in general. Under the management of J.H. Powell the metalwork design department split from the stained glass department in 1883 and traded under the name Hardman, Powell and Co. Powell died in 1895, passing the leadership of the firm to John Bernard Hardman, the grandson of John Hardman Snr, who headed the company until 1903 and took the firm to the Exposition Universelle, Paris. The firm continued producing stained glass in the 21st century under directorship of Donald Taunton and Patrick A. Feeny until the 1970s, and had premises at 26 Frederick Street in the Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham, Newhall Hill and Lightwoods House. A large proportion of the Hardman archive, particularly their Medieval Room, was damaged and destroyed in a fire at the Newhall Hill studio in 1970; some of the earliest and most damaged cartoons are now held in temperature controlled storage at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. Hardman acquired the stained glass manufacturer Goddard & Gibbs in 2006, but two years later, in 2008, the business closed. Design Gothic Revival Through the influence of A.W.Pugin, John Ruskin, and the Oxford Movement, it was considered during the mid-19th century that the only appropriate style in which a church should be built was Gothic. This fashion was combined with a general renewal within the church and a growth of Roman Catholicism. The result was that many designers in different fields tried to imitate the Medieval style in their work. This was particularly the case in the stained glass industry. Pugin, who supplied the first designs for Hardmans, was thoroughly absorbed in the Medieval and was a designer of the highest order. He produced designs of every description- churches, windows, furniture, vestments, vessels, tiles, jewellery and, for the interiors of the Houses of Parliament, Gothic thrones, Gothic hat-stands and Gothic ashtrays. With his busy regime, he increasingly relied upon his talented son-in-law, Powell, to provide the designs for stained glass. The firm had many subcontractors and designers who are not well-known but produced exceptional work under the Hardman name. For example, the Pippet family of Solihull, William John Wainwright and R.J. Hopkins. John Hardman Powell Powell's stained glass recreates the elegance, the refinement, the brevity that is seen in some of the finest examples of glass, sculpture and illumination of the 13th and 14th centuries. He utilised the flowing, curving lines, the flourish of drapery, the calligraphic brushstrokes and pure colour.