William Glasby was a prolific designer and painter of stained glass windows and creator of opus sectile mosaics for churches and memorials. Many examples of his work exist, not only in England, Wales [1], Ireland [2] Scotland, and the Isle of Mann, but there are also designs across the world, from Honolulu to South Africa, to India, the United States and Guyana.
In his working life he was assisted by his wife, Constance, and by his two daughters, Barbara and Dulcima, who carried on his commissions after his death. Little has been written about the work and life of Glasby. The most comprehensive Article was written by Donald Green, Dennis Hadley and Joan Hadley in 2008. [3] In this Article he is described as a “minor artist”. But his work was appreciated in the United States, and arguably must have been appreciated in Great Britain, given the number of commissions he received.
This research project came about from John Collins keeping an archive of 204 cartoons drawn by William Glasby as drafts, sketches or specimens of commissioned designs.
This collection has a small round sticker on each the top right-hand corner. The collection was numbered on the back of the sketches between March and August 1975 by Mr Colgate, John Collins placed the round white sticker on the front to ease identification. the son of the housekeeper of Glasby’s daughter, Dulcima Glasby, after her death in March 1975. [4] We have used his Numbers as our Logs, We do not know the methodology Mr Colgate used for the numbering. Some of the numbering may be by William Glasby, or his daughters. Sometimes the Churches/places seem to be in alphabetical order. Many of the sketches towards the higher numbers appear to be drafts.
There are also two larger pencil black/white/grey Cartoons for Brothertoft, labelled No.1 St Thomas and and a drawing of Jesus, labelled with S. Thomas.
There are also some designs for Christmas cards.
Some of the sketches have the Log number on the back written in ink and it may be that either Glasby, or his daughters numbered the sketches in this way. For example Log 233 is design for a Christmas card, without a church mentioned. The Log number is written in gold - the same as the painting.
In the 2008 Article there is an Annex of Glasby's known work. We have correlated this list with the Collins' archive and discovered that there are some works mentioned in both lists that are not found in the composite list.
The Logs in the John Collins' archive start at #9. There are some missing Logs. We presume that there are some in the Horsham Museum and hope to confirm this once the COVID-19 lockdown measures are released and museums open. We would also like to visit the archives of Historic England in Swindon to look at the work of Donald Green. There should be slides of Glasby Windows in the collection.
We hope also to find some explanations of Windows we have not been able to trace.
We have also discovered some "new" work by Glasby, through photographs on Flikr, and from information from individual churches. Sometimes we discovered a church had more than one Glasby Window, sometimes we found a completely different Window from the sketch. By February 2022 we have logged 58 "New Works" which are not in the Collins' archive or the 2008 Green, Hadley and Hadley Article.
There is a small archive of the Peachtree commission at Henfield Museum. These are sketches and tracings. The majority of preliminary sketches were sent to the Peachtree Church by Lucie Bishop.
We were interested in discovering more about the history of the stained-glass windows, especially who commissioned and paid for them. The website links the sketches to the different stages and developments of William Glasby’s life. Aided by the logs created by Mr Colgate we set about using the internet to identify contact details for each design. As would be expected many of the glass windows did not exist, either because of destruction, for example, in England through bombing in WWII, decommissioning of the Church buildings, or the windows were removed. We also considered that some commissions were not followed through.
Notes:
1. Stained Glass in Wales: http://stainedglass.llgc.org.uk/person/462
2. William Glasby's only known work in Ireland is the opus sectile memorial to Arnold George Ellis (d. 1924) in the baptistery of Gorey Church of Ireland Church, Co. Wexford. See Log NW 35.
[3] The Life and Work of William Glasby (1863 – 1941), The Journal of Stained Glass, v. 32 (2008), pp. 91-106, ill. There is a Post Script added by Dennis Hadley, “William Glasby: A Postscript” vol. XXXIII The Journal of Stained Glass (2009), 104.
[4] Letter from Mr H.N. Colgate, dated 25 August 1975, on file in John Collins’ archive.
(c) Erika Szyszczak 22 June 2021.
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