26 CONTEXT 177 : SEPTEMBER 2023 in blue overalls, holding a shovel. The scaffolding in the background represents a shipyard. In the middle tier, as part of the worshipping church, is a small image of the church in which the window is installed, St Mary, Kirkintilloch. The people are representative of mankind in general (sadly, no women among them), but some of the industries are specific to the locality, likewise the buildings, all of which serves to keep faith grounded in real life. Douglas Hamilton set up his own studio in 1938 and one of his early designs owes a considerable debt to the Kirkintilloch window. It is in Hyndland Church, Glasgow, and dates from 1939. The centre light shows a family of four, kneeling; the man is a farm worker, accompanied by his wife, holding their baby in her arms and, beside her, their young son. In the left light is a lawyer, and with him, a factory worker and a kneeling woman, hands clasped in prayer. In the right light stand a nurse and a minister, while a civic dignitary and an artist kneel as they gaze upwards towards Christ in Majesty. The window by Hamilton now in Arbroath West Kirk, Angus, is based on another ancient Christian hymn of praise, the Benedicite. Once again, the focus is on Christ in Majesty but the people represented are all very much working class. In the lower part of the left light a fisherman kneels with his nets and catch, as does a shepherd holding a lamb, with his dog nearby, and a farmhand with a rake. Close at hand is a flock of sheep and, further away, a ploughman is at work behind his pair of draught-horses. In the lower part of the right light are three men at a texile loom and a sketch of Arbroath Abbey, both of which anchor the imagery to the town and its people, even though by this time the linen and jute weaving industries were in terminal decline. The second world war gave rise to a second wave of stained glass. Hamilton represents soldiers on two of his war memorial windows, both of 1948, at Uddingston Old Parish Church, South Lanarkshire, and at Blackridge Parish Church, West Lothian. The windows at the latter serve as a reminder that it was not just the fighting men who contributed to the war effort. There are also figures of a quarryman and a bare-backed miner, together with smaller figures of others on the home front: a ploughman with his team, an engineer and a housewife. In the huge windows at Wellpark Mid Kirk, Greenock, Inverclyde, Hamilton introduced more of these vignettes than anywhere else, with six small panels of men at work and six of the arts. The industries shown were significant to the economy of the town at the time. There are small scenes of a carpenter, a cooper, an engineer and a worker in a sugar refinery. Larger areas of glass show two fishermen in a boat, hauling their net, with a trawler in the background and two foundrymen working at a furnace, representing shipbuilding. Poetry is a kneeling woman admiring a rose, and a man writing at a table, surrounded by piles of discarded paper, stands for Literature; there is a sculptor whose unfinished work would not look out of place on Easter Island and a clean-shaven Nurse, minister, civic dignitary and artist: Hyndland Church, Glasgow, 1939. Quarryman, housewife and engineer: Blackridge Parish Church, 1948. Opposite: Two soldiers carry a wounded comrade: St John, Cupar, 1921.
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