the Church
Set in a timeless Georgian square, with rolling lawns and tree-lined walks.
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From the Archives
(03) History Updates
We are currently carrying out further research into the history of the building. The following is information gathered through this ongoing research.
History of St Paul's Church
1. The Act was 1772 not 1774
2. Francis Eginton worked for Boulton but not as a glass painter. Although this is quoted very often, it is not the case
3. The window was installed in 1791 not 1789
The East Window
The East Window was created by Francis Eginton from a painting by Benjamin West of 'The Conversion of St Paul'. For many years it was thought that the original painting was in Smith College Museum of Art in the USA. Recently Jacqui Townsend, our Church Secretary, found a website with another painting that also claimed to be the original, in Dallas Museum of Art. Investigating this we found that the Smith College version was now thought to have been a preliminary painting, and that it was more likely that the Dallas version was the original.
Not long after this another website was found with three separate images, labelled as a design for a window at St Paul’s Church, Birmingham. We have not been able to get any information on this version. Very recently Sandy, our Beadle, found a book that had in it a copy of yet another, the fourth, version. In trying to track it down we have found that it is in a private collection. The odd thing about this version is that the left hand and right hand panels are transposed. We will be trying to find out more about it. And now Jacqui has been at it again and found a reference to a book published in the USA in 1959 which contains an illustration of a Benjamin West painting of the Conversion of St Paul in St Paul’s Church in Richmond, Virginia.
Centenary of St Paul's: 1879
We have had an email from a lady in Devon who had found in her late father’s writing bureau a leather wallet with a gold coin minted for the celebration of the Centenary of St Paul’s, Birmingham in 1879. What a find! Her problem is that she is unaware of any family connection with the Midlands. We don’t have any archival material about the Centenary as such, but we will be going through the Vestry minutes and the like to see if we can find anything at all about it. If you have, or have seen, such a medal, or know anything at all about the Centenary, do get in touch.
The Ladies of Llangollen
If I had been asked recently what I knew about the Ladies of Llangollen, my answer would have been that I had read something about them in the pamphlets on the history of St. Paul’s that had been around for many years. They had written about “the nice little Chapel”, or was it “the nice new window”? From time to time I had thought it rather odd that a group of ladies in Llangollen had written about St. Paul’s. I wondered what sort of group they were; could they have been a very early form of WI?
I had not bothered to enquire further and so that is where it rested for me...until a few weeks ago. I was listening, rather half-heartedly, to “Brain of Britain” on the car radio when the question master said “Name the ladies of Llangollen”. After a short pause the answer came “Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby”. “Correct” said the question master, who moved on to the next question. I was quite shocked, my education had obviously been neglected. There were two ladies, and their names were known, so there had to be some story about them of which I was completely ignorant.
When I reached home I could not get to the computer fast enough. I entered “Ladies of Llangollen” and received another shock. Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby were two aristocratic women of Anglo-Irish descent who, after 10 years of close friendship, eloped across the Irish Sea in 1780, against the wishes of their families, and set up home together in a house “Plas Newydd” in Llangollen. This, as you can well imagine, scandalised contemporary society. Their fame spread, as their romantic friendship and lifestyle became known far and wide. They set about transforming “Plas Newydd” and its garden and started corresponding with a wide variety of people. The locals dubbed them “The Ladies” and in time many well known figures of the day visited them, including Wordsworth and the Duke of Wellington.
So what had the Ladies written about St. Paul’s? Here is a quotation from our pamphlet “Ancient and Modern”: “This window was Eginton’s best and most renowned work. It is interesting that the Ladies of Llangollen, who recorded in their diaries their contact with the fashionable world through smart young men on their way to Ireland through Holyhead, tell on three occasions of hearing of ‘the fine new window at St. Paul’s Chapel in Birmingham’”.
John Sawkill
January 2009
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