J.F. Williams, Nona Burden, Vanessa Smith among noted stained-glass artists in early 20th Century Adelaide
The northern stained glass window in Brookman Hall of the former School of Mines and Industries building, on the North Terrace-Frome Road corner, was designed by James Ferguson Williams. It features famous British science and technology figures such as Watt, Newton, Stephenson, Bessemer, Kelvin, Fraday, Wren and Dalton.
James Ferguson Williams, Nona Burden and Vanessa (Lambe) Smith were among stained-glass artists to leave a strong impression on Adelaide in the early 20th Century.
Williams, Burden and Smith were all employees of the glazier business started by Heinrich Ludwig Vosz in Rundle Street, in 1853. The firm kept expanding beyond Vosz’s death in 1886 but became A.E. Clarkson Ltd in 1915 because of World War I antipathy to German names. The company set up a leaded- and stained-glass department in 1899 when it was joined by James Ferguson Williams, grandson of James Ferguson who’d started a prominent Melbourne stained glass firm with James Urie.
Williams designed Vosz/Clarkson stained-glass projects such as windows in the School of Mines and Industries Brookman Building opened in 1903 on the Frome Road corner of North Terrace, Adelaide; Jeffries memorial window and Lathlean window in Kent Town Methodist church; and the three-light window for St Alban's Church, Gladstone.
The firm’s other projects included side windows of the city council chamber at Adelaide Town Hall, donated by A.M. Simpson; 12 windows around The Church of the Immaculate Conception, Port Adelaide; Church of the Good Shepherd, Bowden, window dedicated to a soldier killed in South Africa; a window in St. Columba's Church, Hawthorn; Colton memorial window in Pirie Street Methodist church; Lloyd memorial window, Archer Street Wesleyan church, North Adelaide; memorials to Father Bannon and Donald MacLean for St Laurence's (Catholic) church, Buxton Street, North Adelaide, three two-light tracery windows, each 3.7 metres high, of Dominican order saints.
Nora Burden, born in Adelaide in 1908, was eldest daughter of engineer Frank Burden and Emily Rosa Burden, a daughter of vigneron Henry Martin. Burden studied painting at the South Australian School of Arts and Crafts starting as a stained glass artist with A.E. Clarkson Ltd. Her work included a porch window at St. Ignatius Catholic Church, dedicated to long-serving organist Arthur Noyse.
Burden, who later became art mistress at Annesley College, also tutored another Clarkson stained glass artist Vanessa Lambe (later Smith) who was the youngest student to obtain a scholarship to the South Australian School of Arts and Crafts in the exhibition building on North Terrace, Adelaide, in the 1930s. Smith's windows were in more than 50 buildings around Adelaide city, including St. Mary Magdalene's Anglican Church in Moore Street.
A short-lived (1892-1910) stained glass company was formed in Adelaide by Herbert Grimbly and William Montgomery whose work included windows for St Francis Xavier's Cathedral, Wakefield Street, depicting St Patrick and St Laurence; the South Australian Museum and the South Australian Hotel.
E. G. Troy, painter and decorator of Flinders Street and Gawler Place, Adelaide, a Catholic layman remembered as a founder of St Vincent de Paul in Adelaide, produced much of the art glass found in the villas of affluent Adelaide in the 1890s and early 20th century. Scotsman R. Elliott designed the empire window, featuring Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, in 1902 at the northern end of the School of Mines and Industries. He was also did the coronation window in the Adelaide city council chamber.
Herbert Mosebury Smyrk moved in 1888 to Adelaide, where he was active in the Adelaide Easel and created some of city’s finest glass art, including Fruits of the Earth for the original St Augustine’s Church at Unley. Charles Edward Tute’s few years in Adelaide produced works such as the northern window of St Paul's Church, Pulteney Street, in memory of (Blanche) Ada Bonython, unveiled in 1909.
