Nat Gould

William James Gillum

Hackney Workshops

William James Gillum, born in Winchester in 1827, took up a military career. During the Crimean War he lost a leg and returned to England in 1855 (1).

He was the great-nephew of Raphael Gillum 1769-1860 and the chief beneficiary in his Will.

He commissioned the Gillum window in Darley Dale church in Derbyshire in memory of his great-uncle. This window, of twelve panels depicting scenes from the Song of Songs in the Old Testament, was designed in 1862 by Edward Burne-Jones (2).

By the 1860s he had become not only a patron of the arts, but also a philanthropist and benefactor of the poor in London. In 1860 he bought Church Farm at Barnet in Hertfordshire for use as a school for poor London boys of good character, where they were educated and taught a trade (3).

Some of their furniture went to the firm of William Morris. He also persuaded the architect Philip Webb to design a row of workshops with accommodation above in Hackney, not far from the London church where Raphael Gillum had been baptised (4).

(1) The Burlington Magazine volume 95 No. 600 (March 1953) page 78.
(2) In 1862 Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898) produced twelve designs for the window, eight of which are now in Birmingham Art Gallery. He was one of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of artists, of which Colonel William James Gillum was a friend and patron.
(3) Article by J.B. Marsh The Church Farmers: the Story of a Good Work in D. Nacleod (editor) Good Words for 1888 volume 29 (1888) pages 320-325.
(4) Studies in Art, Architecture, and Design : Victorian and after N. Pevsner (1908) page 121.