' The British Tiffany Windows '
An illustrated presentation given by Douglas Jackson
Douglas Jackson, a journalist and writer, has made several visits to America to research the life of Lancashire man Joseph Briggs, and has produced a book on his work.

In April 2022, Douglas gave us the Branch's first hybrid talk, Joseph Briggs and the Tiffany Glass Collection at the Haworth Art Gallery Accrington. It was also a first zoom talk for our speaker ... 'newbies' together!
Douglas had spent decades researching this subject and the result was a beautifully and lavishly illustrated book, 'Mosaic' from which many of his illustrations were included in that talk
.Douglas's latest talk for us was about Tiffany stained-glass windows, in which Joseph Briggs specialised. The company produced over 5,000 windows and sold them all over the world. While only six came to Britain, they are all linked to a fascinating series of events, and of people both famous and infamous.For this talk, Douglas recapped a little on last year's talk, to set the scene of the story again.
That story started with his meeting a man from Oldham who became the curator at the Haworth Art Gallery. On Douglas' first visit, he was shown a cupboard which, when opened, revealed glassware in a riot of colour and beautiful shapes. It was a collection of Tiffany glass ... out of fashion in the 1930s, and of low value, the Joseph Briggs of our story had sent it back to a small museum in his native county of Lancashire. It was to become a world class glassware collection of eye-watering, multi-millions of pounds in value.
Douglas took us back to the beginning, introducing Joseph Briggs and his family in Accrington, in a tiny terraced house and from which, in 1891, at the age of just 17 years old and an engraver's apprentice, he bought a one-way ticket to America, having raised the money by any number of innovative methods, such as putting on puppet shows, delivering groceries and teaching a goat to jump through a hoop!
The full write up of that talk was in the Branch newsletter, 2022-05, a copy of which can be downloaded as a .pdf from the newsletter archives, HERE
This more recent talk continued with the emphasis on the fabulous windows that Joseph Briggs designed ... which came to England. Douglas had identified the whereabouts of five and had visited and photographed them.