Stained Glass at City Hall
BY: BG EDITOR
Stained Glass Window
City Hall (Supreme Court), Greenwood, B.C.
Sep 10, 2016 — GREENWOOD, BC (BG)
Greenwood's City Hall building (the Courthouse) is one of the city's most iconic structures. The beautiful Victorian era building was constructed in 1903 by the British Columbia Government (Victoria). In 1953, it was purchased by the City of Greenwood for use as its City Hall. Designed by architect George Dillon Curtis, the building served as the Supreme Court of British Columbia and the County Court for the Southern County of Yale.
Among the many beautiful architectural features, both exterior and interior, are the gorgeous stained glass windows found upstairs in the Courtroom. This historic courtroom is a magnificent space with high ceilings (7m./24ft.) , turned wood pillars and beautiful stained glass windows.
Most of the building was constructed with clear grained coast cedar, finished in its natural colour. The courtroom ceiling was done in native red cedar, with hammer beam roof trusses of Douglas Fir, the woodwork finished in oil. The original wood interior serves as a perfect frame for the stained glass windows created by noted Canadian artist, James Jervis Blomfield. Over the last few decades, Blomfield has gained increasing recognition as a master artist, with his stained glass and paintings taking their place among the finest of Canada's 20th Century artworks.
James Blomfield's stained glass windows are found in two British Columbia courthouses, in Greenwood and Rossland. In fact, it was a stroke of luck that construction of the Greenwood courthouse took place when it did. In a study of early courthouses in Canada, part of the Canadian Inventory of Historic Buildings [1] we find:
"Tenders for construction of the building were invited in the fall of 1902. Low bidders were the firm of Smith Brothers, who began construction around the first of the following year. In fact, construction of the building narrowly missed being cancelled in the spring of 1903 when a new government, elected on a pledge of strict austerity, took office in Victoria. … Since construction on the court house was already well underway, it was one of the few new buildings to escape cancellation during this period. The building was completed and occupied during the fiscal period between the first of July 1903 and 30 June 1904. The Public Works Report for 1904 noted that the building was completed with the exception of a retaining wall and fencing. The total cost of that time had been $15,029.06."
By the dates of tender and completion of construction we can be certain of the time period, and the circumstances under which James Blomfield created the stained glass windows for Greenwood. And this date takes on real significance in the context of Blomfield's life story.
The beautiful windows, which sit high above the Spectator's Gallery and open courtroom, are circular mullioned windows that are glazed in art glass (now called stained glass). They were commissioned in Vancouver, where Blomfield's studio was situated at the time.
James Jervis Blomfield (1872-1951)
[ Photo on left of the young Blomfield, courtesy The Greenwood Museum.
His photo on right, Archives of Ontario 10007968 ]
Biography of James Jervis Blomfield
James Jervis Blomfield was born in England in1872, and died in Toronto in 1951. He married Mary Augusta Diamond (1865-1930) of Belleville, Ontario in 1903. She was 28 years his junior, and predeceased him by 21 years. The couple had no children. Detailed biographical information is now available on Blomfield, and is briefly summarized in Wikipedia and the Dictionary of Canadian Artists [2-3]:
'James Jervis Blomfield (1879-1951) was an English-born Canadian artist and designer. He is best known for his design of the coat of arms of Vancouver and as a pioneer in the field of stained glass art in Canada, with an extensive body of works completed in British Columbia and Ontario, including the Beechwood Cemetery Mausoleum in Canada's national cemetery in Ottawa. He lived in Toronto for the last 30 years of his life.
The City of Vancouver's Coat of Arms by James Jervis Blomfield
As described by the artist himself, the design was first made in 1901, adapted in 1903,
and presented to the city in 1945 in the form of a memorial plaque
[ Photo: Vancouver City Archives ]
He was born James Alfred Bloomfield in Maidenhead, Berkshire, England. The middle name he added from his mother's maiden name later in life, when he also dropped the second 'o' in Bloomfield. He moved to Canada with his family after working for a period of time as a junior draftsman. James had been born deaf. In Canada he studied painting and engraving in Calgary, Alberta (1887).
His father, Henry Bloomfield was an artist and engraver and the family lived in Calgary before settling in New Westminster, British Columbia. There in 1890, Henry established the first art glass studio in British Columbia, which he ran with his sons James and Charles, later moving the operation to Vancouver in 1899.
In 1894, James illuminated an address for the Governor General of Canada, Lord Aberdeen. Aberdeen was so impressed with the quality of his artistry that he sponsored James' education in England (London and Manchester) and Belgium. Returning from abroad, he studied at the Art Students League in New York, and with art glass firms in Chicago and New Orleans.
On his return to Canada his career flourished, with commissions at Holy Trinity Cathedral in New Westminster, St. Paul's Anglican Church in Vancouver, Gabriola mansion, and the home of Benjamin Tingley. Blomfield designed the Queen Victoria Memorial in Stanley Park, Vancouver, and the original Rogers Window at Government House in Victoria (destroyed by fire in 1957).
Together with Robert McKay Fripp, S.M. Everleigh, and A. Woodroffe, in 1900 he co-founded the Arts and Crafts Association of Vancouver, which later became the Studio Club (1904) and finally the British Columbia Society of Fine Arts (1908).
Some time after the turn of the century, he moved to Washington State and later to Chicago, where he became a Professor of Design at the Chicago Academy of Fine Art. In 1918 he worked for the Christian Science Monitor as a staff writer.'
Although James Blomfield's father Henry had settled the family in New Westminster in 1890, at what was to be the first art glass studio in British Columbia, that was not the site where the Greenwood Courthouse windows were made by James in 1902-03. The family business, Henry Bloomfield & Sons, was forced from its original studio space by fire, and the art enterprise was moved to Vancouver in 1899. The event is described below, in harrowing detail, by James' younger brother Charles, as told in the book, Royal City: A Photographic History of New Westminster, 1858-1960 by Jim Wolf [4]
"As part of his artistic studies Charles learned the craft of photography. On the night of September 10, 1898, Charles heard the fire gong, grabbed his camera and headed downtown. At age 21 he was quick enough on his feet to reach Lytton Square just after the start of the spectacular blaze on the waterfront. He must have been excited by this opportunity to experiment with the novelty of night-time photography. He climbed the stairs to the roof of the Begbie Block to take his first photograph at 11:00 p.m.
Before his eyes, and in the lens of his camera, the fire grew to become a historic and personal disaster. He raced down Columbia Street to the waterfront at Begbie Street and took two more images. With flames swirling in front of him, Charles witnessed the conflagration spread to the brick blocks of Columbia Street. He was likely horrified at the realization that the fire was also spreading up the hill to his family's house and business located at Eighth Street and Royal Avenue. On his climb uphill back home he took one last spectacular photograph of flames headed directly for his house.
Charles frantically tried to save his family's belongings by carrying items out into the garden to bury them under rugs and dirt. When embers from the fire landed on the Morey house next door, he climbed to the roof and emptied house plants and dirt on the flames. As he was doing this, the whole side of the house facing the fire burst into flames. Without hope of saving his house he grabbed the last of a few valuable items, including his camera and its precious glass plates with images of the fire, and found safety above Royal Avenue. The next morning he returned to take a photograph of the ashes and debris of his former home. Charles and his family decided that day to relocate to Vancouver."
This photograph, taken the morning after the great fire, shows the remains of the
Bloomfield House and the family's famed art-glass studio, Henry Bloomfield & Sons
[ Photo by C.E. Bloomfield Photograpy,
published in Royal City: A Photographic History of New Westminster, 1858-1960 by Jim Wolf ]
The story of the great fire was also related by James Blomfield's great-niece, June Tompson Gauntley of South Surrey, who gave more details of his life in a letter shared with The Greenwood Museum. She wrote:
"Their house and workshop in New Westminster was destroyed in the great fire of 1898", and "the lead that they had just received from England for working on their stained glass windows melted, and ran down the steep New Westminster hill towards the river, like lava from a volcano, the lead being melted in the heat of the fire."
It is extraordinary to note that after this disaster, Henry Bloomfield and his sons moved themselves and their business to the corner of West 10th Avenue and Columbia Street in Vancouver. They re-started their art operation there, on land that was essentially rough bush. It was there that the Greenwood stained glass windows were made.
Stained glass windows by James J. Jervis, Greenwood City Hall
[ Photo courtesy of Waymarking.com ]
As described by Edward Mills in his survey of the Greenwood Courthouse for the CIHB project [1], the design in the pair of stained glass panels above memorialize the saints of England, Scotland and Ireland (comprising the Flag of the Union Jack).
The large semi-circular stained glass window (below) on a high wall of the Courthouse depicts the
coat of arms for the seven provinces in the Confederation of Canada in 1902. They are, on the left: Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick; on the right: Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and Manitoba; and in the center, British Columbia.
Stained glass windows by James J. Jervis, Greenwood City Hall
[ Photo courtesy of Waymarking.com ]
Mills' 1976 report states that "The windows and window frames are original. There are unique windows in the Courthouse. Circular windows, stained glass windows, stained glass windows in the ceiling in the Federal court (light gets in these windows by windows on both sides of the attic. Ornate semi-circular stained glass windows, in the spectators gallery with symbols of seven provinces that were in the confederation of 1902. (Two of the windows open.)"
In his book, Building the West: The Early Architects of British Columbia, author Donald Luxton also refers to Greenwood's stained glass panels, saying "The main court room features … stained glass windows by Henry Bloomfield & Sons bearing the provincial arms and those of Sir James Douglas, the province's first governor, and Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie, British Columbia's first judge and subsequent Chief Justice."
James Blomfield's Later Years
Blomfield settled in Toronto in the early 1920s, where he spent his final years. He painted many Toronto streetscapes and nature scenes. Having worked with many of the principal architects of his time, including Francis Rattenbury, James was known for his accuracy in architectural detail. He was also a lover of brilliant colour, as his large body of watercolor paintings attests. His works have been on exhibit in all the major galleries in Toronto and Vancouver. In 1933, the Toronto Star said about him, "there are few more pleasant corners in Toronto than that where the Blomfield pictures shed light and warmth."
James died in 1951, at the age of 72, when struck by an automobile (or perhaps a streetcar) in downtown Toronto. His remains are interred at the Hamilton (now Bayview) Mausoleum[ in Hamilton, Ontario, along with his wife's. One of his stained glass windows, designed in the 1920's, is installed there. There is also a commemoration plaque in their names.
An article in the 'Coat of Arms Archives' at VancouverHistory.ca [5] offers this report:
"Robert Watt learned that James Blomfield was buried in the Hamilton Mausoleum in Hamilton, Ont. But, in a tour of the building with the owner, he also learned the artist's crypt was unmarked. The owner, W. Stoneham, opened the Blomfield crypt and handed the urn containing the artist's ashes to a mildly startled Robb Watt. "That was my closest contact to the man," Watt says. (The crypt also contains the remains of Mary Blomfield, the former Mary Augusta Diamond, whom he married in Vancouver in 1903.)"
The stained glass pieces of James Blomfield will be enjoyed for long years to come. They are found in numerous cathedrals and mausoleums across Canada, notably in Hamilton and Guelph. A few are pictured below.
His stained glass panels in the Greenwood City Hall/Courthouse are also available for viewing. Tours of this fascinating historic building can be arranged through The Greenwood Museum. Staff at City Hall's public counter will also provide a descriptive flip-card booklet for self-guided tours of the building.
Stained Glass Window by James Jervis Blomfield
Bayview Cemetery Mausoleum, Hamilton (Burlington), Ontario
[ Photo courtesy GSO@Flikr ]
'An Ontario Sanctuary'
Watercolour of All Saints, Hamilton by James Jervis Blomfield
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Canadian Inventory of Historic Buildings, Report of Edward Mills (1976); The Greenwood Museum archives
[3] A Dictionary of Canadian Artists by Colin S. MacDonald
[4] Royal City: A Photographic History of New Westminster, 1858-1960 by Jim Wolf, p. 75
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