Curtis, Ward & Hughes, east window Whitmore Chapel (1893-94), Church of St Giles and All Saints, Orsett, Essex.

Photo: Chris Parkinson

Curtis, Ward & Hughes, Annunciation window Whitmore Chapel (1893-94), Church of St Giles and All Saints, Orsett, Essex.

Photo: Chris Parkinson

Church of St Giles & All Saints, Orsett, Essex

Address

Church of St Giles & All Saints, High Road, Orsett, Grays, Essex RM16 3ER

Recommended by

Chris Parkinson (10)

Highlight

East window and western north window of north east Whitmore chapel

Artist, maker and date

Curtis, Ward & Hughes, 1893-4

Reason for highlighting

Very much a ‘marmite’ window but as with the windows at St Mary, Swaffham Prior, Cambridgeshire, an example of how stained glass can reflect social history, in this case the Victorian concept of ‘a good death’.

The main east facing widow is finely painted with much use of yellow stain and depicts the death of Louisa Margaret Emily Whitmore (1841-1892) of Orsett Hall. She is surrounded by her grieving husband while her children are depicted as angels. Many will consider this morbid and perhaps distasteful, but to the Victorians this was the perfect death, passing away peacefully surrounded by family and friends. A lesson in that we must never apply today’s standards to those of the past.

Equally remarkable is the window on the north wall where Louisa is depicted as the Virgin Mary at the Annunciation, bad taste or a husband showing eternal love to his dead wife?

Other comments

The church also has a number of windows, including the east window of the chancel, by William Wailes of Newcastle from the late 1840s and 1850s, at which time he was one of the most important producers in the country.

Artist/maker notes

Curtis, Ward & Hughes
Ward & Hughes was a partnership between Thomas Ward (1808-70) and Henry Hughes (1822-83), who became the chief designer, while also producing windows under his own name. On his death the firm was taken over by a relative Thomas Figgis Curtis (1845-1924). The firm continued for a few years after Curtis’s death, in the hands of a cousin, Mrs Ethel Kibblewhite.

Source: Victorian Stained Glass by Martin Harrison (Barrie & Jenkins Ltd, 1980)