This essay examines the collaboration between architect and designer George Gilbert Scott and metalworker Francis Skidmore. It compares their metalwork screens at the cathedrals of Hereford, Lichfield, and Salisbury—projects which sometimes overlapped and were all completed in the relatively short time span between 1861 and 1870—within the wider context of Skidmore’s career. While Scott was lauded in his lifetime and has been much studied since, Skidmore has not often been written about, despite having achieved an impressive scale and pace of work in British cathedrals, parish churches, and town halls. This essay therefore shines particular light on Skidmore’s work as designer and maker, and particularly the high profile commissions for these great cathedrals, restored and enhanced with the aesthetics and ambition of the Victorian era.

The prolific architect and designer George Gilbert Scott (1811–1878) (fig. 1) and now little-known metalworker Francis Skidmore (1817–1896) (fig. 2) met in the 1850s. At the cathedrals of Hereford, Lichfield, and Salisbury, they collaborated on innovative and spectacular ironwork choir screens, made in the Gothic Revival style, and designed to complement and enhance the cathedral interiors in which they were situated (fig.3). In Britain, the use of ironwork in this context was new. The screens synthesized medieval and modern aesthetics, and combined ambitious construction with meticulous craftsmanship.

Scott often worked on a number of projects concurrently in different parts of the country and within tight timescales, and subcontracted the specialist craftsmanship required to realize them.¹ For metalwork, he usually recommended Skidmore, although he also worked with John Hardman and Thomas Potter (who were both considered for the Hereford Screen).² Sometimes the metalwork delegated was a major structural undertaking, as at Salisbury Cathedral where the civil engineer F. W. Shields used iron to brace the main tower.³ Scott was lauded in his lifetime, even if he was not universally admired. Skidmore has not often been written about despite having worked in twenty-two cathedrals, three hundred parish churches, and twenty town halls.⁴ On the reverse of “postcard format” photographs he produced of his work he proudly listed cathedrals and the other locations of his significant creations (fig.4). At the height of his career he employed over one hundred people, but he seems to have been a perfectionist and destroyed work with which he was not satisfied, and therefore was not commercially successful; his firm went into liquidation in 1872.⁵ Only a decade earlier, Scott and Skidmore’s most successful collaboration had resulted in the Hereford Screen, described at the time as “the grandest and most triumphant achievement of modern architectural art . . . the most important and successful example of modern metalwork that has ever been executed”.⁶

The chronologies of Scott and Skidmore’s work at the cathedrals of Hereford, Lichfield, and Salisbury leading up to the production of the screens, were short and overlapped. In November 1854, Scott conducted a report of repairs needed at Hereford including the entire refitting of the choir, an early milestone in his association with the cathedral.⁷ A year later, he started work at Lichfield, and in around 1858 he was appointed architect at Salisbury.⁸ Scott’s designs for new features for these cathedrals were usually created within the context of his wider involvement as a restoration architect, and as part of integrated interior schemes. At Hereford, the scrolling ironwork foliage relates to the curling foliate decoration and the red, green, and gold-yellow colour scheme of the contemporary floor tiles by William Godwin.⁹

In terms of cathedral screens, the benefit of using iron was that physical separation was achieved with greater visual porosity than was possible with either stone or wood. Scott promoted metal screens for this reason, as well as for their modernity. Of the proposed screen at Hereford, he wrote that he “strongly recommended that it should be of metal, as capable of uniting the greatest degree of lightness and of beauty, and as at the same time being the class of material most in accordance with the direction of the Art-progress of the present age”.¹⁰ The Lichfield Screen was in fact the first commission of the three (fig. 5) and on 16 April 1857 it was resolved to take down the existing screen.¹¹ On 21 September 1859, Skidmore undertook to make a new one for £800, as per a now lost drawing.¹² On 29 November he received the go ahead, while on 4 October 1860 it was reported, “metal screen getting on very fast”, and on 21 December 1860 the first payment, of £400, was made.¹³ Skidmore also made ironwork gates for the North and South aisles, as well as standards for gas lighting. On 22 October 1861, Lichfield Cathedral reopened, with the new screen and Skidmore’s other metalwork in place.¹⁴

At Hereford, Scott’s screen was approved on 31 December 1861, on the basis of a preliminary drawing he had provided. A much-reduced price of £1,500 was agreed—Scott said this amounted to at least £1,000 less than such a work could be produced for under any other circumstances—on condition that Skidmore be allowed to exhibit the screen at the 1862 International Exhibition, thus promoting his work to a large international audience.¹⁵ The Hereford Screen was completed astonishingly quickly, and was ready to be exhibited in London from May to November 1862. Prominently positioned (fig. 6), the screen was trumpeted with a lengthy text in English and French and accompanying colour illustrations in the lavish publication on Masterpieces of the exhibition (figs. 7, 8, 9).¹⁶ The production of the screen had been made possible by many subscribers including Scott himself, and the Bishop and the Dean, who each contributed £50.¹⁷ On 6 February 1863 the first instalment of £1,000 was paid to Skidmore, and on 30th June 1863 the cathedral reopened, the screen having been erected inside earlier that year.¹⁸ On 12 November 1863 the Chapter agreed the final £500 be paid to Skidmore, but only two months later the return sections at the two extreme ends of the screen were enlarged and Skidmore was reportedly very irked that changes of mind by the cathedral concerning the completion of the installation of the screen had led to a loss of income.¹⁹ His bill was only finally paid on 12 November 1864.

Scott and Skidmore thereby established the precedent of using iron for ecclesiastical screens in Great Britain, beginning with their collaboration at Lichfield. The screens were all enhanced with metal oxide paints and other materials: at Lichfield, with blackberries made of onyx; wild rose and currant seed-pods of carnelian; and white strawberries of ivory.²⁰ The Lichfield Screen also has sixteen much smaller music-making angels, eight on each side, in horizontal rows, modelled by the sculptor John Birnie Philip.²¹

At Hereford, the Lichfield precedent of an ornate ironwork screen was taken to an altogether different level in its dazzling, jewelled effect. The Hereford Screen, weighing over eight tons, is particularly notable for its more obvious profusion of different materials: polished brass, copper (for the leaves), one hundred and twenty mosaic panels with tesserae of marble; foil-backed glass, semi-precious stones, enamel, stencilled paintwork (added in 1863), and the use of a range of colours of metal oxide paints (figs. 10 and 11). It also incorporated prominent figures of Christ in the centre, and pairs of angels with instruments, all made of electroformed copper (thin copper deposited in a mould using electricity), patinated to imitate sculpture.

At Lichfield, Skidmore then undertook to make an ironwork pulpit (completed in 1864) where he used the decorative techniques employed for Hereford two years earlier to striking effect on a smaller scale (fig. 12): the structure is of iron, but it is richly decorated with enamelled plaques, clusters of hardstones, and vivid paint juxtapositions of deep red-brown, green, and blue, enhanced with gilding (figs. 13 and 14). This combination of colours and gilding is equally vibrant in some of Skidmore’s highly finished designs for light fittings (fig. 15).²²

At Salisbury, the screen was much simpler in design than at Hereford, using a relatively restrained red and gold colour scheme.²³ Looking at its surviving wrought iron elements, Skidmore’s skill in handworking hot iron in the forge to create elaborate twists and curls, seen even more impressively at Hereford, can be appreciated (fig. 16). The sides facing out appear to have been gilded, and the returns painted deep red.²⁴ The Salisbury gates show the influence of medieval models with repeated C and S scrolls (fig. 17).²⁵ Cast iron double-heart and lozenge decorative panels seen on the cross once at the very top of the Salisbury Screen and also horizontally across it at high level (figs. 18 and 19), are the same as panels used by Skidmore for other cathedral commissions at Chester and for the cross on the screen at Worcester,²⁶ showing Skidmore pragmatically either “recycling” left-over panels or using the same model across these different commissions, saving on cost. More idiosyncratically, the Salisbury cross includes copper alloy leaves protruding at angles, a feature seen in more restrained form in the Hereford gates, and foil-backed glass on at least one element of the screen, a “vesica” (a pointed oval shape where two circles overlap).²⁷ By 1870, the Salisbury Screen was in place.²⁸ Worcester Cathedral, with its own ironwork by Skidmore, reopened in April 1874.²⁹

Thus within just a decade, three huge and elaborate ironwork cathedral screens had been produced alongside other work by Scott and Skidmore, notably the high-profile Albert Memorial for which Skidmore’s ironwork was underway by May 1864.³⁰ Apart from very ornate surrounding railings by Skidmore, the Albert Memorial, like the Hereford Screen, has a cross with (in this case, imitation) hardstones at the very top, and winged angels modelled by Birnie Philip just below (fig. 20).

Francis Skidmore trained in Coventry with his father as a jeweller and silversmith and learnt traditional techniques of engraving, casting, chasing, enameling, and mounting stones. Like Scott, he was influenced by medieval metalwork and particularly jewelled shrines. By incorporating a dazzling array of other materials into the Hereford Screen’s iron structure, they effectively created jewellery on a large scale, and the result is unlike anything which had been seen before.

Skidmore had experimented with architectural ironwork in creating the Oxford University Museum roof, with mixed technical success. Made mostly of wrought iron, the roof, begun in 1857, started to collapse under its own weight and was largely rebuilt in cast iron. The new structure featured colourfully stencilled columns ornamented with wrought ironwork in the spandrels representing branches of sycamore, walnut, and palms (fig. 21).³¹ Here Skidmore established his naturalistic style, with curling foliate capitals and tendrils, seen later in his cathedral screens.

Although much influenced in style by metalwork of the past, Skidmore was a technical innovator. A chalice shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851 (fig. 22) featured the new technique of electroplating, which involved using an electrical current to deposit a thin layer of silver onto another metal.³² He was also interested in newly invented gas lighting which he installed in several buildings including Holy Trinity Church, Coventry, in 1856, where his fourteen light fittings still provide the main light source for the interior (fig. 23).³³ These fittings were the precursor to those commissioned from Skidmore for Hereford Cathedral, no longer in situ but recorded in old photographs. Similar Skidmore fittings at Ely Cathedral feature his characteristic twisted columns and flamboyantly curling foliage, elements seen on the Hereford Screen.

In the 1860s—the decade of these three screens—Skidmore’s career was at its peak. In 1865, his company in Alma Street, Coventry, employed seventy-four men and fifty-four boys, many apprentices from local charity schools, on an average wage of about £1 per week. The premises included an extensive showroom, drawing offices for designs and photographs, a large general workshop, pattern shops, a photographic studio, enamelling rooms, a furnace, a stamping room, an electrotyping room with bath and stone figure models, a boilerhouse, stores, a carpenter’s room, and a packing shop.³⁴ By 1865 “Skidmore’s Art Manufactures Limited” had expanded to become “Skidmore’s Art Manufactures and Constructive Iron Company Limited”, marking a shift to include larger scale construction. A new letterhead proudly included the wording used when Skidmore was awarded a medal in 1862 for the Hereford Screen: “for progress, elegance of design, and for excellent workmanship” (fig. 24).³⁵

In its heyday, besides being used for manufacture, the Alma Street premises served to showcase Skidmore’s design archive, as he kept not only original drawings but also photographic records of the best examples of his work. Skidmore recorded elements of the Hereford Screen including the figure of Christ, a pair of angels and a spandrel (figs. 25 and 26), and the south aisle gates. These gates, and a pair in the north aisle, were erected in 1864³⁶ and are still it situ, with colourful decoration over most of the surface, including characteristic incised diagonal lines and punched holes painted one colour against a background of another, twisting foliage of vivid polychromy, applied imitation hardstones and intricate decoration around their keyholes, a distinctive feature shared with the Salisbury Screen gates (figs. 27, 28, and 29).

Skidmore was ambitious in recording the entirety of the Lichfield Screen photographically, but this new medium was much better suited to showing the crisp detail of his wrought iron close up (fig. 30).³⁷ Skidmore was also aware of the role of photography in terms of “property rights”, ordering at a critical stage that no person could photograph the Hereford Screen without his permission.³⁸ Finally, he used photographic images to present different options for commissions to clients, numbered and annotated with corresponding prices.

The Dean and Chapter commissioned Skidmore to create the Hereford Screen on Scott’s recommendation, stipulating that the sketch Scott produced was to be further developed by Scott and Skidmore, indicating that they were to work, at some level, together. Scott was not always happy with Skidmore’s interpretation of his ideas, recording later:

I have had one or two great works carried out, such as the choir screens at Lichfield and Hereford cathedrals. Both of these were designed in full by myself, and are carried out according to my designs in general; in both, however, as in all his works, Mr Skidmore has “kicked over the traces” wherever he has had a chance. In some cases the work has gained, and in some suffered from this. Original ideas have been imported but a certain air of eccentricity has come in with them.³⁹

He also mentioned Skidmore taking “as usual with him a few liberties of his own”.⁴⁰ Later he wrote of Skidmore and the Hereford Screen, “Skidmore followed my designs, but somewhat aberrantly. It is a fine work, but too loud and self-asserting for an English church.”⁴¹ These words were to be much quoted a hundred years later, to justify removing the screen from the cathedral.

Not only a preliminary pencil sketch, but also the detailed design by Scott for the Salisbury Screen has survived (fig. 31).⁴² His exuberant curling decoration on the cross ended up as sequence of simpler cast panels, showing that Skidmore adapted the detail of Scott’s design, presumably anticipating what would be easiest to create in metal. Scott and Skidmore seem to have worked most amicably on the canopy of the Albert Memorial.⁴³ Scott wrote: “For the perfect carrying out of this idea I am indebted to the skill of Mr Skidmore, the only man living, as I believe, who was capable of effecting it, and who has worked out every species of ornament in the true spirit of the ancient models.”⁴⁴ Skidmore proudly (albeit also desperately) later quoted this praise by Scott in a petition for funds.⁴⁵

As a postscript to Scott and Skidmore’s collaboration, there were inevitable delays in communications as the two worked and employed workmen all over the country. They used the services of the Electric and International Telegraph Company (incorporated in 1846) who priced transmission of messages from on foot locally, to the “upwards of 700 stations in Great Britain and Ireland” (fig. 32). On at least one occasion, and probably several others, Skidmore was obviously irritated by his workmen being kept waiting (at his expense) for Scott’s instructions.⁴⁶

Looking back when writing his recollections, Scott summarized his views on Skidmore’s work: “metalwork has, during the period in question, made considerable progress, though it has suffered from its share of eccentric mania of the day. Mr Skidmore can claim an eminent place both in skill, progress and eccentricity.”⁴⁷ Despite the modifications Skidmore made to Scott’s designs, often simply because of the properties of the metals he was working with, but also in keeping with his own ideas, Scott evidently had great admiration for Skidmore. Skidmore was understandably proud of his collaboration with Scott given that it resulted in some of the most ambitious and spectacular ironwork ever produced.

The author would particularly like to thank Ayla Lepine, Sarah Victoria Turner and all at the Paul Mellon Centre, The Rev. Christopher Pullin and Charlotte Berry (Hereford Cathedral and Archive), Jason Dyer (ex-Lichfield Cathedral), Antony West, and Tessa Murdoch, Angus Patterson, Eric Turner, and Veronica Bevan (V&A).