12
BCD Special Report on
Historic Churches
19
th annual edition
Although the reign of the pre-Raphaelites
waned at the turn of the century, the Arts
&
Crafts ideals gained a new champion in
Christopher Whall. He believed that a stained
glass artist should be proficient in all the stages
of production, from design through to the
finished window, recognising that artists would
gravitate to their natural place in the window-
making process. He also believed that there was
a duty ‘to train all assistants towards mastership
also: to give them the whole ladder to climb’.
5
As a result of this philosophy, at the end
of the first world war many of Christopher
Whall’s assistants and pupils were ready to
meet the increased demand for stained glass.
These included his daughter Veronica, as
well as Paul Woodroffe, Karl Parsons and
Edward Woore. Another of Whall’s pupils,
Henry Payne, was himself teaching in the
Birmingham School of Art and bringing on the
next generation of artists, including AJ Davies.
It is at this time, soon after the first world
war, that Cox started her career. By 1923, she
was practising at stained glass design. In 1924
she moved to Chester and, by the end of that
year, her first designs had been realised in
glass and installed in Chester College Chapel.
At least one of the windows, of King David
and St Theodore, was actually contracted
to Williams, Gamon & Co (Kaleyards) Ltd.
6
However, the window includes a monogram of
two cockerels (or ‘cocks’) above an intertwined
T and M, strongly suggesting Cox’s involvement.
The design style is more traditional than any of
her later windows, but can be related to two of
her known windows. One of these, of Mary and
the infant Jesus at St Mary Without-the-Walls,
Chester, is also known to be a Williams, Gamon
&
Co contract, but is clearly designed by Cox.
Cox’s early involvement with Williams,
Gamon & Co went far beyond being sub-
contracted for designs. Evidence from business
directories and Cox’s headed notepaper shows
that by 1927 she had a studio next door to the
Kaleyards works of Williams, Gamon & Co.
In fact, the studio may actually have been
on their premises. Furthermore, her headed
notepaper lists Geoffrey P Gamon, one of the
directors of Williams, Gamon & Co, as the
other director of TM Cox & Co.
7
Cox had
therefore come to some business arrangement
with the larger company: perhaps they had
the contacts, the kilns, the manufacturing
capacity and Cox had the design expertise.
Unfortunately, it is not known who taught
Cox the art of stained glass. It could be that
she obtained at least some of her training from
Williams, Gamon & Co. That firm of ‘lead light
and casement makers’ indeed had contacts with
Geoffrey Gamon’s half-brother Gilbert Percival
Gamon, a stained glass artist who trained with
Shrigley & Hunt in London and then produced
much of his work in conjunction with Godfrey
Humphry from their office in Grafton Street,
London. However, Gilbert Gamon was in
the army until 1921, then joined his family in
London until at least 1922. In 1924/25 Gilbert’s
address was in Buxton, Derbyshire and the
first reference to his being in the Chester area
is 1926. It therefore does not seem likely that
he could have been available to train Trena
Cox. However, there may have been other
artists within the company who could have.
In fact, David Walter Heathcote Williams,
director of Williams, Gamon & Co, described
himself as an ‘artist in stained glass’ in the 1911
census, so may himself have trained her.
It is interesting to speculate on the
influences on Cox and to wonder what she
knew of the burgeoning Arts & Crafts style.
In 1920 she exhibited a drawing, based on a
quote by William Morris: ‘There was a knight
came riding by…’, suggesting an early interest
in the Arts & Crafts. She certainly knew of
Christopher Whall’s work. In 1927 Cox designed
a window of St Christopher and the child Jesus
for the Slype (a covered passage leading off the
cloister) in Chester Cathedral. What makes
this window unique is that the design is framed
by a simulated wooden canopy in the style of
Christopher Whall. Cox must also, later, have
known of the work of Veronica Whall. In 1930,
Cox’s three designs in the Liverpool Autumn
Exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
were bracketed in the exhibition catalogue by
two Veronica Whall designs, for the Herbert
Brewer memorial window in Gloucester
cathedral and a window in Grasse in France.
The Wirral also provided a varied selection
of stained glass within reach of Cox’s home
in Birkenhead. These ranged from the more
traditional collection of CE Kempe windows
in St Bridget, West Kirby and the Shrigley &
Hunt collection in St Nicholas, Wallasey (with
its remarkable war memorial window, which
includes a WWI soldier lying dead, with one
of his hands touching the foot of Christ on the
cross), to the pre-Raphaelite Morris & Company
windows in St Mary’s and St Helen’s Church,
Neston and the Burne-Jones and Henry Holiday
Details from two windows at Chester Cathedral:
left, the St Christopher window (1927), an early
experiment with simulated wooden canopy and
frame as often used by Christopher Whall; above,
St Ermengild: part of an early (1926) window with
very little background behind the figures
Christ Ascending: part of the 1939 east window at St Matthew, Stretton, Cheshire
