodies had to remain within the bounds of decency. Also of 1926 is a large window in St Mary, Kirkintilloch, East Dunbartonshire, by the Stephen Adam Studio, of which Douglas Hamilton was the foreman at the time. The overall theme is of the Te Deum. What concerns us most in this context is the bottom tier, illustrating the phrase ‘all the earth doth worship thee’. Here may be seen a judge in ceremonial splendour, a man symbolising theology and holding a globe representing the world-wide mission of the church, and another man holding a book, symbolising literature. Behind them is Glasgow University. In the next light are the Arts; a musician with his cello and an artist in his smock. The building in the background is the Glasgow Art Gallery. In the centre right light is a farmworker holding a sheaf of corn and a miner with his pickaxe. Behind them is a factory and pithead. On the far right stand a shipworker with his sledgehammer, a soldier and another workman Farmworker and foundryman: Laurieston Parish Church, 1926. (All photographs copyright of the author)
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