[42628] Christ Church, Port Sunlight : East Window (Left)

Christ Church United Reformed Church, Port Sunlight, Merseyside, 1902-04.

Formerly Congregational.

East Window, c1911 - detail.

By Heaton, Butler & Bayne.

The gift of William Hesketh Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme (1851-1925) in memory of his parents.

The east window is a wall of glass of sixteen lights in all.

This is the left window of five lights.

It contains the words “Suffer little children to come unto me” and is an illustration from the gospels of mothers bringing their children to Jesus. Children were very important to Viscount Leverhulme and even more so to his wife.

 

TO THE MEMORY OF JAMES AND ELIZA LEVER, PARENTS OF THE FOUNDER OF PORT SUNLIGHT, WHO WISHES HERE TO PLACE ON RECORD THE FACT THAT PORT SUNLIGHT WOULD HAVE BEEN IMPOSSIBLE OF REALIZATION BY HIM WITHOUT THE INFLUENCE OF THEIR EXAMPLE & CAREFUL TRAINING.

 

Clement Heaton (1824-1882), the son of a Methodist minister in Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire, was in 1851 a glass painter for William Holland of Warwick. He was in London by 1853 and briefly in business alone before going into partnership with James Butler (1830-1913) in 1855. Around 1860 the two briefly shared premises with Clayton and Bell, an association of lasting importance, as the third member of the firm, Robert Turnill Bayne (1837-1915), who was also from Warwick and became chief designer in 1862, was an employee of theirs. Heaton pioneered the use of softer colours, but Bayne’s advent brought the firm to widespread attention. Most of their earlier glass was gothic in style, but the firm adapted to later influences, notably that of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The firm was used widely by Sir Arthur Blomfield, but in later years less of its output was glass for churches. Heaton’s son Clement John joined for a short time, but fell out with his partners. The firm continued until 1953 under descendants of other partners, after which most of its archives were destroyed for lack of interest.

Done