St Andrew casting his net

Judith Collins (loc. cit.) comments on the present work: 'the commission for this relief came from Oliver Hill in November 1933. Hill had designed a Portland stone memorial and bird bath at St Andrew's Church, Croydon in 1932 and he was then asked to design the new Church Hall, which was officially opened on 17 March 1934. Gill made drawings for the relief in January and February 1934. He did not take up this job again until December, when he went to Croydon on the 3rd to start carving the relief in situ. He worked on it for eleven more days before completing it on 22 December. A drawing dated 18 January depicts St Andrew pulling up his net which has three fish in it. Christ steers at the prow of the boat and watches him. In the relief itself, St Andrew pulls up his net which is full of small figures, seeking salvation; St Andrew here is the fisher of men. Gill wrote an explanation of the iconography of this relief in January 1935: 'The carving shows St Andrew pulling at the net. He was a fisherman. Our Lord said to him 'I will make you a fisher of men'. The ship is the church. It is very strong but not very fast. The P on the bow of the ship is P for Peter because it is Peter's barque ... It is not meant to be very much like 'nature' because it is a symbolic carving and in carvings of this kind the important things are, first, what it means and second, that like a poem or a piece of music, the different parts of it should rhyme together nicely'.

For the past fifty years the present work has resided in a corridor at St Andrew's High School, Croydon, where it was sited after the demolition of the Boys and Men's Club, in the late 1950s. The proceeds from this sale will aid in the contruction of new premises to benefit members of the local community.