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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 July 2016
Bishop Gillis of Edinburgh has never been made the subject of a full and scholarly biography: those printed sources which are more than mere chronologies are largely given over to eulogy, and the one dissenting voice — a manuscript life written by a contemporary — inclines to the other extreme. All writers, however, recount the following facts: in 1802 James Gillis was born in Montreal; in 1816 his Scottish parents returned with him to their homeland, and the following year he began his training for the priesthood, first in Scotland and subsequently in France; ordained in 1827, he was consecrated titular Bishop of Limyra in 1838, and acted as auxiliary to Bishop Carruthers, at that time Vicar Apostolic of Scotland’s Eastern District; he soon assumed direct responsibility for the congregation in Edinburgh, and eventually succeeded Bishop Carruthers as Vicar Apostolic on the latter’s death in 1852; Gillis himself died in 1864.
1 Scottish Catholic Archives. Scottish Mission Papers 6/1. Unsigned, but the handwriting is that of Fr John Macpherson, 1801–71, Gillis’s Vicar General (information supplied by Dr Christine Johnson).
2 Before the Scottish hierarchy was restored (1878) Scotland was for Catholic purposes divided into three Districts, each under the leadership of a Vicar Apostolic.
3 History of St Margaret’s Convent, Edinburgh, preface by Rev. William Smith (Edinburgh, 1886), p. 105.
4 Ibid., pp. 77–80, 104–08.
5 James Gillis to Elizabeth Maxwell, 16 July 1842, Scottish Catholic Archives. Eastern District B2.
6 Ibid., 22 February 1847, SCA. ED. B3.
7 Edinburgh Catholic Magazine, vi (1842), 728.
8 Guild chapels were a particular feature of St Giles, cf. Lees, J. Cameron, St Giles, Edinburgh (Edinburgh, 1889), pp. 31–32, 57–58, 78–80 Google Scholar.
9 The Rules and Constitutions of the Holy Gild of St Joseph and of St Andrew’s Mortuary Gild, &c (Edinburgh, 1840), p. 9.Google Scholar
10 Cf. ‘Mr Pugin’s Third Lecture on Ecclesiastical Architecture’, The Catholic Magazine, m (1839), 26.
11 Cf. Pugin, A. W. N., The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture (London, 1841), p. 38 Google Scholar.
12 But not by all; Newman had this to say of a Gillis homily he had witnessed: ‘At the opening of Cheadle church he preached a sermon half screaming and bellowing, half whining — and Lady Dormer and other ladies of quality were in raptures with it’. Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, xiv (1963), 183.
13 Information in a letter from Hibbert to Gillis, 3 September 1850, SCA. ED. B6.
14 See Macaulay, J., ‘The Architectural Collaboration between James Gillespie Graham and A. W. Pugin’, Architectural History, xxvii (1984), 406–20 Google Scholar.
15 St Margaret’s, pp. 63–64.
16 Cf. Pugin, A. W. N., Designs for Gold and Silversmiths (1836), pis 5, 22 Google Scholar.
17 Cf. Designs for Iron and Brass Work in the style of the XV and XVI centuries, drawn and etched by A. W. N. Pugin (1836), pi. 8
18 Phoebe Stanton, Pugin (1971), p. 200.
19 Ibid., p. 21; Colvin, H., A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600–1840 (1978), p. 356 Google Scholar.
20 All references to Pugin’s diaries are to the originals in the Victoria and Albert Museum Library, 86. MM. 54–86.MM.68.
21 St Margaret’s, pp. 25, 31, 41.
22 The original altar was replaced in the 1890s: see The Building News, 22 March 1895, p. 426.
23 James Gillespie Graham – Gillis, 8 June 1837, SCA.ED.B6.
24 Diary, 1837, 19 April, 8 and 23 May.
25 Ibid., 27 November.
26 Colvin, loc. cit.
27 In 1837 Gillis described some unidentified drawings by Graham as being ‘useless’ (Gillis – Maxwell, 9 November 1837, SCA.ED.B2.); see also his comments, quoted below, on Graham’s need of help with the design of the college which was to adjoin the proposed cathedral.
28 St Margaret’s, chaps i-vi.
29 Gillis – Maxwell, 29 August 1844, SCA.ED.B2.
30 Diary, 1842, 29–31 July, and 1–2 and 6–7 August.
31 Gillis-Maxwell, 1 July 1845, SCA.ED.B3.
32 Ibid., 11 August 1845.
33 Ibid., 28 August, 1845.
34 Ibid., 6 February 1850.
35 Ibid., 15 August 1845.
36 Ibid., 18 August 1845.
37 Pugin- Gillis, SCA.ED.B6. The last paragraph indicates that Pugin was already working for Gillis, but its meaning is not clear: ‘I have heard mostly about the plans of the church I sent. If the painters [?] want the house also they must let me know in time, for if they defer till [illeg. wd.] spring I shall be travelling again, and it may be months before I can make the drawings. From this time till March is my working time, after that I am [illeg. wd.] in vacation’. The letter is indistinctly dated ‘Nov. 3rd’; from March until mid-June 1847 Pugin was on a European tour (Diary 1847).
38 In fact the two men met in Rome, from which baroque city Gillis wrote to Miss Maxwell: ‘Pugin here, abusing everything of course’. 28 April 1847, SCA.ED.B3.
39 Pugin – Gillis, 30 August 1847. SCA.ED.B6.
40 Diary, 1847.
41 Port, M. H., ed., The Houses of Parliament (1976), pp. 245 Google Scholar ff.
42 Pugin – Gillis, SCA.ED.B6. Contains details of Pugin’s travels which permit a secure dating c. 26 September 1847.
43 Ferrey, Benjamin, Recollections of A. N. Welby Pugin and his father Augustus Pugin (1861), pp. 193–222 Google Scholar.
44 Diary, 1848, 15 March.
45 Pugin – Gillis, SCA.ED.B6. Not dated, but obviously spring 1848, soon after the engagement ended.
46 Gillis-Maxwell, 1 July 1849, SCA.ED.B3.
47 Gillis-John Hardman, 1 December 1849; Hardman Archive, Birmingham Public Library: Hardman 3, 1849(1).
48 Pugin – Gillis, SCA.ED.B6. Internal evidence points to a date in July 1849.
49 For an explanation of these symbols see E. W. Robertson, Scotland Under Her Early Kings — A History of the Kingdom to the Close of the 13th Century, 1 (Edinburgh, 1862), 147, note.
50 According to Stanton, op. cit., p. 207, Pugin worked at Winwick from 1847 to 1849.
51 Mr Pugin’s Third Lecture …, pp. 26, 27.
52 Loc. cit. in n. 48 above.
53 Pugin-John, 16th Earl of Shrewsbury. Quoted in: Phoebe Stanton, ‘Welby Pugin and the Gothic Revival’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 1950), Appendix vi, p. 10.
54 Loc. cit. in n. 47 above.
55 Hardman’s stained glass Order Book for 1861 (Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery) records the ordering of these windows in March.
56 The date can be deduced from the state of the other convent buildings in the picture, which were altered in 1861 by Edward Pugin (St Margaret’s, pp. 153 and 154, and plate facing p. 153). The painting is still kept at St Margaret’s Convent.
57 Loc. cit. inn. 37 above.
58 For Peper Harrow, see Nairn, I. and Pevsner, N. (revised B. Cherry), The Buildings of England: Surrey (Harmondsworth, 2nd edn, 1971), p. 407 Google Scholar; for Reading, see Stanton, op. cit. 1950, p. 2 of List of Buildings and Decorative Additions.
59 Loc. cit. in n. 37 above. In a later publication, Some Remarks on the Articles Which Have Recently Appeared in the ‘Rambler’, Relative to Ecclesiastical Architecture and Decoration (1850), Pugin criticized the surface enrichment of poor buildings (p. 9); in the same work (p. 10) he disowned responsibility for the stencilling of the chancel walls at St Wilfrid’s, Hulme, which Gillis had admired in 1845.
60 St Margaret’s, p. 68.
61 Ibid. Gillis’s loan of the Glossary to Bonnar is mentioned in loc. cit. n. 34.
62 St Margaret’s, p. 67.
63 See Pugin, A. W. N., ‘The Present State of Ecclesiastical Architecture in England’, The Dublin Review, xx (May 1841), 301–48, pl. XIV.Google Scholar
64 St Margaret’s, p. 66.
65 Ibid., p. 180.
66 Loc. cit. in n. 47 above.
67 Gillis – Maxwell, 2 and n November 1851, SCA.ED.B3.
68 Some Remarks &c, p. 23.
69 Reproduced in Anson, P., ‘Catholic Church Building in Scotland from the Reformation until the Outbreak of the First World War’, Innes Review, v (1954), 125–40, pl. VIGoogle Scholar.
70 Loc. cit. in n. 18 above. There is a note from Graham to Gillis, dated 1841, in which he begs ‘that for my own time preparing designs and for supervising the work, it may be considered as my contibution towards the improvement of the Chapel’. SCA.ED.B17. — not very generous if the designs were really Pugin’s
71 Loc. cit. in n. 23 above.
72 Mentioned in a surveyor’s estimate, 2 May 1840, SCA.ED.B17. In his list of Pugin’s works, Ferrey (op. cit., p. 276) mentions ‘the tower and spire of St Mary’s, Edinburgh’, but Ferrey is notoriously unreliable, and may have been referring to the church of Tolbooth St John’s. There is no record of a spire being built at St Mary’s and the 1840 document may not even refer to an actual design.
73 Register House, Edinburgh: Particular Register of Seisins … for the shire of Edinburgh. Vol. 1740, fols 160, 170.
74 Ibid.
75 Ibid.
76 Gillis-Maxwell, 18 April 1847, SCA.ED.B3.
77 SCA.SM.6/1.
78 Pugin-Gillis, 22 June 1848, SCA.ED.B6..
79 Trotter-Gillis, 26 May 1848, SCA. Preshome Letters 3/357/6. Trotter produced the woodwork for St Mary’s, Broughton St, in 1840–41.
80 One advantage of this scheme, according to Gillis, was that those who wanted a college in Edinburgh would have to accept the more controversial cathedral too! Gillis – Maxwell, 18 September 1849, SCA.ED.B3.
81 Gillis – Maxwell, 1 July 1849, SCA.ED.B3.
82 Ibid.
83 Diary, 1849.
84 St Margaret’s, p. 134.
85 Ferrey (op. cit., p. 276) calls them ‘the magnificent designs for St Margaret’s cathedral, Edinburgh’.
86 For this, and Pugin’s other known drawings for the Edinburgh cathedral, see: Wedgwood, Alexandra, Catalogue of the Drawings Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects — The Pugin Family (Farnborough, 1977), PP. 57–58, [42] 1–5 Google Scholar.
87 But not necessarily the earliest. In a letter to Gillespie Graham, 3 January 1850, SCA.ED.B6., Pugin said that due to a reduction in the overall length of the church ‘the space between the walls of the cloister will be 110 feet from west to east’; this measurement corresponds with the plan in PI. 5a, implying that there was an earlier, larger plan.
88 Pugin – Gillis, 5 February 1850, SCA.ED.B6.
89 Ibid., undated.
90 Ibid., 2 November 1849.
91 The Building News, 26 December 1873.
92 Pugin – Gillis, SCA.ED.B6. Not dated with the year, but in it Pugin refers to an article he has published in reply to The Rambler; Pugin published two such pamphlets during 1850 (see n. 105 below).
93 Advertised on the front page of TheScotsman, 2 November 1850. Some of the drawings were exhibited again in 1882, in a show organized by the Edinburgh Architectural Association; one reviewer noted ‘a striking resemblance’ between the cathedral’s central spire and that of the Assembly Hall (Tolbooth St John’s).
94 Pugin-Gillis, 2 November 1850, SCA.ED.B6.
95 SCA.ED.B10.
96 Ibid.
97 Gillis – Maxwell, 2 April 1852, SCA.ED.B3. This arrangement is recorded in a’Memorandum of Agreement’ between Gillis and Hansom, drawn up the following year. SCA.ED.B10.
98 Hansom-Gillis, 16 February 1854, SCA.ED.B6.
99 Gordon, J. F. S., Journal and Appendix to Scotichronicon and Monasticon (Glasgow, 1867), p. 488 Google Scholar.
100 The Builder, vm (1850), 566.
101 Gillis – Maxwell, 5 August 1846, SCA.ED.B3. Gillis obtained papal approval for the cathedral in 1847, St Margaret’s, p. 119.
102 Gillis – Maxwell, 30 September 1846, SCA.ED.B3.
103 St Margaret’s, p. 134.
104 Loc. cit. in n. 88 above.
105 Some Remarks &c. In the letter cited in the previous note Pugin says: ‘I am writing another answer to the late [?] attacks in The Rambler which I will forward when printed’. This suggests that Gillis knew of his first attack. Pugin brought out two pamphlets in 1850 which criticized The Rambler; they were: Some Remarks &c. and An Earnest Appeal for the Revival of the Ancient Plain Song (1850).
106 Some Remarks &c, p. 14.
107 SCA.SM.6/1.
108 Gillis put forward these views in a letter to The Scotsman, published 30 October 1850.
109 The only reference to this project in Pugin’s correspondence with Gillis is in the same undated letter where he argued for the retention of his Lady Chapel designs (loc. cit. n. 89): ‘I will forward the Leith plans with as much speed as possible’. During his father’s last illness, Edward Pugin wrote to Gillis asking to take over the commission and requesting the return of the elder Pugin’s drawings for this purpose. (Edward Pugin – Gillis, 4 March 1852, SCA.ED.B6.). In the end the commission was givenjointly to Edward Pugin and J. A. Hansom (E. Pugin-Gillis, between April and September 1852, SCA.ED.B6.).
110 Seen. 37.
111 Gillis – Maxwell, 9 January 1852, SCA.ED.B3.
112 Pugin – Gillis, SCA.ED.B6. Undated, but Pugin wrote a letter of very similar content to Herbert Minton in January 1852 (Ferrey, op. cit., p. 252–53).
113 Trappes-Lomax, M., Pugin — A Medieval Victorian (1932), p. 306 Google Scholar.
114 Some Remarks &c, p. 18.
