[47255] Sheffield Cathedral : East Window

Sheffield Cathedral.

East Window - detail.

James Montgomery Memorial Window, 1857 - replaced 1880.

By William Francis Dixon (1848-1928).

In memory of James Montgomery died AD MDCCCLlV. The gift of John Newton Mappin, Churchwarden, MDCCCLVll.

 

William Francis Dixon was a pupil of Clayton & Bell. He first appears in business by himself at 18 University Street, London in 1875. He worked with various partners, including Edward Frampton, before going to Germany in 1894 to work for Mayer & Co of Munich.

 

James Montgomery was born at Irvine, Ayrshire on November 4th 1771. In 1776 he moved with his parents to the Moravian settlement at Gracehill, near Ballymena, County Antrim. Two years later he was sent to the Fulbeck Seminary, Yorkshire. He left Fulbeck in 1787, and rented a retail shop at Mirfield, West Yorkshire. Soon tiring of that, he entered upon a similar situation at Wath-on Dearne, near Rotherham, only to find it quite as unsuitable to his taste as the former. A journey to London, with a hope of finding a publisher for his youthful poems, ended in failure; and in 1792, he was glad to leave Wath for Sheffield to join Joseph Gales, an auctioneer, bookseller and printer of the Sheffield Register newspaper, as his assistant. In 1794, Gales left England to avoid a political prosecution. Montgomery took the Sheffield Register in hand, changed its name to the Sheffield Iris, and continued to edit it for 31 years. During the next two years he was imprisoned twice; first for reprinting therein a song in commemoration of the Fall of the Bastille, and secondly for giving an account of a riot in Sheffield. The editing of his paper, the composition and publication of his poems and hymns, the delivery of lectures on poetry in Sheffield and at the Royal Institute, London, and the earnest advocacy of Foreign Missions and the Bible Society in many parts of the country, gave great variety, but very little of stirring incident in his life. In 1833 he received a royal pension of £200 a year. He died in his sleep at the Mount, Sheffield, on April 30th 1854, and was honoured with a public funeral. A statue was erected in his memory in the Sheffield General Cemetery - since removed to the Cathedral Churchyard, and a stained glass window in the Parish Church - now the Cathedral. A Wesleyan Chapel and a public hall are also named in his honour.

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