Notes from the Archive: A Lecture on Stained Glass with Lantern Slides
A Lecture on Stained Glass with Lantern Slides
by Pernille Richards
“My Lecture came off last night. We had an excellent attendance and the slides were much enjoyed. A number of the audience told me afterwards how beautiful they were.... I did not use the three from Sens, as Dr. Legge told me that these could not be replaced if any accident happened to them” (Letter to Mrs. Arnold 4/11/1920)
Mr. C. H. Grinling (1861 – 1947) collected information relating to stained glass. Although the topic cries out for illustration there are only a small number of sketches among his papers as well as a few photographs of the windows of the Beauchamp Chapel in Warwick. The need for illustration was obviously keenly felt when lecturing and Grinling’s correspondence introduces some interesting slides, eminent people and a poignant personal story of an artist.
On the 3rd of November 1920 Mr. Grinling was due to give a lecture on Stained Glass to Woolwich Antiquarian Society. In the month before this he is engaged in a flurry of correspondence trying to obtain slides to illustrate his talk. He writes to Dr. T. M. Legge, later Sir Legge (1863 -1923), best known as the first medical inspector of factories and a leading expert on occupational diseases. Sir Legge was also enthusiastic about the arts and an authority on stained glass. Dr. Legge undertook to lecture as tour of America in 1919 and had borrowed some slides from a Mrs. Hugh Arnold. Dr. Legge suggested that Grinling should ask Mrs. Arnold to borrow some of her slides.
An exchange of correspondence follows from which we learn that the slides belonged to her late husband, Hugh Arnold (1872 -1915). He was a stained glass artist influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement who had his own studio from 1903-1914 working closely with Lowndes & Dury at the Glass House in Fulham. In 1913 he published the influential book: Stained Glass of the Middle Ages in England and France. Despite his family commitments Hugh Arnold volunteered for active service in 1914. He obtained the rank of Lieutenant and was killed in action at Gallipoli in August 1915. He is among those commemorated on the Helles Memorial.
The correspondence shows Mrs. Arnold being very protective of the slides, partly for copyright reasons, partly because of their fragility, but especially because the collection contained photographs of stained glass destroyed in the War. The majority of these lost windows are French. She agreed to lend Grinling the slides, on the understanding that he does not use the French slides, which cannot be replaced. She also makes a number of technical specifications for the lantern equipment. Grinling, delighted, agrees only to find that Mrs. Arnold has left for Switzerland with her children, before he has had a chance to make his selection. He is left choosing from the 50 slides still held by Dr. Legge. The selection includes good pictures of Canterbury Cathedral, West Wickham and Dartford, but not nearly enough for a lecture on Kent glass. Grinling is rescued by fellow antiquarians F. C. Eliston Erwood and Lockwood who both lend him more slides, but he still ends up having to rewrite the lecture.
Despite these stresses, the lecture appears to have been a success. The mention of the slides aroused the interest of Percy Dearmer (1867 – 1936), an eminent liturgist and historian of Christian worship, at this point lecturing on ecclesiastical art at King’s College London. Dearmer was also interested in borrowing Mrs. Arnold’s slides for his lectures. At this point Mrs. Arnold asks for copies to be made by a company she refers to as “the Lumière people” and then these copies could be studied, but she points out that neither Percy Dearmer nor King’s College London are to keep the copies. On the 19th of January 1921 Grinling writes to Dearmer that the slides will be sent by messenger. Then the trail goes cold. We don’t know what happened to the slides from then on. Given their fragile nature they may no longer exist, but it is an intriguing puzzle and they would be a valuable historic record, if by some chance they still survive somewhere.