Stained Glass of Buckinghamshire Churches

Makers Marks by C E Kempe & Co. Ltd.

This limited company was formed in 1907 to take over the business of Charles Eamer Kempe which had been in operation from 1866 until Kempe's death in 1907. Kempe had left very specific instructions that a Limited Company should be formed with his younger cousin Walter Ernest Tower as Chairman, and the following as Directors: Alfred E Tombleson (Master Glass Painter), Thomas Woolf (Secretary), John Lisle (Designer and Draughtsman), William Tate (Architect). This had all previously been agreed with Kempe beforehand, and the Company's name was C E Kempe & Co Ltd. They continued working for 24 years, but demand for their Gothic style of Stained Glass was rapidly decreasing in the 1920s, and the recession of the 1930s forced closure in 1934. A motif for the new Chairman, Walter Tower, was incorporated into the company's Makers Mark, with a tower in the middle of Kempe's wheatsheaf. Although a few show a tower upside-down, just one, in Slough, shows a tower on its side, marking the very last Kempe window to be produced on the demise of the company in 1934.

4 Windows, listed in Church Order

Location	Church	Date	Craftsmen
N chapel N	St Mary in Amersham	1908	C E Kempe & Co. Ltd.
Nave S (E4)	All Saints in Coleshill	1933	C E Kempe & Co. Ltd.
Nave S (E4)	All Saints in Coleshill	1933	C E Kempe & Co. Ltd.
N aisle N (E)	St Mary in Slough	†1933	C E Kempe & Co. Ltd.

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Stained Glass of Buckinghamshire Churches