Windows
The
English firm of Clayton & Bellmade the St Michael and St Gabriel
windows for the old chapel in the Leeper building, and it was proposed
that these be transferred to the sanctuary of the new chapel. North
preferred the Melbourne-based William Montgomery, and it was he who
glazed the windows with plain leaded glass for the chapel's opening,
and completed the St Alban window in 1915, donated by Dr H M O'Hara in
memory of his son Osborne, the first College student killed in the war.
As more bereaved families requested windows from various firms, the
College Concil insisted on a unified design scheme for the windows.
Dudley Forsyth of Hamstead was directed to prepare designs for all the
windows and to fulfil them as donors came forward. As many of the
requests would likely be for memorial windows, the north and
south nave windows were to be devoted to the soldier saints (Martin,
Goerge, Adrian, Didymus, Theodore of Heraklea, Theodore the Conscript,
Victor of Marseilles, Victor of Milan, Menna the Greek, Procopius of
Cesarea, Maurice and Alban), the east window would show Christ bearing
the cross, flanked by St Mary, St John, St Martha and St Mary
Magdalene, while the great west window would illustrate the 'Te
Deum' (We paise Thee, O God).
Forsyth completed the Miller
memorial (St Martin) window in 1922, but progress on the Jowett (St
George) window was slow. William Kerr-Morgan, leading artist with the
Melbourne firm Brooks Robinson, took over the project and completed the
east window, substituting a Crucifixion scene in the central panel, and
adding Saint Sebastian, Emperor Constantine and St John Gualberto in
the base panels. The firm also completed the Moule (St Theodore of
Heraklea) and Creswell (St Oswald) memorial windows.
The east
window, actually consisting of three separate lights, was dedicated on
Armistice Day, 1939, to those members of the College who died in the
Great War. The great west window and one window in the sanctuary remain
filled with plain glass only.
