Clayton and Bell - Important Commissions

Important Commissions

Clayton and Bell’s windows may be found all over England and in many countries abroad. Among their major commissions, and perhaps the first entire cycle of glass produced in the Victorian era, is the cycle of great scholars produced for the Great Hall of the University of Sydney, designed by the colonial architect Edmund Blacket and based upon Westminster Hall in London.

Among their other famous windows are the West Window of King's College Chapel, Cambridge, 1878, a very sensitive commission as much ancient glass still existed in the building, and also in Cambridge, a Last Judgement for the Chapel of St John's College.

Another significant commission was to design the mosaics for each side and beneath the canopy of the Albert Memorial. This towering monument set on the edge of Hyde Park in London commemorates the Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who died in 1861. The Queen remained in deep mourning until the ornate structure was unveiled, complete with a gilt statue of her husband. The firm of Salviati from Murano, Venice, had manufactured the mosaics to Clayton and Bell's designs. Not surprisingly, the firm of Clayton and Bell was awarded a Royal Warrant by the Queen in 1883.

At Truro they were commissioned by John Loughborough Pearson to design windows for the new Cathedral, and of these windows it is claimed - “The stained glass which was made by Clayton and Bell is thought to be the finest Victorian stained glass in England and tells the story of the Christian Church, starting with the birth of Jesus and finishing with the building of Truro Cathedral.”

In London, another new cathedral was under construction- the Byzantine style, enormously ornate (and as yet incompletely decorated), Catholic Cathedral of Westminster, designed by J. F. Bentley. Many designers were employed as the cathedral has a series of chapels, each different in concept. Lord Brampton, a recent convert to Roman Catholicism, selected Clayton and Bell to fill his commission for an altarpiece for the Chapel of Saints Augustine and Gregory, representing the conversion of England to Christianity. Clayton designed the mosaics in much the way that he designed stained glass, in a Victorian Gothic manner, but with a gold background, traditional to the ancient mosaics of Venice. Although the work was to be assembled by Salviati’s workshop on Murano, the tiles were English, having been made by a technique developed by the stained glass firm of James Powell and Sons and manufactured by that firm. Clayton despatched the cartoons and the tiles to Venice, where the expert mosaicists selected and glued them face down to the drawing, a technique said to have been devised by Salviati. The tiles were then adhered to the wall surface and the paper removed, leaving the mosaic intact. Lord Brampton died in 1907, to be commemorated by a mosaic of the “Just Judge”. One of Clayton’s last commissions was the design for another mosaic for the chapel “Non Angli sed Angeli”, donated by the Choir in 1912.