Church of St James the Great, Birstall, Leicestershire
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Church of St James the Great, Church Hill, Birstall, Leicester LE4 4DNRecommended by
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Two-light window in the north wall of the Howard Room. The Parable of the Talents/The Faithful ServantArtist, maker and date
Designed by Theodora Salusbury and made in conjunction with Lowndes & Drury, 1923Reason for highlighting
A fine example of the work of Theodora Salusbury in a church closely associated with her family, and one of three windows made for the church. This one is a memorial window to the artist’s parents, William Llewellyn Salusbury-While and Charlotte Aspasia Willmer his wife.
This is an unusual representation of the Parable of the Talents/The Faithful Servant, with Christ is portrayed as the Master with the good and faithful servant kneeling before him; on the left two other servants look on. Typical Arts and Crafts leading, colour-scheme and landscape background. A small peacock, Salusbury’s signature mark, is in the bottom right hand corner.
Salusbury took the same theme in a more conventional rendering for her last window, which is in the Church of All Saints, Kimcote, Leicestershire.
Artist/maker notes
Theodora Salusbury (1875-1956) was an artist and craftswoman in the Arts & Crafts style. Unfortunately, all of the artist’s records were destroyed but it is known that she studied at the Royal College of Art and the Central School of Arts and Crafts, where she is likely to have been taught by Karl Parsons. Subsequently in 1907 she entered the Slade School of Art and went on to take up a four year apprenticeship with Christopher Whall.
While maintaining a studio in London until the mid-1930s by 1925 she had her own studio at St Agnes in Cornwall where she continued to design windows during the most productive phase of her life between 1920 and 1940. Her work is to be found in nearly thirty churches in England and Wales, several of them in Leicestershire, her home county.
The impact of her windows comes through her use of brilliant colour and her skilled representation of the figures she portrayed. Most of her windows bear her signature mark of a peacock.
Source: Theodora Salusbury, Stained Glass Artist by Georgina Maltby and Andrew Loutit, 2018
Other comments
Theodora Salusbury made two further windows for the church in addition to the above, an Annunciation window (1920) in the south wall of the old church chancel, and a Virgin and Child window (1932) in the east wall of the new church extension. The windows reflect the special significance of Birstall to the Salusbury family, which was left a house in the village in 1907 and finally settled there in 1919. A green plaque on the wall outside the church celebrates this family connection and her work.
Further along the south wall of the old church chancel is another window in the Arts & Crafts tradition by Hincks and Burnell of Nottingham (1935), depicting the Nativity and Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb.
The church also has a number of windows from leading Victorian studios, along with two later twentieth century windows from Harry Harvey (1961) and Derek Hunt (1994).