Leadlight - Origin and Continuity

Origin and Continuity

18th century style leadlighting, Brussels. 19th century domestic leadlight with cathedral glass and bull's eyes. A design for a cafe window by Franz Wilhelm Seiwert, 1928

The work of the leadlighter was essentially to provide windows that excluded the weather, but admitted light into buildings. Leadlight has been in use for over a thousand years, having its origins in the Roman and Byzantine windows that were made of thin sheets of alabaster set in armatures of wood or wrought iron. With the employment of small pieces of glass as the translucent material (rather than alabaster), lead "cames" of H-section were used to hold the glass in place, with the iron armatures being retained as support for larger windows.

By the late Middle Ages the profession of domestic leadlighter was common across Europe. Until World War II most towns had a commercial shop producing domestic leadlight. These craftsmen did not refer to their product as "stained glass". The provision of decorative stained glass windows was a task requiring many more complex skills than the provision of domestic leadlight. However, some of the major stained glass studios that produced church windows also produced leadlight for commercial and domestic buildings, so that the division became blurred, and the leadlights, particularly for public buildings, were occasionally very ornate as in the windows of Central Railway Station, Sydney (below).

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries the previously accepted division between leadlight and stained glass has almost disappeared, with the terms "stained glass" and "leadlight" often being used interchangeably. This is because the techniques of construction of a pictorial stained glass window and a domestic leadlight window are basically the same, and any glass that is coloured, or carries a stain is generally referred to as stained glass.