AWN Pugin
Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-1852)
The architect, designer and writer Augustus Pugin's involvement in Our Ladye Star of the Sea, began when he was asked by benefactor Stuart Knill and Fr North in the summer of 1850 to provide the altar for the Blessed Sacrament chapel, and then subsequently for the interior, windows and furnishings when Wardell left. Pugin was influenced by medieval church architecture and became a key figure in the Gothic Revival movement of the mid-1800s. His conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1835 added religious conviction to an existing fascination for church architecture.
Pugin was born in Russell Square, London. He died in Ramsgate two days before the solemn consecration of Our Ladye Star of the Sea, which took place on 16 September 1852. Both Pugin’s funeral (21 September) and the consecration were reported next to each other in The Tablet of 25 September that year.
In 1829, aged 17, Pugin joined what was then the English Opera House, before its move to Covent Garden, initially as a carpenter and scene painter, before designing costumes and sets.
Received into Catholic church
At the age of 23, he was received into the Catholic Church. Shortly after, he was brought in to St Mary’s College, Oscott, Birmingham (the Catholic seminary), where he was given the honorary title of Professor of Ecclesiastical Art and Architecture, and was responsible for the chapel’s decoration.
Oscott is where he met John Hardman, with whom he had a long-running relationship as one of Pugin’s key contractors. Hardman executed and manufactured the designs of both the stained glass of the main (liturgical) east window at Our Ladye Star of the Sea, and the gates of the Blessed Sacrament Chapel. Similarly, Hardman manufactured Pugin-designed metalwork and stained glass at the Palace of Westminster. It is reported that it was Pugin who encouraged Hardman to start producing stained glass.
The ceiling at Oscott, over the sanctuary, has echoes of the ceiling over the nave at OLSS, which is behind the 1960s hardboard. Both are ‘cerulean blue, and powdered with gold stars’.
In 1839 Pugin designed St George’s Cathedral Southwark. The cathedral opened in 1848, and on 10 August Pugin and Jane Knill were the first to be married there.
By this time, Pugin had started working with Herbert Minton, who manufactured the floor tiles of the Sanctuary and chapels and the Votive Square at Our Ladye Star of the Sea, all to Pugin’s designs.
In 1850, Pugin’s daughter Ann married Hardman’s nephew John Hardman Powell.
To wide acclaim, in 1851, Pugin exhibited at the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace.
Less than a year later he had a breakdown while travelling with his son Edward, and shortly after was transferred to the Royal Bethlem Hospital, opposite St George’s Cathedral. Eventually, after signs of recovery and treatment both at Royal Bethlem and elsewhere, he was taken home to Ramsgate by his wife. He died on 14 September 1852.
