Carl Edwards
Carl Johannes Edwards (Kiviaho) 1914-1985 was born in Marylebone, London, to Finnish parents. The first of his childhood memories was of Alexander Feodorovich Kerensky, the exiled premier of the 2nd provisional government of Russia , chasing him around a kitchen table in a house where his mother was employed. He only legally changed his name from Kiviaho to Edwards, the name of his foster family, when he enlisted in the Royal Engineers at the start of the second war.
(for a list of Carl Edwards windows click on the PDF file below)
Carl joined the firm of Whitefriars in 1928 at the age of fourteen, working in the office during the day and studying architecture in the evenings at the Regents Street Polytechnic. In 1936 he became the assistant of James Hogan, the firm’s head designer, a position that Carl assumed in 1948 on the death of his mentor.
In 1952 he went into partnership with Hugh Powell and they established a studio on the top floor of Apothecaries Hall in the city of London. He cartooned several commissions won by him while still at Whitefriars, including the central East Window in the Temple Church and 40 heraldic windows for debating chamber of the House of Lords, which were manufactured in Whitefriars workshop. Carl and Hugh soon dissolved the partnership and Carl remained at the Apothecaries until 1972 when he relocated his studio to the Fulham Glass House where he took over the firm of Lowndes & Drury when it liquidated shortly after his arrival.
Liverpool Anglican Cathedral contains some of his most important commissions, from the Lady Chapel East Window made in 1951 to the Great West Window (see left) dedicated in 1979. The three light are each fifty two feet high and seven feet across, supported by a bronze armature to spread the weight of the slab glass and lead. He also designed five of the six nave windows at the West end of the Cathedral and produced his first stained glass design for the South East transept clerestory which he completed before the war.
