Written by Hilary Calvert

When I first visited Watts Gallery in 1991, Mary Watts was known only as the wife of the Victorian era artist, G.F. Watts and in those days his name had almost been forgotten too. Over subsequent years, as his art was rediscovered, Mary Watts also came out of the shadows, with growing interest in her mortuary chapel and in the pottery which she created. I have always been interested in ceramics and so enjoyed the atmosphere of the Gallery that I started to collect small pieces of the pottery, and my interest and research into Mary Watts and the Potters’ Arts Guild increased and my collection grew.

That Mary Watts was a very competent artist and ceramic designer is today well known. In recent years I have researched a lesser-known aspect of her talent - embroidery and design on fabric.

In February 1905, when Mary read in The Times that her friend Earl Grey, by then Governor General of Canada, was requesting embroidered banners of St George killing the dragon from his ‘friends in England’, she quickly wrote to him, asking to be the first to donate one. His intention was to present the banners to Canadian universities and colleges where they would be seen daily by students, and would, he thought, be inspired to do similarly heroic deeds.

Mary made a banner for Earl Grey, but the design was her own and has no obvious connection to St George and certainly no dragon. She sent the explanation that St George was not coming himself, but was sending instead the Spirit of the Flowers, maple and rose, thistle and shamrock and fleur-de-lys, with the blue wings of hope and a crown of olive leaves for peace.

Mary is not known to have been a skilled needlewoman, and this banner owes more to design than to embroidery. It is made of pieces of dyed and painted silk fabric, edged with gold thread, which has been couched (stitched) down to attach the silk to a damask background. The facial details are painted in ink. The figure, which is similar to the seraphs in the Watts chapel, was worked by Mary and her ward Lilian, and one other unnamed helper. Earl Grey was ‘delighted’ with the gift but kept it at Government House and brought it back to England when he left office. It is now in the collection of the V&A and was recently included in a touring exhibition in China, ‘Beyond William Morris’.

Mary’s banner was only one of those which were sent to Canada in the first decade of the 20th century.

This rich red banner makes more use of embroidery. Although some coloured fabrics are applied, for the cape, the horse and the dragon’s wings, the details are all stitched, giving texture to the picture. This banner was designed and made by Lady Mary Meynell and hangs in a Canadian university.

Not all the St. Georges were on horseback. In some banners he is in a standing knightly pose, holding a sword and a shield with the red cross of St. George. Unlike the action pictures of the mounted saint, St. George looks calmly forward, seemingly unconcerned with the dragon he has just slain. Red roses, sometimes natural and sometimes Tudor, are usually included.

Making an elaborate embroidered banner was a task for an accomplished needlewoman and many banners were professionally made although sponsored by a benefactor. Earl Grey respectfully suggested to Queen Alexandra that she might allow a banner to be presented in her name. Despite the unexpected design of Mary Watts’s first banner, he turned to her to design, but not to make, a second one. She suggested an Imperial theme, with which he thought would be most appropriate.

This was what he received. A most beautiful banner with ‘Our Lady of the Snows’ being crowned by two angels, and doves carrying messages such as ‘the gifte of wisdome’. The embroidery is complex with many shimmering beads added to give the impression of snow. Earl Grey presented the banner to a Ladies’ College in Montreal where it hangs today. In 1998 it returned briefly to Watts Gallery, on loan for the exhibition ‘Mary Seton Watts Unsung Heroine of the Art Nouveau’.

The number of banners which Earl Grey received is unknown. I have traced twelve, some previously undocumented, largely through research into Earl Grey’s correspondence which is held in Durham University Library. I became fascinated by the whole subject, which I can only briefly touch on here, and in 2024 with my husband, made a journey across Canada, having arranged to see and photograph banners at universities and museums. We were warmly welcomed everywhere, and the banners were produced for us to see. Some are fading and deteriorating through years of exposure to light, but both Mary’s banners remain in good order. I had found out so much about this almost unknown attempt, both to inspire students and to form a bond between Canada and ‘the Mother Country’ as it was then known, that I made the decision to write and publish a book about the banners.

St. George and the Dragon. Embroidered Banners for Canada gives the full story of the banner scheme. It has colour illustrations of all the banners so far traced, and details of many that remain missing. Mary Watts’s banners are fully covered with detailed illustrations. The 134-page book is on sale in the Watts Gallery shop and on-line from Watts Gallery, priced at £19.95.