Baltic Exchange Memorial Glass

Anyone who has worked or dealt with glass knows it’s a delicate material that can be challenging to work with. The Baltic Exchange Memorial Glass is an exquisite example of the medium, designed by Scottish artist John Dudley Forsyth to memorialize 60 members of the Baltic Exchange who lost their lives fighting in World War I.

The original piece consisted of 240 panels that form a dome, and five separate panes depicting the virtues of faith, fortitude, hope, justice, and truth. The windows were unveiled above the building’s staircase in 1922.

Though the stained glass piece made it through the bombing of London during World War II intact, it suffered extensive damage when the Irish Republican Army (IRA) detonated a series of explosives at the Baltic Exchange building in 1992. Of the 240 panels in the dome, only 45 remained intact. The remnants of the old building were demolished in 1998, but the stained glass lives on in a London museum.

After the bombing, it took nearly a decade to bring back the windows to their former glory. As the Baltic Exchange was a maritime-based company, it was thought appropriate to display the windows in Greenwich. They have been on display on the second floor of the National Maritime Museum since 2005.