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As the name suggests, this was originally a guild-like society, founded in 1921 by professional stained-glass artists to promote good practice and maintain high standards of design and workmanship. As regular church visitors will know, not every example of stained glass to be found in our places of worship is of equal merit; for every luminous and jewel-like work by Edward Burne-Jones or Charles Kempe, there are as many examples of the garish colour and clumsy draughtsmanship that the society’s founding members abhorred.
The great rebuilding and restoration of thousands of medieval churches throughout the kingdom that characterises the Victorian age was accompanied by a flowering of stained-glass design and production, to fill windows left plain by the theological disputation and iconoclasm of the previous 400 years.
As their inscriptions testify, many such windows were given as memorials to churches by the families of deceased clerics, local gentry, or officers in the armed services, and the society’s Accredited Fellow and Associate members continue to enjoy a steady stream of commissions for commemorative windows. Browsing their portfolios on the society’s website gives you an idea of the astonishing vitality of the contemporary craft of stained glass, as do the 60 panels produced for a special exhibition to mark the society’s Centenary Touring Exhibition in 2021.
As well as designers and makers, the society welcomes people involved in the conservation and study of historic stained glass and those who simply have a passion for the subject, offering in return an annual Journal of Stained Glass, the quarterly Stained Glass newsletter, access to a reference library housed at the Society of Antiquaries of London in Burlington House, regular walks, talks, and webinars, and twice-yearly expert-led field trips to look at stained glass in situ.
Perhaps in years to come, the society’s role will evolve to embrace campaigning for a much-needed national stained-glass repository. The south triforium of Ely Cathedral currently provides space for the Stained Glass Museum, but it needs more space to grow and develop its displays: one of the many churches around the UK facing imminent closure would admirably serve the purpose.
Further information: http://www.bsmgp.org.uk
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Images: Chris Catling
