International studio (42.1910)

Painted Glass designed by Sir E. Burne-Jones

WINDOWS IN ROTTINGDEAN CHURCH

DESIGNED BY SIR E. BURNE JONES

In 1877 the Society for the Protec-
tion of Ancient Buildings was founded,
Morris himself being the principal pro-
moter of the scheme. Indeed, it was
a work which he was proud to account
among the best, if not indeed the very
best, he had ever undertaken. The
Society's operations did not imme-
diately affect the practice of the firm
of Morris & Co., but gradually the
conviction was borne in upon its chief
that consistency and example required
him to abstain from inserting new
glass windows into ancient churches.
Accordingly, on the removal of the
firm from Queen Square to their pre-
sent premises in Oxford Street and of
their works to Merton, in 1881, a
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circular was put forth in which Morris announced : " We
are prepared as heretofore to give estimates for windows
in churches and other buildings, except in the case of such
as can be considered monuments of Ancient Art, the
glazing of which we cannot conscientiously undertake, as
our doing so would seem to sanction the disastrous practice
of so-called Restoration."

To adhere strictly to this noble and self-denying ordin-
ance was neither easy nor even always possible. What
Mr. W. J. Mackail calls the " casuistry of the matter" he
expounds with no little ingenuity in his " Life of William
Morris." The latter might, nay did, resist the proposal of
Dean Stanley to place with the firm an order for glass in
Westminster Abbey — a building which Morris held in
reverential affection—but he could not refuse compliance
with the wishes of his closest friend, Burne-Jones, for whom,
subsequently to his formal manifesto above quoted, he did
execute a certain number of windows for the old parish

WINDOWS IN ROTTINGDEAN CHURCH

DESIGNED BY SIR E. BURNE-JONES