• Architect Richard Norman Shaw, 1831
• Illustrator and Painter Phoebe Anna Traquair, 1852
• Stained Glass Artist Christopher Whitworth Whall, 1849

Shaw trained in the London office of William Burn with George Edmund Street and attended the Royal Academy classes, receiving a thorough grounding in classicism, and met William Eden Nesfield, with whom he was briefly in partnership. In 1854 – 1856 he traveled with a Royal Academy scholarship, collecting sketches that were published as Architectural Sketches from the Continent, 1858.

In 1863, after sixteen years of training, he opened a practice for a short time with Nesfield. In 1872, Shaw was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy.

He worked, among others, for the artists John Callcott Horsley and George Henry Boughton, and the industrialist Lord Armstrong. He designed large houses such as Cragside and Grim's Dyke, as well as a series of commercial buildings in a wide range of styles.

Shaw was elected to the Royal Academy in 1877, and co-edited (with Sir Thomas Jackson RA) the 1892 collection of essays, Architecture, a profession or an Art?. He firmly believed it was an art. In later years, Shaw moved to a heavier classical style which influenced the emerging Edwardian Classicism of the early 20th century. Shaw died in London, where he had designed residential buildings in areas such as Pont Street, and public buildings such as New Scotland Yard.

His picturesque early country houses avoided the current Neo - Gothic and the academic styles, reviving vernacular materials like half timber and hanging tiles, with projecting gables and tall massive chimneys with "inglenooks" for warm seating. The result was free and fresh, not slavishly imitating his Jacobean and vernacular models, yet warmly familiar, a parallel to the Arts and Crafts movement. Richard Norman Shaw's houses soon attracted the misnomer the "Queen Anne style". As his powers developed, he dropped some of the mannered detailing, his buildings gained in dignity, and acquired an air of serenity and a quiet homely charm which were less conspicuous in his earlier works; half timber construction was more sparingly used, and finally disappeared entirely.

His work is characterized by ingenious open planning, the Great Hall or "sitting hall" with a staircase running up the side that became familiar in mass produced housing of the 1890s.

He was also involved in ecclesiastical architecture. He restored St. John's Church, Leeds, and designed new churches such as St. Margaret's, Ilkley, All Saints', Leek, and All Saints', Richards Castle.

The song school of St Mary's Cathedral (1888 – 92) won Traquair national recognition. Within a tunnel - vaulted interior, the east wall depicts the cathedral clergy and choir. The south wall depicts Traquair's admired contemporaries such as Dante Gabriel Rosetti, William Holman Hunt and George Frederic Watts. On the north wall birds and choristers sing together, and the west wall shows the four beasts singing the Sanctus. The Song School is still used daily for practice by the Choristers.

Her best known work is in the vast former Catholic Apostolic Church (1893 – 1901) in Broughton Street which has been called "Edinburgh’s Sistine Chapel", and "a jeweled crown". It was this work which helped to confirm her international recognition.

Another of her major works is the illuminated manuscript of Sonnets from the Portuguese by the Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, a key Arts and Crafts manuscript. This is held by the National Library of Scotland and a version is available on the NLS Digital Library.

He was born on 16th April 1849 at Thurning Rectory in Northamptonshire, the son of a clergyman, the Rev.William Whall M.A. (1808 – 1974), Rector of Thurning - cum - Little Gidding, and Elisabeth Whall née Boultbee (1817 – 1891). Thurning is now in the county of Northamptonshire but, at the time of Whall's birth, was partly in Huntingdonshire. His mother came from a local family with both clerical and naval connections.

In 1863 he was sent to Rossall School in Lancashire. The drawing master there was William Coulter of the Royal Hibernian Academy. He left Rossall School in 1865 and in 1867 enrolled as a probationer at the Royal Academy Schools and on 8 January 1868 he was admitted as a student there. It seems that his decision to become an artist was against his parents' wishes,

When his father died in 1874, Whall moved with his mother to No 4. Hyde Side, Edmonton. In 1875 and 1876 he exhibited at the Royal Academy and at this time gained the patronage of a Hanoverian aristocrat, Baroness von Boselager who gave him funds to travel to Italy, where he was to stay for almost three years, traveling in Central and Northern Italy, studying architecture and paintings. It was at Lucca in 1878 that he converted to Catholicism. Prior to his departure to Italy he had sought work as a portrait painter and as a studio assistant to other artists, but had had little success.

When he returned to England in 1879, almost it seems penniless, he was befriended by the Rosminian Order of Charity at St Ethelreda's Church in Ely Place, Holborn, and became a lay member. At St Ethelreda's he designed the side windows in the upper chapel, these windows being made by W.G. Saunders. By 1882 he was to leave the religious community at Ely Place, move to No.18 Wharton Street in Clerkenwell and work as an illustrator of newspapers, novels and children's books, as well as assisting other painters and giving drawing lessons. He carried out designs during this period for several stained glass makers including John Hardman Trading Co. Ltd as well as James Powell and Sons.

He married Florence M Chaplin on the 10th November 1884. In 1884 the family moved from London to Stonebridge, near Dorking, where they kept a small holding with a cow, a pig and some chickens. Their five children were born between 1885 and 1894. Christopher John was born in 1885 and their daughter Veronica was born in 1887. The other children were Hew Bernard, Audrey (who died in infancy) and Louis.

Whall's career as an independent designer and maker of stained glass began in the late 1880s. This coincided with the emergence of the Arts and Crafts Movement through bodies such as the Art Workers' Guild and the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, in both of which he was active. Indeed through James Powell and Sons he was to exhibit at that Society's exhibitions at the New Gallery in 1888 and 1889. The architects with whom he was to work at Holy Trinity Church, John Dando Sedding and Henry Wilson, were also prominent within the Movement.

Whall’s participation in the early activities of the Arts and Crafts Movement came soon after a life changing event that had taken place in 1887. In that year he had converted the cow shed at his cottage in Dorking into a workshop, where he set about learning all the processes of the craft — cutting, painting, firing and glazing — so that, in future, no part of the making of his windows would be beyond his control. This was a direct protest against the division of labor, then almost universally prevalent among commercial manufacturers, which Whall and others saw as incompatible with the production of stained glass as an art rather than simply a trade.

During his time at Dorking, Whall was assisted by Louis Davis and Reginald Hallward, both of whom were to have distinguished careers of their own as stained glass artists.

For the decade after the Whall's left Dorking in 1896 he had no premises of his own for the firing and glazing of his stained glass and during this period he worked closely with the firm of Lowndes & Drury and it was in their workshops that all his windows were fabricated between 1897 and 1906 (either at Park Walk in Chelsea or at Lattice Street). Lowndes & Drury was founded in 1897 by the artist Mary Lowndes, and Alfred Drury with the aim of providing independent designer - craft workers with the necessary facilities to carry out their stained glass commissions.

In 1907, Whall took over the furniture making workshops at 1 Ravenscourt Park, Hammersmith, formerly used by his friend Charles Spooner (1862 – 1938), the architect. Spooner converted the upper floor into a cartooning and glass painting studio, complete with tall windows, and the lower floor into a fully equipped workshop with a kiln, glass racks and glazing benches.

Whall was also influential as a teacher, running stained glass classes at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in 1896, and in 1898 at the Royal College of Art in London, where students were encouraged to relate design to architecture. He was elected to the Art Workers Guild in 1889 and served as Master in 1912. He participated in the Ghent International Exhibition in 1912 and that in Paris in 1914. His work was shown at the Royal Academy's Arts and Crafts Exhibition of 1916.

His pupils and colleagues included his daughter Veronica Whall (1887 – 1967). A good example of his daughter's work is her window in the Lady Chapel of Our Lady of Grace and St Teresa of Avila Church in Chingford, Essex. Described in "The Buildings of England - London 5: East" by Bridget Cherry, Charles O'Brien and Nikolaus Pevsner as "subtle Lady Chapel window of 1939. Delicate figure of Virgin and Child largely white against a band of blue; intricately leaded."

Walter Crane, writing in his memoirs, describes a masque for which Whall wrote a Song of Triumph and designed demonic costumes.

Whall expounded his philosophy of craftsmanship in his book, "Stained Glass Work", published in London by John Hogg in 1905. This book is a standard reference book for students of the genre. In 1922, in conjunction with his daughter Veronica, he formed the company of Whall & Whall Ltd., which carried on long after his death. There are incidentally two windows in St Peter's Church in Swinton, near Manchester, which Clare Hartwell and Nikolaus Pevsner attribute to "Whall and Whall" in their volume "The Buildings of England. Lancashire: Manchester and the South - East". They describe the windows, which are situated at the west end of the north aisle, as having "beautifully drawn figures on a pale ground"

One of Whall's best known dicta was "the design of the window must relate to the architecture of the frame".

Although there is no record of Whall having undertaken commissions in Ireland, except for Loughrea Cathedral, it does seem that he can be linked to the early 20th century stained glass revival in that country. The artist Wilhelmina Geddes was certainly influenced by Whall. Geddes was the artist who created the work “The Crucifixion” in St Luke’s Church in Wallsend.

It was in September 1901 that Alfred Ernest Child arrived in Dublin to take up the post of Instructor in Stained Glass at the newly reorganized Dublin Metropolitan School of Art and it seems that Whall was one of those who were behind this appointment along with the painter Sarah Purser, the poet W.B. Yeats and Edward Martyn the art critic. Child had been trained by Whall and he would try to bring Whall’s principles to a new generation of Irish artists. Child and his artist friends aimed to set up a workshop similar to that formed by Mary Lowndes and Alfred Drury in London and in 1903 Sarah Purser set up "The Tower of Glass" (in Gaelic "An Túr Gloine").

In Scotland there were many stained glass artists who had connections with or were inspired by Whall. These would include Douglas Strachan and Margaret Chilton who, although English born, was to carry out much work in Scotland.

Somewhat further afield, it was Ralph Adams Cram, the architect, who introduced Whall’s work to the United States in the period 1906 - 1910, this at All Saints Ashmont, Boston, and Boston’s Church of the Advent. For the Church of the Advent, Whall completed five windows depicting the five regions of the early church, starting with the first window on the east end of the south nave wall with St. Ignatius of Antioch representing the Syrian Church and west of that St.Athanasius representing the African Church. On the north side starting at the west end is St. Ambrose of Milan for the Latin Church, then St. Chrysostom for the Greek Church and finally St. Columba, symbolizing the Celtic Church.

At All Saints Ashmont, Whall completed his "Risen Christ” window in 1907. All Saints also has work by Charles Connick arguably the United States’ best known stained glass artist and another who claimed to have been influenced by Whall.

At various times, particularly in the 1880s and 1890s, Whall was commissioned to design windows by James Powell and Sons.

Another stained glass artist much influenced by Whall was the German born Joseph Edward Nuttgens.

The work at Gloucester Cathedral was Whall’s largest commission and the work was completed over several years. A final half window was added by his daughter in 1926. The series of windows installed by Whall in the Lady Chapel is acknowledged to be the finest glass of the period in England. First in the series is the "Fall of Man" from 1899, showing the Garden of Eden.

Central to Whall's scheme are scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary. In the "Nativity", shepherds and kings kneel in adoration before Mary and the Christ Child against a snow covered landscape. The rich colors and high quality of painting are typical of his work. In the north side of the Lady Chapel Sanctuary is "Christ in Majesty" with the Virgin and Mary Magdalene. This is a stunning example of symbolism in every aspect, with spectacular use of color. Whall’s glass in the Lady Chapel contains images of many English saints. The detail of St Winifred (1901) includes the line of severance on her neck where she was beheaded and, at the base, the water springing up on the site of her martyrdom. The East window in the Chapter House from 1903 - 1905, is a Boer War Memorial and shows, in the upper center, Osric, the founder of the first Christian church (about 679 AD) on the Cathedral site. Below, William the Conqueror is depicted, commissioning the Domesday Survey in 1085. The window has many figures representing Discipline, Counsel and Valor.

In their book “The Buildings of England” Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and the Forest of Dean”, David Verey and Alan Brooks write - “Whall’s windows exhibit a dazzling blend of jewel - like color and drawing of the finest quality. They mostly consist of single figures of saints beneath silvery naturalistic canopies, with small scenes at the bottom, the detail of which repays close examination. He began with the north west window, beneath the bridge chapel 1898-9, then came the two central windows both north and south, completed 1901-2, the south west window, 1902, and the north east of 1909 - 10. That above the north Chantrey chapel is of 1913: the corresponding window, south, is by his daughter Veronica, 1926; she had assisted her father (who died in 1924) throughout the project”. In the south Chantry the small west window is by Whall and dates from 1921 whereas the south west window is by Veronica and dates to 1929.

Whall completed eight windows at Holy Trinity in Sloane Street. Holy Trinity was called “the Cathedral of the Arts & Crafts” by John Betjeman and it is certainly a treasure house for lovers of stained glass. It contains the famous east window, mostly designed by Sir Edward Coley Burne - Jones and manufactured by William Morris & Co and the Morning Chapel windows made by James Powell and Sons to designs by Sir William Blake Richmond. It also holds some of Christopher Whall’s finest work and along with his work at Gloucester Cathedral, the Holy Trinity windows constitute the most extensive surviving schemes of his stained glass. The building was started in 1888 to the design of the architect John Dando Sedding, generously funded by George Cadogan, 5th Earl Cadogan. Henry Wilson succeeded Sedding as the church architect on Sedding’s early death. Christopher Whall designed the two windows on the south side of the church and also six clerestory windows. One of the two windows on the south side is the “The Adoration of the Magi and the Shepherds.” It is a three - light traceried window, designed by Whall and made by him and his assistants in the workshops of Messrs. Lowndes & Drury. These workshops were in 11, Lattice Street. Hammersmith. The building was called “The Glass House”. It was built in 1906 to specifications by Whall and Alfred Drury as the premises of the stained glass workers, Lowndes & Drury. Studios on the upper floor were rented out to independent glass workers. It became the center for most of the major stained glass artists of the early C20. "The Adoration of the Magi and the Shepherds" was given to the church by Mrs.E.Harvey in memory of her husband Edmund Harvey. In his pamphlet Peter Cormack states that "The Adoration of the Magi and the Shepherds" adapted a design by Whall for a painted altarpiece (triptych) for the chapel of Douglas Castle in Lanarkshire. Whall subsequently made several versions of this triptych in stained glass. The best known of these versions is in the Lady Chapel of Gloucester Cathedral. Douglas Castle was demolished in 1960 and the triptych was removed to St Sophia's Episcopal Chapel in the village of Douglas, this chapel now used as a local museum. The second window is a four - light traceried window entitled “The Holy Spirit and Pentecost”. This window was designed by Whall and made by him and his team of assistants at 1, Ravenscourt Park, Hammersmith. Whall now had his own premises and no longer used those of Lowndes & Drury. This window was given by Mrs.Frederick Cook in memory of her husband, Wyndham Francis Cook. The memorial inscription runs across the base of the four lights and reads - “To the Glory of God and in memory of Wyndham Francis Cook. Born Aug.21, 1860. Died May 17, 1905. This window is dedicated by his widow. I thank God upon every remembrance of you.” During the period when the Holy Trinity windows were made the following were among those who worked as Whall's assistants - Edward Woore (1880 – 1960), Mary Hutchinson (1876 – 1930), Karl Parsons (1884 – 1934), Arnold Robinson (1888 – 1955) and John.E.Tarbox (1886 – 1968). By the 1910s his daughter Veronica Whall (1887 – 1907) increasingly played an active part in Whall's studios. With the founding of Whall & Whall Limited in 1922 the father - and - daughter collaboration was formalized. At other times Whall was to be assisted by Louis Davis (1860 – 1941), and Paul Woodroffe (1875 – 1954).

• In the volume "West Kent and The Weald", Pevsner refers to some Whall stained glass in the Tonbridge School Chapel. Sadly the windows in questions were lost in the 1988 fire which destroyed much of the chapel. Had these windows survived they would undoubtedly be ranged along with those at Holy Trinity Sloane Street and Gloucester Cathedral as Whall's best works. St Augustine's Chapel at Tonbridge School was built between 1900 and 1909 and the headmaster at that time, Rev. Charles Tancock, D.D., had been headmaster at Rossall School when Whall worked on a window there. His daughter, Rachel Tancock, was to become one of Whall's students. Whall's east window in St Augustine's was a complex allegory of Redemption through Incarnation. Whall also designed two windows for the sanctuary, these on the theme of Judgement. It was intended that the chapel would also have a series of windows representing the lives of English and Scottish patron saints and Whall designed what was known as the Welldon memorial window which depicted St Andrew, his life and his works. This window, in memory of Dr. Welldon who was a former headmaster, includes the school motto "Deus dat incrementum", a motto chosen by Welldon. Another such window was what was to be known as the Graham memorial window, this depicting St Margaret of Scotland. In the central panel St Margaret holds in her right hand the Black Cross which she brought with her to Scotland, and which was the origin of "Holy Rood". This window commemorated Isabella Graham, the wife and mother of former Tonbridge pupils. The next such window, the South African War Memorial window, was of three - lights, and represented St George of Cappadocia and incidents from his life. This window includes the motto of the Skinners Company "In Christo Fratres". This series of windows featuring patron saints was continued in later years by Karl Parsons, Lilian Pocock and Rachel Tancock, all of whom had studied under Whall. Her best known work is the stained glass window in St Botolph's church, Cambridge.

• The same Pevsner volume refers to work by Whall in All Saints Church, Swanscombe, Kent. This Norman Shaw designed church, dates from 1893, opened in 1895, but was closed in 1971 and converted to apartments. The Whall window may still be intact but within the apartment block.

• Whall completed a Great War memorial window in 1918 for St Mark's Church in Leeds. This church is no longer used but moves were afoot to restore it as the church has much historic value.

As stated above, Whall was educated at Rossall school in Lancashire. He returned there in 1891 to execute a stained glass window for the school chapel working together with Louis Davis. The window by Whall and Davis was dedicated to the Reverend W.A. Osborne who was the Headmaster at Rossall for many years and would in fact have been the Headmaster when the young Whall was a pupil at the school.

In 1890 Whall executed a three - light traceried east window for the South Chapel of Dorchester Cemetery.

John Dando Sedding designed St Saviour’s House in Bristol, the building being completed by Henry Wilson. In 1894 Whall executed a window for the quadrangle corridor, this described by Andrew Foyle and Nikolaus Pevsner as “a fine window of the Good Shepherd in a thorny thicket” in their volume “The Buildings of England. Somerset: North and Bristol”. St Saviour’s House is currently used as a Nursing Home.

Whall designed one of the two windows in the regimental chapel of the old London Woolwich Barracks and when these barracks were closed the windows were moved to St Alban the Martyr Church in Larkhill, Wiltshire. Whall's window included scenes of the old buildings of the Barracks. St Alban the Martyr is a Garrison Church and stands next to the main entrance of the Royal School of Artillery. In Whall's own description of the window, held at the Victoria & Albert Museum, he states that the subject of the window is PEACE. The window is of five lights and the central light shows Christ in His Mother's arms, surrounded by His Heavenly Court of Cherubim and Seraphim, with Michael and Gabriel in support. Christ blesses the world from His Throne, to which is fixed the olive branch which is the Scepter of His Kingdom and on which sits the dove with the olive leaf, the symbol of reconciliation. Beneath the Manger Cradle a child angel plays upon a dulcimer. A bodyguard of honor is grouped around the Throne, composed of those old warriors of the past who in their day have done their duty; while at its foot those who are carrying on the task kneel in worship. Another light shows the ruin and desolation of war with a depiction of Ypres in flames. St George stands in the breach and a young trumpeter is ready to sound the note of battle. Below is the kneeling figure of General Borgard, the "Father of the Regiment" and one of Marlborough's officers of artillery. In another light Whall depicts the era of Waterloo and in another he turns to the Crimea. In the lower portion of these two lights are grouped types of the present day regiments in worship. Whall depicts the Field Service (with Mons ribbon and service stripes), the Padre, the Parade uniform and the Indian Service. The fifth and final light commemorates the Alliances of the late war with depictions of a French and Belgian soldier. These are placed under the patronage of the glorious Crusader, St Louis (Louis IX of France). In the background is the Sainte Chapelle and at the base of the window is a view of the Royal Military Academy itself and the motto "QUO FAS ET GLORIA DUCUNT".

There were instances where Whall was commissioned to submit designs for windows but in the event the commissions came to nought. In 1913 for example, Whall was asked to produce a scheme for five windows for the fifteenth century Lady Chapel of Christchurch Priory, but the windows were never made. There was opposition to Whall's windows on architectural / antiquarian grounds as his proposal involved the removal of the existing Victorian east window and structural changes to the half - windows on the north and south sides. Another such case involved six side windows for the Kensington Borough Cemetery Chapel at Hanwell. All six side windows were to represent Biblical incidents prophetic of the Resurrection. It is not know why the commission was not carried out.