ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST CHURCH
GRIMSTON, LEICESTERSHIRE
BUILDING & CHURCHYARD
STAINED GLASS WINDOWS
There are 2 stained glass windows, in the south and east walls of the chancel, by George Baguley and Rosemary Rutherford respectively.
George Joseph Baguley
The south chancel window, by Baguley of Newcastle upon Tyne, is a memorial to Mary E Hill. It shows Our Lord in the western light and the Virgin Mary in the eastern light and was installed in 1916. Mary Hill was the wife of Charles Hill, who lived at Wembley House in Grimston. He was a plumber and sanitary engineer, and had been involved in building the Portsmouth Naval Barracks, and with many railway projects.
George Baguley, who was born in Dublin, was first a designer at the William Wailes stained glass factory in Newcastle, which at one time had 76 employees. William Wailes was trained under the famous Meyer of Munich and set up his manufacturing firm in 1838. His most notable work is the West Window of Gloucester Cathedral.
Baguley left Wailes to set up on his own, with most of his output being in the north of the country.
Baguley was a churchman himself being Chapel Warden of The Chapel of St. Thomas the Martyr, in Newcastle, founded in 1830, for 45 years. One window in the chapel in that church, behind the altar, records the death of his wife Margaret, with the dates of 2nd February 1838 to 20th March 1879.
George Baguley’s dates are given as 1834 to 1915. However the Grimston window records the death of Mary Hill on the 9th July 1916 and a window in another church has his signature in the bottom right corner of the window, as with ours, with a 1919 date. It may be that the firm continued for some years after his death.
The depiction of the Virgin Mary's dress with fleur de lys decoration is typical as is the background of artistic foliage to both images. The columnar left and right frame to both images is identical to that used in the windows at St Thomas, Heatherycleugh, Cowshill, County Durham.
Rosemary Rutherford
The east window is a memorial to Annie Turnbull Bell, the mother of the incumbent, the Revd. TCH Clare and was installed in 1966. It shows the story of the links with the Mercian Mission and the ancient Pictish and Celtic Churches of Ninian (Whitehorn 397 AD) and Columba (Iona 563 AD). The central light shows the Patron Saint of Grimston church, St. John the Baptist, holding the Lamb of God. The north light shows St. Columba holding the present lona Abbey with the Saint's staff above. The south light shows St. Margaret, Queen of the Scots and great niece of Edward the Confessor, holding her own chapel with her copy of the New Testament above.
Rosemary Rutherford was born on 1st September 1912 at the parsonage of Northfield, Kings Norton, where her father Revd. John Finlay Rutherford was parson. She trained at the Slade School of Fine Art and in 1939 was both an artist and part time teacher at St Cedd’s School, Chelmsford and was living at the vicarage of Broomfield, Chelmsford with her parents.
During the War she carried out various duties for the Voluntary Aid Detachment of the Red Cross. She was allowed by the War Artists Advisory Committee to record her work including, at the end of the War, that in Ceylon and in the Far East Campaign.
There is a window by Rutherford at nearby Saxelbye church, and there are others at St. Mary's, Broomfield and All Saints, Sedgley. However much of her work is in East Anglia including at St Mary's, Hinderclay, Suffolk, and nearby St. Mary's, Walsham le Willows where in both cases her brother had been rector. Other East Anglian churches with her work are Boxford in Suffolk and notably St Faith's, Gaywood in Norfolk where there is a strikingly beautiful window known as the Corn Window in the Lady Chapel.
Rosemary Rutherford, who is sometimes claimed to be one of the best-loved stained glass artists of the 20th century, died in 1972.
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To download a black and white image of the east window suitable for colouring in, please 'CLICK HERE'.