David Evans
The Forgotten Pioneer
Lorna Roberts
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Detail from the 14th-century Jesse window, St Mary's, Shrewsbury, restored by David Evans in the mid-19th century (Photo: The Churches Conservation Trust) |
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In the second quarter of the 19th
century, the use of stained glass in the
architecture of Great Britain was
revolutionised.
At the start of the century
those few artists who specialised in stained
glass painting used the medium in much
the same manner as they would a canvas,
typically creating large painterly pictures,
often criss-crossed by a grid of neat leadwork
which divided the pictures up into square or
rectangular panes.
By the late 19th century,
a flourishing stained glass industry was in
the grip of the Arts and Crafts movement,
producing designs strongly influenced by
the architecture and stained glass of the
Middle Ages: flat, two dimensional decoration
predominated, with stylised motifs, and the
lines of lead which held the panes together
invariably followed the outlines of the figures
and features, not a grid.
David Evans is one
of a very few artists whose work pioneered
this development. His windows, which we mainly created in the second quarter of the
19th century, are important because they
illustrate the transition from the painterly
to the Gothic, but they are also important in
their own right, for their highly distinctive
style and use of colour.
Considering his renown as an outstanding
stained glass artist and as a pioneer of
Victorian stained glass, it is surprising
how little is known about Evans’ life. He
was born to David and Mary Evans and
christened at Llanllwchaiarn, near Newtown,
Montgomeryshire in 1793. He came to
Shrewsbury sometime in his early youth
where he received his education and in 1808
was apprenticed to John Betton, a Shrewsbury
glazier, eventually becoming his partner in
1815. Here Evans was fortunate in working on
the ‘restoration’ of many important medieval
stained glass windows. It was this experience
which gave him the grounding he needed for
his later work.
The firm of John Betton had been founded
in the mid 18th century by John Betton’s
father, who was also called John Betton. The
younger John Betton proved to be not only a
highly successful businessman, but also played
a prominent role in the Shrewsbury Glaziers
Company and the civic life of the town. The
year after making Evans his partner, Betton
became mayor of Shrewsbury and in 1817 he
was knighted for conveying a loyal address
from the town to the throne.
When David Evans began his
apprenticeship, John Betton was engaged in
the prestigious task of installing 16th-century
stained glass in Lichfield Cathedral, a job
which took two years to complete. The glass
came from the medieval Abbey of Herkenrode,
Belgium, reflecting the increasing interest in
medieval designs in this country.
Christchurch, Trallwng (Welshpool) The three windows in the chancel apse are orginal to the church, c1844, and typify Evans’ bold use of colour. Of these, the north window (on the left) is based on Raphael’s ‘Transfiguration’ (below right), a favourite of Evans. The style is painterly, but the leading, as in all Evans’ work, follows the outline of the figures. (The church is closed and is being converted into a house, while retaining the stained glass.) |
Much of the company's work in
the early days was probably ordinary
domestic glazing work, with the stained
glass side of the business gradually growing
until the majority of their business was
concerned with stained glass commissions. An
early example of their work can be seen in
Shrewsbury Abbey and was recently restored by Linley
Stained Glass Studios, Chester. The heraldic
work seems hastily painted, lacking the finesse
of their later work, and Ashley Pengelly of
Linley Studios commented that the glass was
thin and the paint feebly attached to the glass.
Much of it had to be repainted.
It would seem that the Rev Hugh Owen
and the Rev William G Rowlands, both in
their time vicars at St Mary’s, Shrewsbury,
played a large part in encouraging both men
and promoting the firm, as did local builders
and architects such as John H Haycock
and Pountney-Smith. The Rev Owen also
commissioned Evans to copy the Initial Letter
of the Inspeximus of Richard II and two of the
knights from St Mary’s Jesse window for his
History of Shrewsbury, with a view to aiding
Evans in his appreciation of medieval drawing
and colouring. The fact that Betton became mayor in 1816
no doubt also helped the business to attract
new patrons.
Betton’s and Evans’ most important
restoration work was undertaken in 1821-28
when they were entrusted with the restoration
of the late 14th-century glass of Winchester
College Chapel. Corrosion of the glass is
believed to have begun almost as soon as
the glass was put in and the Jesse window
in particular, in spite of many repairs over
the centuries, was in such a serious state by
the early 1800s that in July 1821 it had to be
removed for restoration.
‘Betton and Evans’,
as the company was now known, undertook
‘to restore the glass to its original brilliancy’.
From this we may conclude that it was their
intention to preserve as much of the original
glass as possible, but they soon discovered
that no amount of cleaning would remove
the opaque film of corrosion. It was therefore
decided that they should make a ‘first class
copy’ of the whole window, and they began by
making cartoons from the original glass.
The old glass from Winchester was
disposed of to other church windows as well as
to collectors, and during the 1930s and 1940s
numerous newspaper articles pleaded for the
return of the glass to its rightful place. (For
the full story of the Winchester glass, and in
particular a list of some of the retrieved glass,
see John Harvey and Dennis King’s 'Winchester
College Stained Glass', Archaeologia, 1971.)
The experience gained by Evans of handling the old glass and copying it was
doubtless invaluable, as well as a major factor
in the attempts of the time to revive medieval
techniques and designs.
While the firm’s early attempts to imitate
old glass were crude and unsatisfactory, they
made rapid advances and their later work is
generally considered to be very good for the
period. They had begun making facsimiles of
medieval glass in enamels and crude pot-metal
during the 1820s – often quite successfully, as
in Winchester College. However, Betton and
Evans were very much in the minority with
only a few people engaged in the stained glass
business at that time, and no one then really
knew how medieval glass had been made.
Most of the work of Betton and Evans
tends to be found in Shropshire and North
Wales, but examples of their work can be
found over a much wider region, from Leeds
in the north to Winchester in the south.
Although their work was now of the highest
quality, they were not always spoken of in
complimentary terms (they were dubbed
‘fakers’ by some), mainly because they
removed medieval glass and replaced it with
their own copies, with the original medieval
glass disappearing completely or turning up at
other churches at later dates. Their reputation,
however, seems not to have been harmed by
these accusations, as they continued to play a
very active part in the stained glass industry of
the early 19th century and they became known
all over England for their work.
Betton does not always seem to have
taken an active part in the later work, for
windows in which the firm was involved
are nearly always described as having been
done by Evans, and in 1824 John Betton
finally hung up his cap and retired, leaving
the firm in the capable hands of his partner.
Nevertheless, his role in the development was significant, as Duncan Cole, a later partner in
the firm, stated in a newspaper article: 'the
glass staining industry of Shrewsbury was
conducted under the leadership of two master
craftsmen, both Betton and Evans'.
Evans’ own and later themes for new
windows stayed quite painterly, with designs
adapted from favourite original Renaissance
paintings by Raphael and Rubens for example,
but often with medieval borders and
frames.
Much of Evans’ work was also for the
gentry and their fine stately homes. Gareth
Williams in his thesis ‘Domestic Stained
Glass Works by John Betton and David
Evans: a study of 19th century patronage and
historicism’ details some of both Betton’s and
Evans’ domestic work at places such as Netley
Hall, Lutwyche Hall, and Sundorne Castle, all
in Shropshire; and others at Stanage Park in
Powys and Ettington Park in Warwickshire.
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Meifod, Montgomeryshire A fine example of Evans’ heraldic work in
1838.
The
panes
have
been
remounted behind the main plane of
glazing, hence
the
strange shadows. |
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It is interesting to note that at the
height of his career, Evans had no feelings of
superiority and continued to accept ordinary
glazing work as can be seen on a bill prepared
for Millington’s Hospital in 1843 detailing the
various areas of the building requiring glass
repairs.
A UNIQUE AND DISTINCTIVE STYLE
Although Evans has been described as
an outstanding glass artist by many writers,
it has also been said that his drawings
were not particularly good, in that his large
figures tend to be ‘ponderous’ and his smaller
figures ‘weak’. Nikolaus Pevsner in particular
was not overly impressed with the artist’s
work, commenting that 'when he [Evans]
did more than individual figures he copied
the compositions of famous altar-pieces,
[such as] Raphael’s "Transfiguration" or
Ruben’s "Deposition", indiscriminately, and
that is not what a stained glass window calls
for' – a view shared by Morris.
However, the
strength of these large figurative pieces lies in Evans’ highly distinctive use of colour, and
when Mostyn Lewis describes Evans as a
fine colourist, many would agree.
Pevsner too goes as far as to say 'his glass
has the advantage over most Victorian glass
that its colours glow, even if they are strident'.
Evans' use of ruby red, emerald green, midnight
blue and an amethyst purple give his pictorial
windows a very rich feeling, which
can seem dark and moody.
This effect can be
extremely powerful. In St Chad’s, Shrewsbury,
for example, the three-light window behind
the altar adds a wonderful richness to the cool
classical detailing of Stuart’s circular nave. The bright focal points contrast dramatically with
the dark, richly coloured areas of glass which
surround them, commanding the viewer's attention.
In some designs, as at West Felton, Evans’
Biblical compositions are simply outlined
on small medallions of white glass, arranged
vertically and surrounded by geometric
compositions of brightly coloured glass. The
importance of these windows and of his heraldic
work is easily overlooked, overshadowed by
the larger and more dramatic compositions.
However, closer inspection immediately
reveals that these too are of enormous value
and importance, particularly for his use of flat,
stylised motifs in the Gothic manner.
Evans excelled in heraldic work which is
characterised by his use of a distinctive ‘fern’
diaper pattern (left), but he also
sometimes used a wandering line and other
diapers, such as his famous ‘seaweed’ effect.
Another characteristic of his heraldic work
was a pink enamel motto ribbon, painted to
look crinkly, with the lettering almost
always in Roman capitals. Both his decorative
and figurative windows usually contain one of
the symbols already mentioned and often the
tracery lights include red or blue roses with
leaves of a strong vivid green.
EVANS’ ACHIEVEMENT
The use of medieval motifs and leading
techniques by the firm of Betton and Evans
and by David Evans in particular clearly
reflects the emerging taste for Gothic
architecture long before Pugin’s seminal work
on the subject in 1841. However, it is unclear
how much these two artists influenced the
growth of the movement and the adoption
of medieval techniques for making stained
glass. William Warrington in his book of
1848 on the history of stained glass ascribes
‘the revival of the art’ to Joseph Hale Miller
(1777-1842). However, there was one other
contender to the title, and arguably the most
accomplished of the four: Thomas Willement
(1786-1871). (David Evans, 1793-1861, was
thus the youngest of the four.)
While Thomas Willement is generally
credited as being the foremost stained glass
artist of the early 19th century, Evans was
undoubtedly ahead of his time. This is
confirmed to some extent by the fact that
the work carried out by Betton and Evans on
Winchester College had provided Willement
with useful knowledge of early stained glass,
and also the fact that it wasn’t until the mid-19th century that the stained glass techniques
Evans had used came into common usage.
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West Felton, Shropshire The east window in the north
aisle is typical of David Evans’ composite windows, with
several small medallions in each light, each depicting
Biblical scenes. His use of rich Gothic ornamentation to
interconnect the medallions heralds the designs of the
Arts and Crafts movement, while the scenes themselves
remain firmly rooted in the Renaissance. |
If the firm’s business books had
survived we might know a great deal more about
this illustrious gentleman, but as with so
many glazing businesses, no records (or very
few) survived, making it very difficult for
researchers to reach any reliable conclusions.
Nevertheless, both men were clearly important
in the history of stained glass, with Betton
perhaps instigating the experimentation and
Evans completing and concluding it. They
certainly seemed to be on the same wavelength and were probably of similar character
– meticulous, patient, enthusiastic.
Evans’ long and prosperous career ended
on 17 November 1861 when he died at home
at the age of 68. He was buried at the then
newly opened Shrewsbury Cemetery.
The firm continued in existence for
many years and by a series of successions
and new partnerships the business passed
through many hands, including those of
his son, Charles Evans. It was finally
acquired by the father of Mr Duncan Cole
who established the business at his premises
at No 38 Wyle Cop at the beginning of the
20th century.
Samuel Bagshaw in his 1851 directory
sums up: ‘Glass staining has been brought to
the highest state of perfection by David Evans,
whose ingenious talents and consummate
skill have raised the art to a degree of
perfection unequalled in modern times…’.
Evans was indeed a remarkable
gentleman and master of his trade. There can
be no doubt that Evans played a very significant role in the stained glass
industry of the early 19th century and should
be honourably remembered and his works
accordingly recorded.
ST MARY'S, SHREWSBURY |
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This church, which is in the care of The Churches Conservation
Trust, is renowned for its stained glass, much of which is medieval.
The Jesse window above the altar is arguably the most famous.
It contains the glass from a magnificent 14th-century window, probably
rescued from Grey Friars Priory, Shrewsbury during the Dissolution. The
window was installed in old St Chad’s, Shrewsbury (a seven-light
window) before being moved to St Mary's in 1792 by John Betton.
Here the window has eight lights and
includes excellent additions in the style of the original by David Evans
who restored the window in 1859.
Jesse windows present the genealogy of Jesus back to David and
David’s father, Jesse, who is lying across the bottom of three centre
lights in a deep sleep (see the first illustration on this page). From
him rises a twisting vine, the ‘Tree of Jesse’, connecting him with figures
representing the kings of Israel: Mary and Joseph with the infant Jesus,
St Mathew and St Luke, and scenes depicting the nativity, baptism and
crucifixion. The window was re-leaded by Chapel Studios in 1998 as it had
buckled badly, saving it from more serious damage.
Most of the Victorian windows in St Mary’s are by David Evans. The east window of the south chapel lost its original
14th-century window in a storm in 1579. This was replaced by
two round-headed panels with the centre filled with stone. Both
panels were made by Evans in 1847, but the much darker centre light
and the rose window above date from 1897 following the removal of the
stone infill panel, and are by James Powell of Whitefriars, London. |
The Jesse window, St Mary’s Shrewsbury incorporating 14th century glass and
the work of David Evans who restored the window in 1859. |
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Above left: detail from the Jesse window, the
castle and the donor knight are
medieval but the borders are by Evans. Above right: detail of King David from the Jesse
window: one of the best medieval figures
from the Jesse tree, all of which is original. |
(The illustrations in this panel are reproduced by courtesy
of The Churches Conservation Trust.) |
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Historic Churches, 2003
Author
LORNA ROBERTS is an archivist at Shropshire
County Council. This article was adapted by
the editor from a thesis prepared by Lorna
Roberts.
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