ART OF GLASS
STAINED-GLASS ARTIST’S REMARKABLE LEGACY
WHETHER or not he was aware of it as a boy and young man, Arnold Wathen Robinson was one of the lucky ones. He was born on December 17 1888 into Bristol’s elite; the clues are in his middle name and surname.
His grandfather, businessman and politician Elisha Smith Robinson, had founded a dynasty in paper and packaging. His mother’s adoptive father had been Sir Charles Wathen, wool merchant and six times Mayor of Bristol.
Robinson’s father, Kossuth Robinson, was a retiring man who tended to shun public life, though he was a magistrate, but he preferred country life. When Arnold was a young man, the family moved from Westbury Park to a newly built home in Sneyd Park. Arnold and his bothers attended Clifton College and would have been looking forward to making their way in the world with all the head starts that a privileged background and loving family could provide.
Arnold Wathen Robinson would go on to become one of the country’s leading artists in stained glass. If you have never heard of him, you will almost certainly be familiar with his work because it adorns many churches in Bristol and elsewhere.
Certainly his best-known work in Bristol would have to be the windows commemorating the civilian services in the Second World War. Behind all this achievement, though, there was a sequence of shattering tragedies.
After leaving school he had determined on an artistic career and served a six year apprentice- ship under Christopher Whall, one of the UK’s most prominent stained glass makers, and an influential figure in the Edwardian ‘Arts and Crafts’ movement.
At the time, it might be added, a career in stained glass was a perfectly sensible ambition insofar as many more Britons were churchgoers, and churches of all denominations had the money for building. Many wealthy people paid for stained glass windows in churches as a way of remembering loved ones, or left money for windows in their wills.
On the outbreak of the First World War, Robinson enlisted. Given his profession and the fact that he was living in London at the time it was no surprise that he signed up with the Artists’ Rifles, a Territorial Force unit with many members working in the arts, crafts or associated trades. He would later be released for military service and spent the rest of the war as manager of a shell factory.
Arnold Wathen Robinson was the eldest of five sons, and three of his brothers would be killed in WW1.
Clifford Kossuth Robinson had become an accountant as well as a member of the Gloucestershire Volunteer Artillery (a Territorial unit based at the Artillery Grounds on Whiteladies Road). For some reason he decided on a radical change of career in 1913 and emigrated to New Zealand to work on his uncle Gladstone Robinson’s sheep farm. When war broke out he joined the 8th Canterbury Mounted Rifles and after contracting typhoid at Gallipoli, died at a hospital in Malta.
Geoffrey Wathen Robinson was a Lieutenant with the 10th Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment when he was killed at the Battle of Loos on September 25 1918. Edward Colston was a Lieutenant with the 8th Btn Somerset Light Infantry and was killed in France the very next day.
One can only imagine the pain that the parents must have gone through, as well as that of their brother. So although he had embarked on a career making church windows before this series of catastrophic blows to his family, it was, perhaps fitting that he would spend the rest of his life commemorating the dead, or depicting religious subjects.
Robinson became a director of Joseph Bell & Son, a well-known Bristol firm of stained glass makers and actually bought the firm in 1923, though he retained the name. It was for this company that he produced most of his designs.
You can see his work at numerous churches in and around Bristol, including several windows which were commissioned as memorials to those who died in the Great War and/or the Second World War. There are examples of these in St Alban’s in Westbury Park, St Mary’s Shirehampton and Christ Church in Nailsea, for instance.
Other local churches also feature his work, though not necessarily as war memorials. Given his close family connections with the Baptist Church it’s no surprise that there are very fine examples at Tyndale Church in Clifton.
Bristol Cathedral has some of the best known Robinson windows. These were commissioned to replace windows damaged by wartime bombing and, appropriately enough, commemorate the contribution by civilian services and volunteers in WW2. The first of these were unveiled in 1950 by the thenPrincess Elizabeth on an official visit. Given that these particular ones honoured nursing services a number of local nurses were invited to the event, and much curiosity was aroused when two Bristolian male nurses were introduced to Her Royal Highness.
The windows depict real people, who were photographed in their uniforms at a studio on Queen’s Road. When BT published some of
Certainly his best-known work in Bristol would have to be the windows commemorating the civilian services in the Second World War. Behind all this achievement, though, there was a sequence of shattering tragedies.
the pictures four years ago we were contacted by a lady who told us that the boy in the red dressing gown, Clive Odey, had been a hospital patient at the time and had just celebrated his 70th birthday. The nurse with him was Sister F.E. Burrows. In another window, the woman police officer is thought to have been Sergeant Ella Johnson.
Not everyone was happy with the new windows. During the war, Robinson had supervised the temporary replacement of damaged windows with plain glass, which let a great deal more light into the Cathedral. Now the building’s interior was rather dark again …
Robinson inherited his family’s enterprising streak and he would take over the Bristol Guild. It is, in fact, one of Bristol’s longest-lasting retail businesses. It was originally set up at 75 Park Street in 1908 by aficionados of the Arts and Crafts Movement as the Bristol Guild of Applied Arts. Its skilled craftsmen offered hand-made work in opposition to the mass-produced goods of the industrial age.
Originally a co-operative, it went under in 1918 but was bought out by three businessmen, one of them being Arnold Robinson. And it’s still there today.
Robinson married Constance Burgess in 1925 and after his death 30 years later, one of their three children, Geoffrey, took over the business and ran it until it closed on his retirement in the 1990s.