[43968] St Peter, Leeds : Gott Window

Parish Church of St Peter, Leeds.

Leeds Minster.

Memorial Window (detail) to Benjamin Gott (1762-1840) & his wife Elizabeth (1767-1857), 1862.

Designed by Edward Middleton Barry (1830-1880).

Made by William Wailes of Newcastle (1808-1881).

 

Benjamin Gott was one of the leading figures in the industrial revolution, in the field of textiles. His factory at Armley Mills was once the largest factory in the world and is now home to the Armley Mills Industrial Museum. Gott experimented with new ways of making wool cloth, introducing innovations such as using steam power and power looms. He made a large fortune, and he reinvested much of it back into improving his mills and buying new ones. He also founded almshouses in Armley, collected fine art, and presided over the founding of the Leeds Philosophical & Literary Society in 1819. His other mills included Bean Ings (1792), the first wool factory, Burley Mills (1798), and St Ann's Mills (1824). Gott became Mayor of Leeds in 1799, and, by the time he died in 1840, he was a millionaire.

 

William Wailes (1808-1881) started his own company in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1838 and became one of the largest provincial stained glass producers. In 1841 the company was making their own glass and Wailes was employed to make glass for Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, mainly from 1842 to 1845, but he produced glass for Pugin on and off up until the latter's death in 1852. His son-in-law, Thomas Rankine Strang (1835-1899) later joined him as a partner and the name changed to Wailes & Strang. From 1859, William Wailes lived in some style at Saltwell Towers, Gateshead. He died there and is buried in the churchyard of St Peter, Bywell, Northumberland.

Done