James Powell and Sons
The firm of James Powell and Sons, also known as Whitefriars Glass, were London-based English glassmakers, leadlighters and stained-glass window manufacturers.
The firm acquired a large number of patents for their new ideas and became world leaders in their field, business being boosted by the building of hundreds of new churches during the Victorian era.
Surprisingly few entire windows of Powell quarries are to be seen in English churches, although they survive in little-seen locations such as vestries, ringing chambers and behind pipe organs.
[citation needed] During the latter part of the nineteenth century, the firm formed a close association with leading architects and designers such as T. G. Jackson, Edward Burne-Jones, William De Morgan and James Doyle.
The firm's production diversified in the 1850s to include domestic table glass after supplying the glassware for William Morris's Red House.
His training, which led to more scientific production and innovations such as previously unattainable colours and heat-resistant glass, for applications in science and industry, like X-ray tubes and light bulbs.
Nathanael Powell's eldest surviving son, Harry, an admirer of Ruskin, delivered numerous lectures on glass manufacture.
Despite a flourishing business, the great expense of the new factory scuttled plans to construct a village to house the workers in a style fashionable during the Arts and Crafts movement.
Glassware trended to the colourful and heavy, and optic moulding and wheel engraving played a major part in bringing the Art Deco style to the middle and upper classes.
His influence in the area of stained glass is legendary, and his designs for tableware and serviceware, including the stemmed glassware he created specifically for the British Embassies over all the world, are without peer.
The following years saw austere and functional Scandinavian design sweeping Europe, and dominating stock purchases by major outlets such as Selfridges and Fortnum & Mason.
Preservation work undertaken includes cartoons from Fourmaintraux's windows in St. Peter’s Church, Lawrence Weston, Bristol, and for the War Memorial in Auckland, New Zealand.
[9] A pen and ink and watercolour drawing for Fourmaintraux's design of an abstract dalle de verre window for the 'Golden Ball', public house, Campo Lane, Sheffield is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
[10] The museum also holds a pen and ink and watercolour drawing for 15 small stained-glass windows of abstract design for Narberth Crematorium, near Porthcawl.
