Page 8 - St Giles Catesby booklet MC StG 20210723 e-flip_Neat

Catesby memorial

The stained glass panel celebrating the life and work of Mark
Catesby was installed in November 2020 in the south aisle of St

Giles'. It is one of a series of memorials in the church designed
and realized by Caroline Swash FMGP with Laura Perry. The

Catesby memorial originated as an idea following a special
"memorial" choral evensong in St Giles Cripplegate on 17 May

2015. The congregation included members of the Catesby
Commemorative Trust from the USA, including its President,

Jane Waring, and Executive Director, David Elliott. Preliminary
drawings, proposing the use of some of Catesby's own images,

were made by Sylvia W. Bacon, the Trust's Artistic Director.
These were shared with the Revd Katharine Rumens, Vicar of St

Giles Cripplegate, and approved. Gradually, with guidance from
Dr Charles Nelson, a layout was devised by Caroline Swash, one
that chimed with that of the other panels being placed in the

windows of the aisles of St Giles'.
Remarkably, Catesby's original watercolour paintings

survive, one of the "jewels" of the Royal Library, Windsor Castle.
However, the images in the individual lights of the memorial

window are more directly derived from the plates published in
Catesby's book The natural history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama

islands. This was printed by
Godfrey Smith of Prince's Street,

Spitalfields. Many of the etched
plates were signed with Catesby's

elegant monogram, a clever
amalgam of M and C, sometimes Mark Catesby, 1730. The natural history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama islands,

in an amusing position within the volume 1, plate 57.
overall design. Tufted titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor) with mountain azalea (Rhododendron canescens)