Stained Glass Window by Oscar Patterson

A magnificent stained glass window stands proudly in the centre of the landing of the stairway.

Internationally renowned stained glass artist Oscar Paterson was born in 1863 at 221 Main Street, Gorbals and was educated at St Enoch’s Sessional School. In the 1881 census 18 year old Oscar’s occupation is noted as being ‘designer of glass’. His training must have taken place at the City and Guilds Institute in London as he is advertised in the Glasgow Post Office Directory of 1886-87 as Oscar Paterson, FRSSA, teacher of technology (glass), City and Guilds of London Institute, Greenham College, London and resident at 118 Ardgowan Street, Glasgow.

The following year (1887-88) he had two separate entries in the Glasgow Post Office Directory, one as a teacher in glass technology and the other as ‘The Glass Stainers Co., domestic and ecclesiastical stained glass, decorative and memorial windows, plain and geometrical head lattice work, heraldic achievements, pictorial subjects, all stained glass being imperishable by a new process’ at his new studio at 118 West Regent Street. In 1906 his company became Oscar Paterson & Co.

In 1907 he moved his studio to 10 Blythswood Square where he was advertised as Oscar Paterson, FRSA Scot., glass stainer, lecturer on ‘glass’, City and Guilds of London Institute, Arts and Crafts Society, Art Workers Guild, London. In 1910 Oscar Paterson & Co., became a limited company and in 1913 he again moved studio to 216 Bath Street, Glasgow and was noted as being an Associate of the Royal Society of Literature.

Paterson’s works could be seen in innumerable public and domestic interiors not just in Glasgow - including Glasgow Cathedral, Central Station, Pollokshields Burgh Hall and Ibrox United Free Church - but across the rest of the UK, Europe, India, Australia and the Empire. Unusually he also produced stained glass for the great liners including the ill-fated Lusitania, and the Royal Yacht. At his peak Oscar Paterson was the most significant stained glass artist in Britain after Edward Burne Jones and received much more public and critical acclaim that any other Glasgow glass artist.

Paterson died age 71 at 57 Fleurs Avenue, Dumbreck, Glasgow. There were no obituaries in the national press to honour his passing and he was interred in an unmarked grave at Glasgow Necropolis.