The window which John Monk gifted to the church of St Mary and St Helen in 1874 was designed by Henry Holiday, a Pre-Raphaelite artist and one of the leading designers of stained glass in the second half of the 19th century, shown here working on a different window unfortunately. Holiday’s work and that of the manufacturers Heaton, Butler and Bayne can be found in churches all over Britain, including Westminster Abbey. Holiday also illustrated books, most famously Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark in 1876.
Fittingly for the nautical theme, it stands now just to the rear of the font in which Amy Lyon, best remembered today as Lady Hamilton, was baptised decades before. The Monk window itself depicts biblical stories of the sea. On the left is depicted Matthew 8:26: “And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.” The middle scene is from Matthew 14:24. Jesus walks on water, out onto the rough sea towards his disciple Peter’s boat, and to the right is Matthew 13:2: “And great multitudes were gathered together unto him, so that he went into a ship, and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore.”
John Monk kept a preliminary sketch for the window.
