The use of St. Michael as a subject for war commemoration was popular from the Boer War period onwards. In this version, stained glass artist William Montgomery (1850-1927)used a portrait of Edward Newbigin instead of the generic features, as can be seen in the contemporaneous St. Michael, at St. Paul's Anglican Church, Allansford (now removed the Warrnambool). The Newbigin family motto. 'By its fruit [my family] is known' and the family crest were inserted under the image and above the inscription.
Edward Lesslie Harcourt Newbigin was born in 1877, first son of Ward and Elizabeth Newbigin of "Stella" Punt Road, Prahran. No record has been found of Lieutenant Newbigin's service with the Australian Field Artillery, however it was considered sufficiently important by his family to record on the commemorative stained glass. Newbigin's father was honorary treasurer of the Adult Deaf and Dumb Mission in Victoria, and Edward junior was credited with the design of the Mission's headquarters and church at 32-34 Flinders Street, Melbourne. When he died on 6 May 1904, aged 27, he was in an architectural partnership as Klingender and Newbigin, Bank Place, Melbourne.
References & Acknowledgements
Argus, 7 May 1904, p.9; 10 May 1904, p.1 and p.5.
