Medieval and Manuscripts

Archibald Keightley Nicholson

Archibald Keightley Nicholson (28 March 1871 – 25 February 1937) was an English ecclesiastical stained-glass maker. Nicholson was born at 26 Devonshire Place, Marylebone, London, the son of Charles Nicholson, 1st Baronet and Sarah Elizabeth Keightley. His two brothers, Charles and Sydney, were a church architect and church musician, respectively. During his lifetime, Nicholson designed and executed over 700 window designs, including work in the cathedrals of Newcastle, Chester, Lincoln, Norwich, Southwell, Bradford, Worcester (the Edward Elgar memorial window) and Wells. Nicholson designed the rose window of the south transept at the Church of Christ the King, Bloomsbury, along with a 1932 window dedicated to St Stephen Harding in the Musicians' Chapel at St Sepulchre-without-Newgate, both in London. The latter church also contains a memorial window to him, by Gerald E. R. Smith, with the following inscription: "To the glory of God. In memory of Archibald Keightley Nicholson, Master Glass Painter, who worshipped at this church. This window is designed and carried out by the craftsmen of his studios as a thank offering for his life and friendship. 1871 - 1937." The east window of 1902 at St John the Baptist, Wonersh, Surrey, is Nicholson's earliest commissioned work. It was installed in memory of two soldiers, and depicts Christ with St George and St Alban, both military saints. Nicholson also produced two smaller windows in the north wall depicting the Madonna & Child and the Annunciation. In St Wilfrid's Church, Mobberley is Nicholson's window to the memory of George Mallory the mountaineer, who died on Mount Everest in 1924. The Lady Chapel of Waltham Abbey Church contains three windows by Nicholson. They depict the Annunciation, the Nativity and the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. Work on a fourth window depicting the Epiphany was interrupted by the Second World War and never resumed. The East window behind the altar in the church of St Peter and St Paul's in Ewhurst, Surrey was commissioned as a memorial window for the 24-year-old Captain William Ralph Frecheville, executed after his capture on 9 January 1920 in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, whilst serving as part of the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. Several windows by Nicholson may also be seen in St Gabriel's church, Brynmill, Swansea.

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See also

• ▸Culture of Artsakh
• ▸Ireland
• ▸Circlet

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Text from Wikipedia; plate via Wikimedia Commons. Text CC BY-SA 4.0; plate freely licensed (see Commons). Source record. Images and catalogue data are reproduced from open-access collections.