On the evening of Wednesday 5th February, Sisters Nicole Keenan, and Barbara Jeffery as well as Union Archivist Jenny Smith were invited to the private view of a new display at the V & A museum entitled Makers of Modern Gothic: A.W.N Pugin and John Hardman Jr. Sister Barbara had been invited due to her extensive research on the Hardmans and Sr Nicole had been invited due to her family connection to the Hardmans.
This display shows a sample of significant new acquisitions of Pugin drawings and explores the collaboration of Pugin with John Hardman & Co. whose firm specialised in ecclesiastical metalware and to whom Pugin sent many of the drawings to be used in the workshop. Pugin, of course, was the Architect of St Mary’s Convent of Mercy, Handsworth, as well as the original Bermondsey Convent of Mercy. The Hardman family were St Mary’s Convent’s major benefactors and two of John Hardman Senior’s daughters became Sisters of Mercy – one of whom (Juliana) being trained by Catherine McAuley and coming as the first Mother Superior at St Mary’s. So, a pretty strong connection.
Although the Curators at the V & A had a large selection of drawings and information on Pugin, they were lacking a little in terms of information on John Hardman Jr and were also extremely keen to find an image of Hardman to sit alongside that of Pugin in their display. To this end, two of the Curators contacted Jenny Smith in November 2024 to see if the Union Archive might be able to help. We were able to provide the photograph of John Hardman Junior from our collections and some background information on the Hardmans and their connections to St Mary’s Convent in Handsworth. They were delighted and gave us a nice acknowledgement in the display. The Curators are even hoping to come to St Mary’s for a tour!
It was wonderful to be involved in such a project and to see the Mercy collections being used in such a famous setting.
The Makers of Modern Gothic display runs until Sunday 26th October 2025.