Karla Whitmore

In the mid-nineteenth century, stained glass window making was in its infancy in Sydney. The first professional stained-glass firm in Sydney was that run by John Falconer and Frederick Ashwin, which was established by Falconer in 1864.[1] From mid-century Australian warehouses advertised a range of trade and decorating services and imported products including glass of various kinds.  Examples are those established in Adelaide by English migrant Edward Brooks around 1851, and German migrant Heinrich Vosz in 1848.  Brooks made a number of church windows and H.L. Vosz became one of the largest stained-glass firms in Adelaide.  In Geelong (Vic) in 1858, George Wright advertised coloured glass and ornamental figures suitable for church windows.

Another firm that advertised a range of services from plumbing to house painting, paperhanging and glazing from 1858 was W. and W. Ayton run by English father and son William Ayton Sr and Jr. Their work illustrates a stage in supply of church windows prior to local design and manufacture of patterned and figurative windows. The firm imported glass that was made into windows and incorporated decorative elements such as stamped designs and religious symbols.

William Ayton Sr was born in England and came to Australia as an assisted migrant with his wife Elizabeth and three children in 1857. ^[2] His son William Jr had already migrated here.  On the ship’s register William Sr was described as a plumber, and a few years later, as a painter and glazier. In 1858, W. and W. Ayton advertised as painters, plumbers and glaziers at 306 Pitt Street and 436 Castlereagh Street.  Joseph Ellis joined the firm and for a time it was known as Ayton, Ellis and Ayton.[3]  In 1869 the firm advertised as house and ornamental painters, glaziers, paperhangers, glass embossers and offered church windows to any design, also stained and ornamental glass.[4]  They continued to advertise at the Pitt Street address until 1876 when the partnership was dissolved by mutual consent and William Jr continued to operate the business as sole proprietor.

At the time of his death, William Ayton Sr lived at Surry Hills, Sydney.  His wife Elizabeth predeceased him by four years when, as determined by the coroner, she was killed by a lightning strike in Darlinghurst.[5] Elizabeth had been a Congregational school teacher who ran the church’s school in Pitt Street, then running her own school.[6]

Another business venture was involvement in gold mining in New South Wales. According to the NSW Government Gazette William Jr registered three gold mining companies as secretary: The Duke of Wellington in 1872, The Queen of Nations in 1873 and the Shoalhaven River Sluicing Co. Ltd in 1874.[7] There were news reports of the last continuing for some years, but no reports of the earlier ventures.

W. and W. Ayton’s glass business continued in the 1880s, advertising at 491 George Street, Sydney which was two doors from well-known building supplies and stained glass window manufacturer Goodlet and Smith.  An 1884 advertisement highlights the business as an artists’ depot, supplying Winsor and Newton’s Artists Materials of every description.[8]  Last item on their list of materials and services was church windows, suggesting their focus had changed.  The final advertisements in the Sydney Sands Directory of 1889-1900 listed the firm as run by William Jr’s brother Thomas Ayton.  Both appear to have died after the firm closed; William Jr in 1907 and Thomas unexpectedly two years later.

Church windows

Few places are recorded with glazing by W. and W. Ayton.  St George’s Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia in Castlereagh Street, Sydney opened in 1860 with glazing reported by the firm and glass imported from England.[9] The large English stained glass firm James Powell & Sons (Whitefriars) journal notes that all except the west windows were sent to Sydney in 1859.[10]  It is highly likely that these were installed by W.and W. Ayton.

Some colonial plumbers, painters and glaziers advertised stained and ornamental glass suitable for churches from the early 1840s. In 1850 it was reported that specimens of stained glass were made in Sydney by an unidentified artist which were equal in standard to the imported product.[11]  Locally made windows were made in Melbourne and Adelaide in the 1850s, in particular by Edward Brooks of North Adelaide (see biography on this website).

In Sydney in 1860, W. and W. Ayton advertised: ‘Stained glass, in blue, green, amber, orange, ruby and purple: ground glass, ornamental ditto, 21 oz. sheet, 40 x 30. 16 oz. sheet from 52 x 30 to 10 x 8, cut to size. At AYTON’S Paperhanging, Glass and Colour Warehouse, 373 Pitt Street.’[12] In addition to church windows it was popular to decorate building facades with illuminations to commemorate royal visits to the colonies. For the visit to Sydney of Prince Alfred in 1868 the firm made a large transparency in embossed and stained glass. The geometrical design included the word Welcome and a rising sun.[13] 

The east window at an unidentified church at Narrabri, NSW was reported as made and donated by Ayton in memory of his son Henry who drowned while working as a carpenter on the new bridge over the Namoi river.  It was reported as installed in 1864.[14] The window was probably for the Methodist church which operated from the 1860s to the 1970s when the Uniting church was built. The Methodist church was destroyed in 1972.

St Edmund’s Anglican Church in Gunning, NSW opened in 1869 with lancet windows of stained glass.  The Gunning Church Building Fund of that year lists ‘windows by W. and W. Ayton’.[15] These were replaced by figurative windows from 1941 to 1959; a news report from 1943 notes that one of the original windows was replaced that year by a window with the figure of Christ.  In 1872 the Catholic pro-cathedral at Armidale opened with lancet windows of brightly coloured and stamped glass made by W. and W. Ayton.[16] The present cathedral has more recent windows of English and local manufacture.

The manufacture of church windows in the colonies had to compete with the imported product, which were preferred by some clients, but support for local firms was increasingly seen in the press, particularly as English windows from large firms became mass produced in the late nineteenth century. W. and W. Ayton are notable for operating over three decades, commencing just prior to Sydney’s first professional firm dedicated to stained-glass was established by John Falconer in 1863.

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[1] Karla Whitmore (2015), Stained Glass Pioneers of Sydney, John Falconer and Frederick Ashwin, Chatswood.

[2]The Dictionary of Sydney, State Library of New South Wales. https://dictionaryofsydney.org/search/?query=ayton.

[3] Sydney Morning Herald, 21 August 1858, p.10. Ayton’s daughter, Mrs Joseph Ellis, was living in Melbourne in the 1870s.

[4] The Protestant Standard, 23 October 1869, p.13.

[5] Empire, 13 May 1874, p.3.

[6] ‘A Virtual Walk down Pitt Street in 1858: Uncovering the Hidden Workers of Colonial Sydney’. https://labourhistorycanberra.org/2015/02/2011

[7] NSW Government Gazette, 3 September 1872, p.2282; 16 May 1873, p.1435. SMH, 11 January 1875, p.2.

[8] The Cumberland Mercury,23 February, 1884, p.1.

[9] Empire, 7 February 1860, p.5.

[10] Email from Rick Allan, Moss Vale Heritage Glass, 30 May 2023.

[11] Freeman’s Journal, 31 October 1850, p.10.

[12] SMH, 4 April 1860, p.8.

[13] Sydney Mail, 25 June 1868, p.8.

[14] Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser, 23 July 1864, p.3.

[15] Goulburn Herald and Chronicle, 8 September 1869, p.3.

[16] Clarence and Richmond Examiner and New England Advertiser, 20 February 1872, p.3.