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Christ Spoke To Sculptor – Bishop’s Story of Late Charles Jagger

April 1944

South Yorkshire Times, April 29th, 1944

Christ Spoke To Sculptor

Bishop’s Story of Late Charles Jagger

A remarkable story about the late Charles Sargeant Jagger, one of the talented Kilnhurst family of artists, is told by the Bishop of Salisbury in reference to Jagger’s sculptor of the Crucifixion in Kelham College Chapel.

After trying unsuccessfully to render the face of Christ, the sculptor flung himself down in his studio in despair according to the bishop who writes: “Then the door quietly opened and Christ himself came in.  They looked at each other in the face and Christ said “Try again.”

The bishop had the story of this visitation from Mr. Jagger himself who died in 1934 at the age of 49, and says of the work “The sacred face has a strange beauty expressing life and intense power.”

Miss Edith Jagger, sister of the sculptor, told a reporter who mentioned the story to her that it was the first time she had heard it, but she was sure it would be true, though it was the kind of thing her brother would never have revealed to more than one other person.  Miss Jagger lives in Millhouses Lane, Sheffield.

The three Jaggers, the brothers Charles and David, and their sister Edith, trained at Sheffield College of Arts and Crafts and all had their work accepted by the Royal Academy in the same year.