Powell & Whitefriars

Although James Powell bought the Whitefriars factory in 1834 it was not until about 1860 that the work we now recognise as synonymous with this company began. It was the work commissioned by William Morris and designed by Phillip Webb, along with the designs by the architect T.G.Jackson some ten years later, that saw the beginning of a new style by the company, within the Arts & Crafts genre which broke with the mainstream British traditions of glass design at that time.

Around the same time Harry Powell introduced work that was influenced by Venetian glass, most notably by the firm of Salviati. He also created wares based on drawings made when visiting museums throughout Europe and the United Kingdom, which are known as Historistmus glass, or “Glasses with Histories”. Harry Powell produced the majority of designs used by the firm between about 1875 and the 1920’s, establishing it at the forefront of glass design and production in Britain.

The company continued to make glass at the same site under the auspices of Harry Powell until the beginning of 1923, when it moved to the Harrow Weald site where it began a new phase in its development. Harry produced his last design for the company in 1920, but many of his designs were produced and some even introduced during the 1920’s. Little is known about authorship of designs at the firm during the 1920’s until Barnaby Powell produced his first pieces for the firm in 1929, which followed in the tradition of blown self-coloured vessels that had become synonymous with the firm.

Unlike Harry Powell, whose work was light and thin, Barnaby’s designs gradually became heavier, possibly as a result of working with Capt. Henry Dunn-Cooke who ran the firm of Elferson, which acted as importers of Wuidart. Powell’s were to produce a range of wares for Wuidart’s under the name of ‘Wealdstone’, which was initially exclusive to Wuidart and used different colours and shapes to the main production by Powell although some pieces were adapted from existing patterns. It was also weightier than the normal wares produced by the firm. This was most likely the influence of Dunn-Cooke, since he produced a number of experimental designs for Powell that are known to be the thickest and heaviest glass that the firm ever made.

The influence of the Art Deco style was not immediately obvious in the company’s work, partly because the informal limpid nature of the glass that they produced did not lend itself directly to the more formal approach of ‘Deco. Yet the work of two new designers at the company, James Hogan and William Wilson, did manage to encompass the Art Deco ethos, most notably with the cut glass pieces by Wilson, but also the work by Hogan that referenced Scandinavian style in its approach. Barnaby Powell also contributed to the stylishly successful Art Deco cut ranges by the firm with a group of shallow bowls on cylindrical pedestals that he worked on with Albert Tubby, one of the factory’s glasscutters.

Some of the work of both Barnaby Powell and James Hogan showed an awareness of Scandinavian design with its organic simplicity that relied on form and transparent colour, whilst at the same time carrying on in the tradition largely created by Harry Powell. The ranges designed by Tom Hill, one of the glassblowers in the factory, also exhibited these qualities.

Whilst all the designers produced work on their own, most also worked in collaboration with one or more of the other designers, or else with factory specialists such as Tubby. For instance Wilson and Hogan worked together, whilst both Wilson and Barnaby Powell produced their cut designs with the input of Albert Tubby. Again it was Wilson who combined with Bernard Fitch, the head of the cutting shop, to produce a range of thick walled, deeply cut pieces.

After the war this “working in tandem” continued when the firm took on Royal College graduate Geofrey Baxter. Wilson, who was by this time the Managing Director of the company as well as the main designer, realised Baxter’s potential and employed him as a designer. They worked together on several ranges most notably when Wilson produced the shapes for Baxter’s designs for cut glass in the ‘Contemporary’ style.

Eventually Baxter took over from Wilson as the Chief Designer. Baxter’s innovative work in the 1950’s and 1960’s with his elegant Scandinavian influenced ranges that were nevertheless quintessentially British; his adaptation of old lighting moulds to produce the graceful lightweight soda glass vases; and the introduction of the highly successful brightly coloured textured ranges in soda glass, all took Whitefriars into a new era and indeed enabled it to exist until its demise in 1980, when the site was sold for re-development.