Talk:William Swinden Barber

Note to editors

Please kindly do not add templates encouraging the removal of detail from this article. Note that Historic England has used information in this article at least twice to obtain the citations and sources for the listing of at least two Barber churches. They are still working on listing of more of his buildings. Many of the buildings still need to be listed, for their own protection. The detail is also essential for members of the public who need to be informed of the detail and background of local buildings which are under threat of demolition. The detail is therefore essential and of great interest to the British public. Storye book (talk) 16:25, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

By all means cover Barber's designs in detail, but I question the relevance of (for example) the indexing of graves and the presence of a 1610 sundial. Such material belongs in an article about the particular church, or its section of the town or village article, not in this biography. -- Wire723 (talk) 16:52, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

I don't know at the moment whether I'll have the time left, sadly, to write independent articles about all those buildings.

Unlike Wiltshire, the architectural treasures of the industrial areas of Yorkshire are very often Victorian buildings, and Barber churches are special, in that they are low church, so that he created his atmospheric-otherworld spaces for storytelling with natural light and natural materials only. You have to go in there to see it. And obviously there are no citations for that sort of thing, so the only thing left to do is to create a number of mini sections about each building, listing potential reasons for listing in each.

C of E buildings here are particularly vulnerable because the various dioceses will happily railroad over listings, and Historic England has put them in a special category which allows them to do that. I have had vicars telling me sadly that the carved font and pulpit will remain in situ during their incumbency, but all bets are off when they have to leave, because so many other vicars still cling to the old ideas of "Victorian monstrosity" and so on. And unlike Wiltshire, we have a constant onslaught of destructive planning applications against these buildings because they often sit on land which would be valuable for developers. I have had an official in the London office for deconsecrations begging me down the phone to please apply for listing of all interior fixtures designed by named artists and by the architect, because if I don't they will often get broken up and buried in the churchyard. That is what he told me. A 1610 sundial is one of a set of reasons for listing, because the churchyard is grouped with the building, when it comes to listing or deconsecration/demolition.

So far, this article has done a lot of good in that respect, because it passes on information to those who need it. This is why we need to act carefully here. I shall do my best to start to write separate articles for all the redlink churches and so on, but as I said, I don't know whether I will have the months in me to do it, yet. We are all doing our best for WP, even though others cannot see it. If you must destroy the article, please wait until I am dead, and please give me the time to do this while I am alive. Thank you. Storye book (talk) 20:16, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your valuable work on these churches. I'm not advocating deletions, but pointing out that the descriptions are misplaced. Many readers start at the article for the place they live or that they are visiting, so the description of the church and its environs will be seen by more eyes if included there. -- Wire723 (talk) 08:38, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

I agree, but I think the links need to be in both places, and I would rather give each building its own article if possible. It's not something I can do quickly, because a lot of them still haven't been photographed properly for a listing assessment, for the sculptures, etc. etc., so I must do that as well. It took me some years to prepare that article in the first place. It would normally take years to create individual articles for all the buildings. Please give me a chance to at least begin that.

Also, the most important thing about this article is not so much the biography of the man as the list of his works. Also, I should add, before there are any misunderstandings, that my motive for doing this is not religion (I respect it but have none) but architecture and heritage, of which much of the C19 stuff is under threat here, and under constant depletion.

While researching this type of subject, I have been in a church crypt photographing a very fine but dismantled and badly overpainted font, dumped down on top of its angels, I have been in a belfry crying at its emptiness, the bells now hanging somewhere in the US. I have listed a church which was exactly as Barber had designed and furnished it, complete with his special pews and all, and then heard that the C of E had let the vicar remove and flog/destroy the lot. I have been told by a congregation that its valuable font by Robert Mawer had been dumped outside by the anti-Victorian vicar and left till it was stolen (some of the congregation cried). I have been to Andy Thornton's salvage emporium in Halifax and seen it drowning in the most beautiful salvaged church glass (almost all the best bits to be sold to Japan for thousands) and so on. I would really like to try to finish this job before the article gets dismantled.

The importance of this list in respect of English Heritage listing is the name of the architect, not a location. At least twenty of his buildings were already listed on the basis of merit alone, before the article was published. EH hardly knew who Barber was, and they had not yet credited most of those twenty listed buildings with his name, as architect. Now that he is established as a multi-listed architect, his other works are considered seriously, on that basis. For listing, it is important to keep all that information together, with citations, for EH's assessment purposes. EH tends to rely on Niklaus Pevsner, but the original Pevsner series almost completely ignored C19 buildings, because Pevsner was a non-Brit who understood ancient and Palladian, but could not begin to understand Victorian - so he left most of that out, or was dismissive of it. New books in the Pevsner series are better-balanced architecturally, but there is still a lot of catching up to do. That is why they used that article, with its citations and photographs. I took hundreds of photographs to back it up.

Thank you for your patience. Storye book (talk) 13:08, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Be assured I won't tread on your toes; there are plenty of churches and parishes at the other end of the country to keep me fully occupied. I came to Barber's article to see if there was an interesting explanation for his marriage taking place in Wiltshire, and found the article to be quite unlike other architects' biographies. -- Wire723 (talk) 15:13, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Re the marriage in Wiltshire. Yes I can understand your curiosity. Having done quite a lot of researches of that type, I can tell you that it was a perceived tradition in those days to marry at the bride's family's location, where the couple had enough money to make such choices. The reason for that tradition was because it reflected the idea of the bride's dowry, i.e. the bride's family was also paying for the wedding reception etc. That kind of tradition seemed to happen more among the middle classes, because among working classes in C19 they married on public holidays from work (incl. Xmas Day), and probably had no celebrations outside the home. Barber was not culturally middle class, but he had a bit of money.

When you see C19 English people marrying a long way from both their homes for no obvious reason, the reason is frequently obvious. There was no real contraception in those days, and (in spite of modern myths) the Victorians behaved just as we do. People who reckoned that they were respectable would hastily send the pregnant daughter to a distant aunt where she would drop the sprog in auntie's back room, and either have it adopted there or bring the boyfriend along for a quiet marriage by licence. Then they would come home married with the child, and although their old neighbours would guess, nothing would be said. Among the less self-conscious classes, who had no choices in life, illegitimate children were often brought up as the teen-mother's sister, or whatever. The neighbours would know, but - people in glass houses, etc. There was no formal adoption in England until (I think) the 1920s, so it can get confusing. The term "nephew" was often used as a euphemism for illegitimate child. The interesting thing is that I have almost never found lies on bmd certificates, other than people lying about their age at weddings. The fact that Barber and his wife did not officially have children does not rule out the above possibilities, because you don't know whose child it was, and maybe Barber himself could not have children.

But that idea is only a possibility, and we have absolutely no clue suggesting such a scenario. A far better clue is Barber's involvement in the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood. They lived life to the full in house parties all over the place, and were well known for their Bohemian way of life. So if I had to hazard a guess, I would wonder whether Barber and his wife were invited by their friends to have their wedding at one of their houses or studio setups, so that the group could have a party. That, at least, would fit.

So I'm sorry I cannot answer your question, but we can have fun wondering. And wouldn't it be fun if you knew of a Pre-Raphaelite hangout somewhere in Wiltshire, near the place where they married? Just a thought. Storye book (talk) 21:44, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

I get the veiled reference to Easton Grey House, but as you say, all is speculation. Wire723 (talk) 07:21, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

I wish. But I don't think it's Easton Grey House, if that's the one with the Irish political movement, which started too late for the Barber marriage, and I'm not aware that it included Pre-Raphaelites. OK, it was an Irish movement, and Mrs Barber's maiden name was Byrne, which is Irish, but I'm sure you'll agree that none of that gets us anywhere. It would have to be proper Pre-Raphaelites doing their thing, and doing it a bit earlier. Well, you never know, maybe some researcher will one day read this, and it might trigger further research for them. In that sense, speculation does no harm so long as it's kept out of the articles. Storye book (talk) 09:30, 3 June 2022 (UTC)