Burlison and Grylls

Burlison and Grylls
Name	Burlison and Grylls
Industry	Stained glass manufacturing
Founded	1868
Founders	John Burlison; Thomas John Grylls
Headquarters	London, England
Products	Stained glass windows; ecclesiastical fittings; restorations
Dissolved	1970s (company operations wound down)

Burlison and Grylls was a London-based stained glass firm established in 1868 that became prominent in Victorian and Edwardian ecclesiastical commissions across England, Wales, Scotland, and the British Empire. The studio produced windows and fittings associated with the Gothic Revival and collaborated with leading architects, patrons, and ecclesiastical bodies. Through workshops, partnerships, and long-running commissions, the firm contributed to the material culture of Anglican and Episcopal churches, cathedrals, and public buildings from the late 19th century into the 20th century.

History

Founded in 1868 during the later phase of the Gothic Revival, the firm emerged amid movements associated with the Ecclesiological Society, the Cambridge Camden Society, and the influence of figures such as Augustus Pugin, George Gilbert Scott, and William Butterfield. Early commissions coincided with restorations promoted by the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and with architectural programs by Sir George Gilbert Scott, George Edmund Street, and John Loughborough Pearson. By the 1870s and 1880s Burlison and Grylls was producing windows for dioceses presided over by bishops like Edward Benson and Frederick Temple and working alongside designers influenced by William Morris, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Ford Madox Brown. The firm continued into the 20th century, engaging in post-World War I memorial glazing and working under changing liturgical tastes shaped by the Church of England, the Scottish Episcopal Church, and municipal patrons in cities such as London, Manchester, and Liverpool.

Founders and Key Figures

John Burlison and Thomas John Grylls, both trained within workshops active in the revival of medieval techniques, established the partnership after associations with established firms connected to Charles Kempe and Clayton and Bell. Key artists and managers associated with the studio included designers and glass painters who had worked with Edward Burne-Jones, William De Morgan, and John Ruskin-influenced workshops, as well as craftsmen who had apprenticed under Charles Winston and other proponents of medieval stained glass scholarship. Over decades the firm employed clerks, foremen, and leadworkers who liaised with patrons such as the Marquess of Bute, bishops of dioceses like Winchester and Durham, and architects including George Frederick Bodley and Reginald Blomfield. Later directors navigated relations with conservation bodies like the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and committees from cathedral chapters at places such as Canterbury and York.

Design and Craftsmanship

The studio’s design vocabulary drew on medieval precedents championed by scholars like John Ruskin, archaeologists such as Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, and the pattern books circulated by the Ecclesiological Society. Windows frequently featured lancet arrangements, traceried canopies, and figural scenes executed in pot metal glass, silver stain, and vitreous paint, following techniques codified by Charles Winston and later revived by William Wailes and Christopher Whall. Burlison and Grylls designers incorporated iconography informed by Biblical narratives found in the King James Bible, apocryphal legends, and hagiographies of saints venerated in Anglican, Catholic, and Orthodox traditions. The firm’s workshops combined hand-blown cylinder glass, painted grisaille, and leaded came construction; metalwork and carved stone surrounds were often coordinated with sculptors working in the idiom of John Flaxman or Alfred Stevens. Conservation sensibilities influenced later work as the Arts and Crafts movement, represented by Philip Webb and Charles Robert Ashbee, reshaped attitudes to craft and authenticity.

Major Works and Commissions

Burlison and Grylls executed windows and fittings for parish churches, collegiate chapels, municipal buildings, and cathedrals across the British Isles and overseas in British colonies. Notable commissions included memorial windows in cathedrals and chapels that commemorated figures tied to institutions such as Eton College, Winchester College, and Oxford colleges like Christ Church and Magdalen. The studio produced stained glass for churches restored or designed by architects including George Gilbert Scott, Sir Ninian Comper, and John Oldrid Scott, and contributed to ecclesiastical ensembles containing reredoses, altar frontals, and mosaic work akin to schemes by Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris at sites influenced by patrons like the Marquess of Bute. The firm’s memorial glazing programs after World War I echoed national remembrance efforts exemplified by cenotaph commissions and parish war memorials found across counties such as Kent, Yorkshire, and Lancashire.

Business Operations and Decline

Operating from London workshops, Burlison and Grylls balanced bespoke commissions with restoration contracts negotiated through diocesan advisory committees and private patrons including landed families and civic corporations. The company navigated commercial relationships with dealers, pattern-book publishers, and architectural firms while managing apprenticeships that sustained craft knowledge. Economic pressures, changing liturgical fashions, and competition from studios such as Clayton and Bell, James Powell and Sons, and Christopher Whall’s circle affected workload. The two World Wars disrupted supply chains for lead and skilled labor; postwar reconstruction prioritized different materials and modernist aesthetics championed by architects linked to the Royal Institute of British Architects. By the mid-20th century commissions diminished and operations wound down during the 1960s–1970s as preservationist organizations including the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings promoted conservation over new Victorian-style production.

Legacy and Influence on Stained Glass Art

Burlison and Grylls helped sustain techniques and iconographies central to the Gothic Revival, influencing stained glass practice in Anglican and Episcopal contexts and informing conservation approaches adopted by later generations. Surviving windows are studied alongside works by William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, and Charles Kempe in inventories maintained by cathedral chapters and diocesan record offices and are cited in scholarship on Victorian ecclesiastical art and the Arts and Crafts movement. The firm’s output remains evident in church interiors cataloged by heritage bodies and in restoration projects where knowledge of pot metal glass, silver stain, and leadwork informs conservation led by specialists trained in methods paralleling those once employed in the company’s workshops.

Category:Stained glass artists and manufacturers Category:Victorian architecture Category:Gothic Revival