[105806] St Mary, Totnes : Roberts Window

St Mary, Totnes, Devon.

South Aisle Memorial Window to Emma Roberts, d1896.

Designed by John William Brown (1842-1928).

Made by Fouracre & Watson, 1898.

Detail.

 

John William Brown was born in Newcastle upon Tyne and trained as an artist under William Bell Scott, a friend of William Morris. He was employed by Morris & Co and later by James Powell & Sons before he became a freelance designer. He continued to undertake commissions for Powell's up to 1923, but in the later part of his career most of his work was carried out for Henry Holiday.

 

John Fouracre (1818-1883) established the firm of Fouracre & Son at 29 Chapel Street, Stonehouse, Plymouth in 1866 and by 1871 they employed eight men and four boys. His son, John Thomas Fouracre (1844-1915), was soon involved in stained glass, and the 1873 Directory listed Fouracre & Son as ‘artists in stained glass’. Their first documented windows were completed in the following year.

 

JT Fouracre was assisted by Henry Watson (1842-1920), from Newcastle upon Tyne, who had previously worked in Exeter as a glass stainer. He joined the firm in time to work on the Plymouth Guildhall commission. In the following year, the firm was renamed Fouracre & Watson, under which name it traded until the 1890s.

 

Unfortunately, there are no archival sources of records of the firm; one can only presume their important archive, which must have been vast, was lost during the Plymouth Blitz. Sadly, they never signed their windows.

Done