The Middlesbrough parishes of The Holy Name of Mary and St Thomas More

Brangwyn was born to British parents in 1867 in Bruges, Belgium, but was brought up and educated in England, training was at the Royal College of Art.

He served as apprentice to William Morris who greatly influenced him. He gained fame as an accomplished etcher and lithographer and his favourite subjects included powerful depictions of ship building and heavy industry, and the labourers involved in such work.

Brangwyn painted many large scale murals for public interior spaces, including one for the House of Commons in London which was rejected by the commissioning committee but became the subject of fierce bidding by many other institutions.

He painted the painting above the altar and the Stations of the Cross at the Holy Name Church.

He was also an official war artist during the 1st World War. Brangwyn also produced designs for furniture, jewellery, and textiles, and he made some large scale stained glass panels for Tiffany’s.

He went on to become the first artist to be honoured with a retrospective at the Royal Academy during his lifetime, in 1952, and he is well represented abroad in countless public collections.

There is a museum dedicated to his work in Bruges, and he donated works to the Musée de la Ville at Orange in France in 1947. In England there is also a large collection held at the William Morris Museum in Walthamstow. Brangwyn died in 1956.