“A banner is a thing to float in the wind, to flicker in the breeze, to flirt its colours for your pleasure, to half show and half conceal a device you long to unravel: you do not want to read it, you want to worship it.”
I’ve recently been swept away by the enthusiasm of three women; Jo Bell, Tania Hershman and Ailsa Holland, and their newly released book ‘On This Day She’, which (as it says on the cover), puts women back in history one day at a time. They address the fact that so many women’s stories are missing from history, not because the stories aren’t there to be told, but simply because they are women. You can get your copy from Four Leaves Bookshop and listen to them tell you all about it here. Go on…do it!
In their book, Jo, Tania and Ailsa invite the reader to continue to research unsung women, and to ‘sing them into visibility. So here, I sing to you a song of, Mary Lowndes.
I was struck with how little I know about women in the history of art (and i’m pretty sure I was paying attention at college) As some of you may know, as well as writing and working as a kindergarten teaching assistant, I also make, and teach others how to make, stained glass windows.
It led me to wonder how women managed to hold their own in this predominantly male led profession.
Funnily enough, I didn’t have to look very far before I stumbled on a most remarkable pioneer in the stained glass movement.
After reading an article on The Corning Museum of Glass website, it came as no surprise that historically women were not permitted to be involved in the act of glassmaking. Referred to as the ‘softer sex’ in an 1887 an English glass trade journal.
Although women were permitted to be involved with tracing and painting, and so have been part of the stained glass process from as early as the 14th century – “women were more sensitive to the subtleties of coloring and irregular shapes, whereas men were considered better suited to regular, repetitive work.”
However, with the rise of the Arts and Crafts Movement, women began to have professional careers on par with men, and many women were actually permitted to attend art schools (Shock-horror!)
So, (drum roll) let me introduce you to the one and only, Mary Lowndes.
Born 1857, she was the eldest of eight children to the reverend of St Mary’s Church, Sturminster Newton, Dorset. Growing up, she didn’t have access to tutors as her brothers did, and so borrowed their books and instead taught herself Latin and Greek. At twenty-five she left home to attended the Slade School of Fine Art. There she somehow defied convention, and despite her sex gained access to live nude models, winning her a prize in Drawing from Life.
She then became an assistant to Henry Holiday, a stained-glass tutor, considered one of the great masters of the Arts and Crafts movement. Here she drew up cartoons (designs) for his commissions, while under his roof teaching herself the art of stained glass.
Mary’s first window, ‘Feed my sheep’, was completed in 1893 for St. Peter’s church, Hinton St. Mary, Dorset.
During her career as a stained-glass designer and maker, Mary made over 100 stained-glass windows, one of which I’ve just discovered, is just down the road from where I live, at the Church of St Mary, in Spittal, Pembrokeshire, (you know where i’m going as soon as lockdown restrictions ease!) Here’s a little taste of some of her amazing work:
In 1897, she co-founded ‘Lowndes and Drury’ with Alfred Drury, providing a studio space for independent artists to work on their stained glass commissions. In 1906, they moved to bigger facilities, and founded the Glass House, “one of the most successful practical initiatives inspired by the Arts and Crafts Movement”. The initiative was a fulfilment of her own vision and was funded almost entirely by herself and her companion Barbara Forbes – it was said to be, “A great feminist enterprise”
But Mary Lowndes’s story does not end there – no it does not!
In January 1907, Mary established The Artists’ Suffrage League, creating dramatic posters, postcards, Christmas cards, and banners for suffrage events. She published a pamphlet entitled, On Banners and Banner Making. She urged readers to start with colour. “you do not want to read it, you want to worship it. Choose purple and gold for ambition, red for courage, green for long-cherished hopes … It is a declaration.”
You can see the banners here and her design album here
‘From the 1890s Mary Lowndes was not only a woman pioneer in the field of stained-glass painting but facilitated the entry of many other women into the trade, so that by the time of her retirement in the early 1920s there were in London about as many women as men working independently in stained-glass’ (Elizabeth Crawford).
She was also a member and regular contributor on the committee of the feminist magazine The Englishwoman’s Review.
She shared her life and home with fellow suffragette Barbara Forbes, who was also an artist and draftswoman and secretary of The Artists’ Suffrage League, as such, there was much speculation as to her sexual orientation.
In 2017, the Chapel of St Anne, in Saunton, Devon, home to one of Mary Lowndes’s windows, was used to celebrate 50 years since the repeal of the Sexual Offences Act and the decriminalisation of homosexuality.
Mary Lowndes died in 1929. Her name and photo, along with 58 other women’s suffrage supporters, has a place on the plinth of the Statue of Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, which was unveiled on 24 April 2018.
Well, I don’t know about you, but I very much love Mary Lowndes’s song. Due to her determination and will, she paved the way for women in the world of stained glass, of which I am proud to say, I am truly grateful.
It also leads me to thinking, (thank you. ‘On This day She’ tribe) that hers is just one of many artists whose name deserves a place back in history.
Bean Sawyer 
