With the Saints through Christmas (5): 30 December 2021, Josephine Butler

Josephine Butler … ‘God and one woman make a majority’

Patrick Comerford

Christmas is a season that continues for 40 days until the Feast of the Presentation or Candlemas (2 February).

Before this day begins, I am taking some time early this morning for prayer, reflection and reading.

I am continuing my Prayer Diary on my blog each morning, reflecting in these ways:

1, Reflections on a saint remembered in the calendars of the Church during Christmas;

2, the day’s Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Josephine Butler (1828-1906) was active campaigner against the way Victorian society and legislation treated prostitutes, most of whom were forced into their lifestyle activity through desperate poverty.

Josephine Butler was born on 13 April 1828 at Milfield House, Milfield, Northumberland, and was baptised on 30 May in Northumberland. She was the seventh child of John Grey (1785–1868) and Hannah Eliza Annett 1792-1860). Her father, John Grey, was an eminent agricultural expert, and the cousin of the reformist Prime Minister, Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey. John Grey campaigned for the abolition of slavery and played a significant role in Catholic emancipation. He lost most of his savings in 1857 with the failure of the Newcastle Bank.

In 1852, Josephine married the Revd George Butler (1819-1890), who encouraged her in her public work. From her 20s on, Josephine was active in feminist movements, and the Butlers had strong radical sympathies, including support for the Union in the American Civil War.

Josephine and George Butler had four children. In 1863, while they were living in Cheltenham, where George was the vice-principal of Cheltenham College, their only daughter, Evangeline, died at the age of six.

In 1866, the family moved to Liverpool when George was appointed headmaster of Liverpool College. There Josephine decided to seek solace by ministering to people with greater pain than her own. She became involved in the campaign for higher education for women, and with Anne Jemima Clough, later principal of Newnham College, Cambridge, she helped to establish the North of England Council for Promoting the Higher Education of Women.

Against the advice of her friends and family, she began visiting Brownlow Hill workhouse in Liverpool, which led to her first involvement with prostitutes. She saw the women as being exploited victims of male oppression, and attacked the double standard of sexual morality.

Her campaign took on an international dimension when she travelled through Europe in 1874-1875 addressing meetings. Her campaign succeeded with the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Act in 1883. In 1885, she became involved in a successful campaign against child prostitution.

She was a devout Anglican and a woman of prayer, and once said: ‘God and one woman make a majority.’ She modelled her spirituality on that of Saint Catherine of Siena, and wrote a biography of the Dominican saint.

When George Butler retired from Liverpool College, he became a Canon of Winchester Cathedral. He died on 14 March 1890. Josephine continued her campaigns until the early 1900s. She died on 30 December 1906.

Josephine Butler is celebrated in the Calendar of Common Worship in the Church of England on 30 May, the anniversary of her baptism, and on 30 December, the anniversary of her death.

She is depicted in windows in the Anglican Cathedral, Liverpool, and Saint Olave’s Church, London.

Many of her papers are in the Women’s Library in London Metropolitan University and in the Josephine Butler Museum, Southend-On-Sea. Durham University honoured her in 2005 by giving her name Josephine Butler College. A building in the Faculty of Business and Law in Liverpool John Moores University is named Josephine Butler House. Her former home in Cheltenham was demolished in the 1970s.

Luke 2: 36-40 (NRSVA):

36 There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband for seven years after her marriage, 37 then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer night and day. 38 At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

39 When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. 40 The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favour of God was upon him.

The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today (30 December 2021) invites us to pray:

Lord, we pray for clergy around the world. We recognise the difficulties they have faced since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and the love they have shown to their parishioners throughout this challenging time.

Yesterday: Saint Thomas Becket

Tomorrow: William Bedell

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

On the Pugin trail at Keavan’s Port, the new Wetherspoon’s hotel in former stained-glass studios

An Earley & Co circular window in the reception area of Keavan’s Port pub and hotel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Patrick Comerford

I am spending a few days in Dublin on a short, post-Christmas break. Before a late lunch in Cava in Camden Street yesterday, I visited Wetherspoon’s Keavan’s Port pub and hotel.

I could never describe myself as anything close to a fan of either Wetherspoon’s or Tim Martin – although I admit to having lunch once in the Bole Bridge, the Wetherspoon pub in Tamworth … just once. So Keavan’s Port, a pub with an adjoining 89-bedroom hotel, was never going to be a natural ‘port of call.’

It is always good to have my prejudices challenged and disproved. For some months now, I have wanted to see the restoration of these town houses in Camden Street, including a restored former chapel and the recovery of the story of once-important stained-glass studios.

The name of the Earley studios survives in the fanlight above the front door of the hotel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Keavan’s Port takes its name from the history of the local area, where Camden Street Upper and Camden Street Lower form part of an ancient highway into the city of Dublin. These two streets were previously known as Saint Kevin’s Port.

The name Keavan’s Port and Saint Kevin’s Port comes from Saint Kevin’s Church of, in nearby Camden Row. It is said to have been founded by a follower of the sixth-century hermit.

Saint Kevin also features in the poem ‘Saint Kevin and the Blackbird’ (1996) by the Nobel prize-winner Seamus Heaney, in which he describes how Saint Kevin held out a ‘turned-up palm’ for a blackbird to nest.

Wetherspoons have transformed eight once-derelict houses into Keavan’s Port pub and hotel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

In a series of old maps and records, Camden Street is named as Keavans Port (1673), Saint Kevan’s Port (1714), Keavan’s Port (1728), Saint Kevan’s Port (1756) and then Saint Kevin’s Port (1778), but the street was renamed Camden Street after Charles Pratt (1714-1794), 1st Earl of Camden and a liberal defender of human rights.

These eight once-derelict Georgian townhouses were bought for €6 million and have gained a new lease of life with their restoration over three years by Wetherspoon as Keavan’s Port pub and hotel. It is a flagship pub and hotel for the British chain, and is the company’s single largest investment in its 41-year history, costing €27.4 million.

The pub is set over two levels and features a courtyard beer garden. The 89 bedrooms include bedrooms specially designed for people with disabilities. Bespoke and reclaimed furniture, as well as reclaimed stonework and decorative windows, have been incorporated into the design. The hotel design fuses the restored Georgian architecture with contemporary design. The unique carpet designs reflect the area’s history, and a three-storey modern extension features a 12-metre-high glazed atrium.

The old marble yard of Earley & Co now forms part of Keavan’s Port beer garden (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Many of the original features of the once derelict buildings have been be retained and restored, including the circular stained glass window that was crafted by Earley & Co, church decorators, stained glass manufacturers and stone carvers, who were based at the site. The window on the façade of 5 Upper Camden Street is considered to be the work of John Earley, son of the founder of the company.

Earley & Co were ecclesiastical furnishings and stained glass manufacturers and retailers from 1861 to 1975 and one of the largest and most prestigious ecclesiastical decorators both in Ireland and Britain. They provided a high standard of ecclesiastical art during the Gothic revival in church building in the 19th and early 20th century.

The firm was founded by John Earley and his brother Thomas, who were born in Birmingham of Irish parents According to family tradition, their parents were James Earley, a bricklayer from Drumshambo, Co Leitrim, and his wife Elizabeth (née Farrington).

A collection of original Hardman & Co cartoons in the hotel lobby (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Thomas Earley (1819-1893) was born in Birmingham and was an apprentice at Hardman & Co in Brimingham, who worked closely with the great architect of the Gothic revival, Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-1852).

John Hardman was one of the pioneers of the stained-glass revival in the mid-19th century. Thomas Earley was responsible for setting up Hardman’s exhibit of stained glass and metalwork at the Great Exhibition in 1851. He set up a similar exhibit at the International Dublin Exhibition of 1853. By November 1853, a shop was being prepared at 48 Grafton Street in Dublin for Hardman’s ecclesiastic products.

The Grafton Street premises were abandoned between 1860 and 1863, and Hardman’s gave up their connection with the Dublin business in 1864. The business then continued from 1 Upper Camden Street as Earley & Powell when Thomas Earley and Edward Powell formed their own business at No 1 Camden Street, calling it Earley and Powell. by 1883 had acquired additional premises at 23-27 Grantham Street, and it later became Earley & Co.

Thomas Earley in 1870 … a photograph in the hotel lobby (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Thomas Earley’s younger brother, John, began his apprenticeship in stained glass and also moved from Birmingham to Dublin. When John died at 42, his son, also called John, became a renowned stained glass artist.

Thomas Earley was elected a non-professional associate of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland (RIAI) in 1864, and he became a full associate under in 1869, proposed by Thomas Drew, James Higgins Owen and Parke Neville. He was also a member of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (1871).

He worked from 1 Upper Camden Street from 1868 to 1893, and lived at 51 Lower Clanbrassil Street, a street where many members of the Comerford family were his neighbours.

Thomas Earley died at the home of his friend, Father James Baxter, the parish priest of Clondalkin, on 28 June 1893. He left the business to his nephew John Bishop Earley, son of John Farrington Earley.

Surviving fragments of Hardman and Earley stained glass hanging in 12-metre-high glazed atrium (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Thomas Earley’s younger brother, John Farrington Earley (1831-1873), was a draughtsman and stained glass designer with Earley & Powell. He was born in Birmingham in 1831, and like his brother worked for the church decorating firm John Hardman & Sons, which was closely connected with the architect AWN Pugin.

He married Elizabeth Bishop in 1853, and they were the parents of seven or eight children, including John Bishop Earley and William Earley. He was a draughtsman and living at 39 Carver Street, Birmingham, in 1856. He was exhibiting with the Birmingham Society of Artists in 1859 and 1860. But he does not appear in the English census of 1861, and by 1862 he was working at Hardman’s branch in Dublin.

Earley was living at 3 Richmond Hill, Rathmines, when he died on 1 September 1873. He was only 41 and was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.

A portrait of AWN Pugin in the hotel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

His eldest son, John Bishop Earley (1856-1953), the stained glass designer and church decorator, was born in Birmingham in 1856. He followed his father into the family business in Dublin, and eventually inherited it when his uncle Thomas Earley died in 1893.

He ran the family business for about 10 years under his own name at 1 Upper Camden Street and 23-27 Grantham Street. Then in 1903, perhaps because of financial difficulties, he took his youngest brother, William Earley, into partnership, and the business was known after that as Earley & Co. John Bishop Earley exhibited designs for stained glass and decorations at the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1887, 1903 and 1904.

He lived at 3 Lennox Street and later at 56 Richmond Street South until his death. He died on 16 March 1935, aged 79, and was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.

His youngest brother was the stained glass designer Wlliam Earley (1872-1956). He was a student at the College of Art in the 1890s, when he won the Royal Irish Academy’s Taylor Scholarship jointly with William Orpen. Later, he was an apprentice in William Martin & Son’s stained glass, glass and mirror business on Saint Stephen’s Green. He left Martin’s to join his brother John in the family business when it ran into difficulties.

William Earley lived at 56 South Richmond Street, and when died on 23 September 1956 he was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.

The interior of the former convent chapel, now part of the pub (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The business survived as Earley & Co for many years, and at some time, a Mr Murray, sub-manager of the Northern Bank on the South Circular Road, became a financial partner.

When William Earley died in 1956, his nephew Gerard Earley became managing director, and his niece Dympna Earley and grand-nephew Leo Earley co-directors. The firm remained in business at 4 and 5 Upper Camden Street under the name of Earley Studios Ltd. But the studios closed in 1975, having been run by the Earley family for more than a century.

From the 1890s until the 1940s, part of the terrace was also a convent of the Little Sisters of Assumption, who nursed the ‘sick poor’ in their own homes. Their former chapel is also preserved and forms part of the new pub and hotel.

Keavan’s Port pub and hotel was restored and built in a project costing €27.4 million (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)