‘A treasure house of examples for reference and for instruction’

Maialen Maugars

Collection: Birmingham Museums Trust 

Keywords: Birmingham, Reception, Art collection, Artistic training, Industrial design

Introduction

From October 2020 to December 2024, I was funded by Midlands4Cities AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership to undertake a Collaborative Doctoral Award at the University of Warwick, in partnership with Birmingham Museums Trust. The aim of this project was to study the formation, provenance, display, and reception of the early modern Italian decorative art collection at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BMAG). This collection was one of the first to be purchased for and displayed at BMAG when it opened in 1885, and comprises furniture, textiles, ceramics, metalwork, and glass objects dating from the late fourteenth to the early seventeenth centuries. The majority were purchased in Italy in the 1880s by Sir John Charles Robinson (1813-1824), a curator, collector, connoisseur and former Art Referee at the South Kensington Museum (renamed Victoria and Albert Museum in 1899), and Sir Whitworth Wallis (1855-1927), the first director of BMAG [1]. This Collaborative Doctoral Award project was the first study of this collection since its acquisition. A central part of the project’s originality lay in its assessment of the collection’s impact on local artistic training and industrial design. While the formation of museum collections during the second half of the nineteenth century has been the subject of many studies, their use as educational collections has received less attention [2].

This article first presents BMAG’s formation and its acquisition policy, highlighting its strong connections with the town’s industrial activities. It then explores the relationship between BMAG and the Birmingham Municipal School of Art (now Birmingham School of Art) to understand the role of these two institutions in delivering artistic training in late-nineteenth-century Birmingham. Finally, it evaluates the impact of Birmingham’s collections on industrial design and reflects on some of the difficulties of the project’s historical and methodological limitations.

A ‘treasure house of examples for reference and for instruction’: The aims and origins of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

Birmingham’s first public art gallery was established in 1867, following the town council’s adoption of the Free Museums and Libraries Act in 1860. The Act, passed by Parliament in 1845 and revised to a more extensive form in 1850, allowed municipal authorities to use local tax revenues to build museums and libraries [3]. In Birmingham, the newly-formed Free Libraries Committee’s plan was to build a central reference library comprising, in addition to reading and news rooms, a museum and gallery of art [4]. The Corporation Free Art Gallery opened to the public on 1 August 1867, and was housed inside a ‘very large room’ of the library [5]. Its mission to improve the taste of Birmingham’s artisans was outlined in a catalogue dating from 1870:

To encourage the growth of taste, it is essential that those who are expected to produce the beautiful shall be surrounded by what is beautiful. (…) Continental taste is the result of Free Art Galleries; and the abuse which has been heaped wholesale on the ornamental manufactures of Birmingham, may be traced to the absence (until recently) of any collection of objects calculated to increase and cultivate the aesthetic faculties of its artizan (sic) population. The absence of such means of education has been dearly paid for locally, and has cost more in the aggregate than the maintenance of a dozen Art Galleries [6].

The belief in art’s power to educate and refine workers was essential to the development of Victorian museums, not least because it was felt that museums made art accessible to all [7]. Equally important in Britain was the idea that British designs must be improved to rival those of the continent [8]. In Birmingham, the Corporation Free Art Gallery was celebrated as the remedy to aesthetically poor designs and a harbinger of prosperity for local trades.

Initially, the Corporation Art Gallery was heavily reliant on loans from public institutions and private collectors, as the lack of funds limited the acquisition of artworks and art objects for Birmingham’s permanent collection [9]. Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning the acquisition of Italian and Netherlandish glass objects dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as well as examples of contemporary British glass objects for Birmingham in 1870, several of which will be discussed in this study [10]. Generous monetary donations from Birmingham manufacturers and politicians contributed to the development of a permanent collection in the 1870s [11].

In 1871, the ‘Public Picture Gallery Fund’ was created when the local glass manufacturer Thomas Clarkson Osler (1811-1876) gifted the council £3,000 (equivalent to almost £460,000 today) to purchase fine arts for Birmingham [12]. In 1875, Joseph Chamberlain (1836-1914), then Mayor of Birmingham and former manufacturer, offered £1,000 to acquire ‘industrial art objects’ for the town, which were mostly spent on metalwork objects [13]. With the growth of the permanent collection and an ever-increasing attendance, it became necessary to provide suitable and adequately sized accommodation for the Corporation Free Art Gallery, and the situation worsened after the library was destroyed in a fire on 11 January 1879 [14].

BMAG and Birmingham’s municipal collections owed their existence to the success and prosperity of local trades and industries. In July 1880, the Birmingham hardware manufacturers Richard (1833-1906) and George (d. 1920) Tangye offered £5,000 to the Free Libraries Committee to ‘make provision for a permanent Art Gallery on a scale really commensurate with the necessities of Birmingham’ [15]. They promised to gift another £5,000 should their initial sum be matched by public donations [16]. The Tangye’s donation was immediately matched, demonstrating general enthusiasm for an art gallery and a municipal collection for Birmingham [17]. The same year, an unused site to the rear of the Council House was selected for the new Museum and Art Gallery [18].

To build BMAG, the council used the profits from the town’s gasworks, which had been municipalised during the mayoralty of Joseph Chamberlain [19]. The Gas Department covered the cost of erecting the building, which comprised offices on the ground floor and a museum and art gallery on the first floor [20]. The pivotal role of industrial activity in BMAG and the formation of Birmingham’s municipal collections was acknowledged on the building’s foundation stone, which states: ‘By the gains of Industry, we promote Art.’ BMAG was officially opened to the public on 28 November 1885.

BMAG was born out of a desire to educate, inspire, and teach Birmingham’s citizens, particularly those involved in local trades [21]. In 1881, Birmingham’s Free Libraries and Museum Committee stated that acquisition funds should mainly be applied to the acquisition of industrial rather than fine art, and that objects should cover as wide a chronological and geographical scope as possible to ensure that collections adequately represented Eastern and Western art as well as ‘all periods and schools of ornament in applied art’ [22]. As such, early acquisitions included decorative art of European and Asian origins, including metalwork, furniture, pottery, lacquer, glass, enamel, and jewellery, dating from Antiquity to the late nineteenth century. It was hoped that the variety of objects displayed at BMAG would constitute a ‘treasure house of examples for reference and for instruction’ for the city’s art students, artisans, and manufacturers, and, ultimately, improve the quality of goods produced in Birmingham [23].

The willingness to collect a large breadth of decorative objects reflected the city’s industrial and manufacturing activities. From the late eighteenth and throughout the nineteenth centuries, Birmingham gained international recognition for the diversity of its activities and for worldwide export, thus earning the nicknames ‘the city of a thousand trades’ and the ‘workshop of the world’ [24]. Although Birmingham was home to large industries, notably in hardware, making was mostly carried out in small workshops by a skilled labour force [25]. A metalworking district (now known as the Jewellery Quarter) produced a wide range of goods, including jewellery, brass items, toys, and steel pen nibs [26]. The city also catered for a growing demand for luxury household items, including glassware and foodstuffs, such as chocolate [27].

The formation of the Corporation Free Art Gallery and BMAG could not have been possible without the cooperation of local councillors and wealthy benefactors, who shared a deep-rooted belief in art’s faculty to refine workers’ taste and, consequently, improve their designs. Another municipal institution which was expected to contribute to the advancement of design was the Birmingham Municipal School of Art. The following section presents new research on the role of BMAG’s collections in local design education by highlighting the largely undocumented history of its connections with Birmingham Municipal Art School.

BMAG and the Birmingham Municipal School of Art

In 1843, the Birmingham Society of Arts established the Birmingham Government School of Design, the town’s first public school of art, under the aegis of the Government School of Design in London [28]. In the 1870s and 1880s, the School outgrew its premises and increasingly sought its independence from London [29]. In 1877, the newly appointed headmaster, Edward R. Taylor (1838-1912), convinced municipal authorities to sponsor a new building for the School and to bring it under the authority of the town council [30]. The new Birmingham Municipal School of Art opened in 1884 and became the first municipal school of art in Britain [31]. With this change in governance, the School developed its curriculum, notably in design and to forge closer ties with local industries [32].

In the late 1870s, the mayor Joseph Chamberlain led an appeal for a permanent site and funds to construct a purpose-built school of art in Birmingham [33]. A site was found north-east of the city council, perpendicular to the Edmund Street façade of the recently-completed Museum and Art Gallery [34]. In November 1881, a sum of £10,000 was offered – again by the Tangye brothers – towards its construction, on condition that the school would belong to the city and that the council would assume its maintenance and administration [35]. Birmingham’s new Municipal School of Art, a red-brick building designed by the architect John Henry Chamberlain (1831-1883) – unrelated to Joseph Chamberlain – in a Ruskinian Gothic style, opened in September 1885, only two months before the inauguration of the Museum and Art Gallery [36]. The construction of the School of Art and BMAG in such temporal and physical proximity was a sign of their interconnected role in the town council’s plan to develop artistic knowledge and training in Birmingham.

The School of Art and BMAG worked hand in hand to improve the city’s artistic and industrial production. Drawing and the study of historic designs and ornaments were considered essential to students’ training and future careers, and BMAG’s collections were used for this purpose [37]. In 1886, a weekly Students’ Evening (on Wednesdays from 4pm or 6pm, depending on the season) was established at BMAG to enable students – many of whom worked in local industries – to visit after manufacturers’ hours and examine the collections [38]. A year later, this was extended to allow students to copy works on display during opening hours on Tuesdays and Fridays (from 10am to 9pm and 10am to 6pm respectively) [39].

Many drawings, executed both in situ and from memory, have survived in the School of Art’s archives, which form part of the Art, Design, and Media Archive at Birmingham City University. These depict a variety of objects at BMAG, including jewellery, Indian vases, clock hands, and ironwork. One study, depicting three heart-shaped pendants, includes a handwritten note (presumably added by a professor) describing the assignment: ‘Very rough sketch made in Art Gallery taken from student and finished drawing made in class’ [40]. This confirms that the collections played an important part in students’ training and that BMAG was successful in its educational mission.

The relevance of Birmingham’s municipal collections and the School’s artistic training to local trades had two effects: the former contributed to local knowledge of design and skills as draughtsmen, while the latter retained talent in Birmingham. This was exemplified by the appointment of Thomas Spall as the School’s permanent master of evening classes in 1886 [41]. Spall was also employed at Elkington & Co., a leading silver manufacturer based in Birmingham, and had trained at the School of Art, during which his work received prizes from the Goldsmiths’ Company of London [42]. The School also envisaged creating a class, led by Spall, to teach repoussé metalwork, described as ‘a branch of Industrial Art of great importance to Birmingham’ [43].

BMAG and the School of Art thus formed part of a continuum governed by the same mission: training the city’s artisans, designers, and manufacturers to develop Birmingham’s trades and industries. The study of the relationship between BMAG and the School of Art reveals how each institution contributed to this training in distinct but complementary ways.

Methodology and sources: identifying BMAG’s impact on industrial design

As previously noted, while the formation of museum collections has been the subject of many studies, their role in design education has received less attention. In the following, I assess the ways in which Birmingham’s collections impacted local industrial design. First, it is necessary to define what I mean by ‘impact’. In this context, it encompasses imitation, emulation, inspiration, and the copying of artistic details in museum collections by those involved in manufacturing. This research is complex and challenging due to the historical and methodological limitations of identifying and making claims for industrial designers’ sources of inspiration.

In Britain, historic furniture, ceramics, metalwork, and other decorative arts were increasingly collected and exhibited throughout the nineteenth century. The creation of the South Kensington Museum in 1852 was a major driving force in this process, which paved the way for the establishment of industrial art museums across the country. In the Midlands, public museums opened in Leicester (1849), Birmingham (1867, the Corporation Free Art Gallery), Nottingham (1878), and Wolverhampton (1887) [44]. For designers, manufacturers, and artisans who could afford it, public decorative art collections were thus available at local and regional levels. As such, distinguishing which, if any, museum collection or object may have inspired a firm’s designs is very complex.

A further limitation was finding relevant sources concerning Birmingham’s industries and manufactures. Overall, only the largest firms’ archives have been preserved, but they are not always publicly available. For instance, the day books and warehouse books of the Birmingham-based glass manufacturer F. & C. Osler are now part of Birmingham Museums Trust’s collections, but the firm’s patterns and samples are privately owned [45]. Moreover, surviving archival material tends to focus on firms’ commercial activities (account books, sale catalogues) and designs (warehouse and day books) rather than on designers and their interests. It has not been possible to identify individual designers, artistic directors, or their sources within the archival material available during this research project.

To assess the impact of the collection on industrial design, I narrowed the focus to two important Birmingham industries in the late nineteenth century, namely metalwork and glass, and to four manufacturers within these industries (Barnes & Co., Henry G. Richardson & Sons, Thomas Webb & Sons, Hardman & Co.). This selection was undertaken on the basis of historical relevance, availability and accessibility of material, and surviving designs in collections at BMAG.

Designing glassware in late nineteenth-century Birmingham and Stourbridge

Sixteenth and seventeenth-century glassware served as a source of inspiration to British glassmakers from the 1840s onwards. The display of Venetian glass at the Society of Arts’ exhibition of Medieval Art in 1850 and the Great Exhibition in 1851 (both in London) contributed to this [46]. Antonio Salviati’s (1816-1890) revival of the Murano glass industry and the opening of his showroom on London’s Oxford Street in 1867 were met with huge interest by wealthy British consumers [47]. Public collections of Venetian glass, the success of Salviati’s designs, and subsequent competition and emulation between designers likely contributed to the spread and adoption of early modern styles and techniques by British glassmakers, including in the Midlands.

In this context, the acquisition of Venetian glass for the Corporation Free Art Gallery in the 1870s and for BMAG in the 1880s and 1890s was a response to contemporary fashion and collecting interests. The impact of Birmingham’s collections on local design is more difficult to identify amongst the multiple sources of inspiration existing at the time. Research is further complicated by the interplay of ephemeral and long-lasting designs, and the tendency for fashions to coexist, and at different levels of society [48]. Additionally, the difference in appearance between Venetian soda-lime glass and British lead-glass demonstrates that nineteenth-century glassmakers rarely attempted to produce exact copies of historical specimens for the general market [49].

From the 1850s onwards, several techniques inspired by Venetian glass were developed [50]. One of these was vetro a filigrana, in which canes of opaque white glass (known as lattimo), or occasionally colourful glass (red or blue) are inserted into transparent crystal glass. These canes could also be twisted to create intricate spiralling patterns, known as vetro a retorti. Several Venetian examples were acquired for Birmingham in 1888 and 1891 (fig. 1) [51]. The Birmingham glass designers Thomas and Elijah Barnes of Barnes & Co. won first prize at the International Workmen’s Exhibition in London in 1870 for this technique [52]. In addition to white, they used blue and pink canes to create spiralling and weaving patterns. The Barnes’s winning designs were subsequently purchased for Birmingham’s municipal collection (Fig. 2), as symbols of local pride and success, as well as examples for local designers to aspire to [53].

Beyond Birmingham, vetro a filigrana was used by glassmakers based in Stourbridge, a major centre for glass production in the Midlands and Britain [54]. For example, a pattern book from the firm Henry G. Richardson & Sons dating from 1886 to 1889 shows examples of vases and bowls decorated using white, yellow (‘citron’), and red (‘ruby’) glass canes (fig. 3). Clearly influenced by Venetian glass, the effect produced by the alternating glass canes is also reminiscent of Netherlandish glass. In 1872, a large glass beaker of Netherlandish origins dating from the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century – one of the most typical forms of glassware produced in the Low Countries during the early modern period – was acquired for Birmingham (fig. 4) [55]. British glassmakers’ use of vetro a filigrana over an extended period demonstrates their ability to master this technique and adapt it to contemporary consumers’ tastes. It also indicates that collections at BMAG held examples of this technique from multiple geographical regions, further complicating the question of sources and influence on design, and how these collections were engaged with by designers, students and manufacturers.

For example, close analyses of the collections and manufacturers’ designs and products reveal how contemporary makers and designers drew on specific elements of historic glassware. Denticulations (small tooth-like projections) around the necks and stems of drinking glasses, are typical of early modern Venetian designs feature in the designs of Thomas Webb & Sons, another firm located in Stourbridge (fig. 5). These are reminiscent of a seventeenth-century wine glass at BMAG (fig. 6). The inclusion of small drops impressed in the shape of raspberries or lions’ heads, as seen in the designs of Barnes & Co. and Richardson & Sons between 1870 and the late 1880s (figs. 7 and 8), were also inspired by Venetian glass. Another detail reminiscent of Venetian glass was Barnes & Co.’s use of scroll feet on a vase dating from 1870, which came into use in British glass around the 1860s (fig. 2) [56]. 

Designing metalwork and stained glass: Hardman & Co.

Hardman & Co., founded in 1838 by John Hardman senior (1766-1844), was a Birmingham firm specialising in stained-glass and ecclesiastical fittings [57]. The collaboration between Hardman senior, his son John Hardman junior (1812-1867), his nephew John Hardman Powell (1827-1895) and Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-1852) had a profound influence on the company’s production of Neo-Gothic church decoration and the Gothic revival in Britain. Hardman’s stained-glass windows were produced for chapels, churches, and cathedrals across Britain, Australia, and the United States, many of which are still visible to this day.

Hardman’s also developed a particular relationship with the School of Art, presumably responding to BMAG’s aims and collections, and its proximity to local industries and the art school. Between 1887 and 1894, the company loaned stained-glass to the School, which was used for teaching purposes and was presumably displayed in the School’s museum for the duration of the loan [58]. These loans and the School of Art’s museum are the focus of a separate project which I am working on, investigating the School’s relationship to art and industry.

In the 1850s and 1860s, Hardman’s metalwork production was characterised by ecclesiastical and domestic fittings, such as fire guards and fire dogs, gates, lamp brackets, ewers, reliquaries, candelabras, ciboriums, chalices, and monstrances; all in Neo-Gothic style. In the 1870s, there was a discernible shift towards Renaissance styles, which eventually replaced Neo-Gothic designs altogether. In the 1880s, Hardman’s wrought-iron lunettes, gates, railings, and brackets (fig. 9) increasingly borrowed stylistic elements from objects in the early modern Italian collection at BMAG (fig. 10). This was especially evident in their use of S and C-shaped scrolls.

Hardman designers may also have drawn inspiration from several historical examples at once. For instance, a lunette design dating from 1894 (fig. 11) is reminiscent of two examples at BMAG with arrow designs (fig. 12). The use of twisted tendrils, floral ornaments, and acanthus leaves in Hardman brackets in 1889 and 1891 (fig. 13) is similar to early modern brackets purchased for Birmingham (fig. 14). Although I have not found exact copies or matches between Hardman’s designs and early modern objects at BMAG, these examples illustrate the shift from a Neo-Gothic to Renaissance designs, and the creative and particular ways in which designers incorporated elements of BMAG’s historic collections in their work.  

In contrast to these examples is a more wholesale use of BMAG’s collections. Hardman’s cartoons (designs) for stained-glass windows are now part of Birmingham Museum Trust’s collections, and some reveal precious information regarding designers’ models and sources of inspiration. In 1898, a design for a stained-glass window depicting the young Christ in the Temple was produced for Moseley Baptist Church, Birmingham, bearing the annotation: ‘The details of the temple will be taken from W. Holman Hunt’s picture of this subject’ (fig. 15) [59]. The picture referred to here is The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple by William Holman Hunt (1827-1910), which was purchased for BMAG in 1896 (fig. 16). It is unknown whether the window’s design was requested by the window’s patron, or suggested by Hardman’s. At any rate, it casts light on one of the ways in which collections at BMAG had a direct impact on the city’s industrial activities and, in this case, church decoration in the Midlands. The two-year time span between BMAG’s purchase of the painting and its use as a model for a stained-glass window, suggests that patrons and designers were aware of and attentive to new acquisitions for the city. This example demonstrates strong connections between Birmingham’s municipal collections, artistic training, industrial activities and local commissions. 

Conclusion

This article has examined the impact of Birmingham’s municipal collection of early modern Italian decorative arts on artistic training and industrial design in Birmingham and the Midlands in the late nineteenth century. Both BMAG and the School of Art were born out of the council’s desire to improve artistic life and education in Birmingham, and this was made possible with the support of local manufacturers.

This offers new insights into the interrelationship of Birmingham’s civic institutions.
The roles of BMAG, the School of Art and local manufacturers and designers in shaping the local production of decorative arts should be considered in tandem rather than as separate entities. This wider, interconnected history of design included museum collections, tutors and curators as well as local manufacturers and designers. Artistic training was delivered with the active participation of local curators, manufacturers and designers, who taught classes and loaned examples of their work to the School. The results were partial and stylistic rather than direct copies. This research offers a new perspective on the reception of Victorian museum collections, centred on industry.

To develop this project and share it with a wider audience, I would welcome the opportunity to curate an exhibition with BMAG and the School of Art, focusing on the decorative arts, design, and crafts in nineteenth-century Birmingham; and on the hidden connections between the museum and the art school, collections, and creativity.

Dr Maialen Maugars completed her PhD at the University of Warwick, in partnership with Birmingham Museums Trust, in 2025. Her thesis focused on the acquisition, provenance, display, and reception of Birmingham’s collection of early modern Italian decorative art.

Notes

[1] Maialen Maugars, ‘Collecting Early Modern Italian Decorative Art for Late Nineteenth-Century Birmingham’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Warwick (2025), p.71 and p.104; Stuart Davies, By the Gains of Industry: Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, 1885-1985, (Birmingham, 1985), p.23 and p.26. For more information about Robinson, see Helen Davies, Helen, ‘John Charles Robinson’s Work at the South Kensington Museum part I: The creation of the collection of Italian Renaissance objects at the Museum of Ornamental Art and the South Kensington Museum, 1853-62', Journal of the History of Collections, 10.2 (1998), pp.169-188.

[2] For studies on nineteenth-century museum formation, see for instance Anthony Burton, Vision and Accident: The Story of the Victoria and Albert Museum (London, 1999), Kate Hill, Culture and Class in English Public Museums, 1850-1914 (London, 2005), Giles Waterfield, The People's Galleries: Art Museum and Exhibitions in Britain, 1800-1914 (London, 2015). For the relationship between educational collections and industrial museums, see Clive Wainwright and Charlotte Gere, ‘The making of the South Kensington Museum I: The Government Schools of Design and founding collection, 1837–51’, in The Journal for the History of Collections, 14.1 (2002), pp.3-23.

[3] Waterfield (2015), p.77; Davies (1985), p.12; Amy Woodson-Boulton, Transformative Beauty: Art Museums in Industrial Britain (Stanford, 2012), p.29.

[4] Woodson-Boulton (2012), p.29.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Birmingham City Archives (hereafter BCA), AX Pamphlets, Vol. 6, 24830, Catalogue of the Objects of Art and Art Manufacture in the Corporation Free Art Gallery, Ratcliff place, with notes descriptive, historical, biographical, &c., on the pictures, statues, busts, &c., exhibited therein; including a guide to the East India collection, selected from the India Museum, Whitehall Place, London (Published by authority of the Free Art Gallery Committee 1870), p.4.

[7] Waterfield (2015), p.39.

[8] Ibid., p.33.

[9] Davies (1985), pp.15-16; Waterfield (2015), p.138.

[10] Davies (1985), p.18; ‘The Corporation Art Gallery’, The Birmingham Daily Post, 27 December 1870, p.5.

[11] Davies (1985), p.17; Woodson-Boulton (2012), p.63.

[12] Davies (1985), p.17; Woodson-Boulton (2012), p.63.

[13] Davies (1985), p.18.

[14] BCA, L34.3/140757, Birmingham Council Proceedings (hereafter BCP), 28 January 1879, pp.155-163; Davies (1985), p.19; Woodson-Boulton (2012), p.30.

[15] BCA, BCC/1/AA/1/1/15, L 34.3, BCP (1879-80), p.356.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Davies (1985), p.21; Woodson-Boulton (2012), p.30.

[18] BCA, BCC/1/AA/1/1/15, L 34.3, BCP (1879-80), p.374.

[19] Woodson-Boulton (2012), p.30.

[20] BCA, BCC/1/AA/1/1/15, L 34.3, BCP (1879-80), p.374; Woodson-Boulton (2012), p.30.

[21] Maugars, ‘Collecting Early Modern Italian Decorative Art’, pp.32-4.

[22] BCA, L/acc./578186, Borough of Birmingham, Art Gallery and Museum, Scheme for the Appointment of an Art Gallery Purchase Committee, and for the principles to be followed in the Selection of objects of Art, adopted by the town council, April 5th, 1881 (Birmingham, 1881) (hereafter Scheme for the selection of objects (1881)), p.7.

[23] BCA, L/acc./578186, Scheme for the selection of objects (1881),p.7.

[24] Asa Briggs, Victorian Cities (Harmondsworth, 1968), p.186; Malcolm Dick, ‘The City of a Thousand Trades, 1700-1945’, in Birmingham: The Workshop of the World, eds. Malcolm Dick and Carl Chinn (Liverpool, 2016), pp.125-157, p.125.

[25] Briggs (1968), p.186; Martin Ellis, ‘“By the Gains of Industry, We Promote Art”: The Birmingham Collection’, in Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelites to the Arts and Crafts Movement, eds. Martin Ellis, Victoria Osborne, and Tim Barringer, exhibition catalogue, Birmingham Museums Trust (New York, 2018), pp.17-33, p.19.

[26] Dick (2016), p.143.

[27] Ibid., p.144.

[28] John Swift, ‘Birmingham and its Art School: Changing Views 1800–1921’, The International Journal for Art and Design Education, 7.1 (1988), pp.67-89, p.70.

[29] Ibid., p.76; Ranald Lawrence, The Victorian Art School (Abingdon, 2020), p.16.

[30] Swift (1988), pp.76-77; Ellis (2018), pp.20-21.

[31] Ellis (2018), pp.22-3.

[32] John Swift, ‘The Arts and Crafts Movement and Birmingham Art School, 1880-1900’ in Histories of Art and Design Education: Cole to Coldstream, ed. David Thistlewood (Harlow, 1992), pp.23-37, p.23-8.

[33] Lawrence (2020), p.108.

[34] Ibid.

[35] BCC/1/AA/1/1/15, L 34.3, Birmingham Council Proceedings (1881-1882), p.9.

[36] Lawrence (2020), p.110.

[37] Arts, Design, and Media Archive, Birmingham City University (hereafter ADMA), Museum and School of Art Committee. Report for the Year 1888, approved by the Council on January 8th 1889, with Appendices, p.12.

[38] Birmingham Museum Trust Archive (hereafter BMTA), Report of the Museum and School of Art Committee, for presentation at the monthly meeting of the council, on the 4th January 1887, p.34.

[39] BMTA, Report of the Museum and School of Art Committee, for presentation at the monthly meeting of the council, on the January 3rd 1888, p.6.

[40] ADMA, School of Art, SA/AT/12/21/1, SA/AT/12/21/2, SA/AT/12/21/3.

[41] ADMA, Museum and School of Art Committee. Report for the Year 1886, approved by the Council on the 4th of January 1887, with Appendices, p.39.

[42] Ibid.

[43] Ibid.

[44] For more information about nineteenth-century English public museums, see Kate Hill, Culture and Class in English Public Museums, 1850-1914 (Aldershot, 2005).

[45] Osler merged with the company Faraday & Son Ltd in 1919. In 1958, the remnants of the company were purchased by Wilkinson’s, including the name and manufacturing rights to Osler & Faraday Ltd. and an important number of their patterns and drawings.

[46] Hugh Wakefield, Nineteenth-Century British Glass (London, 1982), p.226.

[47] Ibid., p.112; Giovanni Sarpellon, Associazione per Lo Studio e Lo Sviluppo Della Cultura Muranese: Salviati: Il Suo Vetri e i Suoi Uomini, 1859-1987 (Venice, 1989), p.15.

[48] Wakefield (1982), p.15.

[49] Ibid., p.112.

[50] Ibid., p.113; p.124.

[51] Hugh Tait, ‘Europe from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution’ in Five Thousand Years of Glass, ed. Hugh Tait (London, 1991), p.168.

[52] Ellis (2018), p.24.

[53] Ibid.

[54] Wakefield (1982), p.94; Ellis, ‘Goblet, ca. 1850, W.H.B. & J. Richardson (Stourbridge, Worcestershire), Manufacturer’ in Ellis, Osborne, and Barringer (2018), p.100.

[55] Tait (1991), pp.168-72.

[56] Wakefield (1982), p.235.

[57] On Hardman & Co., see Michael Fisher, Hardman of Birmingham: Goldsmith and Glasspainter (Ashbourne, 2008).

[58] ADMA, Report of the Museum and School of Art Committee presented at the monthly meeting of the council on January 3rd 1888, p.35; Report of the Museum and School of Art Committee presented at the monthly meeting of the council on January 8th 1889, p.45; Report of the Museum and School of Art Committee presented at the monthly meeting of the council on May 7th 1895, p.17.

[59] I would like to thank Dr Rebecca Unsworth, Curator (Decorative Arts) at Birmingham Museums Trust, for this reference and to Dr Matthew Bliss for the window’s location; see Andy Foster, Nikolaus Pevsner, and Alexandra Wedgwood, Birmingham and the Black Country (New Haven, 2022), p.322.