Mary Shoeser is an erudite speaker and sets about her subject in a concise authoritative manner. She started with reasons for the revival of ecclesiastical embroidery after a 300 year gap. Briefly, the Reformation was opposed to most church ornament so vestments were used but not replaced and by the C19th most were in tatters. Church buildings often were not much better.
The Gothic Revival movement began in the C18th as a romantic interest in the medieval but in the C19th a religious revival led by the Oxford Movement and the Cambridge Camden Society inspired a determination to restore or build C14th revival style churches with appropriate furnishings. In 1848 they published Ecclesiastical Embroidery. The Ecclesiological Society issued a design guide for church furnishings including embroideries.
The designers of these ecclesiastical embroideries were very often eminent architects. George Street 1824-81, designer of the Law Courts, had worked as a young man for Sir George Gilbert Scott (St Pancras Station, Liverpool Cathedral and the Bodlian Library). Street was passionate about detail and designed altar frontals and vestments. His sister Agnes Blencoe founded the Ladies Ecclesiastical Embroidery Society in 1854, her brother providing designs for Newton, Jones and Willis of Birmingham whose church designs were popular for many years.
Another pupil was George Bodley 1827-1907; his St Michael’s Brighton was a controversial design, including furnishings by William Morris. Bodley with others founded a church furnishing firm, Watts & Co. There is a banner of his in Peterborough Cathedral.
W.N. Pugin wrote a glossary of ornament designs including orfreys and other braids. These patterns were still used 20 years later. Earlier in the Dublin Review he had criticised ‘prettiness’ of domestic needlework. A set of vestments were made for St Chadd’s Cathedral Birmingham.
Sir Arthur Blomfield (Radcliffe Infirmary Chapel) also designed embroideries and encouraged amateurs. William Butterfield (1814-1900) a leading Gothic Revival architect (Keble College Oxford) was admired for his hard and angular designs which showed single minded conviction and advertised the Christian message. All Saint’s, Margaret St, London (off upper Regent St) is his church and worth a visit.
Would a modern architect have the time to incorporate ornamental textiles in his/her brief?
During the 1870’s there were 10,000 women on the streets of London, many due to the deaths of their fathers, husbands, brothers in wars, shipwrecks or industrial accidents. At one point only 441 were in the workhouse. Over 200 sisterhoods were formed in this period, many making church vestments, which helped to alleviate poverty. Examples include St Margaret’s East Grinstead, the Wantage sisterhood and Sisters of Bethany, Islington founded 1876 who were famous for laid goldwork. There was the Church Extension Association, the Leek embroidery Society 1879, The Decorative Needle Society 1883 and the School of Mediaeval Embroidery.
The Queen’s embroideress Anastasia Dolby, took a keen interest in these societies and wrote a book on the subject of design. Much church embroidery was done by unpaid amateurs who were often members of the clergy families or women with time to spare.
Another church with vestments to see is All Hallows, Norwich. We were shown a detail of a glorious multi coloured eagle, a golden cope made by Buckley & Co. in 1870 from St Clements Boscombe Bournmouth, and a chasuble from East Grinstead. The Pilgrim in the Garden, a tapestry designed by Burne-Jones (1833-98) finished in 1901, shows an atmosphere of unreality, a dream-like quality moving away from the more direct approach of the earlier work.
Towards the end of the century, the Art Nouveau movement, the Glasgow School of Art and the
plain and simple materials movement led by Jessie Newberry and Ann Macbeth were changing established styles. Walter Crane added his own linear style to the mix.
All the pieces shown were underscored by a conviction and strong religious faith, expertly crafted. As the saying goes, quality counts.