Holy Trinity Church, Frome, Somerset
Address
Holy Trinity church, Trinity St, Frome, Somerset BA11 3DERecommended by
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A set of nine windowsArtist, maker and date
Designed by Edward Burne-Jones and made by Morris & Co., 1880-1903Reason for highlighting
Down the old back streets of Frome, in a church that was built in 1837 to serve the local weavers and cloth workers, is the most impressive collection of Burne-Jones/Morris & Co. stained glass in the south west. A set of nine stained glass windows designed by the famous Pre Raphaelite artist, Edward Burne-Jones and manufactured in the workshops of William Morris between 1880 and 1903. They were largely painted by Thomas George Bowman, who worked for Morris & Co between 1879-1909 and was one of their finest painters.
Artist/maker notes
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833-1898) was born in Birmingham and studied at Exeter College, Oxford where he met William Morris, with whom he developed a lifelong friendship. Together they created hundreds of stained glass windows that collectively stand as one of the finest artistic achievements of their time. The stature of this formidable artist and designer was recognised after his death when he became the first artist to be given a Memorial Service at Westminster Abbey.
Morris & Co. (1875-1940) was the successor to original business of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. William Morris had always been the driving force behind the Firm and he finally determined to remove his earlier partners and to take the business into his own hands, with Burne-Jones as principal designer. The business flourished and continued after Morris’s death, when it also continued to use Burne-Jones designs. It finally closed in 1940.
Sources:
For a brief overview of the two companies see Morris & Co on Wikipedia
The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination by Fiona McCarthy, Faber & Faber, 2011.
William Morris: A Life for Our Time by Fiona MacCarthy (Faber & Faber, 1994)
Burne-Jones Special Issue, The Journal of Stained Glass, Vol. XXXV, 2011
Damozels & Deities Pre-Raphaelite Stained Glass 1870-1898 by William Waters and Alastair Carew-Cox (Seraphim Press Ltd, 2017)