[85329] London : Wesley's Chapel - Fitzgerald Window

Wesley's Chapel, City Road, London EC1, 1777-78.

The Mother Church of World Methodism.

Grade l listed.

Built by John Wesley as his London base, replacing his original London chapel, the Foundery - the site of which is commemorated by a wall plaque close by.

 

Window by Frank Salisbury, 1932 - detail.

To the Glory of God and in loving memory of William Blackburn Fitzgerald, founder of the Wesley Guild and its first secretary 1895-1926. This window is dedicated by his Guild comrades June 22nd 1932.

 

Bring me my bow of burning gold

Bring me my arrows of desire

Bring me my spear O clouds unfold

Bring me my chariot of fire

 

I will not cease from mental fight

Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand

Till we have built Jerusalem

In England's green and pleasant land.

 

William Blackburn Fitzgerald (1856-1931), Wesleyan Methodist minister, was born at Barnard Castle, County Durham, on 22 May 1856 and educated at Kingswood School and Headingley College. In 1890 he conceived the idea of the Wesley Guild to bridge the gap between Sunday School and Church. The method worked at Roscoe Place, Leeds and was adopted by the 1896 Conference. In 1906 Fitzgerald was set apart to be secretary of the Guild at Oxford Place Chambers, Leeds. He edited the Guild Magazine, pioneered the Guild Holiday Homes and its support for medical missions. The Four Alls of Methodism' originated with him and he wrote a book The Roots of Methodism' (1903), introducing their tradition to the Methodists themselves.

 

Francis Owen Salisbury (1874-1962) was born in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, the son of a plumber and glazier, and was apprenticed to his brother in a stained-glass workshop in St Albans before winning a scholarship to the Royal Academy, London, where he studied from 1892 to 1897. A scholarship to visit Italy in 1896 helped establish his taste for large scenes of pageantry. He painted numerous murals in buildings and also produced easel pictures of historical events and religious and allegorical scenes. In addition he had a successful career as a portraitist, painting five British prime ministers, five US presidents, and many other notables.

 

But it was stained glass that remained his favourite, though not his most profitable, art form. Thirty-four windows have been confirmed as being designed by him with the largest collections being at Wesley's Chapel in London, the former National Children’s Home chapel in Harpenden, and the Forest Hill Methodist Church in London. He was elected Master of the Worshipful Company of Glaziers and Painters of Glass in 1933.

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