25/05/2026
Wilhelmina Geddes was an important figure in the Irish Arts and Crafts movement and 20th century British stained glass revival. She was born in 1887 in Leitrim, Ireland.
Following her studies at the he Belfast School of Art, she worked at the two leading Arts and Crafts cooperative stained glass studios in Britain in the early 20th century, An Túr Gloine (Tower of Glass) in Dublin (founded 1903) and The Glass House (Lowndes & Drury) in London (founded 1906).
She was amongst the first generation of women stained glass artists who benefitted from professional training, achieving recognition in their own right, and whose careers benefitted from increased commissions in the periods after the First and Second World Wars.
The Faith, Hope and Charity window was designed and cartooned in 1955 and turned out to be Geddes’ final commission. The window was made to Geddes’ designs shortly after her death by friend and colleague at The Glass House, Charles F. Blakeman (1907-1989) in 1956. In the same year the three-light window was installed in the north aisle of St Paul’s Church, Battersea. In 1972 St Paul’s Church was united with nearby St Peter’s and Geddes’ Faith, Hope and Charity window was blocked and boarded up. The window was removed when the church was sold for mixed development and converted into private residencies and a nursery, c.2015.
According to Christian theology and philosophy, the three theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity (Love) are associated with salvation resulting from the grace of God. There is a long tradition in Christian art of depicting vices and virtues and these subjects are prominent in medieval stained glass. From the 18th century onwards, the virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity were especially popular moralising subjects and appear as female allegories in both religious paintings and stained glass windows.
Geddes was a modern artist with spiritual vision, and her unique interpretation of this popular subject is full of symbolism and theological meaning.
Geddes also designed windows, book illustrations, embroidered panels and linocut prints in the expressive, angular, attenuated figural style seen in this small cabinet panel, also on display at the museum. This panel shows the angel visiting Joseph to tell him to marry Mary and then to travel to Egypt. In this small inward-looking scene Joseph is asleep, revealing Geddes’ interest in different states of consciousness.
