BCD Special Report on
Historic Churches
19
th annual edition
11
Trena Cox
Emergence of a stained glass artist
Peter Jones
W
hereas much
has been written
about Victorian Gothic Revival
stained glass and its makers, much
less information is available about the stained
glass artists of the early 20th century. This is
especially true of regional artists away from
London and the south east. Trena Cox is one
such artist, living and working in Chester
for nearly 50 years. The following article
concentrates on her early, inter-war career.
Trena Mary Cox was born Emma Trina
Cox on 3 March 1895 in the Lower Bebington
Urban District on the Wirral. Her father, Philip,
was at that time a general produce broker,
working for the sugar broker Czarnikow & Co.
However, he moved into insurance in 1901, first
as local secretary of the Western Assurance
Co, then as branch manager for the Union
Assurance Society. Trena Cox’s mother was
Hulda Maude Olsen, daughter of a Norwegian
ship’s stores merchant in Liverpool.
By 1901 the family had moved to
Birkenhead and Cox grew up in a succession
of homes in and around the town. From
1910
until she left home in 1924, she lived
with her family at 46 Poplar Road, a semi-
detached house in the Oxton district, the
family being affluent enough to employ two
live-in servants, a cook and a housemaid.
1
At the age of 22 Cox started to train at
the Laird School of Art, attending courses
on drawing, design and painting between
1917
and 1924.
2
In 1923 she started to exhibit
designs for stained glass in the Liverpool
Autumn Exhibitions.
3
In that year it was
‘
The Resurrection’, in 1924 it was ‘Rebekah’
and ‘S Bede’. She also exhibited in the Royal
Academy.
4
In 1923 the subject was the St Peter
and St Lucy memorial windows and in 1924 a
design for St Hugh of Lincoln. If these designs
were ever realised, their locations are unknown.
Cox’s art training took place in the
inter-war years when the British people were
expressing their grief over those who had died
in the Great War. Towns and villages were
building memorials to their dead and individuals
were also often commemorated in stained glass.
This provided work for the existing stained glass
companies but also created openings for new
companies and artists, perhaps less encumbered
by traditional Victorian Gothic styles.
Even without the war, this was a time of
transition in the stained glass industry. The
influential Victorian stained glass designer and
The Adoration of the Magi: part of the 1947 window at St Oswald, Bidston, Wirral
manufacturer CE Kempe had died in 1907.
His company continued under the leadership
of Walter Tower, but the style did not evolve
and the company closed in 1934. The great
Arts & Crafts innovators William Morris
and Edward Burne-Jones had died in 1896
and 1898 respectively. The firm of Morris &
Company also continued, in this case with
John Henry Dearle at the helm, largely using
the existing cartoons (working drawings,
typically the same size as the window they
represent). However, the firm closed in 1940.
