Roy Albutt

Locally-born Henry Payne was a skilled designer and maker of stained glass windows, who joinedthe staff of Birmingham School of Art in 1890, where as an influential teacher he contributed

significantly to the heritage of stained glassmaking in the West Midlands.

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Peace and Goodwill (1922) from the now-demolished Grainger’s Lane Chapel, Cradley Heath. Unveiled on Armistice Day,the four windows are now in the collections of Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery.

HENRY PAYNESTAINED GLASS WORK AT

BIRMINGHAM SCHOOL OF ART

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Henry AlbertPayne (1868-1940) was bornin KingsNorton,

Birmingham. He was a talentedartist-craftsman who produced artworks in many media includingpaintings (in oil, watercolour andtempera), frescoes, bookillustrations, designs forembroidery and mosaics.

A student at BirminghamSchool of Art under the influentialhead teacher E R Taylor, who wasan advocate of the Arts and Craftsethos, Payne was inspired by visitsto the school in the 1880s ofWilliam Morris and EdwardBurne-Jones. He began teachingart at the Central School inMargaret Street in 1890.

In 1901 Payne was sent on athree-month course in Londonunder the celebrated Arts andCrafts stained glass practitionerand teacher Christopher Whall.On his return to Birmingham heset up a studio and began teaching stained glass work inSeptember 1901.

Learning by DoingPreviously only the design ofstained glass windows had beenpart of the curriculum. Now,under Payne’s tuition, in theworkshop he set up at the CentralSchool, students were able totranslate their designs into stained

HENRY PAYNE

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Roy Albutt is a writer, researcher and speaker on stained glass windows.

Further Reading

Roy Albutt, Stained Glass Window Makers of Birmingham School of Art(2013).

Roy Albutt, Stained Glass Windows of A J Davies of the Bromsgrove Guild(2005).

Alan Crawford, By Hammer and Hand: the Arts and Crafts Movement inBirmingham (Birmingham City Council Department of Leisure,1984).

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery has stained glass by Henry Payne among

the stained glass windows displayed in the Industrial Gallery.

glass windows. The course proved to besuccessful and an external examinercommented in 1902 the ‘stained glass ismost excellent’.

Many prizes in annual NationalCompetitions were awarded to students ofBirmingham School of Art for their stainedglass work and Payne’s teacher ChristopherWhall used an illustration of a window byPayne, and designs by Payne’s students, in hisbook Stained Glass Work in 1905.

As well as teaching stained glass workPayne soon obtained commissions forstained glass windows which he undertookin his studio, located first in MidlandBuildings, New Street and, from 1904, inGreat Western Buildings, Livery Street,Birmingham.

An early local window, displaying Payne’sexpertise as a draughtsman and colourist andthe Arts and Crafts influence of the Schoolof Art, was the Te Deum window of 1904 atSt Alban and St Patrick’s Church, Highgate,Birmingham. Payne also provided windowsfor St Egwin’s Church, Norton, Evesham in1906 and the Good Shepherd Church atHook Common, near Upton upon Severnin 1905. The window at Hook Common isan innovative, asymmetrical design based onPsalm 104. Other early windows madebetween 1904 and 1907, are to be found at Scissett, Kirklees;Stokesay, Shropshire; and Tynemouth, North Tyne and Roker, Sunderland.

At this time Payne was associated with the Bromsgrove Guild of the Fine Arts which had been founded in 1898 by WalterGilbert, a former student at Birmingham. Payne crafted stainedglass windows for Guild commissions at private residences inDundee (1903) and Glasgow (1905).

Payne was suspected of involving his students in his personalcommissions, which caused some tension with the ManagementCommittee at the School of Art. He felt that working on actualcommissions was of greater benefit to his students thanundertaking exercises in stained glass techniques.

The Madresfield CommissionIn 1902 Payne undertook the redesigning of the Chapel atMadresfield Court, Malvern, in Worcestershire. The decoration ofthis chapel has been called ‘probably the most famous of all suchArts and Crafts schemes’ and is indeed spectacular. The work was awedding present to William, Seventh Earl Beauchamp from hisbride, Lady Lettice Grosvenor, on their marriage on 27 July 1902.

Payne was responsible for the overall design and personallyundertook, with student assistants, the stained glass windows andwall painting. Other art works in the chapel, including the paintedreredos, altar frontal, altar cross and candlesticks, were undertakenby Payne's colleagues and friends. The students, who worked on

the stained glass and wall paintingwith Payne, were teenagers RichardStubington, Joseph Sanders, HenryRushbury and Bertram Lamplugh.

There are six main windows, andin addition a series of glass panels atthe west end which were furnishedwith painted glass quarries. A windowin the north wall of the chapeldepicting the Baptism of Christ issigned with the initials HAP anddated 1902. The stained glass windowswere completed early on in theproject, but Payne worked on the wallpainting until the 1920s, whichallowed him to depict the fiveBeauchamp children, as well as theirparents, among the angels, saints,rambler roses and a wide variety offlowers on the walls of the chapel.

Payne’s LegaciesPayne’s teaching at the School of Artmotivated many of his students tobecome stained glassmakers, and theirwork is to be found in numerousMidland churches. Among themwere Richard Stubington, BenjaminWarren, Joseph Sanders and FlorenceCamm. Perhaps the most prolific was

A J Davies who set up a studio in Bromsgrove Guild premises in1906 and was responsible for some 250 windows in Britain andanother 100 abroad, mainly in Canada and Southern Africa.

In 1909 Payne left his post at the School of Art and moved tothe Cotswolds where he set up St Loe’s Guild at Amberley. Hisplace as teacher of stained glass work was taken by his formerstudent Richard Stubington.

Two later prestigious commissions Payne undertook were a wallpainting in the east Corridor of the Houses of Parliament (donatedby Earl Beauchamp in 1909) and in 1929, stained glass windows inthe French National War Memorial at Notre Dame de Lorette inmemory of war dead of the British Empire.

Payne continued to paint and undertake commissions for stainedglass at Amberley until his death in 1940. He is remembered as aremarkable artist and stained glass window maker, as well as aninfluential teacher, who contributed much to our stained glassheritage in the Midlands and nationally. l

St John Baptising Christ (1902), Madresfield Court Chapel, Malvern.

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