Shrigley & Hunt
Shrigley & Hunt was one of the major provincial suppliers of stained glass, represented especially well in North-West England. Based in Lancaster, the firm was founded by Arthur William Hunt (1849-1917).
Arthur Hunt had worked as an apprentice for Heaton and Butler & Bayne before moving north to Lancaster in the early 1870s to join the decorating firm of Hudson & Co., previously run by Joseph Shrigley. Expanding into stained glass the firm initially used experienced freelance designers, such as John Milner Allen. However, while at Heaton, Butler & Bayne Hunt had become friends with Carl Almquist (1848 – 1924), a pupil of Henry Holiday, and in 1876 he persuaded Almquist to move to Lancaster, where in 1877 he was joined by a second young and talented artist, Edward Holmes Jewitt (1849-1929). Together Almquist and Jewitt eliminated the need for freelance designers and paved the way for three decades of widely admired stained glass designs.
Arthur Hunt’s son George J Hunt (1878-1945) joined the firm as an apprentice and became a junior partner in 1905. With a natural aptitude for stained glass, he could have been his father’s the natural successor, but unfortunately, following a quarrel with his father, he had left in 1909 to open his own studio in London. Instead when Arthur Hunt died in 1917 the role fell to his brother, Arthur Edward Hunt (1876-1929), who had trained with the architect, G. F. Bodley. He did not have the same feeling for stained glass, and the change ultimately heralded increasingly difficult times for the studio.
After World War Two leadership and ownership transferred to Joseph Fisher (1911-82), who progressively modernised the output of the firm. This included employing rising freelance artists such as John Blyth, who designed for the firm in the 1950s, and Harry Harvey, who supplied designs from the 1950s until the mid-1970s. The studio finally closed on the death of Joseph Fisher in 1982.
Sources:
Damozels and Deities: Pre-Raphaelite Stained Glass 1870–1898 by William Waters (Seraphim, 2017)
Stained Glass from Shrigley & Hunt of Lancaster and London by William Waters (Lancaster: Centre for North-West Regional Studies University of Lancaster, 2003)
The Arts and Crafts Movement in the North West of England: A Handbook by Barrie Armstrong and Wendy Armstrong, (Oblong, 2005)
Victorian Stained Glass by Martin Harrison (Barrie & Jenkins, 1980)
