St. Edward’s School Chapel

On entering the building, to the right there is a small Memorial Chapel that adjoins the bell tower and spire.  The east window therein comprises three lights dedicated to the memory of William Robert Weatherley who attended St, Edward’s School from 1922-1927 and was a Senior Prefect.  After St. Edward’s, he attended Pembroke College, Oxford.

The Pembroke College Record 1933-1934 records the dedication of the window by the Master of Pembroke College, Rev. Frederick Homes Dudden (page 9):

On 5 December 1933 the Master dedicated a window in the memorial chapel of St. Edward’s School, Oxford, to the memory of William Robert Weatherley, who was in residence from 1927 to 1930, and whose death at so early an age was a shock to the many who knew him well and appreciated his delightful personality.

The memorial window states Ob. 1930 – obijt mortem, meaning, he died 1930, at the age of just 21 years.

Shot at 85mm, using the Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM, and presented above with the actual spacing of the three lights, this window highlights a drawback of capturing such a scene in just one photograph: while the final image is an acceptable 15.8MP, each individual light is little more than 600 pixels wide – a tragically low resolution for such an impressively detailed and lavish work of art.  The colour and detail of the feathers in the angel’s wings is worthy of far more attention and warrants in itself a return visit.

Notwithstanding, the removal of fifteen support bars dramatically protracted the editing time, adding almost an hour per bar to the finished work.

Addendum:  Happy to have completed this work, I did a final check through the batch of images only to realise that the final skin tones were far too dark and too saturated.  With tree shadow working across the window from left to right, it has been difficult to balance the tone and colour of the angels, but I have now re-edited the skin tones to something far more in keeping with the actual window.

William Weatherley window (Artist unknown, 1933) St. Edward’s School Chapel