Charles Shannon spent most of his adult life in London, but apart from the long trips abroad he made with Ricketts or others, he occasionally returned to the area where he came from. In September 1918, for example, he spent ten days with his sisters Helen and Catherine in Sleaford (Lincolnshire), the village where he had grown up and where his father, the reverend Frederick William Shannon, had been a rector of Quarrington and Old Sleaford from 1861 to 1909. Shannon's father would die a year later, and was buried by the north door of Quarrington Church where a cross marks his grave. After his own death in 1929, Shannon's ashes were interned in front of this grave.
Exactly when is undisclosed, but at some point Shannon designed a new cover for the baptismal font for Quarrington Church.
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| Charles Shannon, cover for the baptismal font of Quarrington Church [Photo: Chris Hodgson] |
The font itself reputedly dates back to the late fourteenth century, and probably was brought to Quarrington in the late 1800s, but in the late twentieth century the new Shannon cover was discarded by the church, probably because of the enormous weight of the iron construction which made it not easy to use as it required at least three people to open the cover for a christening ceremony. It is now privately owned.
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| Carre Gallery director Christopher Hodgson and the Shannon display |
The Sleaford Gallery Arts Trust hosts a permanent display relating to Shannon in its Carre Gallery. [See the website of Carre Gallery.] Shannon prints and ephemera were collected by Christopher Micklethwaite and donated by the family to the Carre Gallery to honour Shannon and Micklethwaite, both residents of Sleaford.
[Thanks are due to Christopher Hodgson.]
