Glass Circle News_No.122, Mar 2010

Vot.33 No.1 March 201

ISSN 2043-6572

•
The development of the lemon-squeezer foot

•
18th century drinking habits

•
Cutlet: its value today

•
Excise Tax: 1699

•
Salerooms

•
Reviews

•
News

EDITORIAL

Hail and farewell

Editorial

Chairman’s Letter

Saleroom news

The Lemon-squeezer foot

The value of cutlet

Limpid Reflections

Glass Tax, Part 4 1698/9
12

News
15
,

Meetings

Obituary

Book news and reviews
20

News and diary dates

Glass Circle News
ISSN 2043-6572

Vol. 33 No. 1 March 2010

published by The Glass Circle

www.glasscircle.org

Editor

Jane Dorner
[email protected]

9 Collingwood Avenue,

London
N
0
3.#1,

Design and layout
Athelny Townshend

[email protected]

Printed by
Micropress
Printrs
Ltd

www.micropress.co.uk

Neither the Glass Circle nor any of its officers or

committee members bear any responsibility for

the views expressed in this publication, which are

those of the contributor in each case. Every effort
has been made to trace and acknowledge copyright

in the photographs illustrating articles. The Editor

asks contributors to clear permissions and neither
the Editor nor the Glass Circle is responsible for

inadvertent infringements.

Next copy date:

15 May
2010
for the June edition.

COVER ILLUSTRATION:
Lemon-

squeezer foot.
©Athelny
Townshend

CONTENTS

A
fter running this newsletter for 32

years, almost single-handed, David

Watts is stepping down as Editor.
Fortunately, we will not lose him as a

contributor. I certainly will want to draw

on his knowledge
by Jane

and his experience

because I am a relative newcomer to glass.

That is why the first thing I thought of

when asked to take over was that we
must find out what you, the readers,

want and what you can contribute. So I
urge you to fill in

the questionnaire

enclosed in this

edition — or if

you don’t like
form-filling, just

drop me a note
(preferably

email) and tell me
what you’d like in
future newsletters.
Also, I hope

to encourage Letters to the Editor

and an interactive exchange from the
membership. You’ll note that we now
have an ISSN and are renumbering

in line with academic practice so what

would have been Issue 122 is now Vol.

33 No. 1.
The first bit of advice I am taking from

my predecessor is to print pictures of

the editorial team — so that those who

see us at meetings will be able to put a

face to a name. I have spent most of my

working life in publishing and edited

three specialist journals before this one

as well as countless books.
I am also a small-scale collector and

I can’t resist a bargain wineglass. I must

Reception detail

have one for every possible drinking

mood, including some 18th century

opaque twists, which I put out for the
dessert wine at special dinner parties.

I’ve had 12 on the table with other
glassware, including a 1750s quadruple-

knopped airtwist — my most expensive
— and guests are always appreciative and

careful. The rest are a hotch-potch of ale

glasses, rummers, wrythens, tumblers

Dorner

and goblets.

Among them is a

modern one I watched being made by

the master craftsman Elio Quarisa in
Corning, and there are also a dozen

or so ‘woblets’ that I made myself in
the last four years as a rather inept
(but passionate)

mature student

of glass-blowing.
Readers

may

remember ‘From

Bubble to Bowl’

(Glass Circle News

Issue 107, pp.

12-13) in which
I described my

initiation

into

glass-making at

the sadly-demised International Glass
Centre. I went on to do an MA in Glass

at the University for the Creative Arts

at Farnham and my first major glass
installation behind the main reception

desk at the Royal National Orthopaedic
Hospital in Bolsover Street, will be

opened by Prince Andrew a few days

after this magazine drops on your mat.
So I am personally interested in both

the old and the new As a maker now,

working on exhibitions and commissions,
I may have more of a bias towards art and

design, and collectors’ items of the future
than this newsletter has hitherto had,
but I will be guided by you, the readers.

Fill in my questionnaire, add to it all the

things I didn’t know about and help me
make this a lively quarterly reflecting

your interests and your concerns.
Athelny Townshend, who has

volunteered to design
Glass Circle News,

collects Georgian glass and tells me that

this interest has to be self-financing.
His main interest, at the moment, is

balustroid gin glasses which he describes

as the vitreous equivalent of Alsace

wines: elegant and undervalued.

Jane Dorner is exhibiting as one of seven
glass artists from England at the Aven-
turijn Kunstbemiddeling, Epe, Nether-

lands until 24 April and at SOFA New
York
16-19 April.

Jane Dorner

Athelny Townshend

Glass Circle News Vol. 33 No. 1

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A HISTORY OF

GLASSMAKING IN LONDON

:VIA,’,704117,ZgArg””‘”‘”g first developed
CLICK HERE
WITH

T. Fitlwilliarn

English Glass
History Trail

LONDON GLASS
BOOKSHELF

uniquely produced one-gallon whisky

bottles to export that delectable beverage

to America. Also the Fitzwilliam Glass

History Trail dedicated to our late Hon.
President, Hugh Tait. Please look the

site up and give it your support.
WATTS NEWS

B
ack in 1977, when at Robert

Charleston’s behest I started
Glass

Circle News,
I little thought that I would

still be editing it more than thirty years
later. One reason for this was that the
committee had no urge to get involved

and I was left to go my own way.
More recently I have gradually grown
concerned about continuity and the

present committee’s urge to go for a more

popularist presentation to match those

of our companion societies has given me
the opportunity to step down.
I have to say that it has been both great

fun and a great learning experience as

well as creating the opportunity to meet
and work with some of Britain’s best

brains in the world of glass. All this has

only been possible with regular help and

along with my assistant editors I would
particularly like to thank Peter Lole for
his continued flow of inspirational ideas,

particularly about Scottish glass and

the Jacobites in particular. I was always

grateful to the late Henry Fox who never
failed to travel up and down the country

checking dealer’s wares and covering glass

auctions for member’s benefit. Now the

Circle has a new team with a new editor,
Jane Dorner and a new designer, Athelny

Townshend. I wish them both success in
carrying
Glass Circle News
to new heights

of achievement in full colour.
Producing the newsletter has been

a time-consuming occupation and it
has been suggested that I might be at a

loss for what to do with all that newly

gained time. However, following up

on my book,
A History of Glassmaking

in London,
plus a visit to Museum of

London Archaeology for a talk on

Roman glass, it became apparent that

there was much more about glass-

making and glass-working in London,

both earlier and later, than the coverage

in my book. Accordingly, I have set up a

new research website with the address

www.glassmaking-in-london.co.uk.
Its purpose is partly to record what

I have found out so far, but more

importantly to gather new information
about all aspects of the glass industry

in our capital city, progressively up to
the present day. For this I shall need

contributions from members and

other supporters, all of whom will be

acknowledged. There are many gems
already — one favourite being a firm that

Letter from David Watts

Chairman’s letter
Da
v
i
d
Peace

Es
ta
te

n
avid Watts has been editor or joint

Li editor for all of the first 120 editions

of this newsletter from when he was a

lecturing scientist at Guys Hospital to, in

latter years, being a gentleman of leisure.
Fortunately, we are

not losing him. He

has used the work which went into his

new book (see the review in
Glass Circle

News
No. 120 page 5) as a basis for an

all-embracing website on British glass,
enabling him to bring his thoughts and

discoveries to a wide audience, and at

greater length than was ever possible in a

newsletter. He gives you the web address

in his piece above, and I too urge you to
look at it and add to it.
I am delighted that David will also

continue to write for us. His writing is

always learned, sometimes controversial
(shorthand for the fact that I do not

always agree with it) and covers a wide
field. His first report of a meeting in
the inaugural issue (March 1977), was
of a talk by David Peace on ‘The glass

engraver as calligrapher’ tracing the

personalisation of glass from 700 BC to

his own day. Many topics, both abstruse

and entertaining followed. His latest
article discusses the

P
Smith

effect of taxes on

17th century glassmaking in London
(see pages 12-14).
David always had very firm ideas as

to how the newsletter should look, and

what it should contain. It is already clear

David Peace design for a monogram
to me that our new editor is from the

same mould. I look forward to seeing
how her professionalism will advance

the presentation and content of our

newsletter. I know she is asking you all

for your comments and suggestions.
She is continuing with the new

format, no doubt with some further

improvements, and I am sure that will be

welcomed, judging by the many emails I
received, virtually all highly supportive of

the new look.
Journal 11,
which you will have

received in January, was sent out in

appalling weather conditions. At least

one member received theirs damaged.
If anyone else received a damaged copy

please let us know and we will replace it.
Work has already started on preparing

articles
for Journal

12.

Should you be in Edinburgh in

October, I commend to you the
conference in that city
(see

Diary dates

on page 24). Our President, and other
luminaries, will be giving papers related

to Scottish glass over the last 400 years.
We will be bringing you further details

as they are announced.

by John

Glass Circle News Vol. 33 No. 1

A facon de Venise goblet

which realised £13,000

SALEROOM NEWS

Crabtree collection sold

B
onhams 269-lot sale held on 16

December was a mix of English and

Continental drinking glasses with an

80-lot afternoon session of 19th and
20th century paperweights. Although a

various-owners mix, two core properties

made up over a third

of the content: the

by Anne Crane

60-lot Morton collection of paperweights

and 50-odd lots comprising the first
part of the collection of drinking glasses

formed by Christopher Crabtree.
To this were added another 87 lots of

mixed-owner English drinking glasses

and around 50 lots of Continental glass:

16th and 17th century facon de Venise;

18th century Dutch engraved works;

Biedermeier and a sprinkling of 19th

century decorative glass.
Overall, with the immediate after-

sales included, the auction chalked up

just under £570,000 with selling rates

of 75% by volume and 88% by value. It

was a pretty good result in what is a solid
rather than volcanic market, especially

given that some of the key material on
offer was making a fairly swift return to
the rostrum.

This could be most easily observed in

the Crabtree collection. Well known in

the trade, Mr Crabtree has been a serious

glass collector for four decades and a
high-profile auction participant for the

last decade or so, buying prominently in

collectable sectors of the market, notably

enamelled glasses by the Beilby group of

decorators, often at top dollar prices.
A change of collecting direction has

prompted him to sell his collection
through Bonhams in two instalments.
Beilby, Jacobite glass, colour twists,

opaque white glass candlesticks and

some facon de Venise and Dutch-

engraved Continental pieces made up
the first offering. Part two, with other

glasswares, will be dispersed on 19 May.
Splitting a collection is one way of

ensuring that the market isn’t flooded and

it also gives both vendor and auctioneer

an opportunity to test the waters and, if
necessary, adjust expectations next time.
Bonhams estimates were not

automatically set to record a profit on
Crabtree’s recent purchases. But nor did

they leave much in the way of a profit

margin for the trade. Fortunately there

was a degree of flexibility in operation

so, while the audience sometimes proved
resistant at the auction, after-sales

ensured that virtually everything had

found a buyer a day or so later. There

were some strong individual prices, but
with other lots Mr Crabtree will have

at best broken even or made a loss. A

selection of pieces
are pictured and

discussed here.

With 16 examples to sell, Beilby glass

was the largest and most significant

element of the first instalment of the

Chris Crabtree collection. The 7
1
/2″

(19cm) high armorial enamelled opaque

twist goblet (pictured in
Glass Circle News

121 p20) was the highlight. When it last
appeared at auction in the same rooms
four years ago, estimated at £7000-

10,000, it made £13,000 hammer. Since
then the damaged and partly replaced

foot has been restored and it was offered
here with an estimate that was more

than double the 2005 price. Restoration

aside, the attraction of a glass like this
lies higher up, in the bucket-shaped
bowl, which bears an impressive armorial

for the Beilby Thompson family of
Micklethwaite Grange, Yorkshire, set

in a rococo cartouche. It surpassed

expectations, selling for £32,000.

Not every Crabtree Beilby-type

glass made the kind of dramatic price
increase of the Thompson Beilby goblet.

A 6″ (16cm) high opaque twist wine

glass of c.1765, with a delicate pastoral
landscape enamelled to its funnel bowl,

cost £13,500 plus premium when it

came up for sale at Bonhams five years

ago as part of the Henry Fox collection.
Entered here with a £10,000-15,000

estimate, it got away at £9,500.
The 7″ (18cm) high opaque twist

goblet of c.1760-65 inscribed `Success to
Sedbergh’ cost £15,000 hammer when it

came up for sale at Christie’s two years
ago. Entered here with a lower guide

of £8,000-12,000, it fetched £15,500.

Sedbergh is a Yorkshire woollen town
but the inscription is thought to be

a reference to a 1761 Parliamentary
election between two landowners in the

adjacent county of Westmorland.
A facon de Venise glass from the

Crabtree collection, (pictured left), is a

10″ (25cm) high goblet of c.1680 with
elaborate colour-twisted coiled stem and
flared bowl, engraved in Dutch diamond

point ‘Francis Withens 10 Maie 1590′

4
Glass Circle News Vol 33 No 1

Glass Circle News Vol. 33 No. 1
ABOVE:

Four
colour twist glasses from the Crabtree Collection.
RIGHT:

An
early baluster

goblet c.1690
SALEROOM NEWS

perhaps indicates an anniversary. When
it last appeared at auction as part of the

sale of the Hida Takayama Museum at
Sotheby’s in 2002, the glass cost £8,000.
This time around it realised £13,000

against an estimate of £7,000-9,000.
The Crabtree collection also included

a group of half-a-dozen lots of opaque

white glassware. This type of production,
which is ascribed to London or South

Staffordshire, carries very attractive, high
quality decoration but it can fall between

collecting stools. Its opaqueness makes
it more akin to porcelain for some glass

enthusiasts but it doesn’t necessarily

chime with factory-driven ceramic buffs.
Four of the lots had featured in a mixed

media sale titled`50 years of Collecting at

Christie’s’ in May 2003. There they were

purchased for substantial sums, none of
which were replicated this time around

although all got away eventually. A pair

of 5
3
/4″ (14.5cm) high vases of c.1755-

60, decorated in
famille rose
palette with

peony and rockwork, cost a mighty

£19,000 in 2003. Offered here with a

£10,000-15,000 estimate, they got away

at £8,000.
The Crabtree collection contained six

colour-twist glasses and one colour-twist

candlestick. Demand for these is not

as bullish as it was a few years ago but

all got away (the very rare candlestick

as an aftersale at £15,000). Pictured

(below left) from left to right are: a 61/2″

(16.5cm) high bell-bowled glass with

green- and brown-threaded opaque twist

— £1,800; a 7″ (17.5cm) high bucket-
bowled glass with amethyst thread

opaque twist — £2,600; a 6″ (15cm)

high glass with moulded bowl and blue-

threaded mixed twist — £3,200 and a 6″
(15cm) high glass with engraved bowl

and pink- and cobalt-threaded opaque

twist — £3,000.
Hasty resale was a particularly telling

factor in a group of pieces outside
the Crabtree collection where it was

combined with very bullish expectations.

Five 1770s facet-stemmed engraved wine

glasses offered here formed part of a set

of 13 used by the Cycle Club, a Welsh

Jacobite supporters association. They

were passed down by direct descent

from one Robert Vaughan of North
Wales until they sold at Tamlyn’s on 9
December 2008 for a total of £21,600.

Then the highest individual price was
£2,600. Just one year on, they carried

individual guides of £3,500-4,500
apiece. Lack of freshness told, just one,
engraved with the name of club member
Philip Egerton, found a buyer, at £3,000.
Conversely, Bonhams sale also showed

how much of a premium is attached

to fresh rarities that please current

collecting taste-buds. Early on the sale
featured an 111/2″ (29cm) high baluster

goblet of c.1690 (below right) which had

been acquired by the vendor at a country

house sale in Ireland. Good balusters

are currently much in demand and this

was an early example of impressive size

with the bonus of a gadrooned bowl
`nipt diamond waies’ over a hollow ball
knop applied with four putto heads.
These last were an unusual and attractive

touch, the raspberry prunts associated

with continental glass being a more

common motif. It was enough to send

the bidding to £30,000, over double the

£10,000-15,000 estimate, before it fell to

a telephone bidder.
The Continental section majored

on areas that are currently strong:

Venetian and facon de Venise and Dutch

engraved glass, eschewing the German

and middle European material that has

been struggling of late. Dutch glass is

on something of a roll, with interest
from the UK and Holland focussing

on a c.1770, 9″ (23cm) high Dutch
engraved goblet. There were multiple

attractions to this piece: the fine three-

masted sailing ship named Holland and

an elaborate monogram to the other side
in the form of the VOC insignia of the
Dutch East India Company. Although

unsigned, the engraving was stylistically

attributed to the well-regarded Dutch

artist Jacob Sang. It provided the highest

Continental price in this event and
realised £22,000.
The stickiest section was the group

of Biedermeier enamelled glassware, a

collecting field where demand has fallen
from its peak a decade or so ago.

The afternoon paperweights session

proved less solid, although the Morton
material performed markedly better than

the mixed-owner pieces that followed.

This article first appeared in
Antiques Trade

Gazette
Issue 1923.

wwwantiquestradegazette.com

PHOTO A: Cruet

with petalled foot

PHOTO B:
Salt with diamond foot
C
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C&
P
Max
we
ll-
Ste
wa
r

2010

20
10

LEMON-SQUEEZER FEET

The lemon-squeezer foot

Summary

The basic technologies for moulding

glass were established by the 1st century
AD
by the Syrian and Alexandrian

glassmakers of the Roman Empire.
Although intermittent exploitation of

these techniques was made for the next

1,700 years, the first
mass production of

moulded glass was in making feet with

convex ribbed domes impressed into

them at the turn of the 18th and 19th

centuries. These feet were marketed in
the glass trade of that time as ‘rose feet.
By the early 20th century glass collectors

commonly referred to them as ‘lemon-

squeezer’ feet because of an affinity of
profile with the common kitchen utensil.
(See cover picture).
The crudeness of many of these press-

moulded feet when contrasted to the

quality of the wrought glass components
to which they were welded, prompts

enquiry as to why the development

occurred.
In this article, I explore reasons why

this innovation was made and examines

the technical difficulties of welding these

feet to wrought glass bodies. I conclude

that the development was spurred
because it facilitated simulation of deep
cutting at relatively low cost.

Historical background

Outstanding examples of 1st century
AD
moulded glass in the collections

of the Corning Museum of Glass, the
British Museum and the Romisch-

Germanisches Museum were assembled
for the
Glass of the Caesars
Exhibition

in 1987. These included several sag-
moulded bowls and a press-moulded

plaque of Medusa. The crowning example

of the skills of the mould makers of this
era are the multi-part moulds which
were used by Ennion to make intricately
decorated mould-blown jugs.
Although press moulding was used

over the succeeding 1,500 years to make

paste jewellery the first industrial use
was in crimping tongs by which blanks
for chandelier drops and the finials

of decanter stoppers were pressed to
reduce, if not to obviate, subsequent

cutting. Those tongs could, however, be

considered to be a development of the
traditional glassmaker’s tools.

I remark that, by contrast, the ‘lemon-
squeezer’ foot marked a shift from the

skills of the gaffer to the mastery of the

machine. Although the basic technology

for this development was established
back in Roman times, the consensus of

informed opinion is that it did not occur

until the 4th quarter of the 18th century.
Certainly by 1800 a

wide variety of glass

vessels with lemon-squeezer feet were
being made in England and Ireland. The

following list shows the popularity of this

foot between 1780 and 1820. Salt boats

with boat, bucket and rimmed bowls;
drinking glasses notably ales, goblets and

rummers, candlesticks and oils lamps,

ornamental vases and lidded urns, fruit

bowls of various configurations including
those with cut turnover rims, montieths,

bonnet glasses, celery vases, jugs,
decanters, cruets, jellies and candelabras.

As examples in my collection I show in

photo A a cruet with a petalled foot and
tapered round stem and in B a salt with

a diamond foot and a tapered hexagonal

stem.

Machine press
–

moulding

The process of moulding glass by pouring
a measured gather of molten glass into a

metal form and then impressing it with

a plunger was developed in the late 18th
century. Examples of these devices are

preserved in the Museum of London and

Centro Nacional del Vidrio, Madrid.
I note in passing that the existence

of these devices proves that a hand-

operated plunger cut from graphite as
postulated by late Kenneth M. Wilson
from studies he made in the USA, was at
best, a marginal practice in that country

before press moulding was developed

with vigour and great ingenuity on that

side of the Atlantic

The items I review in this article

required that the press-moulded item be

welded to a wrought glass component.

To achieve this there would have to be
a compatibility of the melting points of
the two components. The melting point

of glass is determined primarily by the
type and quantity of the flux employed.
For British and Irish table glass of this

period the flux was lead. Whilst control

could be exercised in the amount of

lead which was added to a pot for
making press-moulded items to accord

with that for a separate pot for making

by Christopher

Maxwell-Stewart

Glass Circle News Vol. 33 No. 1

LEMON-SQUEEZER FEET
© At

he
lny

Towns
hen
d

wrought items, a difficulty would be

experienced in controlling the amount

of lead inherent in the cullet which was

a necessary component of both mixes.

This consideration points to a practice of
making the press-moulded components

and the wrought counterparts within a

single glassworks.
The grainy surface of some lemon-

squeezer feet is a clue as to how some

of these early feet were formed as now
explored.
The classical method of casting iron is

to make a wooden facsimile (template)

of the profile which is required; this is

then firmly pressed into sand to which a

cohesion agent has been added and the
template is then carefully withdrawn

leaving a sand mould into which molten
iron can be poured. Subsequently the

sand mould is broken away from the
casting which is left with a grainy surface

on the contact faces. If this grainy surface
is left as cast’, any glass subsequently cast

or pressed within it will reflect it on

those contact faces.
A more skilled method of making

moulds for press-moulding was available

from the trade which had long produced
moulds for forging (striking) coins and

medals. These tradesmen chased their

dies from bronze/ brass and (later) steel;

they styled themselves as die sinkers’ to

contrast themselves from `mould makers’.
So I deduce a reason some press-

moulded items have grainy surfaces and

others have smooth surfaces is that the
former were struck from unpolished cast

iron moulds and the latter from chased

bronze, brass or steel moulds.

The reasons for adoption of lemon-
squeezer feet
I have established that the technology for

press-moulding lemon-squeezer feet was
available long before late 18th century. I

also deduce the high probability that the

press-moulded components and their

wrought counter parts were made within
the same glassworks.
I next note that this innovation created

a foot with an enlivened appearance akin

to deep cutting. The markedly inferior
finish of the lemon-squeezer impression

when compared to that of late 18th
century cutting, is largely disguised by

the overlying glass.
I now focus on the depth of the tight

impressions made for lemon-squeezer
feet and then consider the difficulties of

achieving these by the cutting techniques
extant in the late 18th century and early

19th century. A prerequisite for such deep
cutting would be a set of small grinding

wheels. Such tools were available to
the glass engraver as witness some of

the wonderful intaglio achievements

of particularly German and Bohemian
craftsmen of the 18th century. However,
that was prohibitively expensive.
In contrast to engraving, cutting is

achieved by pressing the glass item onto
the rotating wheel. This requires that

the wheel and its drive shaft be robust.

Moreover to cut and polish the deep

impressions of the lemon-squeezer
wheels of small diameter rotating at
high speeds and substantial torque

were required. Consequently the heat

generated at the cutting face would have
required the use of coolants to avoid

damage to the glass. The technology

to counter these side effects was not
developed until the mid-19th century.

Press moulding circumvented these

problems.
I now turn to the bugbear of 18th

century and early 19th century glass

makers: the Excise Acts. In this regard

the press-moulded item had a fiscal

advantage over the wrought and cut

equivalent in that the tax on the

glass which is cut away by
the latter sequence was

avoided.
So I arrive at the

conclusion that

the lemon-

squeezer
foot was
4

introduced because it produced an
enlivened product akin to a deeply cut

rose, at a very moderate cost.

Pontil rod or gadget
Whilst I have deduced logical reasons for

making lemon-squeezer feet, I have yet

to identify the technique by which they

were held when welded to the wrought

components.
As a preliminary to this enquiry I

considered the distortion of the underside

of a lemon-squeezer foot which results
from press moulding namely the warping

of this free surface. This arises because as
the plunger is pressed into the molten

glass it pushes the plastic matrix towards

the sides of the mould. On meeting these

sides, the plastic glass wells up to high
points corresponding to the vertices of
the mould. The resulting cooled profile

of the sole is thus slightly concave. I note

that some lemon-squeezer feet were

welded to the other components and left

in the mould-struck condition and thus
rock when placed on a flat surface.
In order to weld the press-moulded

Glass Circle News Vol. 33 No. 1

LEMON-SQUEEZER FEET

FIG.
1:

Diamond foot with 16 v-shaped

lobes
FIG. a:

Square foot with 14 v-shaped lobes
FIG.
3:
Hexagonal foot with 12 rounded

lobes

FIG. 4:
Oval foot with 16 rounded lobes

FIG. 5:
Petalled with 12 rounded lobes
FIG. 6:
Octagonal foot with 32 v-shaped

lobes

foot to the other component, the foot
has to be firmly held so that when joined,

their respective centre lines are coaxial.

Classically this was done by welding the
foot to a pontil rod with a dob of glass

and subsequently shearing it off to leave

a pontil mark. This procedure would,

however, have marred the lemon-squeez-

er impression and that would have ne-

gated a major advantage of the technique.
That would explain why pontil marks on

lemon-squeezer feet, are rare.
This leads to the conclusion that

a gadget was used to clamp to the
foot as it was welded to the wrought

component. Prima
facie
the lemon-

squeezer impression would facilitate

interlocking of a gadget with the foot.
However, the fact that every lemon-

squeezer impression is eccentric (some
markedly so) to the vertical axis of its

foot, precludes this method of locking.

So the gadget would have had to clamp
on the outer margins of the sole.
Figures 1 to 6 record the variety

known to me of plan profiles of lemon-

squeezer feet welded to wrought glass
vessels. Each of these configurations

would have required its own gadget to
hold the foot firmly whilst it was welded

to counterpart components. Contriving
a gadget to clamp on a diamond foot

with its tapered hexagonal stem as photo

B poses challenges. My figures 7a and

7b show a conjectural solution. As a
reflection of the common warping of

these feet, I postulate clamping by studs

in the lower plate. This solution accords

with feint round impressions on the sole
of a diamond foot in my collection.
So I evince strong evidence the gadget

was developed some 70 years before the
date postulated in
Glass Circle News
No.

103. The challenges of making and using
such a device may have been the reason

FIG. 7A: Plan
of a conjectural gadget for

clamping a diamond foot
why the production of vessels with

press-moulded feet was a relatively late
development.

Postscript
I have written this article at the suggestion

of our Chairman as a preliminary to a

more extensive paper on lemon-squeezer

feet based on questions which arose from

an acquisition I made in 1968 when I
commenced collecting glass. I hope that I
have stimulated interest and controversy

by my above findings and invite readers

to share their thoughts with me when

I deliver my observations on ‘the PH
mystery’ to a meeting of the Glass Circle.

xi menage

I
Ai
….

kif
AL
– 4

FIG. 7B:
Elevation of a conjectural gadget

for clamping a diamond foot

Glass Circle News Vol. 33 No. 1

Kelleibank Recycling Centre, Alloa

CULLET

The value of cutlet to modern bottle-makers

s
a new member of the Glass Circle

was a little taken aback by the

article on the importance of cullet

and in particular the assertion that
The modern lightweight glass bottle

is a masterpiece of science and its

production will not tolerate cullet from

other glass processes…. Technology has
now reduced the essential importance of

cullet and, other than in economic terms

which are now marginal, it will never
again play a major role in the history of

glassmaking (Robert Wilkes in
Glass

Circle News
No.118, page 12).

Having worked in the glass industry

all my professional life, latterly running
the glass container factories at Harlow in

Essex and Alloa in Scotland (pictured),

I have been closely involved with glass
recycling in the form of bottle-bank

cullet right from its inception in the early
eighties. Although I commend the article

for highlighting the importance of cullet

in the glassmaking process, particularly

in its historical context, I believe some of

the points need redressing with regard to

large modern commercial operations.
I was recently asked to give my opinion

on the cullet requirements for a proposed

new overseas glass manufacturing

operation because of the prohibitive
price of recycled glass in that particular

country. I responded by pointing out

that, in essence, glass melting and
refining were a function of both time and

temperature, and that without the effect
of cullet the throughput of the glass from

the furnace, i.e. the time element, would

be severely restricted. If temperature was

used to compensate, apart from the cost

of the energy involved, the likelihood

of damage to the furnace was highly
probably. These days, glass container

furnaces, which give many years of

uninterrupted production, cost millions

of pounds to build.
Although recycling in all its forms

is being imposed more and more on

society, I can honestly say that the glass
industry, above all others, has taken this

on board to a greater extent than any

other industry. Having been directly in
charge of the glass furnaces at Harlow,
I was given the task of running the new

recycling centre when it opened in 1982.
Bottle-makers, it has to be said, have

a tendency to blame the glass for any

forming problems they cannot sort out
themselves, and the fact that we were
now putting significant quantities of

by Michael Noble

`rubbish’ into the batch potentially gave

them unlimited excuses.
One of the basic rules we applied at

the outset was to accept cullet into the

recycling plant only of a certain quality.

The processing plant could take out
the material it was designed to remove,

such as aluminium, paper, corks, iron,

etc., and obvious contaminants that

could be seen from a picking belt. Other

materials, such as pebbles, broken plates

and other ceramic articles, together with

large amounts of glass of a different

colour, were very difficult to separate and
would give all sorts of problems in bottle

production. The adage ‘Rubbish In,
Rubbish Out’ was never more apt. Other

contaminants included used hypodermic
needles, magazines and video tapes of

a somewhat dubious nature, handbags

devoid of contents, and on one occasion

a handbag full of credit cards and money,

when a lady had inadvertently put this in
the bottle bank and returned the bottles

to her car. Needless to say we managed

to return this, much to her relief.
I was always very nervous of the melt

if the cullet level had to be dropped

below about 10%, normally due to a lack

of supply. Once, when I was a young

man looking after a Scottish furnace at

Kinghorn, the amount of off-ware was

virtually non-existent. Every rejected

bottle underwent a postmortem, leaving
cullet in very short supply. This was in

1974 long before any recycling schemes

had been established, and my solution

at the time was to arrange the local
Boy Scouts to collect household glass

waste. The material collected, of course,
contained all sorts of bottle caps and

other waste products forcing me to reject
the entire load. I was quite rightly told

off for my draconian actions by the then
MD who made sure the scouts were paid

for their efforts.
The advent of light weighting bottles

and high productivity machines does not
adversely affect the amount of cullet that

can be included in the mix. Green glass

typically contains more than 80%, being

restricted by the need to keep control

of the glass composition and in some

cases limited by the mechanical handling

systems. Flint glass usually starts to lose

its colour above about 30% and becomes
unacceptable to certain customers, and

amber glass always seems to be at a

premium.
The price of cullet given in
Glass

Circle News
No. 116 (Robert Wilkes

Notes on the Importance of Gullet

part 3 page 11) was also interesting and

from my experience seems to be rather

on the low side. The general strategy

of the industry was to pay roughly the
equivalent amount of money for the

processed cullet as it did for glass made

from a batch of raw materials. Out of

this came the processing costs, either
in-house or from an external supplier,

and the remainder was given to the local

authority or cullet merchant. There were,

and probably still are, alternative uses
for cullet. For example, road builders

who do not need the quality required
for bottle production, can undercut

prices, sometimes leaving the glass

manufacturers running low.
This has been exacerbated in recent

years by the introduction of a Packaging

Waste Recovery Note system, devised by

government and accountants, in order
to force the use of recycled materials

by applying economic pressure. This in

turn would achieve their targets. The

problem of this complex system is that

the notes end up having a real value of

their own, remote from recycling, and
can be traded like bonds. Echoes of the

modern banking world perhaps.
In summary, therefore, it is worthwhile

pointing out that modern commercial

glass manufacturers need cullet as part
of their process and could not technically

operate without it. It does not generally

have an adverse effect on productivity,

helps the environment and, within the

limits described above, plays a huge

part in reducing the energy required

to produce a given amount of glass. In

many ways it is more valuable today than

it was in the 16th century.

Glass Circle News Vol. 33 No. 1

LIMPID REFLECTIONS

Drinking habits in the 18th century

I
n our last issue was a review by our

Chairman of Robin Butler’s long

heralded and useful book
Great British

Wine Accessories.
This new publication

does not entirely supersede Butler’s

earlier version of 1986,
The Book of Wine

Antiques,
which covered some broader

aspects of viticulture, vinification and

similar matters now deemed peripheral
to the scope of the new work. However,

for anyone interested in the usage of 18th

century glass this new work is valuable,

and afforded much pleasure as Christmas
reading. My only cavil is that at £65 one

does expect a hard bound, rather than a
paperback book of a size that makes its
floppy format uncomfortable.
There are nonetheless two assertions

concerning 18th century glass usage that

should cause raised eyebrows, one by the

author and the other by the reviewer. In
both cases the knowledge is delivered

ex cathedra,
without any supporting

evidence or justification. The author, in

his introduction, wrote concerning wine

glass sizes, that: ‘After dinner . . . larger

glasses that we today call goblets were

used. John Smith wrote in his review:

‘Only the bottle itself, forbidden on the
table of polite society until towards the

end of the 19th century, . . : and then

reiterates that `brown wine bottles were

forbidden on the table so decanters or

carafes were used’. In the case of 18th

century practice both statements seem to

call for much closer examination.
Let us consider wine glass sizes first;

there is widespread agreement that
enjoying wine together with food during

formal dinner, as we do today, was not
normal practice. During dinner a glass

of wine had to be specifically called for

to indulge in a toast, which could not
be savoured, but had to be scoffed off

promptly and the glass returned to the

servant; serious drinking started after
the main courses were cleared when

usually much greater quantities of wine

were consumed than during the meal.
It seems uncertain at what stage this

less constrained drinking started; was it

either with or did it follow the dessert

course? Practice probably varied, and
it more frequently followed after the

dessert, although the evidence is unclear.

There are many 18th century British

paintings and caricatures of this form
of drinking without food (a majority
showing bottles on the table), but very few

representing the main part of dinner and

those few are chiefly of royal or princely

occasions, and mostly of continental
banquets. The British portrayals of social

by
F Peter Lole

drinking generally illustrate glasses of
normal 18th century size, holding 60-70

ml of wine, yielding ‘twelve glasses in the
bottle’. There are a few pictures of club

drinking that show glasses mainly of

standard size, with a single larger glass
clearly serving a ceremonial purpose. The

recent Royal Collection exhibition of

`The Conversation Piece’ showed a prime

example of 1732 where at a club meeting

of
La Table Ronde
‘poor Fred’ is depicted

Detail: Poor Fred

being offered a large goblet with also a

standard-sized glass, uniform with those
of all the other members, on the table

in front of him. There are incidentally
five black bottles and no decanters on

the table. A number of club archives

preserve records of the ceremonial use of

larger glasses, particularly for initiation

ceremonies, and details of several of
these are given in my paper on’Clubs and

their Glasses in the Eighteenth Century’

in
Glass Circle Journal

No. 9.

Another way of trying to resolve the

problem is to look at both the pattern of

surviving glass sizes and the records of

glass sellers sales. Since the drinking that
followed dinner is believed to cover the

major part of wine consumption, it should

require more glasses than used at dinner

table, and result in a higher breakage
rate, and a specific pattern of glass types

should thus be especially noticeable in
the content of surviving glass bills. It is

quite clear that in collectors’ terms, after

the end of the heavy baluster period the

great majority of surviving glasses are
of the ‘standard’ small bowl capacity;
indeed, anything that could be called a

goblet is scarce. Whilst it is notorious
that the spread pattern of surviving

glass types is noticeably different from
the original supply pattern (the least
used or more precious glasses tend to

survive better than those in every-day
use), the overwhelming preponderance
of ‘standard’ sized bowls really seems

to represent their original universal

popularity. Furthermore, this pattern is

repeated amongst the glass bills.
A problem that anyone who has

worked with glass bills encounters is the

sketchy and imprecise descriptions giv-
en. However, for glasses with no added

decoration (engraving, cutting, painting

or gilding) price is a very good indication

of size. It is an amazing fact that an anal-

ysis of 105 glass bills of the 18th century,
encompassing three and a half thousand

drinking glasses, the average price of an
undecorated wine glass is 6d. apiece in

each of the four quarters of the century

(glasses with stem twists are treated as
undecorated.) This means that any wine

glass whose price exceeds, say 8d., is no-

ticeably larger than a ‘standard’ glass.
By a happy coincidence Julia Poole’s

valuable paper ‘Glass Purchases of the
Russell family, Dukes of Bedford’ has

just appeared in
Glass Circle Journal
No.

11, affording comparison with the series

of bills whose details I have collected.

The format of that paper does not give
details of all the bills discovered in the

archive, but the published results do fully
detail a series of purchases between 1754

and 1772 showing that 604 wine glasses

were purchased, of which 78 (13%) were

`wine and water’ glasses with a price
range of 9-12d. each.
There was also one large glass’ at 18d.

that must have been a monster of par-

ticularly large capacity. The incidence

of ‘wine and water’ glasses is four times

greater than in the series of bills that I

have recorded, where in the third quar-

ter of the 18th century they accounted

for only 3% of all wine glasses (although

continuing to rise in later periods, to

Glass Circle News Vol. 33 No. 1

Frederick, Prince of Wales, with members of La

Table Ronde

by Charles Philips, 1732.

Ratio of drinking glasses to decanters during the eighteenth century
Quarter 1
Quarter 2
Quarter 3
Quartet’ 4

Source:
FPL

FPL
FPL
J Poole**

All drinking*
111

788
1,561
1,159
985

Decanters etc.
nil
8

116
243
104

Ratio:

glasses to decanters
98:1

13:1
5:1
9:1

‘All drinking’ includes ales, beers, tumblers, etc. as well as wines.

**The J Poole item relates only en records for which full particulars are given in her paper.
LIMPID REFLECTIONS

achieve 7% in first quarter of the 19th
century).
One could continue to derive other

statistics from the bills to demonstrate

the massive preponderance of ‘standard’

small bowled wine glasses throughout

the 18th century, but this would just be

to bore you rigid. I suggest however that
the contention that the ‘serious’ drinking

that followed on after dinner made use of

larger glasses than those which comprise

the bulk of our collections is at best very
questionable.
The question of whether black bottles

were accepted on ‘the tables of polite so-
ciety’ may also be looked at in two ways;
the pictorial evidence of contemporary

paintings and prints (already touched
upon above) and the incidence of sales

recorded by glass bills. Andy McCon-

nell’s
magnum opus
on decanters has

virtually swept the board in reproduc-

ing 18th century pictures of decanters

in use. He found only five pictures with

decanters and no bottles on the table, but

gave another four with both bottles and

decanters and nine with bottles alone.

There are also many more pictures of

bottles alone than he published, but I am
not aware of any with decanters that he

has missed. Thus more than three-quar-

ters of 18th century portrayals depict
bottles on the table; it is also worth com-

menting that four of the five that only

illustrate decanters are post 1755.
The sale of decanters and carafes

shows a dramatic growth as the century

progressed. The Bedford bills cover only

the third quarter, but the record of items
purchased quarter by quarter, from my

own records (FPL) together with the

Bedford purchases, are shown in the

table below.
Again, the Bedford bills demonstrate

decanter acquisitions on a truly ducal

scale, and probably justify John Smith’s
remarks in that very likely only decanters

were admitted to the ducal table.
However, the more general gentry and

aristocratic market represented by the

bills that I have recorded never achieved
the close ratio between glasses and
decanters that Bedford did. Paradoxically

the ratio of glasses to decanters fell back

in the first quarter of the 19th century

to 18:1.
Taking together both the pictorial and

the purchasing evidence, one can form

some sort of judgement. I suggest that
one can assert that bottles on the table

were the norm in the first half of the

18th century, but that decanters became
increasingly
de
rigueur in the second half,

until in the 19th century John Smith’s

strictures become wholly justified. An
interesting digression concerning the
Duke of Bedford’s embassy to Paris in

1762-3, to conclude the hostilities at the
end of the Seven Years War, is that he

purchased and hired an immense amount
of glass, which included a considerable

number of water carafes, but there is no

mention of wine decanters. So, what was

the French practice at that time?
Let us conclude this article with a

quotation from James Boswell’s diary
for 27 December 1787, recording a cold

and miserable Christmas day at Lowther
Castle with his avaricious and overbear-

ing patron, James Lowther, 1st Earl of

Lonsdale. There were only three at din-

ner, including the host: ‘Dinner was be-

tween six and seven … Only two bottles

of wine, I forget which. But the grievous
thing was that no man could ask for a

glass when he wished for it but had it giv-
en to him just when the fancy struck L.

The glasses were large, eight in a bottle:
So here we are in the last quarter of

the 18th century, at the country house

of one of the richest peers in Britain,

with bottles on the table(?), ‘large’

glasses (about 90 ml. — tiny by modern

standards), dining unseasonably late and
taking wine with food. Yet again ‘Bozzy’

tells of life as it is, not as a stereo-typed

pattern and of a variety quite contrary to

so many of our preconceptions.

Glass Circle News Vol. 33 No. 1

GLASS TAX

Lead crystal goblet c. 1695. Unusually for

a lead glass there is much seed, perhaps

reflecting the difficult conditions and price

of coal at the time.
The causes and battle against

the duty on glass 1695-1699

Part 4 – The events of the 1698/9 Parliament
© Dav
i
d Wa
tts

The
success

I of

the

new duties on

sharks’ fins and

Scotch linen had

paved the way

by David

for a 50% relief on

the glass duties. But

it was the effect of

the glass duty on coal

that finally resolved the

problem. Meanwhile, the

government had other

concerns. At the opening

of the 1698/9 session Sir

Thomas Littleton, who had

chaired the Ways & Means

committee was elected Speaker

(The first Prime Minister was

Walpole in 1721). The Kings

speech on 12 December included

the plea:

I think it would be happy, if some effectual
Expedient could be found for employing the
Poor: which might tend to the great Increase

of our Manufactures, as well as remove a heavy
Burden from the People.

The speech, written by the King in
conjunction with his Privy-Council,
rather than by the government, was then

debated by the House. It resolved that

a committee be appointed to consider:

‘Ways for the better providing for the
Poor, and setting them on work:
Consequently, a Bill was presented
`to prohibit the Exportation of
Corn, Meal, and Bread,

for One Year’. Both
reflected

the

Kings influence
although

because the
latter might

increase

the home

distillation of

gin a new Bill

was proposed ‘to

prohibit the Distilling

of Spirits, and low Wines

from Corn; and to prevent Frauds
in Distillers’. From the gin craze that

followed it is doubtful if this bill had
much effect. And so the year ended.
In fact, the harvest had been poor that

year due to bad weather and the farmers
complained, from 10 January on, that
they had no outlet

Watts

for their poor corn

now that distilling had been prohibited.

On the other hand a petition of the
bailiffs, burgesses, and commonalty, of

the borough of Tewksbury on 23 January

1699 took a contrary view:

That, of late Years, Corn and Grain, of all Sorts,
is grown to an excessive Price, by reason of the

vast Quantities used for Distilling, at
Bristoll,

and other Places; insomuch that the old Stores

are exhausted, and the Poor ready to starve;

and, if a Stop be not put to Distilling, there will
not be Corn enough in the Country to make

Bread, till next Harvest: And praying the speedy
Passing of the Bill, depending in the House, to

prohibit the Distilling of Spirits, and low Wines,

from Corn; and to prevent Frauds in Distillers.

Petitions for both sides of the argument

over distilling corn continued to flow

in as did those on leather. Meanwhile,
the related bill against the export of

corn was also in trouble. This involved

a joint conference with the Lords (who

presumably lost financially) although it

was to take effect within a few days, from

10 February. It eventually prevailed while

that for preventing distilling passed its
third reading.
Inevitably the glassmakers, having

gained relief of half the duty on glass,
now wanted removal of the remainder as

in the case of the pot and tobacco pipe
makers. The first sign of this arrived on

23 February:
A PETITION of several Persons, for and
on behalf of themselves, and the rest of the

many poor labouring Artificers in the Glass

Manufacture, in and about the City of
London,

was presented to the House, and read; setting
forth, That the House was pleased, the last

Parliament, to take off Half the Duty which

was laid upon Glass, and the whole Duty laid
upon Earthen-wares and Tobacco-pipes, it

being apparently proved, that the said Duties

were an Oppression to the Petitioners, That the
remaining Half Duty upon Glass will not yield

Glass Circle News Vol. 33 No. 1

GLASS TAX

1,000
I. per
Annum to the Crown, as they are

credibly informed; but yet is a great Grievance
to the Petitioners, who have had but very little
Work since the Half Duty has been taken off,

their Masters selling their Goods to little or no
Profit: And praying, That the said remaining

Half Duty may be taken off; whereby they may

be enabled to get Bread for their Families.

As a result it was:

Ordered,
That the Consideration of the said

Petition be referred to a Committee (essentially

the members of the Complaints committee):

And that they do examine the Matter thereof;

and report the same, with their Opinion therein,

to the House:
And it is referred to Mr. Cox, Sir
Theop.

Oglethorpe,
Sir
Sam. Barnardiston,

Sir Wm.

Cook,
Mr.
Hamond,
Mr.

Barnardiston,
Mr.

Hayes,
Mr.
England,
Mr. Osborn, Mr.
Cook,

Mr.

Yates,
Mr.
Lowther,
Sir

Jacob Ashley,
Mr.

Blofeild,

Mr.
Thornhagh, Mr. Mountague,
Sir

Richard

Cocks,
Mr.
Dyott,

Sir
Robert Eden,
Mr.

Jervoise,

Sir
Edward Hussey,

Mr.
Clayton,
Mr. Guy: And

they are to meet at Five a Clock this Afternoon,

in the Speaker’s Chambers: And have Power to

send for Persons, Papers, and Records.

The swift response indicates that the

petition was being taken seriously.

However, it must have occasioned some

dispute and on 2 March Sir Robert
Marsham, Mr Freeman, Major Halsey,

Sir John Gerrard and Colonel Drake
were all added to the committee.
On 25 February Mr Dalby Thomas,

who had been involved in a contrary
view in the debate on the Glass Act, was

arrested by the Sergeant-at-Arms for

conspiring with a:
Mr
John Freeman
(also arrested), in attempting

to defraud the Company of Distillers of the
Sum of Six hundred Pounds; and pretending

therewith to gain an Interest with the Members
of this House, to get the Bill thrown out, which

was for prohibiting the Distilling of Spirits from
Corn; is guilty of a very great Crime, and, as far

as in him lay, of bringing a scandalous Reflection

upon this House.

On 3 March, a new petition arrived from

the London glassmakers:
That the Glass Manufacture, by reason of

the Half Duty continued thereon, and the
Interruption it receives by Collectors, is so

discouraged, that the Petitioners cannot longer
carry it on; which, were it encouraged, by taking
the Duty wholly off, would be so improved

here, as to out-do all the World; but the late
Duty on Coals (Five Shillings per Chaldron

[256 gallons] shipped and landed in
England)

makes the Half Duty continue as burdensome

as before the other Half was taken off; so that

the said Manufacture is in Danger of being lost

for a very inconsiderable Revenue to the Crown:
And praying, That the said Duty may be taken
off; whereby the Petitioners may be encouraged

to bring the said Manufacture to a perfect

Establishment in
England.

The following day a similar petition

arrived from several persons, on
behalf of themselves, and other poor

working glassmakers in Gloucester and
Newnharn. Both were referred to this
new committee as was another from the

Stourbridge glassmakers on 6 March
and a rather feeble effort from the glass
manufacturers of Lynn Regis on 10

March.
A new slant on the problem was

provided on 9 March in a petition from

Newcastle upon Tyne:
That the House, taking off Half the Duty upon
Glass, encouraged the Petitioners to carry on

their Employments; and yet they have scarce
been able to get Bread thereby, for their Families,

by reason of the remaining Duty, and the great

Encouragement the said Manufacture has in

Scotland,
and other foreign Countries; by being

supplied with Wood, Ashes, and Clay, from

England,
they will be enabled not only to furnish

foreign Markets, and undersell the Petitioners,

but also to import Glass into this Kingdom, to
the Ruin of the Petitioners, and Extirpation of

the said Manufacture …etc.

18 March saw the arrival of a counter-

petition from John Bellingham

(Vauxhall Plate Glass House), Richard
Wilcox, and William Pate, masters and

owners of several glasshouses in and

about London, and was presented to the
House. This stated:
That several Petitions have been presented to

this House, complaining of the high Duties upon

Glass-wares, wherein are several Contradictions

and Falsities alleged; and have been procured by

one Mr.
Francis Jackson,
or his Agents, in order

to ingross the whole Manufacture of Glass into
his own Hands: That the present Duty on Glass,

which the Petitioners have been always ready to

comply with, is the only Hindrance of the Glass-
makers engrossing the Trade, and lowering the
Prices of Glass: And praying they may be heard

before any Bill pass, in favour of the said Glass-

makers Petition.

Jackson who, owned the Kings Lynn

glasshouse and, with John Straw, the
London Gravel Lane glasshouses and
had recently taken over the Great Bottle
House by St Mary Overy’s church in

Southwark, had been accused of a similar

behaviour in the previous report on the

industry. Why he should fall foul of
Bellingham, who was in a different line of
manufacture, is difficult to comprehend

since making expensive looking-glass

plates for the wealthy was hardly affected

by the duties. Perhaps Jackson had been
threatening a takeover. The committee,
however, had its own explanation which

it produced in its report on 1 April 1699.

This was presented by Mr Freeman to
whom the several petitions relating to
the duties still remaining upon glass-

wares were initially referred.

Following the usual preamble about

the ‘report to the House; which he read

in his Place; and afterwards delivered in

at the Clerk’s Table..: this was as follows:
That the Committee had considered the several

Petitions to them referred, complaining of their
Sufferings under the Duty which is laid upon

the Glass Manufactures; and did examine a
few Witnesses attending, to make good the
Allegations therein; viz.

Om.
Jones,

Master-worker, said, That, before

the Duty was laid, he used to work 40 or 45
Weeks in a Year; but, since, has not worked a

Year in the Whole; and not above Nine Weeks
since
the Half-Duty was taken off.

John Colt
said, That he has worked but

very little since the Whole Duty; and not Two

Months since the Half Duty was off; has been

forced, for want of Work, to pawn all his Goods,

except his Bed, which his Landlord threatens to

seize for Rent.
Jacob Vihitelly
said, That he hath not worked

One Year since the Duty has been laid; and but

Nine Weeks since the Half-Duty was off; and
verily believes, That, if the Duty be continued,
he shall have no Employment.
Mr.
Pilling
said, That he hath had but very

little Employment since the Duty was laid.

Fra. Jackson
said, That he was forced to lay down

his Glass-Works at Lynn-Regis, so soon as the

Duty was at first laid; and since the Half-Duty

was off, has set his Flint-house to work, only
for working up his present Stock; but must be

forced to leave it off again, if the remaining Duty
be not taken off:
That the Collection of the Duty is very

grievous to those Manufacturers that pay the
Duty upon Coals; and is much more uneasy to
them than the Duty upon Coals:
That the Duty upon Glass prevents the

Consumption upon Coals, to that Degree, That
there is much more lost by the former, than is

gained by the latter, to the Crown; and, if the
Glass-Duty be continued, that Manufacture
must be lost; and then the Duty upon Coals

will be very much lessened; whereas, if the

Glass-Duty be taken off, the Consumption of

Coals will be so greatly increased, as to bring

in a much greater Duty by the extraordinary
Consumption of Coals, than the present Duty

Both now produce:
And further said, That all the Glass that

is broken after the Duty is paid, is lost to the

Manufacturers; for the Duty is paid, or secured,

as soon as made; and Breakage of Glass is very

great in all Works:
That the Difficulties of Drawbacks on

Glass Circle News Vol. 33 No. 1

GLASS TAX

Exportation (particularly important for the bottle trade) is a great

Inconveniency; and many will rather lose it, than be at the Trouble and

Charge of drawing back, especially for small Quantities:
That their best Workmen
Packington,

and Mr.
Hamond,

do prepare, and bring in, the Bill.

So victory at last for the hard-pressed glass industry but, in a sense
made possible only by the government’s recent increase in the tax
on coal. One reason that the
on
o
f Pe
ter
A

dam
son.

Pho
to

Towns
hen
d

are solicited to go into foreign

Parts, where there is great En-

couragement given: Many are al-
ready gone; and more will soon go,

if the Duty be not taken off.

Then the committee took
into their consideration several

accounts, which were sent for, by
them, from the commissioners of

the customs, and the commissioners

for managing the glass duty, in order
to find a true state of what these

duties have amounted to:
From
Michaelmas
1695, to the First of
August

1698, the net Produce of the entire Duties

upon Glass wares, Stone and Earthen Bottles,

paid into the Exchequer, amount to 13,500 /.:
By contrast, the Produce of the Duty upon

Whale-Fins, for Six Months past, amounted to

3,679
I. 12s. 91/2d.:
while the Duty upon

Scotch

Linen, for the same time, amounted to 4,288
1.
10s.

ld.; which makes, in the Whole, 7,968
I. 2s. 101/2d.

In other word the duties on whale fins and

Scotch linen had produced in six months more
than half that produced by glass in over three

years.

Upon the whole matter, the committee came

to the several resolutions following:
Resolved,
That it is the Opinion of this Committee,

That the remaining Duties on Glass-wares are very

prejudicial to the said Manufacturers, are vexatious and
chargeable in the Collection, and of small Advantage to

the Crown.

Resolved,
That it is the Opinion of this Committee,

That the remaining Duties upon Glass-wares, if continued,

will lessen the Duty on Coals, to the Prejudice of the Crown,

much more than the Duties on Glass-wares will amount to;

will hinder the employing great Numbers of Poor; and, in

great measure, lose the Glass Manufactures of this Kingdom.
And, that as to the Petition of
John Bellingham,
and others,

for the Continuance of the present Duty.

It appeared to the committee that the

petition was procured by the

commissioners of the glass

duty, and made use of

for delay only, in the

proceedings upon the
other petitions. For

which, and divers other
reasons, the committee came

to the resolution following:
Resolved,
That it is the Opinion of this

Committee, That the said Petition is groundless.

The said Resolutions, being severally read a

Second time, were, upon the Question severally
put thereupon, agreed unto by the House.

Ordered,
That Leave be given to bring in a

Bill for taking off the remaining Duties upon

Glass-wares: And that Mr.
Freeman,
Sir

John
tax on glass was so vexatious

was the way its application

interfered with the running

of the glasshouse. That on

coal, charged at source on the

wholesaler, was not so.

The Bill was read for the first

time on 6 April. But the business

was not yet complete. A new

petition emerged from the wealthy

individuals who had invested

money in the Act and still wished for

security it respect of it. This was to be

considered when the new Bill was read

for a second time. An interim report,
fn

15 April, suggested that this would be

achieved through the duties on shark fins

(that almost brought Iceland to its knees)

and Scots linen.
The estimated accounts presented 17

April appear to indicate a rough parity

between the old and the new tariffs. These

were amended slightly by Sir John Packington

from those of the committee before approval by

the House the following day. The third reading

was passed on 18 April and taken by Sir John to

the Lords where it was agreed on 25 April 1699
without amendments. Gratifyingly, the King’s

plea had also received a positive response in the
process.

Thus the actual period of the duty ran for

approximately four years rather than five as is

sometimes stated. Nevertheless, it was a period of

extreme duress for the glass industry and the trades

with which it had been associated for taxation pur-
poses. As today, a wholly commercial finance-based
industry cannot work if the money is removed by
the government from those who both make and

buy the products of manufacture. If manufacturing

fails the artisans are thrown out of work without a
source of income and become a burden on the

nation. In the 17th century the solution
was the workhouse and although

not addressed here a survey of
a number of workhouses

were carried out by parlia-
ment during this period.

Tax income for the govern-

ment falls and as Davenant

wisely said in 1695 regarding

the war with France: `If we in England

can put our affairs into such a posture

as to be able to hold out in our expense

longer than France, we shall be in a posi-
tion to give the peace; but if otherwise,

we must be content to receive it.

England did ‘give the peace’ and it was

another 47 years before glass taxation

again raised its ugly head.

Simple heavy baluster goblet of circa 1700.

It is amazing how quickly this new style

emerged within months of the repeal of

the glass duty. Glass was bought by weight

at that time and I wonder if the produc-

tion of a heavy goblet minimized both the

time and the wastage
in

production and so

helped the glasshouse owner catch
up
on

his profits. Ht. 18 cm.

Glass Circle News Vol. 33 No. 1

NEWS

A hunting goblet

T
erry Clarke had never bought glass

before as he’d spent his adult life

collecting maritime artefacts. However,

finding fresh nautical pieces increasingly

difficult to buy at affordable prices, he

decided to turn his
eye to a new field.:

by Andy

commemorative rummers.
Having been a beater on a shoot for

many years, and being something of a

countryman, his eye was struck by the

goblet (pictured) which was for sale at a
local antique centre. It bears the wheel-

engraved toasts: THROUGH THE
BROOM and INTO THE ROUGH

on one face, matched by a running fox on

the other. Beneath these are two parallel
bands above a series of rolling scrolls.

The dealer admitted that he wasn’t a

glass specialist, but suggested a date of
c1880. A price of £300 agreed, Terry
marked his first venture into a new field.

Most collectors of antique glass would

dispute this date, so the question is when
was Terry’s glass made and decorated?

The choices would appear to be either

circa 1780 or 1925. The engraving,
clearly by a Bohemian or Czech hand

looks right, but the shape of the glass it

is applied to looks suspicious, appearing
to be more early-20th than late-18th

century. The foot, which is very flat,
shows a great deal

of wear, possibly

too much, even for 230 years of use. Its

colour is also suspicious, being faintly
yellow rather than the grey that one

would expect from an antique. When
tapped, the bowl rings slightly, but not

with the clear, harmonious tone usually
heard in English 18th century crystal.
Glasses of this type were widely repro-

duced during the 1920s in Stourbridge,

Edinburgh and Czechoslovakia, and my

diagnosis is that, sadly, Terry’s goblet falls
into this category. However, Terry wasn’t

disappointed, and buying an example of

an early 20th century reproduction is a
great deal better than being duped into

parting with money for one of the fake

FIAT and other Jacobite commemora-

tive motifs reputedly being applied to

period glasses today by certain British
engravers.
Hunting
scene goblet

McConnell

GC visit to the Nazeing Glass Works
n 24 September last year, ten of us

%../ from the Glass Circle went on a

group visit to the Nazeing Glass Works

and the Museum of 20th Century British
Domestic Glass at Broxbourne.

by Marianne Scheer

After an illustrated talk on the history

of the firm by Stephen Pollock Hill,
the Director, we were taken round the

factory where we saw railway warning-

lamp lenses being made as well as

learning about explosion-proof windows
for prisons. There are some 600 types of

lenses made not just for the railway signal
industry, but also pavements, wall blocks

and decklights. Diversification into glass

components for industry may be a prime
reason why Nazeing has survived (as has
Plowden and Thompson) where other

glassworks have gone under.
There is still a domestic side — mainly

in blowing and press-moulding. The

group watched some of the finishing
Londonontap carafe

processes for the contract to make the
London on Tap carafes which Nazeing

won last year. This was an initiative set
up by the Mayor of London in 2008 as

an open competition to design an iconic
carafe, to serve tap water in restaurants,
bars and hotels throughout the capital.
It was won by Neil Barron, a London-

based industrial designer and part-time

senior tutor at the Royal College of Art.

The carafes (pictured) are currently
being made in green, blue, clear and
frosted and are retailing at £10 each.
The Nazeing Glass Museum of 20th

Century British Domestic Glass grew

from Stephen Pollock Hill’s personal

collection of English post-war glass.
There are over 1000 pieces spread
over four rooms, including the library,

study room, and a walled garden. It
tells the history of almost 80 British

glass factories that operated between

1900 and 2000. It is open Mondays to
Fridays from 10.30 a.m. until 3.30 p.m.,

admission £2.50. Further information
on +44 (0)1992 708250 or museum@

nazeing-glass.co.uk.
I thought the carafes well worth having

(they may become collectors’ items of

the future); ordering information is at
http:/ /www.londonontap.org.

Glass Circle News Vol. 33 No. 1

NEWS

Outside the comfort zone

s a simple collector of antique Eng-
ish drinking glasses, my forays into

some of the other worlds of glass some-

times leave me cold. Just recently, I was
quite stunned. The new Litvak Gallery

in Tel Aviv, with its
by Stephen

8,000 square feet of

exhibiting magnificence, was outside my

comfort zone, but I found it awe-inspir-
ing. As you enter the gallery, enormous

glass sliding doors open to reveal a vast
area with 20-foot high ceiling.

The gallery is Muly Litvaks hobby;

and what a hobby. He is already well-

known for his support for contemporary

glass artists, and he has attracted much
admiration for his displays at the annual

SOFA exhibitions (Sculpture Objects

and Functional Art) in Chicago and
Santa Fe.

The opening exhibition, `Trends in

Contemporary Glass Sculpture, featured
23 of the world’s leading exponents of the

studio glass movement including Vidal/

Cigler, Dale Chihuly, Julius Weiland and

Lucio Bubacco. Some may find the vari-

ety of great works on display too much;

future exhibitions will centre more on

individual artists rather than the studio

glass movement in general. But this exhi-

bition was meant as a `splash’ on the stu-

dio glass stage, to attract as many as pos-

sible and to spread the word. To this end,
Litvak has succeeded to a high degree.
If you like colour, there was colour.

Classic Dale Chihuly, Lino Tagliapietra

and the fabulous glass instruments of
Davide Salvadore. Set apart in a black
room was a stunning display from

Murano by Lucio Bubacco, entitled

`Eternal Temptation’ featuring the battle
between Good and Evil.

Those who prefer the simplicity of

early 18th century balusters to the multi-

coloured twists of the mid-18th century
might like the monochrome creations

of the Czech and

Slovakians. Their ‘fa-

ther’, Vaclav Cigler, is an important figure

in the studio glass movement — as read-

ers who saw his first British one-man

show in Sunderland’s National Glass

Centre will know. His pieces are made

of the highest quality optical glass. One
creation, entitled ‘Optic Round Pano-
rama’ is only 23.5cm H x 36cm D, a col-

ourless hemisphere of solid warmth and

Saturno
by Lino Tagliapietra

profound reflection, in which, when one

peers deeply, it seems that all of life can

be seen. It weighs around 30 kilos.
The curator, Ronen Mechanik, enjoyed

telling me just what is involved when

transporting Cigler pieces around the

world. Not only must they be packed to
avoid a chip or a scratch, but they try to

avoid leaving fingerprints on the pieces as
well: lifting, moving, stabilising, packing,

transporting, and then performing the
reverse procedures. As we know, this is

part of what makes glass valuable: its

survival.

Sometimes breakage is not a major

worry: Ann Wolff’s creations are made
from such heavy, solid pieces, that an

earthquake would probably send them
through the floor — without a scratch.
Would I now buy some contemporary

glass?

To do this, I would have to exit my

comfort zone. What this expo reminds
me, is that there is an enormous art world

out there and not just for glass. I have the

honour to know some people who are

`very involved’ in art nouveau, and have

often been tempted to delve. Buying one
piece to look at and enjoy is one thing.
But building a collection is another, for

that involves deeper knowledge on the

subject, research, study and discussion.
When we have visitors, my wife warns

them not to ask me about the glass in
our collection, for she knows I won’t

stop — especially as the guest is always
fascinated that, within the tiny subject

of primarily early to mid 18th century

English drinking glasses, there is already

an incredible variety.
I shall stick to what I know, although

the temptation to purchase a quality

modern piece was great. There is no

question that most of the pieces for sale
had more impact than the plain drinking

glasses in my cabinet at home. So they
should, at the prices they commanded.
That said, I am grateful to the Glass

Circle for inspiring me to introduce

myself to Muly Litvak and his team and

to be exposed to the very special world of

studio glass.

See http://litvak.com for more details.

Pohlmann
©

An
dre
a

Kro
t
h

Lost
Blues
by Ann Wolff

Optic Round Panorama
by Vaclav Cigler

Glass Circle News Vol. 33 No. 1

English or a continental example of ruby overlay 1840s

Mid-Victorian rinser with decoration in engraved gold leaf
MEETINGS

Refraichissoirs or
wine glass coolers

Report of the Glass Circle meeting on 9 February
given by Peter Kaellgren, PhD

r Kaellgren’s copiously-illustrated talk selected the best from 144

L./wine glass rinsers in the Royal Ontario Museum where he was

until his recent retirement keeper of Western Art and Culture. Most

of these had been acquired from the collection of Donald James, a
former member of the Glass Circle who bought mostly in New York
and London. The full collection gathered together over 350 exam-
ples, which shows what members of the Glass Circle can achieve by

pursuing their chosen interests. Often James would acquire a set of

six just to make sure he owned all of the important ones.
Wine glass rinsers seem to be somewhat neglected in the literature

on historic glass. Peter Kaellgren began by reviewing the origins of

wine glass rinsers, looking at silver, porcelain and ceramics too —
hallmarking being helpful in dating certain styles. He then traced the
evolution of having chilled and rinsed wine glasses at the table. Some

of the most celebrated examples were created by the Isaacs family of
Bristol around 1800, including the blue one pictured here and an

unusual opaque white, edge-gilded with a similar Greek motif — the
favourite of Ken Greenstein, who inherited the collection and who

came to England to be present at the lecture.
The wide range of examples from the James Collection allowed

Kaellgren to trace developments through the Regency and Victorian

periods and on into the early 1900s, when polite society in Britain

and North America revived the use of finger bowls and wine glass
rinsers. From about the 1890s to the turn of the century, there had

been virtually no examples made. The revival around 1900 came

about when Empire, Regency and Biedermeier tastes signalled a

return to genteel living.
The form of vessel used to rinse and chill wine glasses varied over

the years. The talk focussed on the bucket or bowl form which had

one or two spouts on the rim to support the stem of the wine glass

while the bowl rested in the cool water. Early examples were relatively
plain, but later ones had wheel-engraved, frosted, electroplating
and gilded decoration — the latter including the Victorian craft of

potichomanie
or decoupage on the inside of the glass.

Individual wineglass coolers were introduced to the English

dining-table during the 1750s and generally matched the other
tableware as part of a set. Occasionally this would include an

heraldic coat-of-arms or other wheel-engraved family device. One

of the most luxurious of the mid-Victorian rinsers in the James

Collection was the one (middle picture) with exceptional decoration

in engraved gold leaf. The arms are those of a nobleman who was

a member of the Order of the Garter, most likely the Marquess of

Hertford. Some rinsers had matching plates or stands, though the

speaker thought this was probably not a general practice and it may
occasionally have been coincidental that a rinser would fit onto a

matching plate from the same set.
Those who attended the lecture saw some 77 examples of these

small utilitarian objects starting with a type that could date any time
between 1760 and the 1830s, and ending with an engraved Steuben
made in Corning between 1930 and 1960 (and purchased on eBay

in 2002). It almost seems a shame that fridges and liquid ice bottle-

cozies have led to the demise of this attractive piece of tableware.
Ed.

Bristol blue c.1800 decorated by Isaac Jacobs

Glass Circle News Vol. 33 No. 1

OBITUARY

Ronald Stennett-Willson: an appreciation

Ronnie Stennett-Willson was born on 23
November 1915 and died on 27 November

2009 aged 94.

D
onnie Stennett-Willson was prob-

ably the most dynamic figure in

post-war British glass. He founded

Wedgwood Glass, ran retail and whole-

sale companies, wrote books on contem-
porary glass, was Reader in Glass at the
Royal College of Art and designed hun-

dreds of items of artistic and production

glassware.

More influentially, though untrained

in business or design, his greatest
achievement was as an early propagandist

who persuaded the British public to

abandon its fondness for the security
of Regency Revivalism in favour of the

dangers of modern design. Derivatives of

the Swedish glass he championed during

the 50s and 60s remain available today in

department stores across the world.
Stennett-Willson rose to international

prominence after 30 years in glass as the
founder, managing director and designer

of Lynn Glass, founded at King’s Lynn

in 1967, and taken over by Wedgwood
two years later. He managed Wedgwood

Glass and designed every element of its
ranges until his retirement in 1979.
Stennett-Willson was an unusual

hybrid who combined the roles of

importer, distributor, designer, academic

and entrepreneur. Acting as a travelling

salesman, then managing director and
talent scout for his various enterprises

placed him face to face not only with

designers and manufacturers but also

with professional buyers and individual
customers. Witnessing at close quarters

what sold, who bought it and how much
they were prepared to pay for it, gave him
a clear understanding of the market.

by Andy McConnell

By persuading department store

buyers and the managers of Britain’s
china and glass shops towards the

virtues of modern design, Stennett-

Willson probably did more than any

other to break the stranglehold over
the high street previously enjoyed
by Stourbridge’s big four cut-crystal

makers: Webb Corbett, Thomas Webb,

Stuart and Royal Brierley.
Stennett-Willson was fluent in the

language of contemporary glass. He

wrote the text and laid out the pages for
his two influential books:
The Beauty

of Modern Glass
Studio Publications,

1958 and
Modern Glass
Studio Vista,

1975, both largely based on photographs

drawn from recent
Studio Yearbooks of

Decorative Art.

He visited most of Scandinavia’s

leading glassworks, both as a buyer and

as a commissioning designer, and for
many years enjoyed exclusive British

distribution rights to the output of the

Swedish glassworks Orrefors, Kosta
and Pukeberg. Orrefors is widely

acknowledged as the 20th century’s most
influential glassmaker.
Ronald Stennett-Willson was born

in Padgate, Cheshire, in 1915. Educated

at local state schools, he moved to

London as a boy with his mother and

stepfather. After leaving school he
worked until 1939 as a junior at Rydbeck
& Norstrom, a London-based importer
of Swedish glass. At the outbreak of the

Second World War, he joined the Royal

Tank Regiment and became a gunnery
instructor at Hunstanton. Rising to the
rank of captain, he later served under

Montgomery in North Africa and led

a special tank force during the D-Day
landings.
After the war, he rejoined Rydbeck

& Norstrom until 1951 when he was
appointed sales manager of J Wuidart

& Co, importers of Orrefors and Kosta

glass and Rorstrand ceramics. During

this period he became managing director

of Wuidart and designed several ranges of

glassware. Invitations to tender for their

production were declined by traditional
British glassworks and they had to

be subcontracted to various Swedish

glassworks,

including

Bjorkshults,

Ekenas, Stromberg and Johnansfors. In

1953, Stennett-Willson hired a young
travelling salesman, Frank Thrower,

whose later career mirrored that of his
former boss as the founder and principal

designer of Dartington Glass from 1967.
In 1959, Stennett-Willson was

commissioned to design several ranges

for Lemington Glass, a GEC subsidiary
based in Newcastle upon Tyne. In the

following year, his suite of
Canberra

vases for Lemington, intended for use

of the P&O liner, won the Duke of
Edinburgh’s Design Centre Award.
Stennett-Willson left Wuidart in

1961 to spend six years as the Reader

in Industrial Glass at the Royal College

of Art during what is widely regarded

as its golden age. He joined at the per-

sonal invitation of its principal, Sir
Robin Darwin, whose declared mission

was to transform the college from the

stagnant club for posh arty types that it

had become into a powerhouse of indus-

trial design and a magnet for talent. To

achieve this objective, the college was to
provide, as he put it, courses of a thor-

oughly practical nature in all primary
industrial fields’ under the tutelage of

country’s leading exponents. Stennett-
Willson’s contemporaries at the RCA

included many of the pivotal figures in
British post-war design, such as Rob-

ert Gooden, in silversmithing, David

Queensberry in ceramics, David Pye in

furniture and Kenneth Grange in prod-
uct design. Embracing Darwin’s vision,

Stennett-Willson typically installed the

RCAs first glass furnace and several of

his students later emerged as pioneers of

the British Studio Glass movement.
In his spare time between 1963-66, he

and his future wife, Elizabeth Martens

whom he married in 1968, owned and
managed Choses, an
avant-garde

lifestyle

shop in Hampstead. Its ranges were
revolutionary for the period, spanning

fabrics, teak and pine furniture, ceramics,

stainless steel, lamps and, of course, glass.
His early attempt to buy butchers’

aprons for Choses was refused by the

wholesaler on the ground that it did

not sell meat. Inspired by his skills at
retail display, the ceramicist Bernard

Leach said that Stennett-Willson was

Glass Circle News Vol. 33 No. 1

llec
t
ion
/
An
dy
Mc
Conne
ll/
G
la
ss
Etc

Duncan
Ro
bin
son
/
An
dy
Mc
Conne
ll/
G
lass
Etc

1
g
0

Coo
ky
Co
llec
t

ion

OBITUARY

the only person who could arrange three

pots together on a shelf and make them
talk to one another. Terence Conran, a

frequent visitor to Choses, borrowed

from the Stennett-Willson template

with Habitat, which he opened in 1964.
Between 1964 and 1996, running

concurrently with his jobs at the RCA

and Choses, Stennett-Wilson also
founded and managed Wilmart, a

London glass importer and wholesaler.

In 1963 he was elected a Liveryman of

the Worshipful Company of Glaziers

and became a Freeman of the City of
London.
A chance conversation in Choses with

a customer, Sir William Gorell-Barnes,
led to the foundation of what was to

become Wedgwood Glass. Goren-

Barnes, a civil servant, had been one of
the `flying knights’ who had commuted

between London and Brussels during

1961-63 while negotiating Britain’s entry

into the Common Market. He observed
that Stennett-Willson had spent his

entire working life importing, designing,

and selling increasingly fashionable

glassware and suggested that he should

run his own glassworks. Further, he

offered to arrange the finance necessary

to do so.
Two years later in 1967, and with

the aid of regional development grants,

Lynn Glass fired the first of its four

furnaces. The initial workforce totalled
35, including 15 skilled Swedish

glassmakers. In two years the payroll had
increased to 50 and eventually to more

than 100.
Lynn was one of three Anglo-Swedish

glassworks successfully established

in Britain during the 1960s, which
borrowed shapes and colours from

the Swedish repertoire and employed

Swedish glassmakers to form them.

The first, Caithness Glass, had been

founded in Wick, Scotland, in 1961
under Domhnall O’Broin, who had

studied at the Orrefors Glass School.
Ironically, within months of Lynn

opening, Stennett-Willson’s protégé,
Frank Thrower, who had followed a

similar professional route, founded his

own and ultimately more successful

glassworks, Dartington, at Great
Torrington in North Devon. Dartington,

which recruited 20 Swedes including its
managing director Eskil Wilhelmson,

eventually employed more than 300.
Lynn’s initial product range included

several of Stennett-Willson’s best
designs, notably including the disc-
Two fruit bowls and a footed serving

bowl designed by Stennett-Wilson at

King’s Lynn.

Stonehenge,
1967

Sheringham candlesticks, 1967
stemmed Sheringham candlestick. Kings

Lynn’s proximity to the Sandringham

estate encouraged several royal purchases

and commissions, and the company won

the Queen’s Award for Industry in its

first year.
Arthur Bryan, appointed in 1967 as

chairman of Wedgwood, the historic

Stoke-based pottery, was eager to expand

his company and saw the potential for

many gains in the acquisition of Lynn:

for one thing its salesforce could to sell

glassware alongside its traditional ranges.
A price of £150,000 was agreed and

Lynn Glass became Wedgwood Glass in

1969, with Stennett-Willson retaining

his combined roles of managing director

and designer.
His familiarity with Scandinavian

glass, dating from 1935, left an indelible
impression on Stennett-Willson the

designer. He drew influences from the

Finns Kaj Franck, Tapio Wirkkala

and Timo Sarpaneva; the Swedes

Edvin Ohrstrom, Sven Palmqvist, Nils

Landberg, and the Danes Jacob Bang

and Per Liitken. Of them all, he declared

Lutken as his favourite: ‘Glass possesses

two lines: the inner and the outer. Liitken

appreciated that and exploited it in his

designs better than any other’. While
many of Stennett-Willson’s designs were

derivative, his best works, notably the

unique studio pieces, stand comparison

with many illustrious names.
Increasingly stifled by Wedgwood’s

corporate structure and what he

considered to be Arthur Bryan’s

interference, Stennett-Willson retired in

1979. Wedgwood filled the creative void
left at Lynn by his departure through

acquiring control of Dartington and

appointing Frank Thrower as chief
designer of both glassworks.

Stennett-Willson remained in glass,

creating a new venture with Paul Miller,
formerly his head gaffer, at Lynn. A

studio glassworks, Langham, was
established in the Norfolk village of the

same name although the association was

terminated in 1987, leaving Miller to run
Langham to the present day.
Enjoying a renaissance in the

popularity of his glass designs amongst
collectors, Stennett-Willson attended

and reminisced at length to an audience

at a retrospective exhibition of his life’s

work at King’s Lynn Arts Centre in 2004.

This obituary appeared in
The Times

on 2 January 2010.

Glass Circle News Vol. 33 No. 1

BOOK NEWS & REVIEWS

British Glass
Charles Hajdamach
20th Century British Glass

Antique Collectors’ Club, 2009
£49.50

480 pages and 974 illustrations.

ISBN 978-1851495870

I n the last issue of
Glass Circle News
I

I observed that just a handful of truly

worthwhile, large books have been

written on British glass in the last 100
years. Charles Hajdamach is the first to

have written two. This one was compiled

over two decades and is stuffed with so
much material that its editors have often

been unable to keep text and illustrations

on the same page, which causes a lot of
toing-and-froing.
By definition such books are not an

easy read, particularly when describing

a century that witnessed great social,

aesthetic and technological changes. An

author could do it:

•
by decade;

•
following an individual maker or

factory throughout the period;

•
by type of glass.

Alternatively, British glassmaking could
be divided into 4 periods:

•
to 1914, the Edwardian period really

being a continuation of Victorian
progressive philosophy;

•
1918-39, as illustrated in the

Broadfield House catalogue
Between

the Wars;

•
post-war Britain to 1985;

•
1985 to now covering the virtual

extinction of all UK hand-made

glass manufacture and the rise of the

studio glass movement.

Hajdamach has chosen to do both,

which he probably had to do, but it does
not make for consistency. For instance

the chapter on cameo glass covers both

pre-1914 and its late-20th century

revival.
Hajdamach’s first book was the

story of ever-increasing technical and
commercial success, with buyers in the

UK and throughout the Empire eagerly
embracing new ideas. The 20th century

is a different story. The Empire declined

and a combination of unadventurous

glasshouse management, and (perhaps

even more important) unimaginative
traditional

British

middle-class

consumers, stifled almost all attempts

at originality. Broadly speaking, the
British have no feel for objects. Unless
the item suits a ‘china cabinet, they have

no use for it. The concept of buying an

object d’art,
positioning it and lighting it

appropriately is anathema to the average
Briton. Even pieces made by studio glass

artists today find themselves in cabinets.

Anne Dickinson, one of Britain’s best

glass artists, is represented by a gallery
abroad. When the Studio Glass Gallery
near Marble Arch, London, exhibited

the best of Czech glass, virtually all

its customers were foreigners. Factory
production died in the UK, beaten by
cheap labour and better design from

continental Europe.
This book is effectively a requiem to

the UK glass industry, with Dartington,
Nazeing and Tudor Crystal (now
owned by Plowden & Thompson) being

virtually the only survivors. And one has

to worry about Tudor Crystal whose

latest range is called
Titanic.
All owe

their survival to being quick on their feet.

Nazeing for instance, specialises in short
production runs and making quirky

objects such as the coloured glasses for

traffic lights and railways.
The book starts with a description

of the fine, if paternalistic, companies

extant in 1900. Continuing to
Edwardian England, it shows an
by
Har
die
Wi
lliams°

Hand-painted work in the 1930s [Plate 229]

Geoffrey Baxter [Plate 669]
Pyrex, [Plate 473]

Alexander Hardie Williamson’s designs for Ravenhead [Plate 783]

Glass Circle News Vol. 33 No. 1

BOOK NEWS

&
REVIEWS

industry still buoyant and able to
respond to the ideas of art nouveau

coming from continental Europe. The

interwar years are represented, amongst

others, by the infamous Mrs Elizabeth

Graydon Stannus, her art glass and her
fakes, examples of both of which are still

displayed in our national museums. The
V&A has a fake 1720s jug and her art

glass features the 1920s section.
The longest chapter in the book (54

pages) is entitled ‘Sophistication and

Style in British Art Deco Glass’. Some
of this glass is good, but so commercially

unsuccessful at the time that its rarity

commands relatively high prices. The

designers Clyne Farquharson and the

better-known Keith Murray, who also

designed ceramics for Wedgwood, are

given justified prominence. The artistic
movement, such as it was, led to the

commercially unsuccessful exhibition of

1934, held at Harrods, London, titled
‘Modern Art for the Table’, where major

artists of the day displayed their ‘designer
tableware’.
Enamelled glass, either hand painted

or machine printed, appears in three
different chapters. Although less

imaginative than equivalent Czech pieces,

which some members will recall from
recent trips there, this technique remains

under-appreciated in the UK. I am sure

that Hajdamach’s lengthy analysis of this

genre will provoke a reassessment. Hand-

painted work was carried out in the

1930s. [Plate 229] The post-war years
saw a wide variety of machine-printed
kitchenware. Starting with Pyrex, [Plate

473] which the author collects, then
Alexander Hardie Williamson’s designs

for Ravenhead [Plate 783] in the 60s,

and then in the 70s, 80s and 90s, when

we see wonderful machine-printed

glasses commemorating elections,
Coronation Street,
and even a commission

by Damien Hurst [Plate 870]. Trust me,

these will be future collectors’ items.
After 1945, the production of luxury

items was forbidden for several years,

and later attracted such punitive luxury

tax rates that it was not until the 1960s

that much distinctively ‘modern glass

was produced in Britain. Barring a
few exceptions, Stourbridge continued
much as before, producing largely staid

cut glass almost indistinguishable

from its Edwardian or Regency roots.

But Whitefriars in London, under

the design leadership of Geoffrey

Baxter [Plate 669], King’s Lynn under
Ronald Stennett-Willson
(see
page 17),

Dartington under Frank Thrower and
Caithness under Domhnall O’Broin,

embraced colour and the Scandinavian

design aesthetic.
British and Scottish paperweights

are awarded a chapter to themselves,
deservedly so as Scottish paperweights

were one of the commercial success

stories of the post-war era, all based on
the groundwork of Paul Ysart.
The last section is devoted to the

studio glass revolution. With the advent
of affordable electric furnaces, and small

gas glory-holes, British glassmaking has

largely returned to individual workshops.
The long apprenticeship system has

been replaced by art school training.

There are some well-known British

glass artists today, but their influence
on world glass is less than Hajdamach

implies. By coincidence, I have just been

reading
Soviet Glass
by Nikita Vorono

Aurora Art Publishers, Leningrad

1981, naming over 100 glass artists
with biographies mentioned. We still do
not appreciate the quantity or quality

of glass art’ produced behind the Iron

Curtain before the Velvet Revolution

in 1989. The worldwide studio glass
movement is the artistic surprise of the

late 20th century. Tina Oldknow, curator

of contemporary glass at the Corning
Museum of Glass can, off the top of

her head, name a mere half-a-dozen
British artists of international stature

only one of which Hajdamach mentions

and considers British art glass third to
Germany and the Czech Republic in
Europe. Globally speaking, America

leads followed by Japan and Australia.

Commission by Damien Hurst [Plate 870]
Hajdamach has spent all his working life

in and around Stourbridge and perhaps
over-emphasises the importance of the

UK to the international movement,

important though it is nationally.

All those interested in 20th century

British glass should try to read this

book: their efforts will be rewarded.

There is unlikely to be a better book on
the subject for the next twenty years. By

then the passage of time will enable its

author to adopt a long-view perspective.

John P Smith
*Special reader’s offer £39.50 (incl.
P&P) from [email protected]

or 01394 389977. Please quote
‘Glass

Circle News
offer’.

Scottish glassmaking
Shiona Airlie and Brian Blench
400 Years of Glassmaking,

Cortex Design 2010

£14.99
77 pages with over 200 photographs

and illustrations
ISBN 978-0954919658

c
overin
g
the period 1610 to 2010, this

is the first general history of Scottish

Glass aimed at the general reader. Topics
include: glasses used by Prince Charles

Edward in 1745; bottles from the 18th

and 19th centuries; Clutha glass; Scottish
engravers; collectors’ items from Monart,

Ysart, Vasart, Strathearn to Alison
Kinnaird, Perthshire paperweights and

much more.

Available from:

wvvvv.cortex-design.co.uk/ or

+44 (0)121693 6669

Objects of desire
Simon Bruntnell

Objects of Desire

Self-published 2010

£15 p&p free to the UK
72 pages, full colour

C imon Bruntnell is a photographer,
who has gained a reputation for

photographing contemporary glass art.

This book features 43 different artists

with students and well-known names

in contemporary glass presented in the

Glass,Cirde News Vol. 33 No. 1
21

V OHN

KOTHGASSER

n
Brun

tn
e
ll

publication side-by-side. Also shown are

some of the faces behind the glass, with

previously unpublished portraits. Are
these collectors’ pieces of the future?

Available from:

www.northlightphotography.co.uk/

objects-of-desire-book-sale.htm

or +44 (0)1384 399 465

Roman London
John Shepherd and Angela Wardle
The Glass
Workers
of Roman London

Museum of London Archaeology,

2009

£6.95.

64 pages full colour.

ISBN 978-1901992847

This is an easy-read account mainly of
one archaeological site, 35 Basinghall

Street, where, exceptionally, over

70kg of broken glass and production

waste relating to glass working, was

discovered in 2005. Glass making from
batch materials has not been confirmed

in London; on the other hand, cullet
from various sources was remelted on

a regular basis and used to create new

Reconstructed Roman furnace
vessels. This book outlines the finds and,

in conjunction with Mark Taylor and

David Hill, reports tests on experimental

furnaces (see picture) used for this

process. They also describe in detail how

such vessels were thought to have been

made.
In spite of its small size the book

is supported by numerous large clear

illustrations relating to all aspects of
the work involved and explains how an

analysis of the thousands of fragments

and wasters found can be used to
establish the types of vessels that were
made in the second century AD.
A separate section indicates the

approximate locations of 26 sites in
London where glass working debris

suggests a similar activity, occasionally in

conjunction with pottery making. Most
fall within the London Wall although a

few have been found outside.
As a non-technical introduction to

some of what went on under the well-

worn streets of London this little book is

highly recommended.
Further details about the 26 sites

compiled with the help of John Shepherd
is listed on David Watts’s website www.

glassmaking-in-london.co.uk.

David Watts

AftC Black offer
I n addition to the reduced prices

I indicated on these pages, A&C Black

(the Editor’s own publisher) has kindly

agreed to give readers a 20% discount on

the three recently-published glass books

listed here, until May 2010. Prices are

shown at the discounted rate and include
postage. Phone the distributor, MDL, on
+44 (0)1256 302699 and quote GLR

3RP when ordering.
The Coffey and Hulse books are useful

additions to the library of the amateur
maker and are both well-illustrated with

step-by-step instructions and invaluable
advice on many aspects of the craft they

are describing.
The Cummings will appeal to

collectors and artists alike. Following

on from his
Techniques of Kiln formed

Glass
(2001) this is a book about the

contemporary scene, showcasing the
work of 51 international glass makers.
Inevitably there are omissions, but major

collectible artists feature in it. Most
talk about the technical aspects of their

work with photographs to illustrate

stages in the making, with some hard-
won secrets shared (though couched

in suitably vague terms). The strength

of the book is in new research on past

and present pate de verre artists, which
Cummings acknowledges is the work of

Max Stewart.
Yvonne Coffey
Glass Jewellery,

2010. £12.79 128 pages. ISBN

9780713679403
Keith Cummings
Contemporary Kiln-

formed Glass: A World Survey,
2009. £24

208 pages. ISBN 9781408100752

Gillian Hulse
Inspirations in Kiln-

formed Glass,
2009. £13.59 128 pages.

ISBN 9781408114377

If you would like to
review
a book

published in 2010, please contact

the Editor with details and we will

try and obtain it for you

Biedermeier enamels
Paul von Lichtenberg
Mohn & Kothgasser: Transparent
Bemaltes Biedermeierglas –
Transparent-Enamelled Biedermeier

Glass
Hirmer Verlag GmbH 2009

€150,
528 pages full colour
ISBN 978-3777439952

The author spoke to the Circle in
December and this book is available

to members at the special price of £100. It

retails for £149.85 from Amazon. Simon

Cottle has a stock of them at Bonhams

and members can order copies from him

(p&p free in the UK or collect from the

office). Cheques should be made payable
to The Glass Circle.

[email protected]

or +44 (0)207 447 7447

Glass Circle News Vol. 33 No. 1

NEWS & DIARY DATES

Letters to
the Editor

Dear Editor,

Best wishes for 2010.

Congratulations on the new

edition of the
Glass Circle

Journal.
It is a valuable addition

to my glass library. Success with

the new activities this year.
Rene Andringa

The Netherlands

Dear Editor,

Congratulations — its a great
issue. I like both the design and

the information.

Jane Shadel Spillman

Curator of American Glass

The Corning Museum of Glass

Dear Editor,

Glass Circle News
121 featured

two coin glasses (pages 3 &

4). The photograph shows

another one, an early cream jug.

The waisted bowl has trailed
decoration at the top and nipt

diamond waies at the base; over

a hollow knop containing a

silver Queen Anne penny dated

1713. The slightly domed foot
has trailed decoration overall.
My wife found it for £20 in a

junk shop, but it was without
its handle. West Dean College

made a new handle and made

an excellent job of it. Some

time ago I took it to one of our

‘specimen meetings and the
unsuspecting experts did not

spot the repair.
ET Udall
Bury St Edmunds

Announcements

In the next issue

Simon Cottle on enamelled

glass produced in 18th century
style in the 1950s
Libby Horner on Frank

Brangwyn’s designs for glass
tableware — if any members
have glasses in their collections

Whitefriars, and can supply

photographs, please contact the
Editor.

ISSN
Readers will note that this issue

is not numbered 122 continuing

from the previous one. We have
changed to this numbering

system because it is useful to
academic writers among the

membership for claiming points

under the Research Assessment

Exercise. So this is Volume 33

(because it is the 33rd year since
it began) and Number 1 Spring

2010 (because it is the first one).

Readership survey
Inside this newsletter is a
readership survey asking

what you want to read about.
You can either post it back to

the address given, or fill out

the online version at http://

www.surveymonkey.com/s/

CZB7X7S, or email glass@

editor.net with your responses.

Visits abroad

GC trip to Liege,

September 2010
The Glass Circle is planning

an overseas trip based in Liege.
The trip is planned for 17th

to 21st September this year.

Among the attractions are: the

Grand Curtius Museum in
Liege; the Groesbeeck de Croix

Museum and archeological
museum in nearby Namur;

the glass museum in Charleroi

(once the centre for European

window glass); the Limoges

enamels at Huy; the Museum
for Angewandte Kunst and
the Romishe-Germanisches in

Cologne, 100 km away — also its

very fine cathedral. Liege can be
reached by Eurostar, changing at

Lille, or we may arrange a coach

from Brussels airport if there’s

enough demand. Full details

are in the enclosed leaflet and at
www.glasscircle.org.

GA trip to Coburg,

May 2011
The Glass Association is inviting

Glass Circle members to join a

visit to the glass collections at

Veste Coburg Castle (over 3500

pieces) including the important

Venetian glass collection put
together by Queen Victoria’s

second son, Duke Albert; also
the modern glass collection

(over 1100 pieces) in the park
of Schloss Rosenau. The GA

would welcome expressions
of interest to gabymarcon@
btinternet.com or +44 (0)7711

262 649.
Diary dates

All dates are 2010 unless

otherwise indicated.

Glass Circle meetings
13 April
Brian Blench on Scotland

& Europe: 400 years of

glassmaking

11 May
Charles Hajdamach, The Robert

Charleston Memorial Lecture:

Sophistication and style in

British 20th century glass

8 June

Andrew Rudebeck on The rise

of British cut glass excluding

wineglasses from 1700 to 1775

Pocket scent bottle, 1691-1714

Other events
London Glassblowing
Peter Layton’s workshop,

62-66 Bermondsey Street, SE1
3UD almost opposite Zandra

Rhodes’s Fashion and Textiles

Museum.
The new exhibition space and

viewing area where visitors can

watch glassmakers at work is

proving popular as passers-by
are attracted and a new clientele
is buying glass.

Exhibitions include:

ReCollect, 12-19 May; summer

open week and sale, 19-25 July.

All 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday
to Saturday. Some Sunday

openings.
www.londonglassblowing.co.uk

Glass Circle News Vol. 33 No. 1

DIARY DATES

Scottish glass: a celebration

March — 31 October

A 400th anniversary exhibition

of glassmaking in Scotland

Aberdeen Art Gallery &

Museum, AB10 1FQ

wwvv.aagm.co.uk or +44

(0)1224 523 700

SE21
The glass and ceramics fair

28 March 10.30 — 4 p.m.

Christison Hall, Dulwich

College, SE21 7LD

A new event featuring up to

eighty exhibitors selling a

selection of glass and ceramics

with an emphasis on quality and
design.

www.gcSE21.com or +44

(0)7887 762 872

Fieldings auction

17 April

Three
centuries of glass go

under the hammer at the fifth

annual glass sale at Fieldings.

There are 800 lots to include

18th century drinking glasses,

19th century Bohemian and
Stourbridge glass, and 20th
century Dartington.

www.fieldingsauctioneers.co.uk

or +44 (0)1384 444140

Exploring the 18th century
Fairfax House, York

A programme of events in

various venues appealing to

18th century afficionados,
including a talk on wines for a

Georgian cellar (15 April), an

ice cream feast (19 September)

and a Georgian antiques
&
wine

dinner (22 October).

www.fairfaxhouse.co.uk or

01904 655543

National Glass Collectors Fair

9 May 10.30 — 4 p.m.

The National Motorcycle
Museum, Solihull B92 OEJ

The fair will include all types

of antique and collectable glass

from 18th century drinking

glasses to contemporary studio

glass.

www.glassfairs.co.uk

Sale of paperweights

19 May

`Fine Paperweights from the
collection of the late Baroness

de Bellet; Bonhams. The sale

features three generations of a

family of collectors and contains

many beautiful floral and

millefiori designs. Highlights up

for auction include the Baccarat
Chouffieur carpet-ground

example (£5,000-7,000), the

unrecorded Baccarat flower

(£7,000-9,000), the Clichy

stylised flower (pictured)
(£3,500-4,500) and the Clichy

bouquet (£6,000-8,000).

Medieval glass for popes,

princes and peasants

Corning Museum of Glass

15 May — 2 January 2011

An exhibition following the
evolution of glass production

Club-Shaped Beaker, southern
Netherlands or northern France,

c. 1500

Cone Beaker, Western Europe,

mid-5th to 6th century

over 1,000 years, from its
height in the Roman Empire,

through the radical social and

political change of the Middle
Ages when all but the simplest

glassmaking techniques were
forgotten, until the golden age

of Venetian glassmaking during

the Renaissance. There will be a

programme of events associated

with the exhibition in Corning
and elsewhere.

vvww.cmog.org
Byzantine glass

27-29 May

A 3-day conference at the

British Museum.

Topics include glass and

mosaics, gold glass, the Lycurgus

Cup, techniques of manufacture,
new discoveries in Byzantine

glass. Confirmed speakers

include: Tassos Antonaras

(Thessaloniki), Claudia
Bolgia (Edinburgh), Cristina

Boschetti (Nottingham), Jas

Elsner (Oxford and Chicago),

Ian Freestone (Cardiff), Yael

Gorin Rosen ( Jerusalem),
Daniel Howells (Sussex), Judith

Mckenzie (Oxford), Martine
Newby, Nadine Schibille

(Oxford), Marianne Stern

(Netherlands), Ann Terry

(USA), Marco Verita (Venice),

Hanna Witte (Germany), David

Whitehouse (Corning), Gary

Vikan (Walters Art Gallery).

www.sussex.ac.uk/arthistory/
Byzantineglass

Paperweight Collecting Circle
5 June

Exhibition and paperweight

making demonstration;

paperweight dealers

Broadfield House Glass

Museum, Kingswinford.

Guild of Glass Engravers

15 June — 15 August

Octagon Room, Fitzwilliam
Museum, Cambridge

The Glass Circle hopes to

arrange a group visit to the

museum and details will be

circulated.

Remarkable Glass

18 June — 17 July
Contemporary Applied Arts,
London

An exhibition of the

Contemporary Glass Society

showcasing work that

demonstrates innovation,

originality and creative

expression within glass making

techniques. The event is

supported by Arts Council
England.

www.caa.org.uk
Art in Action

15-18 July
Waterperry Gardens, nr

Wheatley, OX33 1JZ

www.artinaction.org.uk or +44

(0)20 7381 3192

International Festival of Glass

27-30 August

Various attractions in the Glass

Quarter of Stourbridge.
wwwifg.org.uk

British Glass Biennale

27 August-11 September

Ruskin Glass Centre,

Stourbridge

Judges for the awards, totalling

£7,500, are Annabelle Campbell,
Exhibitions & Collections

Manager, Crafts Council;

Reino Liefkes, Senior Curator

Ceramics & Glass Collection,

V&A Museum; Sylva
Petrova, Director, Institute for

International Research in Glass,
University of Sunderland; Alan

J Poole, Dan Klein Associates;
Corm Reid, glass artist.

International glass
conference

in Scotland

1-4 October

Edinburgh College of Art,

EH3 9DF

There will be three
parallel streams: historical,

contemporary, and paperweights

as well as hot and cold-working

demos.

Confirmed speakers include:
Brian Blench; Jill Turnbull;

Stephen Pollock-Hill; Graham
Cooley; Andy Nowson;

Geoffrey Seddon; Siobhan
Healy; Patty Niemann; Nigel

Benson; Simon Cottle; Susan

Bradbury; Jessamy Kelly; John

Clark; Alison Kinnaird; Eric

Hilton; Andy Nowson; Alastair

Macintosh; Dave Moir; Mike

Hunter; Peter Holmes, Helen

MacDonald; Shona Spinal;
David Hurry; Linda Campbell;

William Manson.

www.scodandsglass400.co.uk

C0t PIGS
&kg

1610

of Glassmaking

2010

Glass Circle News Vol. 33 No. 1

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