[101284] Ely Cathedral : RAF Bomber Command Window

Ely Cathedral, Cambridgeshire.

The Cathedral Church of the Holy & Undivided Trinity.

North Choir Aisle.

The Royal Air Force Bomber Command Memorial Window.

Made by James Powell & Sons, 1954.

Designed by Edward Liddall Armitage (1887-1967).

Detail.

 

In honour and memory of the members of 2, 3, 8 and 100 groups who served in the Ely district during the Second World War 1939-1945.

 

Edward Liddall Armitage trained with Henry Holiday and Karl Parsons, working as an assistant glass painter for the latter from 1920 to 1924. He then established himself in North Kensington, London, and formed a partnership with Victor Drury (1899-1988). From about 1940 Armitage worked as a designer for Powell & Sons (Whitefriars).

 

James Powell & Sons, situated on the site of the former Whitefriars monastery, between the Thames and Fleet Street, was producing mainly flint glass when it was bought in 1834 by James Powell, a London wine merchant. On his death the firm passed to his three sons Arthur, Nathaniel and James Cotton Powell, who in 1844 established a stained glass department. The latter benefitted from the scientific researches of Charles Winston, a lawyer by profession, who had dedicated himself to the study of medieval stained glass. It had made him aware of the shortcomings of the glass available to contemporary artists, this being often thin and garish in colour. In 1847 he encouraged experiments aimed at rediscovering the chemical components of medieval glass and persuaded the firm of James Powell & Sons to produce 'antique' glass to his recipes. It was mainly due to this collaboration that the firm was to become one of the most important studios and glass manufacturers of the Victorian period.

 

Ely Cathedral has its origins in 672AD when St Etheldreda built an Abbey Church. The present building dates back to 1083, and cathedral status was granted it in 1109. Until the reformation it was the Church of St Etheldreda & St Peter, at which point it was refounded as the Cathedral Church of the Holy & Undivided Trinity, continuing as the principal church of the Diocese of Ely.

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