Edward Holmes Jewitt

Edward Holmes Jewitt (1849 – 1929)[1] was a Pre-Raphaelite artist working in stained glass and other media. He was one of the two chief designers, along with Carl Almquist, for the Lancaster firm of Shrigley and Hunt, producers of stained glass windows and church-fittings. In recent years his work has begun to be studied and admired,[2] though claims that he was a genius have not gone uncontested.[3]

The Jairus' Daughter window in St Andrew's Church, Epworth, Lincolnshire
Detail of the Sower and Reaper window in St Peter and St Paul's Church, Pickering
Detail of the King Oswald window in Lancaster Priory

Ancestry and youth

Edward Jewitt's grandfather, Arthur Jewitt, authored books on the subjects of local history, perspective and geometry.[4] One of his uncles, Llewellynn, was a wood-engraver, art historian, journalist and antiquary;[5] another, Orlando, was also a wood-engraver, specialising in the illustration of works on Gothic architecture.[6] A third brother, Henry, was an employee of Orlando, and Henry's son Edward was thus brought up in a family of working artists well-versed in church history and church architecture. His childhood was spent in Headington, Oxfordshire, and after the age of eight in London. Nothing is known of his formal education or initial employment, but in September 1877 he was taken on as a stained-glass designer by Arthur William Hunt of the Lancaster firm of Shrigley and Hunt.[7]

Career

The firm already had a chief designer in the young Carl Almquist, but Jewitt was given equal status with him.[1] Hunt, Almquist and Jewitt worked as a close team, using Aesthetic techniques derived, in Almquist's case, from Edward Burne-Jones via Henry Holiday, and in Jewitt's case from Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.[8][9] For the first few years they usually worked separately; later they worked out a system by which Jewitt either supervised or himself painted a watercolour from which Almquist could produced a more detailed cartoon.[10] The qualities Jewitt brought to the partnership included a sensitivity to the qualities of the stained-glass raw materials, a thorough knowledge of iconography, and a psychological realism in drawing biblical figures. Together, Almquist and Jewitt developed a house style of subtle colours (becoming richer in later years) and delicate drawing which defined Shrigley and Hunt until well into the 20th century.[11][8] Jewitt designed many windows for locations in the Home Counties, the East Midlands, Yorkshire, and above all the north-west of England, and there are scattered examples elsewhere.[12] There are also examples of painted tiles, murals, reredoses and patternwork by him,[13] and on at least one occasion he restored medieval wall-paintings.[14]

Personal life

Jewitt married Edith Maria Pike in Lancaster Priory in 1878.[15] Their children included Austin Jewitt, who worked for Shrigley and Hunt on design projects from 1900 to 1902; Edward's younger brother, the sculptor Clement William Jewitt, also executed one commission for the firm.[16][17] Edward Jewitt at first lived in Lancaster, before moving first to Morecambe and then to the coastal village of Hest Bank, five miles north of Lancaster, from where he used to walk to work every day, much to the annoyance of his employer who would have preferred him to spend more of the day at his desk. He was still working for the firm at the time of his death, in 1929.[18]

List of works
Main article: List of works by Edward Holmes Jewitt

Footnotes
  1. Allen 2020b.
  2. Lane, P. N. (April 2014). "The Parish Church of SS Peter and Paul, Uppingham: The Stained Glass Windows" (PDF). Uppingham Local History Studies Group and Uppingham Parochial Church Council. Retrieved 6 August 2020.
  3. Cormack, Peter (2004). "Review of William Waters, Stained Glass from Shrigley & Hunt of Lancaster and London". The Antiquaries Journal. 84: 464. Retrieved 6 August 2020.
  4. "Jewitt, Arthur (1772–1852)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/14812. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  5. "Jewitt, Llewellynn Frederick William (bap. 1816, d. 1886)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/14813. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  6. "Jewitt, (Thomas) Orlando Sheldon (1799–1869)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/14814. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  7. Waters 2003, pp. 20–21.
  8. Allen 2020a.
  9. Waters 2003, pp. 1–3, 21–22, 24, 71, 75.
  10. Waters 2003, pp. 2, 22.
  11. Waters 2003, pp. 22, 24, 42, 71.
  12. Waters 2003, pp. 66–85.
  13. Waters 2003, pp. 59, 67, 75.
  14. Leyland, John (1892). The Yorkshire Coast and the Cleveland Hills and Dales. London: Seeley. p. 174. Retrieved 6 August 2020.
  15. "Banns of Marriage at St Mary in the Parish of Lancaster: Banns of Marriage recorded in the Register for the years 1872 – 1880". OnLine Parish Clerks for the County of Lancashire. n.d. Retrieved 6 August 2020.
  16. Waters 2003, p. 59.
  17. "Clement William Jewitt". Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851–1951. University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII. 2011. Retrieved 6 August 2020.
  18. Waters 2003, pp. 21, 46.
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References
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