Chairman's Newsletter - October 2024

October 2024

THIS IS THE earliest known photograph of St Michael’s Church, Coventry.   There are earlier paintings and engravings but no earlier photographs.

     The photo was taken in the 1860s by Joseph Wingrave, who ran a chemist’s shop in High Street, Coventry.   At the foot of this article in the photo on the left you can see his shop on the High Street corner.   From the weatherworn stonework of the tower and spire you can see that the photo of St Michael’s was taken before the great restoration of the church that took place at the end of the 19^th century.

     Wingrave was quite an entrepreneur.   He hauled his bulky camera equipment around Coventry city centre and the locality.   Photographic film was not invented until many years later, so his pictures had to be recorded one by one on glass plates.  From the glass images he produced sepia photographs on thin paper that he mounted on card and advertised for sale in the local newspaper as Views of Coventry and District.   The illustration shown above is a good example of that initiative.   It is a photograph sized 6.1/2ins x 4.1/4ins, often referred to as a cabinet card because it displayed well in a cabinet.

     Joseph Wingrave was born in Luton in 1821 and moved to Coventry in the 1840s.   He developed an interest in the history of his adopted city grew, and he played an active part in many local organisations.   He died in 1897.

     The Wingrave photos were reproduced in some old books, but not with any great quality.   A search was mounted for the original glass slides that the book reproductions had acknowledged to the Coventry Museum service.   Finally, last year the glass slides were traced in the Local History Section of The Herbert Museum.

Using the latest computerised scanning equipment the Wingrave slides were scanned by Coventry Digital, and a selection of them will be shown to members during the presentation by Dr Ben Kyneswood that follows the AGM on 12^th October.

The historic Wingrave pictures are the earliest photographs of Coventry and they are an important part of Coventry’s heritage record.

 

 

A SERIES OF six original drawings of the Cathedral in the course of its construction have kindly been donated to the Friends of Coventry Cathedral by Peter Woodward.
     Peter is well known to many of us as a former Chairman of the Friends of Coventry Cathedral and for many years as a member of Coventry Cathedral Choir.   He first came across the drawings in 2010 when original work by Albert Thomas  Pile was shown for the first time in a Cathedral exhibition.   Peter subsequently acquired them to adorn his study wall.  
     Albert Pile was an official War Artist during WWII but he never set out to make his living from his art.   He simply enjoyed drawing, and wherever he went around the country he drew what he came across.   He visited Coventry in 1961.  
     Each of his drawings is dated and on the reverse side the artist even records the precise time of day when it was finished.   Some small copies of his drawings are at the foot of this article, but you will have an opportunity to see the original drawings at the Friends AGM in the John Laing Centre on 12^th October 2024.
 

         

               
 
The AGM will be held on Saturday 12^th October at 12.30pm in the John Laing Centre, Coventry Cathedral.
                 TIMETABLE for the DAY
12.30pm    We gather to greet each other.
1.00pm      AGM business meeting.
2.00pm      Refreshment Break.  Drinks and light refreshments available.
2.30pm                “Coventry’s Photo Heritage”
An illustrated presentation by Dr Ben Kyneswood, Coventry University, the creator of COVENTRY DIGITAL – a website dedicated to preserving the photographic heritage of Coventry.
4pm           Close
 

ELECTIONS.   The Friends Constitution provides for rotation of Friends Council members, which creates three vacancies to be filled at the AGM this year.   The Friends Council meets 4 times a year.
 

Friends AGM online

            

	Full annual	Full life	Total
2023	283	249	582

 
AFTER MY ARTICLE last month about the planting of a Davidia tree in Unity Lawn one of our members pointed out that Father David (after whom the new tree is named), whilst he was working in China also gave his name to Pere David deer.  

     I remember learning about those deer on a visit to Woburn Abbey, the ancestral home of the Duke of Bedford, because around 1900 it was the then Duke who rescued Pere David deer from zoos in Europe and created the world’s only breeding herd.   He saved the species from extinction.
     Fr. David’s spread of interests was extraordinary and went way beyond his priestly profession.   His entry in Wikipedia tells that he also gave his name to the plants Buddleja Davidii and Ulmus Davidiana and the David Elm and Lilium Davidii.   In 1878 the fish Sarcocheilichthys Davidi was named in his honour and a few years later Père David's Rat Snake (Elaphe Davidi) was also given his name.   Now he will be remembered at Coventry Cathedral.

     In Spring 2021 Cathedral Trees featured at the launch of the Coventry City of Culture Year at an event that deliberately received almost no advance publicity in order to avoid large crowds spreading Coronavirus-19.   I heard about it on the day.

     “Resilience” was the theme of a meditative soundtrack played in the Cathedral Ruins amongst a display of 100 young trees.   Music by Coventry composer, Derek Nisbet, was interspersed with the voices of Coventry people speaking of Resilience in their personal lives in the face of illness or recovery from accident.   Some spoke of survival in the Coventry Blitz or of working through a personal disaster.
     Everyone entering the Cathedral Ruins was invited to pause and reflect.   They were encouraged to write their own personal reflection or prayer or memory on a coloured ribbon and to tie it to a tree.    
     The trees remained in the Ruins for the week, and were then taken away to be planted at sites around the city.   The ribbons bearing prayers and thoughts were buried with their trees and have grown to become part of them.

          
 

           Love a duck!

MEMBERS OF THE Cathedral congregation have organised a sponsored DUCK RACE from the source of the River Danube up to the Romanian Delta.   (Virtual, of course!)   You are invited to join the race by sponsoring a duck.
     The race will raise funds to support social work in Romania that started back in 1994 since when it has been sponsored by Cathedral congregation members.   SHARE  (UK charity no.1002326) raises supporting funds and sends young qualified volunteers to work in a care home for disabled children in Sibiu, Transylvania.   Three of the children have been rescued from institutional living and re-housed in a family home named “Jim’s House” after the former Cathedral Chaplain, Jim Tysoe, who helped establish it.  SHARE pays for their 24-hour care.   The online link for further information is - http://share.charity
     The DUCK RACE starts on Saturday 9th November and ends two weeks later on Saturday 23rd November.  The owner of the winning Duck wins £50.   Duck sponsors can follow the progress of their ducks each day online.

 A duck costs £3 and can be bought online using the link -
https://www.balloonrace.net/skyg

            

On the left the hole in the Baptistry Window is highlighted alongside photographs
of the removal of the damaged pane of glass.

I VENTURE TO share with you a recent embarrassing encounter.
     One day last month as I walked past the John Piper Baptistry Window I noticed a workman removing the pane of glass that had been damaged by vandalism last April.   The window has to be removed for repair.
     With this Friend’s Newsletter in mind I asked if I could take the workman’s photograph as he slackened the metal fixings.   He agreed.   I took my photographs and asked his name.   “John Reyntiens”.  
     Hence my embarrassment, for his father, Patrick Reyntiens, was one of the original artists who helped to create the Cathedral.  Patrick Reyntiens translated the designs of John Piper into stained glass.  
     John has followed in his father’s footsteps with his own glass studio in London and he received recognition last year when he was awarded an MBE for services to art and heritage.   John created the stained-glass window in the Palace of Westminster that was gifted to Her Majesty the Queen for her 2012 Diamond Jubilee.
     I recalled my conversation in 1962 with his father just yards from the spot where we now met.   I had just joined the Cathedral as a volunteer, and this timid teenager reverently asked the famous glass artist for his autograph.
     The cost of repairing the Baptistry Window is several thousand pounds.   Thanks to the help of its insurance company, the Cathedral has only to raise the £600 excess.
 

CDR. PETE EVANS (right) of HMS Diamond with members of the ship’s company came back to Coventry on the eve of the ship’s decommissioning for a total refit.  
     The refit will take several years, so they brought with them the Coventry Cross of Nails in their care, and in a ceremony held in the Baptistry they returned the cross for safe keeping while the work takes place.
     HMS Diamond is the ship that replaced HMS Coventry after its sinking in 1982 during the Falklands War.
 

 

BISHOP OLIVER SCHUEGRAF delivered the sermon at the service marking the Cathedral's Patronal Festival at Michaelmas.   Oliver heads the German Community of the Cross of Nails.   The Patronal Festival is also designated  the International Community of the Cross of Nails Sunday.
     During the service representatives of the Friends Of The Holy Land were welcomed into membership of the CCN and were  presented with a Cross of Nails. (photo left)
     The service was followed in the Chapel of Unity with a well-attended discussion about the rise of the Far Right in Europe led by Bishop Schuegraf and Canon David Porter. (photo right)