The red brick St Aidan’s was designed by R J Johnson, executed by his partner A Crawford Hicks, and completed in 1894.
There’s over 100 sq m of mosaic, in the dado, wall decoration above and the sea wall (or cancelli). Brangwyn was paid £100 a year for 10 years. Brangwyn’s designs always empathised with the architectural setting – in this case St Aidan’s is a double apsidal Basilican looking church and so the use of mosaics is very apt. The images were always 2 dimensional; large areas were filled with a single colour which might then be overlaid with small detail without distracting the eye from the broader picture; the compositions were held together by strong horizontals and verticals (in this case horizontals of the procession of people, the sea, hills and sky and the verticals with the festigiate trees); the designs were always balanced; figures were the same scale throughout and were outlined clearly in blue.
The design was originally to have been tempera but when Brangwyn happened to visit Leeds about another job and experienced the pollution he suggested mosaic instead. Jesse Rust of Battersea was a manufacturing chemist, glassmaker and vitreous mosaic manufacturer. His son Henry Jesse Rust was a mosaicist and aspiring art worker. They had various patents for their product which was improved year by year but basically was composed of powdered glass, old and new, fused with sand in a furnace, then ground to powder and mixed with Portland cement and water and poured into moulds. When dry this would be burned to red heat and when cold could be painted on. Henry Jesse’s workers used the reverse technique whereby the artist’s cartoon was presented on brown paper, but in reverse. The tesserae were stuck on to the paper with gum Arabic in slabs of a suitable size for transport. On site the slab was laid, right side up on a cement screed. When this had hardened the paper was soaked off and the mosaic cleaned, polished and grouted.
A great selling point of Rust’s vitreous mosaic was its cheapness compared with glass mosaic – for example one quote Brangwyn obtained was 5 times that of Rust’s quote. The stained glass painter Sylvester Sparrow, with whom Brangwyn had worked at Bucklebury, was put in charge of the Battersea mosaic girls. The mosaic was finished in 1916 and unveiled at a dedication service on 13 October 1916.
The main panel represents four stages in the life of a saint – the landing of St Aidan, St Aidan feeding the poor, St Aidan preaching, and the death of the saint. Brangwyn delighted in little details, like a pug on the left hand side with a jewelled collar and one of the monks by Aidan’s bedside has glorious slippers. And another interesting fact – out of the 76 figures, only 8 are female – not a natural demographic. The cancelli or sea walls show weepers, or pilgrims making their way to the altar.
Brangwyn was normally very modest about his work but I think he was justifiably proud of this commission and if you go round the south side of the cancelli you’ll see a patch of blue mosaic with scattered gold stars which spell out his initials – FB!
Details of studies for the mural can be found here and Beggars.
Literature: The Studio, Arthur Finch, ‘Mr Brangwyn’s Mosaic decorations in St Aidan’s Church, Leeds’, November 1917, p91-93. The Studio, p142-147 Vol 72, January 1918, Finch, ‘Recent Decorative Work of Frank Brangwyn ARA. II. Mosaic Designs for St Aidan’s Church, Leeds’. Barrie Pepper, A Goodly Heritage, Alewords, Leeds 1994. Ecclesiology Today, p17-22 Issue 21, January 2000, Horner, ‘A Masterpiece in Leeds: Brangwyn & St Aidan’s Mosaics’. St Aidan’s Church Leeds and the Brangwyn Panels, Parochial Church Council. Furst, 1924 p132-138. Rodney Brangwyn, Brangwyn, William Kimber London 1978 p140-147. Ensing, Jesse Rust & His Son, Vitreous Mosaic Manufacturer, Wandsworth Historian, Autumn 2010 Vol. 90’Rodney Brangwyn, Brangwyn, William Kimber London 1978 p140-147. Ensing, Jesse Rust & His Son, Vitreous Mosaic Manufacturer’, Wandsworth Historian, Autumn 2010 Vol. 90
Illustrated: The Studio, Arthur Finch, ‘Mr Brangwyn’s Mosaic decorations in St Aidan’s Church, Leeds’, November 1917, p91-93, plate I, p91, p92, plate II, plate III (Cartoons – probably the ones in Zevenkerken), plate IV, p92. The Studio, p142-143 Vol 72, January 1918, Finch, ‘Recent Decorative Work of Frank Brangwyn ARA. II. Mosaic Designs for St Aidan’s Church, Leeds’. Barrie Pepper, A Goodly Heritage, Alewords, Leeds 1994. Ecclesiology Today, p17,18 Issue 21, January 2000, Libby Horner, ‘A Masterpiece in Leeds: Brangwyn & St Aidan’s Mosaics’. Furst, 1924 p132-138. Yorkshire Post, ‘Brangwyn Mosaic at St Aidan’s’, undated. Ensing, ‘Jesse Rust & His Son, Vitreous Mosaic Manufacturer’, Wandsworth Historian, Autumn 2010 Vol. 90
Studies on this website: Death of St Aidan and St Aidan’s Leeds and Figures for St Aidan’s