The Glass Circle Journal No.2

The Glass Circle 2

The Glass Circle

Edited by

R. J.
Charleston

Wendy Evans and

Ada Polak

Unwin Brothers Limited

First published 1975

ISBN 0 9502121 2 1
Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number

The Glass Circle
President:
R. J. Charleston

Honorary Vice-Presidents:

Dr. Donald B. Harden, FSA

A. J. B. Kiddell

Paul N. Perrot

Committee:
Miss W. Evans
J. Rose

Miss K. Worsley

Honorary Secretary:
Mrs. C. G. Benson,

Honorary Treasurer:

P. H. Whatmoor, ACA,

138 Park West, Marble Arch, London, W2

Single copies of
The Glass Circle 2
may be obtained at a cost of £3. 50

(postage extra: weight packed 15. 9 oz. /450 grams) from the publisher.

Copies of
The Glass Circle 1
may also be obtained from the publisher

at a cost of £2. 50 (postage extra: weight packed 14. 1 oz. /400 grams).
Published and printed by Unwin Brothers Limited, Old Woking, Surrey,

GU22 9LH.

Contents

Page

A Glassmaker’s Bankruptcy Sale
by R. J. Charleston

The Bathgate Bowl
by Barbara Morris

The English Ale Glasses, Group 3. The Tall Baluster and Flute Glasses for Champagne and Ale
by P. C. Trubridge

The Pugh Glasshouse in Dublin
by Mary Boydell

Glass in 18th century Norwich
by Sheenah Smith

Who was George Ravenscroft?
by Rosemary Mendel

How did George Ravenscroft discover lead crystal?
by D. C. Watts

Illustrations
Pages

Figures 1-4 illustrating ‘A Glassmaker’s Bankruptcy Sale’

12-13

Figures 1-5 illustrating ‘The Bathgate Bowl’

24-25

Figures 1-17 illustrating ‘The English Ale Glasses, 1685-1830’

30-36

Figures 1-10 illustrating ‘The Pugh Glasshouse in Dublin’

43-48

Figures 1-8 illustrating ‘Glass in 18th century Norwich’

61-64

Figures 1-7 illustrating ‘How did George Ravenscroft discover lead crystal’?

81-84

Glassmaker s Bankruptcy Sale

by R. J. CHARLESTON

A
Paper read to the Circle on 16 March, 1971.

Some years ago, when I was looking for something
else in the Salt Library at Stafford, I came across

a reference to the Sale of a Bankrupt glassmaker.

The frontispiece of the Sale Catalogue ran as

follows:— ‘A CATALOGUE of the valuable STOCK

OF WINES, ALE, Large Stock of rich Cut and
Plain GLASS, Upwards of 800 unspread coloured

Muff Glass, 30 Tons of Cullet, . . . belonging to

Mr. John Honeybourne, of Moor Lane, In the Parish

of Kingswinford, in the County of Stafford, a Bank-

rupt, which will be SOLD BY AUCTION BY G.

ALLEN: On Monday, the 29th December, 1823, and
three following Days.. .’ (fig. 1).
1

The Honeyborne name was a famous one in the

Stourbridge district. The family fortunes were
established, or certainly confirmed, by Robert

Honeyborne I, who some time before 1725

married Ann Hamond, daughter of Thomas Hamond,

a wealthy glassmaker who owned and ran the Bague
glasshouse at Brettell. There Robert Honeyborne

appears to have joined him, and in 1732 he acquired
land, including Moor Lane, from the Bradley family.
2

He is mentioned in a list of glass-makers working

in the Stourbridge area in 1760, among those mak-

ing ‘flint glass, best and ordinary’.
3

He died in

1769.
4
By his marraige to Ann Hamond he had a

daughter Maria, who in 1745 married John Pidcock
(b. 1717), whose mother was Elizabeth Henzey,

through which connexion he became heir and exe-
cutor to Joshua Henzey, one of the leading figures

in the local glass-trade.
5
Robert Honeyborne’s

wife Ann died in 1727, shortly after the birth of her
daughter, and in the same year that Maria Honey-

borne married John Pidcock, Robert Honeyborne
married Joan Hodgetts.
6

Their son, also called

Robert, was born the following year.
6

On his

father’s death he became the heir to no mean heri-

tage, and was obviously a man of considerable

affluence. He could afford to buy ten shares in the

projected Stourbridge Navigation Company in 1775
or 1776, worth some £3, 500 twenty years later; and a

further three in the Dudley Navigation.? In 1776
‘Honeyborne & Co. ‘ were working a glass house in

Moor Lane, and in 1780
The Birmingham Gazette

carried a notice: ‘German sheet and crown glass.

Honeyborne and Ensell having established a manu-

factory of German sheet and crown glass near

Stourbridge beg leave to inform the public that they

may be supplied with any quantity on the shortest

notice and upon the most reasonable terms.’
8

This member of the Ensell family was Geo,rge
Ensell, who was already established in a glasshouse

in Coalbournbrook, and who in 1778 had received a

premium from what is now the Society of Arts ‘for
making flat glass suitable for picture framing as

good quality as that hitherto imported from
Holland’.
‘
Whether Ensell was the ‘& Co.’ of 1776

is not clear, and it is curious that Robert Honey-

borne, described as ‘gent and white glassmaker of
Moor Lane’ should join forces with a maker of

German sheet and crown. Guttery in his book
From Broad Glass to Cut Crystal
gives it as his

opinion that the glasshouse they worked was

probably one which had belonged to the Seager
family and which had been offered ‘to be let’ in

1771 by Thomas Seager.
10

In the 1780’s and later,

however, there were certainly three glasshouses at

work in Moor Lane. Their history is remarkably
confused. We do not know how long the partnership

with Ensell continued. A George Ensell was a

bankrupt at the Holly-Hall Glasshouse at Dudley in

1786, but the name still appears in a list of local

glassmakers drawn up in 1789.
10

In 1802 Robert Honeyborne II died at the age of

56, leaving £24, 000 to his brother Thomas,
11
who

now appears to have become the head of the family

firm. In 1804 it had the name of ‘Honeyborne and

Batson’, and a bill of that year survives to show
that they were makers of flint glass.
12

In due

course Thomas Honeyborne retired to the life of a

country squire in Cheshire, and the history of the

glasshouse prior to 1823 is shrouded in obscurity.
13

In February, 1824, however, he leased to ‘Joseph

Silvers and Joseph Stevens both of Moor Lane . . .
Glassmanufacturers . . all that Glasshouse now

used for manufacturing of Flint Glass . . . situate

at Moor Lane’ for fourteen years.
14
It has been

stated that the firm of Silvers, Mills and Stevens
had the glasshouse on an annual tenancy between

1815 and 1828, but this does not square with the fact

that John Honeyborne of Moor Lane, when declared
a bankrupt in 1823, owned the contents of the glass-
house, and had moreover in the same year signed

a list of agreed prices rigged up by the provincial

glassmakers.
15
In 1828 Silvers, Mills and Stevens

dissolved their partnership
16
, and in 1833 the firm

name was Joseph Silvers & Co., and it may reason-

ably be supposed that the
‘&
Co’ concealed at least

one member of the Stevens family. After a succes-

sion of partnership changes the firm ultimately be-
came the Stevens and Williams which survives to

the present day.
1 7

A complicating side-issue, as if any were needed,

is that Thomas Honeyborne and Joseph Silvers both

had interests in a glass bottle-house also situated

at Moor Lane.
18
In the 1833 Excise list this had

become Edward Westwood & Co.19

With so much said, let us look at the Sale

Catalogue
(see Appendix).

The frontispiece shows as the first item ‘the

valuable Stock of Wines, Ale . . . ‘, and we may
suppose that this, with the ‘Handsome Cut Glasses’

which follow it in the first day’s sale, came from
Mr. Honeyborne’s residence rather than from the

glasshouse. There are 23 lots of ‘fine flavoured old

port’, each of two dozen, a total of 552 bottles; a

dozen each of ‘Champaign’, claret and ‘Carbonel’,

and four dozen ‘old hock’, the enormous pre-

ponderance of port giving us some insight into the
drinking preferences of our forefathers. Lot 56

was ‘9 dozen of capital ale’ and Lot 57 ‘About 80
gallons of Ditto’, while Lot 58 was simply des-

cribed as a ‘Lot of bottled porter’.
We shall come to the domestic glass later, but

with the wines and beer out of the way, we may

turn to the glasshouse and its workings before

finally considering the glass itself. As with inventor-

ies, it should be remembered that the sale moves

from area to area of the building concerned, and
in this sale we are taken successively from the

yard to the Warehouse, the offices, the Back Yard,

the Sorting Room, the Packing Room, the Pot Room, .

the Washing Room, the Mixing Room, the Store
Room, and last of all, the Glasshouse itself. The
contents of these rooms reflect the activities which

went on in them, although there is a good deal of

overlapping.
It would be logical to start with the raw mate-

rials of glass-making and their preparation, and it

might be useful at this point to look at two alterna-

tive recipes for flint-glass which were in use at

much this time (1834):–
20

White sand
100 parts
White sand
100 parts

Red lead
80-85

Red lead
50-60

Pearl-ash
35-40
Pearl-ash
30-40

Nitre
2 to 3

Oxide of

manganese
0.6
arsenic

0.75 to 1

First, therefore, for the sand. In the yard was a

Sand waggon (I/10),
21

but curiously enough there

is no mention of sand until on the 4th day, in the

Mixing Room, we come to a ‘lot of burnt sand’
(IV/25) and ‘five barrels of batch’ (IV/22). Of

fluxes, there are mentioned a ‘large lot of ashes’

in the yard (I/18), and ‘Twelve casks of American

pearl ashes, in Lots’ in the Warehouse, yard, etc.

(II/11): in the Back Yard was a ‘Lot of potash

settlings’ (IV/8), and there was another lot of the

same, appropriately enough, in the Washing Room

(IV/21), where an ‘oval cooler’, a ‘cast iron mortar

and pestle’, a ‘wire sieve’ and five ‘capital hogshead
iron furnaces’ (IV/9-16) suggest the processes

which went on in the refining of the ashes for use.

In the same room were ‘eight harbours’ and ‘pick-
axe, peel, and scraper’ (IV/20 & 19). Some idea of

the activity in the Washing Room is provided for us

by Dionysius Lardner:
22

‘As already stated, the

quality of glass is influenced by the degree of purity
of alkali. For making the finest flint glass, pearl-

ash, which is potash in a purer form, must be used.

This alkali must previously be still further purified

by solution and subsidence, and then evaporating the

fluid to dryness. By this purification a loss is sus-
tained, amounting to between 30 and 40 per cent.

in the weight of pearl-ash . . . ‘
Lot 17 on the Second Day was ‘Eleven barrels

of red lead—in lots’, and there was no doubt more
lead in the made-up batches already itemised. The

other essential element in making up a batch was

cullet, and of this there were ‘Six casks of cullet

siftings’ in the Back Yard (11/35) and ‘Twenty tons

of white and coloured cullet, in lots’ in the Ware-
house or Yard (II/10). The making up of the batch

took place in the Mixing Room, where, apart from

the items already mentioned, there were ‘two

mixing tubs’, a ‘Large iron furnace’, ‘Two

scrapers’, ‘Sieves and shelves’, a ‘Large scales

and weights’, a ‘lot of bars’ and ‘bend and traces’
(IV/23, 24, 26-30). In most of the rooms there were

weights and measures.
Of the remaining raw materials, antimony,

present as ‘part of a cask of antimony’ in the Old

Office
(I1/26)
and the same in the Washing Room

(TV/17), was probably used as a clarifier of the

metal, while the ‘lot magness’ also in the Washing

Room,was doubtless manganese used as a decolori-
ser. Lot 12 of the Second day’s sale was a ‘cask of
arsnick’ in the Warehouse or Yard, and although it

would be nice to think that this was used to make
opaque-white glass, it is probably more likely that

it was used, as described in Dionysius Lardner’s
Treatise . . . ,
for mitigating the effects of an over-

dose of manganese (producing a purple tinge in

the glass).
23
It could also, however, be used with

caution as a flux and to rid the batch of any

unwanted carbonaceous matter. The next lot was

‘four bags of saltpetre’ (II/13), and again the Rev.

Doctor may be our interpreter: ‘A very small

proportion of nitre is used in the composition of
glass, to occasion the destruction of any carbona-

ceous matter which may exist in the ingredients.

This salt must be added previous to the fusion of
the glass. At a degree of heat much below that of

the furnace, nitre will decompose, giving out much

oxygen, and maintaining such metallic oxides as
may be present in their highest state of oxygena-

tion. It is thus of use in fixing arsenic, the volatile

property of which increases as it approaches the

metallic state.'”
The remaining ingredients were mainly for the

colouring of the metal, and were kept in the Store

Room—a ‘Lot of old coloured glass’, ‘about 6 lbs.

of brass pin dust’ and a ‘Lot of calcined brass’

(IV/32,36-7), the last two items being presumably

for the making of copper- ruby. In the same room

were a ‘Bottle of spirits of salts’, ‘boxes’,

‘shelves’ and a ‘Nest of drawers’ (IV/31, 33-5). I

do not know what the spirits of salts were used for.

The batches having been made up, they were

shovelled into the pots in the furnace, possibly by

means of the ‘wheelbarrow’ and ‘three shovels’

listed there as Lots 41 and 42 of the Fourth day’s

sale. The frontispiece to the Sale
Catalogue
had

referred with special emphasis to the ‘Large Stock

of Glasshouse Pots’, and there were in fact in the
Pot Room ‘Seventy-nine large and small glass-

house pots, in lots’ which formed the last Lot on

the Third day, as well as ‘Ten pots in (the) furnace’

(IV/45). In the Yard were a ‘Pot waggon’ (I/11) and
a ‘Pot ladder’ (?for carrying the pots to the fur-

nace—I/22), and in another Yard a ‘Lot of clay and

wheelbarrow’ (11/14). In the glasshouse itself was
a ‘Lot of pot stoppers’ (IV/44).
25

Of the glass-making processes themselves

there are, not unnaturally, most traces in the glass-

house. There the first lot was ’58 iron pans’

(IV/38), no doubt the ‘fraiches’ in which the finished
glasses were set on their journey through the ‘lehr’

or annealing tunnel. This lot is followed by ‘Three
place irons’, the meaning of which I cannot inter-

pret,
26
and ‘Three cast plates’, possibly the

marvers on which the glass was smoothed as it
came from gathering in the pot (IV/39-40). There

were ‘Thirteen rakes and hooks’ and ‘Two metal

shovels, burs, and hooks’, ordinary glasshouse

instruments for moving pot-stoppers, skimming
glass-gall from pots, etc. (IV/43, 48). In addition

there were ‘Nine decanter machines’ (IV/46), which
were presumably ‘Stampiron’ moulds for the quick

and easy production of decanters of a given capa-
city. Their number reminds us that the Moor Lane

glasshouse was said to have had nine pots in 1796
27

(although at the time of the sale there were ten

pots in the furnace, one of them perhaps being ‘pot-

arched’ or being merely a ‘piling-pot’), and it

would make sense to have one ‘decanter-machine’

for each chair, and one ‘place-iron’ and one ‘cast
plate’ or marver between each three chairs. Other

moulds there were in plenty about the premises.
Lot 15 on the Second day consisted of ‘Ladder and

moulds’ in the Warehouse or yard, and on the follow-

ing day Lot 65 consisted of ‘About 1
1

/
2
cwt. copper

moulds’ and Lot 66 ‘About I cwt. cast iron moulds’
(‘Ditto 1 ditto cast iron ditto’). The moulds would

have been for flint-glass, but one other piece of

equipment throws light on another side of the

works’ production. Lots 4 and 5 on the Second day

were ‘Large brass plate for spreading muffs’ and

‘Six iron ditto’ in the warehouse. We shall return

to this later.
Last of the processes carried on in and about

the glasshouse was the packing of the finished
goods, and in the yard one of the first items to be

mentioned in the
Catalogue

is ‘About 5 tons of

straw’, the main packing-material used in the

glass-industry at this time (I/12). Eight lots later

occurs ‘About 5 cord of crate wood’ and ‘Fifteen

old casks’ (I/20-1). A cord of wood is 128 cubic

feet. In the Old Office was a ‘Lot of packing boxes

and baskets’ (IT/20), and in the Sorting Room a ‘Lot
of baskets’ (11/67).
One mystery surrounds the make-up of the sale

inasmuch as it reflects the working of the factory.
There is no mention of cutting- shops or of any

cutting equipment, yet we know that the stock

included cut-glasses. Indeed, the frontispiece

refers to the ‘Large Stock of rich Cut and Plain

GLASS’. This point will be taken up later. From

the working side of the concern, let us turn to the

glasses themselves.

These formed a large part of the contents of

the sale. Naturally enough, the various types

follow no special order, as the auctioneer presum-

ably moved round the Sorting Room. On the other
hand, matching types often follow each other in the

Lots, possibly because that was how they were

arranged in the Sorting Room. Thus, on the First

day’s Sale ‘Six handsome quart jugs’ are followed

by ‘Six ditto pints to match’ (61-2), and ‘Twelve

dozen handsome wines’ by ‘Six ditto ales to match’
(67-8). As already hinted, the glasses sold on the

First Day, all grouped under the heading ‘Handsome

Cut Glass’, seem to be more of the order of a

domestic consignment, being much more limited

in quantity than the glasses sold on the third Day.

Thus Lot 70 on the first Day ‘Six ditto (dozen)
half-pint tumblers’ is matched against ‘Eleven

doz. half pint ship tumblers’ on the third Day

(Lot 19) followed immediately by a further 16

dozen (Lot 20). Furthermore, no items are repeated,

and everything falls into a neat number of round
dozens, whereas on the third Day the same items

recur in several places, and there are broken

dozens and occasionally such approximations as

‘About half cwt. of sorted phials’ (I11/45). It seems

possible that the Lots offered on the first Day, if

not the contents of Mr. Honeyborne’s pantry, were

completed units (pairs in the case of decanters and
jugs, dozens in the case of drinking-glasses)

delivered from some cutting-shop.

28
This impres-

sion is borne out by the fact that Lot 66 on that
Day was ‘Two sets of castors, plated frames’.

By contrast, the items on the third Day may well

have been uncut. Lot 7 refers specifically to a

‘Set of uncut oval dishes’. If this is a rule it may

be proved by the exception. Lot 38 consisted of
‘Five doz. half-pint ship tumblers’, followed by Lot

39 ‘One and a half doz. of cut ditto’, repeated in Lot

40. If this hypothesis be correct, the only form of
decoration directly referred to in the third Day’s

sale may have been achieved by moulding rather
than cutting. This was ‘Twenty-five doz.pint arch

rib goblets’, followed by ‘Two and a half dozen

small ditto’ (111/25-6). If so, these glasses antici-

pate by several years forms which are usually

dated to nearer 1840.
29

As has been hinted, the glasses in the Lots on

the third Day are arranged in no particularly regular
order, and I have tried to reduce at least some of

the types to some sort of comprehensibility. Let
us start first with the drinking-glasses. Wine-

glasses occur under five different descriptions—Cast

foot taper wines, tumbler bowl wines, Gloucester

wines, Claret wines, and small wines, the first
three appellations presumably referring to shapes,

the last two to sizes. The shape-names are all
matched in ‘goblets’, and the pressing question

presents itself ‘when is a goblet not a goblet’?
Fortunately, some light on this question is thrown

from two different sources. One is Apsley Pellatt’s

Price List of about 1840.
3
° The other is a list of

‘Nett Prices of Flint Glass’ issued by W.H. B. and

J. Richardson, of Wordsley on 5 April, 1839.
31
The

order in which the items occur in this list, how-

ever, follows almost exactly that which appears on

a
pro forma

list drawn up in a cartel arrangement

between the provincial glass-makers dated 1823,
32

the very year of our Sale. John Honeyborne, more-

over, was one of the signatories. All that is miss-

ing is the actual prices, and the dangers of arguing

from an 1839 to an 1823 list will not be lost on

people living in an age of inflation. The prices,
however, are invaluable in making possible com-

parisons between different types of glass men-
tioned in the same list.
Apsley Pellatt’s list states ‘Three-to-pint

Goblets, Ales, or Champagnes, about 35 per cent

advance, and half-pint Goblets about double the

price of Wines. ‘ The implication is that these

prices are
pro rata
with the differently priced

styles of decoration which are illustrated in

his list, ranging from 8/- to 21/- a dozen for

wines. Thus the cheapest cut half-pint goblets

would cost about 16/- and the most expensive

about 42/- a dozen. When we look at the Richard-
son List, and compare like with like, we find that

best quality wines with plain stems cost 5/- per
dozen, while best-quality goblets with plain stems

cost 6/-: thistle, ring bowl, hollow stem or thin

top wines cost 7/- per dozen, while goblets of the

same description cost 9/-. This maintains a

differential of something like 35%, and we may
reasonably infer therefore that the standard Stour-

bridge goblet had a capacity of three to a pint.

This is not particularly large. We may also rea-
sonably conclude that none of the glasses in the list

are cut, a deduction borne out by a foot-note to the
effect that ‘All Stoppering, Puntying, or Cutting

Bottoms, &c. will be an additional Charge’.

Let us look at the individual glasses in the Sale

in the light of these distinctions. The first Lot on
the third Day was ‘Four and a half doz. of cast foot

taper wines’,
33

and Lot 8 was ‘Twenty doz(en) 3 to

pint taper goblets’ (fig. 2). The cast foot we may
reasonably suppose was a square or circular foot

of ‘lemon-squeezer’ type: it is not specified for the
goblet. Lot 2 on the same day was ‘Thirteen doz.

of tumbler bowl wines’, followed by ‘Four doz.

quarter pint tumbler bowl goblets’ (fig. 3) and ‘Seven-

teen doz.3 to pint ditto’. This is the only occasion

where a gill glass is referred to as a goblet. The

shape implied by ‘tumbler bowl’ seems self-evident,

and apart from the quarter- and third-of-a-pint

sizes already alluded to, it turns up in the half-pint

size too (111/24, 28). Lot 5 is ‘Eight dozen half pint
Gloucester goblets’ and the next Lot ‘Nine and a

half dozen 3 to pint ditto’. The corresponding wines crop up in Lot 21 ‘Thirteen doz. Gloucester wines’.

Unfortunately, I know of nothing to throw light on

the meaning of this appellation. The period was full

of names of glasses which were just names and

without a clue as to their significance—’Prince of
Wales’, ‘Prussian’,
34
‘Nelson’, ‘York’, ‘Coburgh’,

etc.

Lastly, amongst the goblet designations come

‘Dozen globe goblets’ (III/14), which seems to

imply a rounded bowl-form; and ‘Three and a half

dozen bowl goblets’, which has a similar flavour
(111/17). Apsley Pellatt’s illustrated list has nothing
which wouldfit in with these descriptions, but a

pattern-book of the Edinburgh Glasshouse Company,

Leith, water-marked 1811, has a series of four

glasses which might correspond (fig. 4). They are
what would normally be termed ‘rummers’, but

this word only occurs twice in our Sale—Lots 48

and 49 on the third Day list ‘Eight and a half
doz . . . ‘ and ‘Six and a half doz. large rummers’.

Perhaps these were larger goblets of a pint or

so capacity. The term does not appear in the

price-lists.

Two further terms among the descriptions of

drinking-glasses require attention. Amongst the

‘Handsome Cut Glass’ of the first Day’s Sale

were ‘Six ditto (dozen) claret wines’ (I/69).

Apsley Pellatt in his rubric to the section on

‘Wine Glasses’ shows one form (88) at 8/- per

dozen, 9/6d in a larger size, 10/6d for small

claret, and 12/- for large claret, adding a foot-

note: ‘Clarets and Hocks about 25 per cent

advanced on the price of Wines’, which seems to
agree well enough. The 1823 provincial list does

not mention clarets, but Richardson’s 1839 list

gives ‘Clarets as Wines’. Conversely, the 1823
list gives ‘Hock Glasses, common shape . . . per

lb. more than Wines’, the blank being unfortunately

not filled in. There are no hock-glasses named as
such in the Honeyborne Sale
Catalogue.

Last among the wines come ‘Ten dozen small

wines’ as Lot 30 on the third Day’s sale. Apsley
Pellatt says in the foot-note to his section on

‘Wine Glasses’—’Liqueurs about 10 per cent less

than Wines’. The provincial lists do not recognize

this refinement, but their system would have been ,

able to absorb its introduction on the basis of a

price per pound for certain types of work. The

Kosta illustrated price-list of 1855
36
shows under

liqueur-glasses exactly the same shapes as occur

under wine-glasses, only the size being different.

The liqueur-glass with pointed bowl and button

stem is expressly recognized as ‘English’.

When we come to ale-glasses, much the same

picture awaits us. We have already seen that

amongst the richly cut glasses ‘Twelve dozen
handsome wines’ were followed by ‘Six ditto ales

to match’, and this formula of ales matching wines

is repeated in the third Day’s sale. In Lot 12 we

have ‘Three and a half doz. cast feet ales’ to

match the ‘cast foot taper wines’ (Lot 1), and in

Lot 23 ‘Eleven doz. ale ditto’ after the ‘Gloucester

goblets’ of Lot 22. Ale-glasses are presumably

resumed in the Price Lists under ‘flutes’, which

term also covers champagnes. Apsley Pellatt, in

the passage already quoted, puts ales and
champagnes on the same footing as three-to-a-pint

goblets, at 35
°
/
0

more expensive than the corre-

sponding wine. In the Richardson list they are even

more expensive than goblets, the 6/- goblet

corresponding to a 7/- flute, and the 9/- goblet to

a 9/6d flute. Last among the ales come those with

wrythen ribbing. They are not even mentioned in
the price lists, and perhaps the fact that in the

Honeyborne Sale they are lotted as ‘About 3 cwt.

twisted ales’ (11I/53) tells its own tale.
Of tumblers it is perhaps unnecessary to say

anything. They varied only slightly in capacity and
the sharpness of their taper.
37

As a proper complement to the drinking-glasses
come the decanters and jugs. Amongst the ‘Hand-

some Cut Glass’ of the first Day’s sale were
‘Fifteen pair of handsome cut quart decanters,

sep.’ and ‘Ten pair of pint ditto sep.’ (1/59-60).

In the third Day’s Sale Lot 31 was ‘Five quart

decanters’. In the provincial lists the only distinc-
tions made were whether there were rings round

the neck or body, or whether there was a handle.

The cheapest was 1/2d a pound in 1839, the most
expensive 1/10. A pint decanter with three rings
round the neck would cost about 1/6d before

decoration. In Apsley Pellatt’s list, however, the

plainest quart decanter, with three rings and a

moulded stopper, cost 3/- .
38

He gives the foot-note

‘Deduct about one-third off quart decanters to

ascertain the price of pints.’ His cheapest pint

decanter therefore would be 2/-, but this included

the price of the stopper, whereas in the provinces

this seems to have been a separate item priced at

1/- per dozen, bringing the provincial pint decanter

of the same type to 1/7d as against 2/-. This
feature is reflected in the Honeyborne
Catalogue,

where one Lot consists of ‘About 1 cwt. of decanter

stoppers’ (111/46).

In one further point Apsley Pellatt differs from

his brethren in the provinces. His handled decan-

ters are called specifically ‘Decanters for Claret’,

and at least one of his models matches the ordi-

nary wine-decanter.
39

One may speculate on how

much he had cashed in on fashion when one sees

his prices for these jugs ranging from 15/- to

48/- each in the quart size as opposed to the

modest 6d or so per lb. extra charged for handles

in the provinces. Lot 18 of the Honeyborne
Catalogue
consists of ‘Eight claret jugs’, but it

cannot be said for certain whether this refers to

what Pellatt called ‘Decanters for Claret’ or to

jugs of some other form. It will be recollected

that consecutive Lots on the first day of the Sale

listed’Six handsome quart jugs’ and ‘Six ditto

pints to match’ (1/61-2).

This survey of the main types of glass devoted

to drinking brings us inevitably to the question of

services. Although many efforts have been made

to turn 18th century sweetmeats into champagne-

glasses, it is generally recognized that in that
century in England
4

o the shapes of glasses did not

alter in accordance with the types of wine used

in them, with a few notable exceptions. Champagne
and ale were drunk from flutes, cordials from

glasses of small capacity, sometimes flute-shaped,

and German white wines from various more or

less degenerate forms of the ‘Roemer’. No

attempt appears to have been made to match these
glasses up by features of style or decoration. Our

Corresponding Member, Elisa Hald-Steenberg, who

did perhaps the first sustained research on the

table-glass of this period, found no evidence any-

where of services in the 18th century, the earliest

suggestion of such a thing being in the
Englische

Miscellen (English Miscellany)
of 1803, which

records: ‘A service of cut glass, which has now

become the fashion on the dessert-tables of the

great in England, surpasses any gold or silver

both in appearance and in price’.
41
The first

specific mention of what constituted a service is

to be found, curiously enough, in a Stevens and

Williams pattern-book which immediately post-
dates the Honeyborne Sale. The components are

listed as ‘Wine, claret, ale, champagne, liqueur,

quarts, pints, clarets, jugs.’
42
The Honeyborne

Catalogue
comes extremely close to this with

wines, clarets, ales, ‘small wines’ (=liqueurs),

quart decanters, pint decanters, and jugs, some of
which might or might not be specifically for

claret. The ale-flutes could perfectly well double

up for champagne-flutes.

Where such services extended beyond drinking-

glasses, they appear to have been dessert-ser-
vices, and it is perhaps significant that among the

Handsome Cut Glasses of the first day of the Sale

there were ‘Four ditto (doz.) jelly glasses’ and a
‘Set of elegant dessert dishes’ (72-3). The Duke of

Rochefoucauld, visiting England in 1784, mentions

that when the cloth was drawn after dinner ‘On the
middle of the table there is a small quantity of

fruit, a few biscuits (to stimulate thirst) and some

butter, for many English people take it as dessert’
.
43

This may account for the ‘Six handsome butter

tubs’ included in this service (65), and the ‘four
handsome celery glasses’ would fit naturally into

such a setting (63).
44
On the third day there were a

‘set of uncut oval dishes’ and later in the sale

‘About 2 cwt. of uncut dishes, etc.’ (7,83).
45

Of other glasses for the table there was on the

first day ‘Two handsome punch bowls’ (64), and on

the third ‘Eight dozen wine coolers’ (52) and
‘About 1 cwt. finger-cups, presumably finger-bowls

(80).
46
There were also ‘Five doz. lemonade

glasses’
47
and ‘Three and a half doz. mustards’

(35_6)
.

Of more humdrum character were the utilitarian

glasses, such as ‘Twenty large retorts’ (III/44),

‘About 1 cwt. rounds’ (76), ‘Three dozen drop
measures’ (11), ‘Ten dozen root glasses’ (15), ‘Ten

bird fountains’ (27) and ‘About
1/4
cwt. bird boxes’

(55),
to say nothing of phials by the cwt. (50).

One further type of glass forming part of the

sale calls for mention. The Second Day began
with the following Lots:— ‘Warehouse, Yard, etc.’

‘800 unspread glass muffs, colours green, blue,

purple, violet, &c. in lots’; ‘Twenty small crates of

sorted coloured glass, in lots’; ‘Four crates of

black muffs’ (II/1-3). Immediately following these

were the ‘plates for spreading muffs’ already

referred to. It is a reasonable inference from

this that the muffs, if not made in this glasshouse,

were at least opened up there. Much speaks,
however, for the conclusion that the coloured glass

was actually made on the spot. Not only is there

coloured cullet mentioned in the same day’s sale,

but, as we have seen, there were also in the Store

Room colorants for ruby. Furthermore, Messrs.

Stevens and Williams still possess a little recipe-

book, apparently compiled by one John Scriven
5
°

(or owned by him in 1843), which contains recipes

dating back to as early as 1784. In 1792, for
example, there is a recipe for ‘a Pile end of a

flush for Muffs’ followed by a ‘Mix(ture) for
Transparent Red’. Both these formulae contain

more red lead than any other single ingredient,

so it is evident that we are dealing here with
flint-glass. In 1791 the book records a ‘Mix(ture)

for a Pot of Enamel pile with all Batch’, apparently
opacified by means of arsenic: the writer adds a

note: ‘This was a Pot of very good Enamel as can

be made for Cane if for Cake for the Enamelers it

would have about 1
1

/
2

lb. or 2 lb. more arsnike. The

colour of this very deep and good’. It is evident

from this that the glasshouse also made enamel

cane, as well as enamel in cakes for the use of
jewellers’ enamellers.
61
There is no trace of the

cakes in the
Catalogue,
but Lot 68 of the Third

Day’s Sale was ‘Large lot of coloured cane glass,
about 5 cwt.

We have here, therefore, every indication of a

glasshouse which was making simultaneously

ordinary flint-glass and coloured lead-glass
window-panes, cane and enamellers’ cakes. The

conjunction of window-glass with flint seems to

have been a special feature of the Honeyborne
glasshouse.

NOTES

19.

1.
Published here by kind permission of the County

Record Office, Stafford.

2.
D. Guttery,

From Broad-Glass to Cut Crystal,

London (1956), p. 62.

3.
F. Buckley, ‘Notes on the Glasshouses of Stour-

bridge, 1700-1830’,
Transactions of the Society of

Glass Technology,
11 (1927), pp. 106-7 quoting

J. C. Tildesley in J. A. Langfo rd,
Staffordshire and

Warwickshire, Past and Present,
I, London (1879),

Appendix, p. lxviii.

4.
H. W. Woodward, ‘One Hundred Years of Royal

Brierley Crystal’,
Tableware International

(September, 1970), p. ’74.

5.
Ibid.,

also H. J. Haden,
Notes on the Stourbridge

Glass Trade,
Brierley Hill (1949), p.24.

6.
H. W. Woodward,
lac. cit.

7.
D. Guttery,
op. cit.,
pp. 84-5.

8.
Ibid.,
pp. 98-9.

9.
Ibid.,
p.154.

10.
Ibid.,
p.99.

11.
H. W. Woodward, ‘The Glass Industry of the

Stourbridge District’, in (edd. R. J. Charleston,

Wendy Evans and A. E. Werner)
Studies in Glass

History and Design,
London (1968), p.43. A form

of receipt by Thomas Honeyborne for £24, 392 was

signed on 20 August, 1803 ‘on account of the

estate of Robt. Honeyborne of Moor Lane Glass
manufacturer’ (Brierley Hill Library, kindly

communicated by 1Vir.H.W. Woodward).

12.
D. Guttery,
op. cit.,

pp. 95,108 and Pl. 25 (see also

n. 28). In 1811 James Batson rendered to Thomas

Honeyborne a bill for £120/3/9d for salary from

November, 1808 to April, 1811 (Brierley Hill
Library, kindly communicated by Mr. H. W.

Woodward).

13.
See, however, n.15 below.

14.
H.W. Woodward, ‘One Hundred Years . . . p. ’74.

15.
Preserved in the Brierley Hill Library and kindly

drawn to my notice by Mrs. Betty O’Looney. That

John Honeyborne was in possession of the glass-

house in 1822 is proved by a plan of Kingswinford

Parish, surveyed by William Fowler in 1822,

which shows plot 428* as occupied by John Honey-

borne, the proprietor being Thomas Honeyborne,

and the site consisting of ‘Pool piece, Moor Lane
Glass House, Shops, etc.’ (kindly communicated by

Mr. H. W. Woodward).

16.
London Gazette,

27 May, 1828: ‘ . . . Partnership

subsisting between us the undersigned, Joseph

Silvers, James Mills, and Joseph Stevens, as

Flint Glass-Manufacturers . . . ‘

17.
H. W. Woodward, ‘One Hundred Years . . .

pp. 74-5;
id.,
‘The Glass Industry . . . ‘, p.43; see

also H. J. Powell,
Glass -Making in England,

Cambridge (1923), p. 103.

18.
H. W. Woodward, ‘One Hundred Years . . .

p. 74. The 1822 plan of Kingswinford (see n.15)

shows that plot 432 was a ‘Bottle House, Buildings,
etc. ‘, the property of Thomas Honeyborne,

occupied by ‘Westwood and Moore’.
H. J. Powell,

op. cit.,

pp. 102-3. Rent rolls of 1838

and 1839 still show this firm as occupying a

‘Bottlehouse’ (documents in Brierley Hill Library,

kindly communicated by Mr.H.W. Woodward).
The Cabinet Cyclopaedia conducted by the Rev.

Dionysius Lardner . . .
A

Treatise on the Pro-

gressive improvement and present state of the

Manufacture of Porcelain and Glass,
London (1832),

p. 163.

In the analysis of the
Catalogue
which follows, the

day’s sale is referred to in Roman numerals, the

lot number in Arabic (e.g. First day, lot 25 = 1/25).

Op. cit.
in n. 20, pp.145-6.

Ibid.,
pp.148-150.

Ibid.,
p. 146.

Presumably the fire-clay shields for blocking the

mouths of the covered pots.

Possibly the rests on which the working-irons

were laid down at the work-hole.

H. J. Haden,
loc. cit.,
p. 29.

That this certainly happened in earlier years is

made clear by the bill of 1804 already referred

to in n. 12. This has been mistakenly referred to

as a glassmakers’ bill, but is in fact a bill

rendered
for cutting

by J. Dovey & Son to Messrs.

Honeyborne and Batson, who must have made the
blanks and received them back for sale when cut.

The Dovey cutting-shop appears to have been
established at Wollaston Mill on the Stour not

later than 1772 (D. Guttery,
op. cit.,
pp. 70, 108).

The same phenomenon is to be observed in a set

of glasses in the Bristol Art Gallery, made by

Badger of Dudley about 1825, but cut at the

Phoenix Glass Works in Bristol.

H. Wakefield,
19th Century British Glass,

London

(1961), p. 21, Pls. 12, 13, 87A.

H. Wakefield, ‘Early Victorian Styles in Glass-

ware’, in
Studies in Glass History and Design

(see n. 11), pp. 50-54.

In the Brierley Hill Library.
In the Brierley Hill Library.

cf. H. Wakefield,
19th Century British Glass,

Pl. 5, A.

‘Prince of Wales decanters’ and ‘Prussian lamps’

were carried in the Newcastle Glass-makers’
procession of 1823-see R. J. Charleston, ‘To

Satyrize the Crispinites’,
Glass Circle Paper,No.

155: also mentioned in this list were ‘North-

umbrian wines’, ‘Egyptian lamps’, and cut flutes

called ‘Blucher’s Fancy’.
‘York’ and ‘Coburg’ are actually illustrated in

Apsley Pellatt’s
Catalogue
(H. Wakefield, ‘Early

Victorian Styles . . . p. 52, Nos. 90,91). Other

wine-glass names are ‘Princess’, ‘Goderich’ and
‘Amelia’
(ibid.,
Nos. 89, 92, 93).

Pris-Courant
pd

Kosla Glasbruks Tillverkningar,

Kalmar (1855).

The variety of shapes and decorations available
may be seen in Apsley Pellatt’s
Catalogue
(H.

Wakefield, ‘Early Victorian Styles . . .’, p. 52,

Nos. 78-87).
Ibid.,
p. 50, No. 22.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

Ibid.,

p. 51, Nos. 28-30; cf. p. 50, Nos . 25-7. The

handled ‘claret-decanter’ No. 29 is identical,

mutatis mutandis
(including stoppers), with the

decanter No.27.

40.
It seems to have been otherwise in Bohemia—see

JiTina Vydrova, ‘Les Debuts de la Differenciation

des Types de verre de Table en Boheme’,

Annales du 5e Congres de l’Association Inter-

nationale pour l’Histoire du Verre,Prague,
(1972),pp. 205-215; in general, see Elisa Steenberg,

Svenskt Adertonhundratals Glas,
Stockholm (1952),

pp.125-144.

41.
Steenberg,
op. cit.,in
n.40, p. 126.

42.
Ibid.,

p.127.

43.
(tr.) S. C. Roberts,
A Frenchman in England in

1784,
Cambridge (1933), p. 30. ‘Butter basins’ are

included in Apsley Pellatt’s
Catalogue
(Nos. 1-3).

44.
‘Celery glasses’ of various kinds are included in

the provincial lists (1823, 1829, Richardson’s of

1839, etc.). The general style of the more elabo-

rate examples no doubt corresponds with that

shown on sheet 1, a of Samuel Miller’s drawings

for the Waterford glasshouse about 1830 (Phelps
Warren,
Irish Glass,
London (1970), PI. 95, Nos.

I-4).

45.
Oval dishes are included in the cut-glass services

belonging to the Wadsworth Athenaeum and to the

Marquess of Bute (P. Warren,
op. cit.,

Pls. 87, C

and 93, A).

46.
Apsley Pellatt’s
Catalogue
illustrates three styles

of ‘finger-cups’ (Nos. 37-9), with a note: ‘To
Monteiths or wine coolers add about 10 per cent
to the above finger cups’. The provincial lists

mention ‘finger cups’ and ‘Montiffs

(sic)
or Wine

Coolers’.

47.
By analogy with shapes shown in Bohemian

pattern-books, these would be of the type included

in Samuel Miller’s drawings (P. Warren,
op. cit.,

P1.102, a). They are not shown in Pellatt’s

Catalogue
or mentioned in the provincial lists.

The type probably merged with the custard

(Pellatt
Cat.,
Nos. 13-16), but was perhaps slightly

larger.

48.
Not in the Pellatt
Catalogue,
but mentioned in

great variety in the provincial lists.

49.
Retorts, rounds, drop measures, root glasses

(i.e. bulb glasses) and bird boxes are all men-
tioned in the provincial lists. Illustrations of all

but the bird boxes are found in the 1867 List of
the Rotherham Glass Works (Beatson & Co.), a

copy of which is in the Glass Manufacturers’
Federation Library (kindly communicated by Miss

Wendy Evans). The types are long-lived and the
later illustrations probably reflect accurately

enough the earlier types.

50.
This man appears in the 1822 Plan of Kingswinford

Parish as occupying a house and garden which
formed part of the Moor Lane House property, and

his connexion with John Honeyborne, who occupied

the big House itself, seems clear.

51.
See R. J. Charleston, ‘Glass “Cakes” as Raw

Material and Articles of Commerce’,
Journal of

Glass Studies,
V (1963), pp. 54-67.

Price ()NE

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Figure 1. Frontispiece of the Honeyborne Sale
Catalogue,

29-31 December,

1823. William Salt Library, Stafford (Accession No. 64/61), published by kind

permission of the Trustees. Photo: Peter Rogers (Photographers) Ltd.

Figure 2. ‘Cast foot taper wine’,

with cut flutes. Ht. 5 3/4 in

(14. 5 cm.) Victoria and Albert

Museum. Crown Copyright.
Figure 3. ‘Tumbler bowl wine’, with cut and

engraved decoration. By tradition used at a

banquet given for George IV in Edinburgh in

1822. Ht. 4 3/4 in. (12 cm.) Royal Scottish
Museum, Edinburgh. Crown Copyright.

Figure 4. Goblets with ‘globe’ bowls(?), with cut decoration. From a

pattern-book of the Edinburgh Glasshouse Company, Leith, watermarked 1811.

Append ix

First Day’s Sale.
42

49
Two

ditto

Two

ditto

Two

ditto

Two

ditto

Two

ditto

Two

ditto

Two

ditto

Dozen Champaign

Dairy, &c.
50

Ditto claret

51
Ditto old hock

1
Capital barrel churn

52
Ditto

ditto

2
Butter mits and scales

53
Ditto

ditto

3
Mahogany book case with small drawers

54
Ditto

ditto

4
Deal painted buffet

55
Dozen Carbonel

5
Ditto

ditto

56
Nine dozen of capital ale

6
Two corner cupboards and shelves

57
About 80 gallons of ditto

7
Trams

58
Lot of bottled porter

8
Two portable grates

9
Two stone cisterns

Handsome Cut Glass.

Yards.
59

Fifteen pair of handsome cut quart decanters,

sep.

10
Sand waggon

60
Ten pair of pint ditto sep.

11
Pot

ditto

61
Six handsome quart jugs

12
About 5 tons of straw

62
Six ditto pints to match

13
Large flat pit rope, about 200 yards long

63
Four ditto celery glasses

14
Lot of old timber

64
Two ditto punch bowls

15
Lot of air pipes

65
Six ditto butter tubs

16
Large cast wheel

66
Two sets of castors, plated frames

17
Lot of manure

67
Twelve dozen handsome wines

18
Large lot of ashes

68
Six ditto ales to match

19
Small furnace

69
Six
ditto claret wines

20
About 5 cord of crate wood

70
Six ditto half pint tumblers

21
Fifteen old casks

71
Six ditto ditto goblets

22
Pot ladder

72
Four ditto jelly glasses

23
Deal plank

73
Set of elegant dessert dishes

24
Crate and bench

25
Lot of potchers

End of the First Day.

Wines, Ale, and Plate.

26
Two dozen of fine flavoured old port
Second

Day’s Sale.

27
Two

ditto

28
Two

ditto

30
Two

ditto

Two

ditto

ditto
Warehouse, Yard, &c.

31
Two

ditto

ditto
1

800 unspread glass muffs, colours green,

32
Two

ditto

blue, purple, violet, &c. in lots

33
Two

ditto

ditto
2

Twenty small crates of sorted coloured glass,

34
Two

ditto

in lots

35
Two

ditto

ditto
3

Four crates of black muffs

36
Two

ditto

ditto
4

Large brass plate for spreading muffs

37
Two

ditto

ditto
5

Six iron ditto

38
Two

ditto

ditto
6

Lot of engine rods

39
Two

ditto

ditto
7

Pair of scales and weights

40
Two

ditto

Lot of old iron

41
Two

ditto

ditto
9

Bellows and stakes

Twenty tons of white and coloured cullet,
in

lots

Twelve casks of American pearl ashes, in

lots

Cask of arsnick

Four bags of saltpetre

Lot of clay and wheelbarrow

Ladder and moulds

New cast iron furnace

Eleven barrels of red lead, in lots

Part of a cast iron cylinder

Broken furnace

Old Office

Lot of packing boxes and baskets

Strong crane chain

Well chain

Lot of birch leesoms

Lot of castings and old iron

Two pair of steelyards, sep.

Part of a cask of antimony

Sundries

New Office.

Double sided deal desk and stools

Two book racks

Bath stovegrate

Set of fire irons and

bee’s wax

Boxes, patterns, &c.

Back Yard.

Nine chairs and tools

Iron furnace

Six casks of cullet siftings

Sundries

End of the Second Day.

Third Day’s Sale.
12

63
64

68
Three and a half doz. cast feet ales

Three doz. pint confectioners

Dozen globe goblets

Ten dozen root glasses
Three and a half dozen bowl. goblets

Eight claret jugs

Eleven doz. half pint ship tumblers

Sixteen ditto

ditto

Thirteen doz. Gloucester wines

Nine doz. 3 to pint Gloucester goblets

Eleven doz. ale ditto

Eight dozen half-pint tumbler bowl goblets

Twenty-five doz. pint arch rib goblets

Two and a half dozen small ditto

Ten bird fountains
Three dozen half pint tumbler bowl goblets

One and a half dozen small 2-ring globe crofts
Ten doz. small wines

Five quart decanters

Two doz. crofts

Three and a half doz. ditto
Four and a half doz. ditto

Five doz. lemonade glasses

Three and a half doz. mustards

Seven doz. sorted small tumblers
Five doz. half-pint ship tumblers

One and a half doz. of cut ditto

One and a half doz. ditto
Twenty-four doz. 3 gill
taper
tumblers

Lot of sorted phials

Crate of aromatic glass
Twenty large retorts

About half cwt. of sorted phials

Ditto
1
cwt. of decanter stoppers

Ditto
1/2
ditto cast foot ales

Eight and a half doz. large rummers

Six and a half ditto
About 2 cwt. 1
1
/
2
oz phials

Ditto
1/2
ditto small tumblers

Eight doz. wine coolers

About 3 cwt. twisted ales

Ditto
1
/
4
ditto vinegar cruits

Ditto
1
/
4
ditto bird boxes

Lot of odd glass

Large scales and weights

Ditto

ditto

Ditto

ditto

Trolly waggon

Shew tables

Writing desk

Six balls of maling
Pair of copper scales

About 1
1
/
2
cwt. copper moulds

Ditto
1
ditto cast iron ditto

Lot of baskets

Large lot of coloured cane glass, about 5 cwt.

8
9

11
Stock of Glass in Sorting Room.

Four and a half doz. of cast foot taper wines

Thirteen doz. of tumbler bowl wines
Four doz. quarter pint tumbler bowl goblets

Seventeen doz. 3 to pint ditto
Eight doz. half pint Gloucester goblets

Nine and a half dozen 3 to pint ditto

Set of uncut oval dishes
Twenty doz. 3 to pint taper goblets

Seven doz. 3 to pint tumbler bowls

Thirty doz. half pint ship tumblers

Three doz. drop measures

14 Capital hogshead iron furnace

15 Ditto smaller ditto

16 Ditto ditto

17 Part of a cask of antimony

18 Lot of magness

19 Pick-axe, peel, and scraper

20 Eight harbours

21 Lot of potash settlings

Mixing Room.

22 Five barrels of batch

23 Two mixing tubs

24 Large iron furnace

25 Lot of burnt sand

26 Two scrapers
27
Sieves and shelves

28 Large scales and weights

29 Lot of bars

30 Bend and traces

Store Room.

31 Bottle of spirits of salts

32 Lot of old coloured glass

33 Boxes

34 Shelves

35 Nest of drawers

36 About 6 lbs. of brass pin dust

37 Lot of calcined brass

Glasshouse.

38 Fifty-eight iron pans

39 Three place irons
40 Three cast plates

41 Wheelbarrow

42 Three shovels

43 Thirteen rakes and hooks

44 Lot of pot stoppers

45 Ten pots in furnace

46 Nine decanter machines

47 Coffer, desk, and stool

48 Two metal shovels, burs, and hooks

49 Sundries

N. B. Persons purchasing to the amount of

ONE POUND, will have the money for the Catalogue
returned.

Heming, Printer, Stourbridge.

Glass in Packing Room.

69 About 1 cwt. sorted wines

70 Ditto 1 ditto goblets, &c .

71 About 1 cwt. tumblers, &c.

72 Ditto 1 ditto sorted glass

73 Ditto 1 ditto tumblers, &c.

74 Ditto 1 ditto wines

75 Ditto 1 ditto rounds and candlesticks

76 Ditto 1 ditto rounds, &c.

77 Ditto 1 ditto sorted glass

78 Ditto 1 ditto decanters
79 Ditto 1 ditto wines
80 Ditto 1 ditto finger cups

81 Ditto 1 ditto lamps, &c.

82 Ditto 1 ditto decanters, &c .

83 Ditto 2 ditto uncut dishes, &c.

84 Ditto 2
1

/
2
ditto 3 gill taper tumblers

85 Ditto 2
1
/
2
ditto pint and quart rounds and

stoppers

86 Ditto 2
1

/
2

ditto mustard squares

87 Ditto

ditto

88 Ditto 3 ditto 1
1

/
2
oz. phials

89 Ditto 3 ditto ditto ditto

90 Ditto 2
1

/
2

ditto mustard squares

91 Two old desks

92 Table and shelves

93 Two chimney machines

Pot Room.

94 Seventy-nine large and small glass-house
pots, in lots

End of the Third Day.

Fourth Day’s Sale.

Back Yard.

1
Flour tub and boxes

2 Washing tub

3 Well bucket and chain

4 Capital iron hogshead furnace

5 Ditto

ditto

6 Ditto

ditto

7
Two ladles

8 Lot of potash settlings

Washing Room.

9 Oval cooler

10 Cast iron mortar and pestle

11 Wire sieve

12 Capital hogshead iron furnace

13 Ditto

ditto ditto

The Bathgate Bowl

by BARBARA MORRIS
A Paper read to the Circle on 17 June, 1971.

In 1970, in the Portobello Road, I bought a massive
glass goblet (fig.
1),
engraved on one side with a

view of the Bathgate Academy (fig. 2) and on the

other with an inscription, dated 1870, indicating
that it was won as a prize in a bowling competi-

tion. I was determined to find out as much as I

could about it and my researches finally led me

to uncover the existence of the West Lothian Glass

Works, which flourished in Bathgate from
1
866 to

1887.
To the best of my knowledge, this glassworks

has never been recognised as a major Scottish

glass factory—which it certainly was. No one that
I spoke to, even experts in the field, seemed even

to have heard of it, and the only published
reference—a brief mention by Arnold Flemings
later incorporated into the Bathgate guide books—

proved to be almost entirely erroneous. This
paper, therefore, seeks to correct the wrong

information and to put the West Lothian Glass
Works in its proper perspective.
Bathgate is now a thriving industrial town in

West Lothian situated mid-way between Glasgow

and Edinburgh. The present industries include a

huge BMC car factory on the outskirts of the

town, two steel foundries, a brass foundry, a
sulphuric acid plant, a factory making electrical

condensers, and a small hosiery factory.
The town, originally called Bathket, has a long

history. In the late 13th century the town and its

adjoining lands formed part of the possessions of
King Robert the Bruce which in 1306 he gave in

dowry with his daughter to Walter Fitzalan, whom

he created Hereditary lord High Steward—a
marriage which introduced the Stuart family to the

throne of Scotland. By the 16th century Bathgate

had become an important centre of commerce,
and in 1663 a Royal Charter granted by Charles II

created the town a Burgh of Barony. Two centuries

later, in 1823, the town became a free and inde-
pendent borough, with the right to appoint its own

magistrates and town councillors.

But the real development of the town as we

know it today came with the industrial revolution,

the improvement of the road between Glasgow and
Edinburgh, and the coming of the railway in 1849.

The surrounding hills are rich in limestone,

coal, shale and ironstone, and the district was,

until recent years, an important mining centre.
The Boghead and Torbanehill gas coal, known as

the Boghead mineral, brought great prosperity to
the town in the mid-19th century with the produc-

tion of paraffin oil as an important offshoot—indeed

Bathgate enjoyed a virtual monopoly of the pro-

duction of paraffin oil in the United Kingdom.

Hand-loom weaving, carried on as a cottage

industry organised by agents from Glasgow, also

occupied a considerable proportion of the popula-
tion. The main speciality of the weavers was

madras muslin, but during the latter half of the

19th century this industry died out owing to

competition from power loom weaving, but mining

and heavy industry prospered.
In 1866 to these existing industries—coal and

shale mining, paraffin oil manufacture, an iron

foundry, brick works and a large distillery—was
added a glass works. The only comprehensive
history of Scottish glass works, Arnold Fleming’s

Scottish and Jacobite Glass,
published in 1938,

states that the West Lothian Glass Works at Bath-

gate was started by James Wilson and Sons in 1850
in association with a brother of Samuel Smiles of

Self Help
fame.

I was immediately suspicious of this statement,

for James Wilson and Sons of Glasgow were not
established until 1860 and the first mention of a

glass works in Bathgate in any Scottish directory

does not occur until 1867. I decided that further

research was needed and embarked on a systema-

tic search through the local newspapers of the

time,
The Advertiser for Airdrie, Coatbridge,

Bathgate and Wishaw,
available from 1858 onwards,

and the
West Lothian Courier,
established in 1873.

The search proved extremely rewarding. The

Advertiser
for August 26th, 1866 gives a detailed

account of the establishment of the glass works at

Bathgate, emphasising that as it was an entirely

new industry for the area, some account of the

processes of glass manufacture might be of

interest to the readers.
According to the
Advertiser:
“in the course of

extensive railway operations at Leith, the North
British Railway Company found it necessary to

occupy the glass works there belonging to Mr.
Donald Fraser, and that gentleman was thereby

compelled to look for a new site for his work. At

this time the Bathgate Old Brewery—in Chapel
Lane—was for sale which Mr. Fraser purchased.

Building was at once commenced and all the pro-
cesses of glass manufacture have now for some

time been carried on.”
Before embarking on a description of the glass

works, I would like to give some account of the
previous career of Donald Fraser, who was born

in
1802.

From the limited range of directories

that I have been able to consult, in 1844-45 he

appears as a glass merchant, stained glass manu-

facturer and glass cutter at 18 Picardy Place,

Edinburgh. Picardy Place still stands, but the

facade of number 18 has been altered and the

premises are now occupied by Wishart & Co., iron

and brass dealers. Next door to Donald Fraser,

at number 16, was Francis Ranken, of the family of
glass makers who became associated by marriage
with the firm of John Ford, Holyrood Glass Works,

in 1877.

From 1849 to 1860 the directories show that

Donald Fraser was in partnership with John

Thomas, describing themselves as flint glass
makers with premises at 27 Leith Walk. By 1865

the partnership had evidently been dissolved, for

Thomas was on his own at 33, Leith Walk, and

Donald Fraser, flint glass manufacturer at 38
Leith Walk, sharing premises with a group of

nurserymen. In Slater’s directory for 1867,

Donald Fraser appears in the Edinburgh section
under Glass Manufacturers at 5, Baxter Place—

works Bathgate, and even as late as 1869 he seems
to have maintained an Edinburgh address—then

York Place Lane.

The brewery apparatus had been offered for

sale in February, 1866, and the glass works were

evidently in operation by May of that year for a

letter to the
Advertiser

on May 26th, 1866, men-

tions their existence. The site was on the edge of

the town at the end of Chapel Lane—now called

Mansfield Street, bordered by Dykehead Lane,

which no longer exists, although part of the old

stone wall or dyke as it is called in those parts,
still remains. One building also remains on the

site of the old glassworks—it is all that remains,
and it is probably part of the original buildings.

It is now derelict and although the roof and doors

are relatively new, the stone building itself is
certainly well over a century old. Donald Fraser
evidently bought more land and premises than he

needed, for on June 22nd, 1867, he advertised to

let ‘those commodious premises, adjoining the

Glass Works, Bathgate, suitable for dairy pur-

poses, with dwelling houses attached, lately

occupied by Mr. Blackwood”.

The glassworks covered nearly an acre of

ground and initially employed between 50 and 60

men—five years later it employed upwards of a

100; and in 1887, when the works closed, it

employed 150.
The reporter from the
Advertiser
was taken

round by Mr. Stewart, the manager, shown first

the storeroom filled with bags of sand imported

from France and the Isle of Wight, then the pro-
cesses of washing and drying the sand, the mixing-

room and finally the glasshouse itself. The

furnace was about 25 feet in diameter with nine
‘porches’. At Bathgate the cone was about 50 feet

in diameter and 80 feet high.

After inspecting the annealing furnace, which

was about 60 feet long, 5 feet wide and from 1 to 2

feet high, the reporter was taken to the cutting-

room, where about 20 men were employed in cutting

and obscuring patterns of different kinds on gas
globes, lustres, lobby lamps, claret jugs, etc.

Engraving was also carried out here. Even in

those early days the West Lothian Glass Works
was evidently a fairly extensive concern for, says

the report, ‘besides work done for this country the
proprietor frequently executes large orders for

continental firms’. The pride of the Bathgate

citizen’s in their glassworks was celebrated in a

poem, published in the
Advertiser

for September

4th, 1869, which proclaimed that ‘our crystal is the

clearest’.

The only dated specimens that I have seen from

this period are two heavy tumblers, engraved with

two running bands of ferns, the date 1869 and

‘Mrs. Purves’, the name of the great grandmother

of the present owner. Several undated wine glasses
may also date from the late 1860’s, as well as a

fern-engraved tankard, a jug and a decanter which

are now in the possession of various Bathgate
families.

Donald Fraser seems also to have acquired the

Bathgate Gas Works, for the
Advertiser
for

January 2nd, 1869, contains a report of the annual

supper for the employees of Mr. Donald Fraser of

the Bathgate Gas Works. That it was the same

Donald Fraser is indicated by the fact that the

chair was occupied by Mr. Brown, glass-maker—we

shall hear more of Mr. Brown later.

Donald Fraser’s business prospered, and while

retaining an address in Edinburgh, he was able to

move to Balbardie House, a fine Adam mansion

built about 1795 for Alexander Marjoribanks, the
last laird of Bathgate. Today only part of one wing

remains, as Balbardie House was almost totally

demolished in 1955-6 by the present owners, the

Town Council, and is now surrounded by a housing
estate.

Donald Fraser, however, was not destined to

enjoy Balbardie House for long, for on October 9th,

1869, just over three years after he had come to

Bathgate, he died there at the age of 67. He was

buried at Restalrigg Cemetery, on the outskirts of
Edinburgh, and a large contingent of his employees
journeyed by train from Bathgate to Edinburgh to

attend his funeral. His tombstone, erected by his

widow and daughter, still stands in Restalrigg
Cemetery (fig. 3).

Following his death the West Lothian Glass

Works were taken over by Messrs Wilson and

Sons—nineteen years after the date given by

Fleming. Whether Samuel Smiles’s brother was

associated with the enterprise I have not been

able to find out. Samuel. Smiles’s mother was a

Miss Janet Wilson, daughter of Robert Wilson of

Dalkeith, so there may have been some family
connection.

On 19th August the glassworks were partly
destroyed
by
a fire breaking out at the north-west

corner of the building above one of the pots, and
a portion of the roof was burnt out. However, the

damage was not serious, and in a few days, after
some temporary repairs, the glassworks were

again in operation.
By 1871 the glassworks were employing upwards

of a hundred workers. In that year the
Advertiser

carried three long articles on the works, describ-

ing all the processes of manufacture in great

detail. The proportions of material used for the

Bathgate flint glass were as follows:— Carbonate

of potash, 1 cwt; red lead or litharge 2 cwts;

sand, washed and burned, 3 cwts; salpetre 14 lbs

to 28 lbs; oxide of manganese 1 oz to 4 oz. The
metal was prepared once a week and matters

arranged so that the supply was exhausted on a

Friday, leaving Saturday and Sunday clear for

making a fresh batch, the operations of the

glasshouse being suspended for these two days,

glass-blowing commencing again on the Monday.

There were two sets of workers, who relieved each

other every six hours, so that the work went on

continuously until the supply was exhausted. There

is no need for me. to describe the detailed pro-
cesses of the work at the furnace as that will be

familiar to you all. All types of domestic glass

were produced there—decanters, claret jugs, wine

glasses and tumblers, mould-blown dessert dishes,
salt cellars, cruet bottles, flasks for chemical

purposes, gas globes, and pressed glass tumblers.
I have however found no mention of the toughened

glass for miners’ lamps mentioned by Fleming as

a speciality of the works. What does seem to have

been a speciality of the West Lothian Glass Works
was the engraving of fern patterns, particularly on

wine glasses. Many of the older inhabitants of
Bathgate speak affectionately of the fern glasses

which had been in their families’ possession for
three generations. A number of them have survived
including one recently presented to the Victoria

& Albert Museum by its owner, Mr. R. A. Robert-
son (fig. 4). As far as glass is concerned, fern

patterns first made their impact at the London
International Exhibition of 1862, although ferns had

already been a popular motif in other decorative

arts, notably textiles and ceramics, for a number

of years. The credit for the introduction of
engraved fern patterns on glass has been given to

the Edinburgh firm of John Millar & Co. David
Bremner’s
Industries of Scotland,

published in

1869, writing of Millar’s exhibit at the 1862

Exhibition, mentions that ‘a happy hit was made by

the beautiful fern pattern then first produced and
now copied by engravers everywhere’. I should

like to mention here that later writers have

confused John Millar and Co. of South St. Andrew

Street, who were glass-dealers not manufacturers,
with the firm of J. H. B. Millar, glass-engravers

of West Norton Place. The latter firm was set up
by J. H. B. Millar (originally Milller), who emi-

grated from Bohemia to Scotland in the late 1850’s.
His workshops executed engraving both for John

Millar and Company and John Ford’s Holyrood
Glass Works in Edinburgh. It is indeed likely that

John Millar’s fern patterns were engraved in

J. H. B. Millar’s workshops but it is by no means
certain that either Millar was responsible for their

introduction, for James Powell of Whitefriars and

other London firms also exhibited fern patterns in
1862. What is certain, however, is that fern

patterns remained especially popular in Scotland

for the next thirty years or so. Many fern
patterns were also engraved by Emanuel Lerche,
working at the Alloa Glassworks, and by an H.
Keller working for John Baird of Glasgow. Both

these engravers were of Bohemian origin.
The only piece of Bathgate glass that
I
have

seen with a pictorial engraving is the huge goblet

which was responsible for this paper (fig. 1).
It

is certainly the most impressive piece of Bathgate

glass that I have seen and being made as a pre-

sentation piece one would naturally expect it to be
more elaborate. Views of buildings were often

used on commemorative or presentation pieces.

This goblet is engraved with a view of the Bathgate

Academy (fig. 2). The Bathgate Academy was

founded with funds left to the town for the purpose
by John Newlands, born in Bathgate in 1737. As a

result of an unhappy love affair, Newlands emi-

grated to Jamaica, where he made his fortune.

On his death he bequeathed a large sum of money

to endow an Academy where the children of Bath-
gate would be educated free of charge. His will

was disputed and the town finally received £14, 500,
although it was estimated that had his intentions

been followed, the sum should have been in the

region of £60, 000. Owing to the long litigation, the

foundation stone was not laid until 1831, and the

school opened on November 25th, 1833. The archi-

tects were R. &
R.
Dickson of Edinburgh and the

builder was Mr. Robert Hardie, also of Edinburgh.
Previous plans, submitted by William Henry

Playfair (the son of James Playf air) in 1824 were

rejected as being too expensive. The school main-

tained a very high educational standard and was

the pride and joy of the town. The school moved

to a new building in 1965, but the old building still
stands and is used as a primary school, looking
exactly as on the glass goblet.

On the other side of the goblet is an inscription

which reads: ‘Presented by James Brown to
Grayshall Bowling Club Won by Archibald Fisher’s
rink 1870’. The Grayshall Bowling Club was

founded in 1866 at approximately the same time as

the glassworks. A bowling club had been in exis-

tence since 1860 but it was a rather exclusive
and snobbish affair and the need was felt for a
green which would be open to the artisan and

working classes. Alexander Fisher, a joiner, of
Mid Street, Bathgate, was one of the founder-mem-

bers of the Grayshall Club and a leading player.

The old Grayshall Bowling Green was situated at

the corner of Torphichen Street and Drumcross
Road. Some 50 years ago the Grayshall Club

moved to a new site and the original green
now belongs to the Railway Club. There are still

some Fishers in Bathgate but unfortunately they

are not related to Alexander Fisher—there was a

great deal of emmigration from Bathgate and many

of the old families are gone.
The information given on the prizes awarded in

1870 to members of the Grayshall bowling club is

tantalising to say the least—it provides a wealth of

detail but alas! no details of the goblet presented

to Archibald Fisher’s rink in 1870.
The Advertiser

for Airdrie, Coat bridge, Bathgate and Wishaw
for

Saturday, October 1st,1870 gives the following

account of the end of season’s prizes: ‘The very
handsome medal, presented to the Grayshall

Bowling Club for rink competition, was on

Wednesday evening won by Mr. Joseph Bennie’s
rink, his having played off Mr. Fisher’s rink after

a very keen and well contested game. The numbers

were Bennie 21. Fisher 13. The glasswork prize,

the massive cut goblet, presented by the glass-

blowers for competition in pairs, was won by
Messrs. Robert Waddell and Robert White, they

having beat Messrs. Joseph Bennie and Walter

Bennie in the final tie. The president’s prize was

after several keenly contested single handed

games, won by George M’Kay having beat in the

last tie one of Grayshall’s best bowlers, Mr.

Joseph Bennie. The club still have another prize

to finish before closing the green which they

propose doing today (Saturday)’.
I had hoped to find details of this last prize in

the following week’s issue but there was no men-

tion of it. An account of the annual dinner of the
Grayshall Bowling Club on Friday, November 5th,
proved equally frustrating. The dinner was held in

the Prince of Wales Hotel with Archibald Fisher

deputising for Baillie Calder, the president of the
club. After the festivities—an excellent supper,

toasts and patriotic songs—the prizes were pre-
sented. Again we have a wealth of detail—a pair of

very handsome silver-mounted bowls to Mr. Walter
Bennie, presented to the club for competition by

Mr. Pollock. Baillie Calder (who turned up later
in the proceedings) presented Mr. Joseph Bennie

with the handsome silver medal presented to the

club by Provost Waddell for rink play, and won

twice by Mr. Joseph Bennie’s rink, thus entitling
him to keep his medal… but the account ends

lamely with the words ‘Several other presentations

were made.’ We can only assume that the glass

goblet won by Mr. Archibald Fisher was among

them, or that the reporter, which is very likely,
has mixed up the prizes, and that the glass-

workers’ goblet was for rink play.

The identity of Mr. James Brown who presented

the goblet to the club also presents some

problems, for James Brown is hardly an uncom-

mon name; but there seem to be only two likely

candidates in Bathgate—James Brown, a former
employee of the West Lothian Glassworks, and

James Brown, a recently retired English master

from the Bathgate Academy. The James Brown of
the glassworks seems the most likely contender

although in May of that year, five months before

the bowling competitions took place, he left
Bathgate for a better position in Edinburgh, being

entertained to a farewell supper by his friends

in the Prince of Wales Hotel on Wednesday, 18th

May. It was likely, however, that the goblet would
have been made some time in advance.
In 1877 another glass goblet—described as a

momento of the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition

of I876—was presented to Grayshall Bowling Club

by a Mr. Brown of Edinburgh. This was probably

the same Mr. Brown, who no doubt maintained his

connections with Bathgate.
Whether this was the Mr. Brown who presented

the 1870 goblet or not, there seems little doubt

that the goblet itself was made in Bathgate. That
the glassworkers gave massive goblets as

prizes we know and a later account of a glass-
workers’ procession mentions another one. A

smaller fern-engraved goblet, which has remained
in family possession since 1870, when it commemo-

rated the marriage of the present owner’s great-
grandparents, is almost certainly by the same

hand. The inscription reads ‘Peter Dunlop and

Margaret Fleming Married June 20th 1870’. The

Gothic-style lettering is identical on both goblets

but what is perhaps more significant is that in

both cases the date 1870 has been written in

simple Roman script.
Here it may be worth mentioning three other

similar specimens of Scottish glass. The decora-

tion of glass with engraving of Scottish national

monuments seems to have been rather popular.

A goblet with a view of Edinburgh Castle, the
monogram TM and the date 1881 is now at Huntly

House Museum. The maker is not known and

although the donor favoured Ford’s, Huntly House

is more inclined to Jenkinson’s.
2

It is just

possible that it is of Bathgate origin as the dis-

position of the ferns is similar to that of the ivy
on the 1870 goblet, and we know that ferns were a

Bathgate speciality. The maker of a goblet

engraved with the Scott memorial, once in the

possession of Arthur Churchill, Ltd., is also not

known: but Mr. Wakefield
3

has suggested that it

may have been engraved in the workshop of
J. H. B. Millar. Both these goblets are whiter than

most Ford specimens. A smaller goblet with an

etched view of Balmoral Castle is of a pattern

ordered regularly by Queen Victoria from John
Ford’s—she gave them away as presents. Here,

although on a much smaller scale, we have a

similar combination of cutting and engraving to
that on the Bathgate piece.
A great deal of peripheral information about the

Bathgate glass-workers has come to light, some of

it quite irrelevant—for example, on 27th August,

1872, a dog belonging to Mr. Doig of the glass-
works was found to have hydrophobia; in November,

1874, a glass-blower, Alexander Wright fell in
Engine Street and broke his leg. Other reports,

however, are more illuminating in showing the

importance of the glassworks to the life of the

town. The glass-workers were very active in the

local sports, giving prizes for many of the events;

they had their own cricket team and football team.
The Glassworks Rangers were reported as having

played a very rough and treacherous game against

the team-from the Liberator Lodge of Good

Templars. Indeed some of the glass-workers

were evidently a fairly rough lot. One glass-blower,
William Ramsay, was in one year (1877) appre-

hended three times—once
for
breach of the peace,

once for assault and once for using indecent

language in Mid Street. Two female employees of
the glassworks, Eliza Mutheron and Jane Smith,

were also fined for breach of the peace.
A
great

scandal was caused late in 1876 by a large theft

from the glassworks—several glass-workers were

involved: Miles Sharkey and John Stewart, glass-
cutters, and Daniel Murphy, a glass-blower, were

all
imprisoned for their part in the affair. Two

local hawkers, Edward M’Inulty, better known as
‘Cheap Jack’ and Peter Murray, known as ‘the

Regent’ were each sentenced to two months’

imprisonment for receiving and selling the stolen

glass.
But it would be wrong to give the impression

that all the glass-workers were a rough lot. In

1876
they started a subscription in aid of the

Bulgarian victims of the Turkish atrocities. In

1879, James Speed, who had been manager of the
glassworks in Donald Fraser’s time, was appointed

inspector and general manager of the glass
manufacturing department of the Japanese Govern-
ment. In 1873 the
West Lothian Courier
reported

that John Purcell and five other glass-workers

employed at the West Lothian Flint Glass Works,

were being sued by their former employer, Joseph

Marret, glass manufacturer of Newton, Lancashire,

for desertion of service under the Master and

Servants Act of 1867.
It
had evidently been worth

their while coming to Bathgate.
The glassworks were evidently expanding, for

the
Advertiser
for April 3rd, 1875, announced that

Messrs. Wilson & Co. of the West Lothian Flint

Glass Works had purchased the field adjoining

their works for the purpose of erecting an addi-

tional building which would employ about 40 or 50
hands.
From 1873 onwards the glass-workers held an

annual
soirée
and ball. Every year on April 17th,

the anniversary of John Newlands’ birth, the

Academy Procession was held, when the whole of

Bathgate turned out to celebrate the event. The
streets were decorated with arches and the best
arch was usually that erected by the glass-workers.

In 1874 the main arch, in Academy Street, in
Gothic style, was erected by the glass-workers and

artistically decorated with fantastic specimens of

their art—it was generally agreed to be the finest.

For details of the fantastic specimens we have

to read an account of the glassworkers’ proces-

sion in the Franchise Demonstration of 1884.

The
West Lothian Courier
for October 11th,

1884, gives a detailed account of the huge demon-

stration held on the previous Saturday in support of the Franchise Bill, first introduced by Gladstone

in February of that year, and finally passed in

December.
The foundry- and glass-workers combined to

form a large contingent in the procession, headed

by the Bathgate Reed Band.
It
is worth reading the

full description of the glass-workers’ section.

‘The Glass Works, which can always make a dis-

play that few trades can equal, was on this

occasion up to the mark with a splendid show of
materials adapted to various forms and the turn-

out on the whole was considered the finest in the

procession. A large company of men at the front,

led by a man on horseback, and in red uniform,

wore heavy helmets composed of glass, and were
armed with swords and spears of the same brittle

material whilst the general body carried fancy

vases, wine glasses and goblets, and different

articles of every kind of coloured glass. On a

large cut glass goblet, beautifully ornamented with

Scotch thistles were the words on one side ‘We

will cut up the House of Lords’ and on the other
side ‘The Franchise for the People’.

Another attractive piece of work was a large

etched globe ornamented most artistically showing

the Franchise Bill in process of being nibbled by

a mouse, the latter, representing the House of
Lords, falling to the ground. There were also
models of a cottage, and a workbox, in splendidly

executed mosaic, about 200 pieces of different

coloured glass being used in making each. A

complete model of a glass-cutter working at his
frame, was carried aloft, and the mysteries of the

trade were further illustrated by a glass-engraver

and etcher, who kept busy at work while they were

borne along in a spring van. A feature of the con-

tingent was a number of girls, carrying a fine

selection of glass goblets, and behind them a num-
ber of boys wearing the famed masher hats made

of glass and carrying specimens of work at the end

of glass rods, technically termed forks.’

There are
in
existence two pieces of glass that

were carried in this Franchise Demonstration.
They are two glass rods, 41 inches long and half-

an-inch in diameter, of clear glass with spirals

of red, white and blue running up the centre. They
belong to Dr. Donaldson Craig, who was given them

by his uncle nearly fifty years ago, when the latter
told him that they had been made in celebration of

the giving of the vote to the working man.

It was at about this time that the West Lothian

Flint Glass Works were taken over by Messrs

James Couper & Sons, of Glasgow, a firm estab-

lished about 1850. They produced all varieties of

table glass, cut, engraved and etched; fancy glass,

ships’ lenses, gas globes and chemical retorts.

They are best known, however, for their ‘Clutha’

glass, a bubbled and streaked greenish glass, which
was designed by Christopher Dresser in the

1880’s and by George Walton, the Glasgow archi-
tect, in the late 1890’s. As the report of the
Franchise Demonstration indicates, the range of

glass produced at Bathgate had evidently increased
to include a great deal of fancy glass. The name

was also changed from the West Lothian Flint
Glass Works to the Bathgate Glass Company.
As, unfortunately, there is no museum in Bath-

gate, almost all extant specimens of Bathgate glass
are in private hands but as a result of an appeal

in the local paper I was able to examine a number

of pieces during my visit to the town. Although

glasses and other vessels engraved with ferns

predominate, other types survive, particularly from

the later period. There is a yellow vase with
white streaks and furnace-wrought crystal handles,

which is typical of the fancy glass of the 1880’s,
and a glass ball with opaque white stripes. These

glass balls, or globes, were used to decorate the

arches which were erected in the streets at the
annual Academy Procession—they are specifically

mentioned in the account of that of 1871. Another
Bathgate resident has an engraved glass bell which

her grandmother apparently used to protect a

precious watch which she suspended inside in place
of the clapper. The same lady has two tumblers

with acid-etched floral decoration which are said

to have been made at Bathgate. A wine glass of
clear glass press-moulded and engraved on the

bowl through a ruby stain was given to the Victoria

& Albert Museum in 1971. The glass is in the form

of a thistle and is inscribed ‘Mrs. Proven’ (fig. 5).
Mrs. Proven was born in 1852 and the glass was

said to have made at the time of her marriage in

the late 1870’s or early 1880s.
The take-over by Messrs Couper & Sons induced

Mr. George Gray, Mr. Wilson’s manager for a
number of years, and his son, to leave their employ-

ment and start a glassworks of their own. They

took premises in Engine Street (now George Street)

near the Railway Station, on the site of a coach-

works formerly occupied by Dickson & Mann. A

report of the Commissioners’ Meeting in the
Airdrie Advertiser
for January 4th, 1885, con-

sidered the plans of the glassworks of Messrs

James Gray and Sons which were in course of
construction, the bottom of the furnace being

already laid. The Commissioners had suddenly got

very agitated about the possible nuisance of smoke

from the furnaces. Mr. Gray explained that the

furnace was being constructed with air courses

leading into the flue, and in this way the smoke was

carried back into the furnace and partly consumed.

This plan, said Mr. Gray, had been tried in a works
in Leith Walk, Edinburgh, and worked exceedingly

well. The Commissioners also wrote to Couper’s,

who agreed to make such alterations to their

works as would be conducive to the consumption

of smoke from their furnace.

George Gray’s plans were approved, but nothing

more on either glassworks appears in the local

press for the rest of 1885 and 1886. It was a time

of industrial strife and unrest, with lockouts and
strikes in the mines. On September 24th, 1887,

the
West Lothian Courier
had a sad paragraph

headed ‘DEPRESSION OF TRADE IN BATHGATE. ‘

‘The time has come’, said the writer, ‘when some-

thing should be done about the recent removals of

our industries from Bathgate. Within the last
few years Bathgate has been rather on the decline.

This is accounted for by the close of the Glass
Works which gave labour to about 150 hands, and

then we have the chemical works which will shut
out about 400’.

As only one glassworks is mentioned, it is

possible that George Gray’s glassworks never
even commenced operations. It seems clear,

however, that even after the glassworks closed a

number of glass-engravers remained in Bathgate,

but their work seems to have been confined to the

fairly crude engraving of tumblers and glasses

with the name of the owner and the date—in one

case as late as 1916. One man, a Mr. Robertson,

remembers a Mr. Oliver, who had a china shop

when he was a small boy, and had previously been

a wheel-engraver at the glassworks. Mr. Oliver’s
grandson—the Dr. Donaldson Craig who has the

glass rods, who was born in 1917—remembers some
derelict buildings at the back of their house in

North Bridge Street, which he was told had once

been a glassworks. His memory is correct, for
Chapel Lane—now Mansfield Street—runs into

North Bridge Street. Another elderly inhabitant

remembers that the old postman’s father, a Mr.

Heigh, had been a glass-engraver and he thought

he worked for a Mr. Gray.

In the space of 21 years a flourishing industry

had come to Bathgate and gone; but fortunately

enough documentary evidence, supplemented by

extant examples of glass, has remained to make
Bathgate worthy of a place in any history of

Victorian glass.

NOTES
1.
Arnold Fleming,
Scottish and Jacobite Class,

Glasgow (1938), p.141.

2.
Alexander Jenkinson’s Norton Park Glass Works,

Edinburgh.

3.
Hugh Wakefield,19th
Century British Glass,
London

(1961), p. 39 and
P1.
54, A.

flrff

f.41531);

4019
faliirti
;
1

(Slim
ro
–
f
‘,-

TIF’fff)

n.te
Arctbrzt115

Figure 1. The ‘Bathgate Bowl’, clear colourless glass engraved on the wheel. Made at the West

Lothian Glass Works, Bathgate; dated 1870. Ht. 12 in. (30.5 cm.). Writer’s Collection.
24

mini !tall OMNI 11113111

115 1

4
1 A

1
10.1
1

A
.
;11

,11,17
.
1.7,

•
1:

TC7‘
,
-IFI:
–
:17
,

Figure 2. View of the Bathgate Academy, built 1831
–

33.

Figure 3. Tomb
–
stone of Donald Fraser at Restalrigg

Cemetery, near Edinburgh.

Figure 4. Wine
–

glass with wheel
–

engraved decoration.

Made at the West Lothian Glass Works, Bathgate;

about 1870. Ht. 6
1

/
4
in. (16 cm.). Victoria and Albert

Museum (C.58
–

1871). Crown Copyright.
Figure 5. Thistle

–

shaped wine
–
glass with press

–

moulded decoration, wheel
–
engraved through a ruby

stain with inscription: ‘Mrs. Proven’. Made at the West
Lothian Glass Works, Bathgate; about 1880. Ht. 4
1
/8 in.

(10.5 cm.) Victoria and Albert Museum (C. 59
–

1971).

Crown Copyright.

The English Ale Glasses,

1685-1830

Part 3. The Tall Baluster and Flute Glasses for
Champagne and Ale.

by P. C. TRUBRIDGE

A Paper read to the Circle on 21 March, 1972.

The drinking glasses known as the ale and cham-

pagne flutes form a group that includes some of the

handsomest examples of the work produced by the

English glassmakers of the 18th century.
The unusual combination of drinks, which today

represent such different standards, and the des-

cription ‘flute’, which was originally only applied

to very tall glasses, may puzzle many collectors.

It therefore seems advisable to begin with some

information on the historical background so that

a more complete appreciation is possible.

ALE AND BEER
A small part of the history of these drinks was

included in my lecture on the English ale glasses

(parts 1 & 2), published in Vol.I of
The Glass

Circle
in 1972, and this information is also applic-

able to the ‘flute’ glasses and need not therefore
be repeated.
Mention must however be made of the first

Import Duty imposed on French wines by Parliament

in 1685, at the rate of £11 per Tun
1

, which like all

Taxes was steadily increased to £56 per Tun after

we had signed the Methuen Treaty with Portugal in

1703. This enormous increase in Duty on wine,
which had always been a popular drink, must have

provided one of the reasons for the revival in the

drinking of the old ‘strong ale’, and at the same
time given our expanding glass industry the incen-

tive to make special glasses.

CHAMPAGNE
The sparkling drink we now call Champagne

was originally made from a white wine known as

yin d’Ay, which came as the new name implies

from the Champagne District of France.

The bubbles or sparkle are carbonic acid gas

which is produced and retained as a result of the

final stages of fermentation only being completed

after the bottle has been corked. This method of
retaining the gas causes the formation of a heavy

sediment which is discharged when the gas pressure
is released (bottle opened), and was a problem only
finally overcome in 1802/3 after the discovery of

the ‘disgorging and remuage’ processes.

The date of this discovery is interesting,

because it suggests that the moulded fluting and

perhaps even some of the facet cutting found on so
many of the plain bowl flute glasses made since

the beginning of the 18th century was added to hide

the sediment, and was not a vestige of the earlier

moulded fluting as is sometimes suggested.
The first champagne arrived in England in

1660, and we know that within a very few years it

was being mentioned in all the fashionable plays
and books, and also that it had become popular at

the Court of Charles II. It was to be expected that
Royal patronage and popularity amongst those

best able to afford drinking glasses would have

ensured a special glass called a champagne be-

coming available. So far however we have no

records of a glass bearing this name from this

period, a point that is re-considered in the next
section on the ‘flute’ glasses.

THE FLUTE GLASSES
The word ‘flute’ came to us from the French
2
,

where amongst other meanings it was used to

describe a tall narrow glass for drinking wine.

Fig 1. illustrates the Exeter flute of about 1660,

which is some 17 inches high and therefore

exemplifies the description.
Flute glasses were used in Europe for drinking

wine, and that they were also imported into England

for the same purpose is suggested by the well
known verse-
3

Elles of beere,
Flutes of Canary

That well did washe downe pasties-mary.

It is interesting to note that an ‘ell’ is an obso-

lete English measure of length of about 45

inches
4
, the exact length varying in different parts

of the country. It could therefore in this context

be a reference to the ‘yard of Ale’
5
, a glass that

was in existence at this time.

There is additional evidence that flute glasses

were available from the middle of the 17th
century onwards, as they are recorded in the

drawings& and orders that passed between the
London merchant John Greene and his supplier

Allesio Morelli of Murano during the years

1667-1673. Next we find the description ‘champain

flutes’ appears in a Bill? from Messrs. Colebron
Hancock in 1773, which suggests that this is a
recognised trade description for a glass that is

taller and therefore more expensive than a wine

glass, and in another Bill this time from Thos.

Betts in 1’755 we find the following:-

1/2 Mo egg beers.

15/-

1
/
2
Ribd (do) champagnes.

10/-

Short (do)

8/6d

Green
1

/
2
Mo egg champagnes. 12/-

These prices suggest that the beers might have

been engraved with a hops and barley motif; the

‘short’ and ‘green’ champagnes are however still

types in need of explanation.
Another reference to champagnes comes from

the Steward’s archives at Windsor Castle, R A
54954. of 1749
8

, which covers the purchase of:-

12 large moulded champagnes at 14/- from
John Taylor for the use of H R H the Prince

of Wales.

Finally flute champagne glasses can be seen in

a painting by Johann Zoffany completed in 1768

which bears the title ‘Wm. Ferguson celebrating

his succession to Raith’ (illustrated G. B. Hughes,
English, Scottish and Irish Table Glass,
London

(1956), fig. 156). This picture is now in the posses-

sion of Mr. Munro Ferguson, who considers that
it represents his ancestor Robert Ferguson

introducing his nephew as his heir. Several

champagne bottles are shown, and as if to confirm

that it really was champagne they were drinking,

one member of the party is holding the neck of
the bottle with his thumb firmly over the top.

All this evidence shows that our glassmakers

were producing a special glass they called a

flute for drinking champagne in the 18th century,
and that it could have either a plain bowl or one

having moulded fluting on the lower part. These
glasses all had narrow bowls and were taller than

the wine glasses of the period, which provides a
reason for the old description flute being used to
describe them.

Champagne had, however, been a popular drink

ever since its introduction in 1660, and it therefore

seems probable that the imported flutes of John
Greene and others that were available would be

used for drinking it; and when imports fell off and
English-made glasses became readily available,

the Tall Baluster stem glasses introduced about

1685 would be used. These early Baluster stem

glasses have plain conical bowls with a solid base

and the tall variety that we now refer to as
Baluster Ales were probably intended as champagne

glasses, which because they were of the right

capacity were also used for ‘strong ale’, a drink
that because of taxes was again becoming popular.

The description ‘tall Baluster’ would therefore

seem to be a better name to apply to these hand-
some and valuable glasses, anyway until more

information becomes available (Figs. 2, 3, 4B).

THE HOPS AND BARLEY AND OTHER EMBLEMS.
1720-1830

The usual form of this emblem which is first

found engraved on the early plain and balustroid

stem glasses (Figs. 6 A
&
B) can be described

as:-

‘Two crossed barley stalks each bearing one

to five leaves engraved on one side of the bowl,

and a hop bloom pendent between two leaves

with tendrils on the other’.

Hop leaves with three points are usual, four and

five points generally being reserved for the more
elaborate engraving found on glasses of the opaque

twist period (Figs. 11B
&
12A). The total number

of variations of the motif that can be recorded
depends largely on the amount of detail noted.

The choice of this emblem for the ale glasses

was an obvious one, and it is interesting to note

that it continued to be used for a little more than

one hundred years, and only ended when mass

production started and drinking glasses became
identified with particular drinks by their size and

shape.
We find the same forms of flute glasses

engraved with apple and pear motifs, indicating
that they were for use by cider and perry drinkers.

Both these forms of engraving are very rare, from

which we may assume that these were country

drinks less likely to appeal to those able to
afford specially engraved glasses.

THE TALL BALUSTER STEM GLASSES
1685-1710

Figs. 2-3 & 4B are good examples, and it can be

seen that they all have the characteristic solid

base to a long straight-sided conical bowl, and as
one would expect at this period, these features are

combined with a folded foot. The solid base to the

bowl is an interesting feature that seems to be

confined to the 17th century and is one which could

have had its origin in a demand made by John

Greene when making out an order to Allesio
Morelli (Fig. 5) which reads:-

‘The lower part of these glass and ye button

must be sollid mettall and all ye Rest of the

glass
I
would have to be blowne thicker than

usealj . . .

Fig. 4, B, a glass from the author’s collection,

has a capacity of 5 fluid ounces, which falls

per doz.

between the usual 3 to 6 fl. oz. of the ale and

champagne flutes. A study of the capacity of these

glasses might provide some more accurate infor-
mation on their dates, the larger capacities

probably being earlier glasses. The metal of this
particular glass has an oily blue-green tinge that
is typical of the late 17th century.

THE BALUSTROID AND PLAIN STEM GLASSES

1710-1740

The first glasses or flutes engraved with an

ale motif are found in this series, not however
before the round funnel bowl is introduced.

Fig. 4, A is a very interesting specimen because

it combines the solid base conical bowl of the 17th

century with the later form of hollow balustroid
stem, the large annular knops under the bowl being

also features generally considered to be confined

to glasses made before 1710. It is possible there-

fore that this glass is a transition piece between

the tall balusters of the late 17th century and the
lighter styles of the 18th century.

Fig. 4, C, is another example of a balustroid

stem glass on which we see the new waisted
round-funnel bowl, a form that is destined to pre-

dominate in the flute glass series throughout the

18th century. The base of this bowl is only semi-

solid and like the previous example it is probably

a transition piece, this time between the semi-

solid and the true round funnel bowls of the 18th
century which have their bases only slightly

thickened.

Figs. 6 A & B are examples of c. 1720 and are

the earliest forms of flutes that are found engraved
with the hops and barley emblem. Four more

glasses are illustrated to shew some of the special

features to be found:-

Fig. 6, C. Rare engraving of a pheasant in flight
on an ale glass, which incidentally has

been gilt at some period (probably a
later addition).

Fig. 7, A. Four barley stalks crossed in saltire.
It is sometimes suggested that the use

of barley only indicated that the glass
was for ale, and that the addition of the

hops meant that it was for either ale

or beer. There is no confirmation of
this theory.

Fig. 7, B. Growing hop vine combined with the
normal crossed barley stalks, a late

period plain stem glass.

Fig.
7,
C. Moulded fluting (champagne glass).
AIR TWIST STEM GLASSES. 1740-1760

Fig. 8,

Champagne flutes with different forms

A & C. of air twist stems.

Fig. 8, B. A very rare bucket bowl champagne

flute, with moulded fluting on the lower
half of the bowl.

Fig. 9, A. A very rare form of ale engraving,

there being only two single barley

stalks each with pendent heads, one

on each side of the bowl.

Fig. 9, B. A champagne glass with a domed foot,
an unusual feature at this date.

Fig. 9, C. A waisted-bowl ale with normal
engraving.

Fig. 10 illustrates a fine set of six matching

ales all 8
3
/
4

inches high, each glass being engraved

with four crossed barley stalks and a moth. The

moth when used on drinking glasses is sometimes

considered to have Jacobite significance.

OPAQUE TWIST STEM GLASSES. 1750-1780
Seven examples are illustrated, and the finer

quality and more elaborate engraving found on the
best specimens is very evident. The variations

found in the types of twists is considerable and has

already been well documented”. It is worth
mentioning that English-made glasses always have

regular clear white canes which makes them easily

distinguished from foreign glasses, and the twist

always appears to be right handed (same direction

as a corkscrew).

Fig.11,

Champagne glasses with moulded

A & C.

fluting, one with pan top bowl and

the other a fine cable twist.

Figs. 11,

Examples of fine quality engraving.

B & 12, A.

Fig. 12, C.

Average engraving with the addition

of initials S. B.1. and date 1762.

Fig. 12, B.

A champagne engraved with an elabo-

rate ‘daffodil’ motif and the name

Mrs. A. GOFF. The daffodil is

sometimes considered to have

Jacobite significance.

Fig. 13.

A fine large ale goblet, a rare bowl

form to find on an opaque twist

stem.

FACET-CUT STEMS. 1770-1810
Four typical examples of this form of decora-

tion are illustrated:-

Fig. 14, A. An ale glass on a facet stem.

Fig. 14, B. Champagne glass with oval and star

cutting around the rim, a form of

decoration found towards the turn of

the century.

Fig. 14,

Champagne glasses with single and

C & D. double knopped stems, one having the
cutting extended up the bowl.

We have now entered a period when there are

fewer glasses found with an ale emblem, and
plain-bowl champagnes predominate, which seems

to indicate a change in the drinking habits of

those purchasing drinking glasses for their
personal use. The metal of the facet-cut stem

glasses still retains a tinge of the ‘antique’ glass
colour so we can assume all were made before

purified lead oxide became available.

SPECIAL GLASSES THROUGHOUT THE PERIOD

Only two examples of these glasses are illust-

rated (fig. 15). It is however useful to have a note

of the better-known rarities that the author has

recorded from sales and other sources:-

1.
Extra tall baluster stem glasses, 9 inches and

more in height.

2.
Opaque twist stems with a colour twist.

3.
All stem forms (except baluster) with hops

& barley gilt. Fig. 15 illustrates one opaque-

twist stem glass and one plain stem glass.

4.
Flute glasses with the Jacobite rose engraving.

5.
Composite stem glasses.

6.
Ale motif painted by William or Mary Beilby.

I9TH CENTURY CHAMPAGNE AND ALE

GLASSES. 1800-1830

The champagne and ale glass series can be

brought to a close at about the same date with the
glasses illustrated in Figs. 16 and 17. The beer

glasses in Fig. 17 are nearly half-pint capacity;

they are thick and heavy but retain the old moulding

and hops and barley emblems, on tall funnel bowls
that mostly have capstan stems and thick flat

feet. They are still, however, very handsome

glasses.
The champagne glasses of the early 19th

century retained the angular knop last seen on the

short ales, but are taller and more refined, Fig. 16,

A, B & D being examples. Fig. 16, C illustrates a
new range of glasses with hollow stems that was
introduced around 1830, when different sizes and

shapes were given to each type of wine, the ‘coupe’

shape being reserved for champagne, a fact

recorded by Disraeli in a letter to his sister in

1832, when he mentions the hollow stem coupe glass

as the latest innovation for drinking champagne.
He did not, however, consider that the hollow stem

would last long, since the hollow could not be
cleaned.

The revival of the solid stem a few years later

confirms this and ends the antique glass collector’s

interest in this subject.

NOTES
1.
One Tun -= 252 gallons. £11 = 1/1d per gallon.

2.
Grand Larousse Encyclopedigue,
V, Paris (1962),

s. v.
‘flute’.

3.
Richard Lovelace,
Lucasta,
London (1649), p. 99,

cit. New English Dictionary,
W, Oxford (1901),
s. v.

‘flute’.

4.
New English Dictionary,
III, Oxford (1897),
s. v.

‘ell’.

5.
(ed. ) E. S. de Beer,

The Diary of John Evelyn,
IV,

Oxford (1955), pp:414-5.

6.
British Museum, Sloane Ms. 857.

7.
British Museum, Ambrose Heal Bequest, reproduced

G. B. Hughes,
English, Scottish and Irish Table

Glass,
London (1956), fig. 30.

8.
By gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen.

9.
W. A. Thorpe,
English Glass
(2nd ed., 1949), pp. 211 –

212, considers wheel-engraving to have been

carried out in London by the end of the 17th
century.

10.
Barrington Haynes,
Glass through the Ages,

Harmondsworth (revised ed. 1959), pp. 267-276.

Figure 1. The ‘Exeter Flute’, soda-glass with

diamond-point engraving. Portrait of Charles II,

and inscription: ‘God Bless King Charles the

Second’. Probably Dutch; about 1660. Ht. 17 in.

(43 cm.). Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter.

Figure 2. Ale- or champagne-glass with

wide angular knop and folded foot. About

1700. Ht. 7
1
/
2
in. (19 cm.).
Figure 3. Ale- or champagne-glass with

annulated knop and folded foot. About

1700. Ht. 7
7
/
8

in. (20 cm.).

Figure
4.

Ale- or champagne-glasses with ‘baluster’ or balustroid

stems. Late 17th or early 18th century. Ht. of tallest glass 83/4
in. (21 cm.).

Figure 5. Drawing made for the guidance of his Venetian supplier (Allesio

Morelli) by the London Glass Seller John Greene, about 1670. Inscribed: ‘3 dozen

plaine for beer. 3 dozen Ribd for beer. The tower part of these glass and ye

button must be sollid mettall and all ye Rest of the glass I would have to be blowne

thicker than usealj especulij The feet must be strong. 3 dozen plaine for french

wine. 3 dozen Ribd for french wine.’

(British Museum, Sloane MS. 857)

Figure 6. Ale-glasses with balustroid and plain

stems. First half of 18th century. Ht. of centre

glass 7
7

/
8
in. (20 cm.).

Figure 7. Two ales and a champagne-glass. First

half of 18th century. Ht. of centre glass 74′
8

in.

(18.8 cm.).

Figure 8. Champagne-glasses with air-twist stems.

Mid-18th century. Ht. of centre glass 8
3
/
4
in.

(22.2 cm.).

Figure 9. Champagne- and ale-glasses with

knopped air-twist stems. Mid-18th century. Ht.
of

centre glass 7
1

/
2
in. (19 cm.).

Figure 10. Six matching ale-glasses with knopped
air-twist stems. Mid-18th century. Ht. 8
3

/
4
in.

(22.3 cm.).

Figure 11. Ale- and champagne-glasses with opaque-

twist stems. Mid-18th century. Ht. of right-hand

glass 8
1
/
4
in. (21 cm.).

Above

Figure 12. Champagne- and ale-glasses with opaque-twist stems.

Third quarter of 18th century (right-hand glass dated 1762). Ht. of

right-hand glass 7
1
/
4
in. (18.5 cm.).

Right
Figure 13. Ale-goblet with opaque-twist stem. Third quarter of 18th

century. Ht. 7
1
/2 in. (19 cm.).

Below
Figure 14. Ale- and champagne-glasses on facetted stems. Second

half of 18th century. Ht. of tallest glass 81/4 in. (21 cm.).

Left

Figure 15. Ale-glasses with gilt decoration, one with opaque-twist

stem. About 1765-75. Ht. 7
3
/
8
in. (18.8 cm.).

Above
Figure 16. Ale- and champagne-glasses with facetted decoration.

First half of 19th century. Ht. of right-hand glass 7 in. (17.8 cm.).

Note: All glasses in writer’s possession

unless otherwise stated. The photographs

for Figs. 4,6-17 by Cyril Howe Studios,

Bath.
Below

Figure 17. Beer-glasses with mould-blown decoration. Second quarter

of 19th century, Ht. of right-hand glass 7
1
/
s
in. (18 cm.).

The Pugh Glasshouse in Dublin

by MARY BOYDELL
Paper read to the Circle on 13 November, 1973

THE PUGHS IN CORK
Even though the course of events which led to

the establishment of the Pugh glass-works in

Dublin originated in Stourbridge, z we shall take

up the story of the Pughs in Cork at the end of the

18th century. At this time there was only one

glasshouse producing flint glass in Cork, and this

was the Cork Glass Co., which operated from

1783-1818.
2

The earliest record of a Pugh in

Cork which has so far come to light is that of

Richard, who was married there in December 8th,

1799
3
, to Ellen Hurley. In October of the following

year, a daughter Mary was baptized in Christ

Church, a short distance from the Cork Glass Co.
Richard and Ellen had numerous children
4
two of

whom have been established as glass makers or

blowers: John, who was born in 1805
5
and Thomas

Agnetus, born in 1819.
6

Richard the father died in

1823
7
and was buried at St. Anne, Shandon. Little

more has come to light concerning this family in

Cork during the early part of the 19th century, but

one can assume that those members of the family

who were concerned with the flint glass industry

would have left Cork by the early 1840’s, when the
Terrace glass works closed
8

and flint glass was

no longer manufactured
in
Cork.

THE PUGHS AS GLASSMAKERS IN DUBLIN
The first reference to the Pughs in Dublin is

in an executive capacity concerning the manufac-

ture of glass. This is contained in a lease
9
dated

30th September, 1855, where Anthony Blagrave,

Esq., leased 13 Lower Liffey Street to George

Collins, Thomas and John Pugh, and Joseph
Meash
10
at a yearly rent of £75. These premises,

which prior to 1855 were occupied by Marr Gallie

& Co, letter founders,
11

consisted of a ‘dwelling

house yard, stores and passages on the east side

of Liffey Street and full use of the gateway leading

from the Lofts’. This property, which consisted of
28 perches, had already been occupied by the Pughs

and partners and ‘in consideration of the expendi-

ture of a large sum in the erection of a chimney

and other substantial and lasting improvements’,

Anthony Blagrave contributed a sum of thirty-five
pounds before signing and sealing the lease.
THE LIFFEY STREET GLASSHOUSE

Westropp
12
states that the Pughs, Meash, and

Collins had all previously been employees at the
glass-works of the Irwins in Potters Alley, which

had ceased production in 1855.
13
Joseph Meash

died in about 1860
14
and after the Pughs left Lower

Liffey Street in 1863, George Collins manufactured

bottles there until 1865.
15

In this year he was

registered bankrupt,
16
and the following year

tobacco was manufactured at 13 Lower Liffey

Street. Unfortunately, as far as is known, no

business records or documented specimens of
glass survive from the Liffey St. glasshouse; but
it can be assumed that flint glass was made

between the years 1855-1863, since the map of the

premises contained in the lease (fig. 1) is given

the title ‘Plan of Flint Glass Manufactory (sic)
Liffey Street’.

Furthermore, Trinity College, Dublin, bought

six dozen tumblers for £2. 8.0 on 8 November,

1855, from the ‘Liffey Flint Glass Works, 13 Lower
Liffey Street’ (T. C. D. Bursar’s Vouchers 263/10).

The following year ‘The Liffey Street Glass Com-
pany’ advertised:

is prepared to supply the

Profession in general with bottles of a peculiar
shape to contain poisons, for dispensing or other-

wise, as recommended by the College of Physi-

cians. The above firm beg also to announce to

their friends and patrons in the glass and China

Trade, that they have now added Steam Power to

their Manufacture, and respectfully solicit a con-

tinuance of their kind patronage, and assure them

their future orders will meet with the most prompt
attention in matching and otherwise’
(The Nation,

26 July, 1856).

THE POTTERS ALLEY GLASSHOUSE
In May, 1863
17

Thomas Leetch, Thomas Pugh

and Richard Pugh took over the lease and greater

part of the Potters Alley glass-works at a yearly
rent of £80: this was where the Irwins had manu-

factured glass until 1855. In 1865
18
the residue of

the premises was also leased, and a James Mun-

kittrick was added as a lessee in this indenture.

A few years later, in April 1868,
19
the two Pughs

and James Munkittrick agreed with Thomas Leetch

and William Whyte to purchase the premises for

£300, and should they fail to complete the purchase

by the 1st October, 1868, Thomas Leetch and

William Whyte were to complete the purchase and
‘take the full benefit and advanta,ge’.
2
° These

premises were described as ‘the premises known

as ‘The Dublin Flint Glass Works’, Potters Alley,

Dublin’, together with the outhouses and warerooms

erected thereon formerly in the possession and

occupation of Mr. Edward S. Irwin, containing from
North to South one hundred and eleven feet, and in

length from East to West, one hundred and sixty-

one feet bounded on the North by Dairy premises,

on the South by a stable lane, on the West by
Potter’s Alley and Marlborough Place, and on the

East by Northumberland Square, excepting a small

house near the corner of Stable Lane on the South

side of the said premises and formerly in the

occupation of George McQueade, which said
premises are situated lying and being in the Parish

of St. Thomas and County of the City of

Dublin….’
21

According to the records in the

Dublin valuation office, a limited company called
Richard Pugh & Co. took over the premises in

1864, but in 1871, Thomas and Richard Pugh
acquired their interest, and they continued in

occupation until 1893, after which the premises
are described as ‘delapidated and unfit for habita-

tion’. This particular site had been occupied by

glass-makers as early as the 1750’s. Two cones

are clearly drawn and named as glasshouses on the

Roque map of Dublin, which was published in 1756

(fig. 2).

John Pugh (that
is,
Thomas’s elder brother),

who was born in 1805 and died in 1879;
22

and

his son, also John;
23
and another Richard Pugh,

whose relationship has not been established,
24

all lived and died in the vicinity of the glass-
works. They were mostly illiterate, married

servants, and died in the North City Workhouse.
This was a sharp contrast to Thomas, born in

1819, and his son Richard. Thomas lived in a good

class residential area from the late 1870’s until

his death in 1903.
25

Richard his son was born in

1840,
26
married Martha O’Brien in the Pro

Cathedral in 1868,
27
and lived within easy reach

of the glass-works. After the closure of the works

in 1893 they moved to Charleville Mall, North

Strand where descendants of the family still live.

Having given a brief history of the Pugh family

in Ireland, let us now considei some of the wares

produced by their factory in Dublin. Large

quantities of wine glasses were manufactured by

the Pughs. In the report of the Select Committee

on Industries in 1885 it was noted that the principal
trader in Dublin bought from the only manufacturer
in that city six hundred dozen wine glasses in one

week, which was not considered an unusual pur-
chase. They also noted that this glass was mostly
exported. The Pughs would have been assured of

a ready outlet for their products, since Thomas

Leetch, who in some cases is referred to as a
‘Glass Warehouse Manufacturer’ had a shop in
Dame Street which sold glass, china and earthen-

ware. William Whyte likewise had an ‘Irish Glass

Warehouse’ at 3 & 4 Marlborough Street a few
hundred yards from the glass-works.

BOHEMIAN DECORATORS IN 19TH CENTURY
DUBLIN

Whether the Pughs’ products were cut or

engraved on the premises of the glass-house is a

matter for conjecture at this stage. There were

glass-cutters living in the vicinity but they could
have been working independently or for the

retailers. Glass engravers from Bohemia were

working in Dublin during the second half of the

19th century. At least two of these are known by

name and both lived for some time close to the

Potters Alley works. One was Joseph Eisert, who

was born in 1842
28
possibly in the region of

Haida, North Bohemia, where the name is known
in connection with glass engraving. He died a

bachelor in Dublin on the 2nd September 1871
29

at the age of 29. The other known engraver is
Franz Tieze, whose designs and engraving can in

some cases with reasonable certainty be identi-

fied, since there is a sketch book by this artist

in the Victoria and Albert Museum
30
and some

specimens of his work in private and public collec-
tions (fig. 3). The sketch book (fig. 4) was also

used by Tieze as a note book to record names and

addresses and events such as family deaths, etc.

Franz Tieze, the son of a schoolmaster
31
, was

born in Bohemia
in 1842.

32
He left
there in 1862,

a year after the death of his father
34

and possibly

went to London. On the 28th January 1865
35

left England and came to Ireland. In 1872
36

after

seven years in Dublin he married Kate Dawson, a
local butcher’s daughter. It seems likely that

Tieze remained in Dublin until the closure of the
Pugh glass-works in 1893. He may from time to

time have travelled to England or Scotland to visit

his colleagues such as Adolf Zinke or Franz
Fritsche of Stourbridge or Marschner
37
in Scot-

land. The engraving by Tieze is in the style

associated with the district of Haida in Northern
Bohemia. He possibly learnt his craft at the

Meistersdorf glass-engraving workshop which was
run by Ignac Fritsche
38
the father of Joseph,

Franz and Wilhelm. Franz’s address in England

is noted in Tieze’s sketch book along with others

whose names are associated with Meistersdorf

and the neighbouring village.

FERN-PATTERNS

In the 1850’s the culture of ferns in the Victorian

drawing room became an absorbing pastime of the
ladies, and it was not long before this motive was

used for the decoration of glass, and was well

adapted by the engravers working in Dublin, who
displayed on the whole a more sensitive feeling

for naturalism than their colleagues in England

and Scotland. The floral, fern motives and parti-

cularly that of the maiden hair seem actually to
embrace the form of the vessel like ivy on a stone

or branch (fig. 7). This gesture of embrace is
made possible by the uncluttered nature of the

design which is so well married to the shape of

the hollow ware. The shamrock was also adapted
in an enthusiastic manner, a characteristic being

that the three segments of the leaves are not
usually separated, as was generally the case prior

to the middle of the century. In this case artistic
licence is well demonstrated in the generous and

free use of the tendrils with shamrock.

MEMORIAL GLASSES
Hollow ware was also engraved to order with

monograms, the Royal Arms, toasts such as ERIN

GO BRAGI1
39
and celebrations of domestic occa-

sions. An example of the latter is a small ruby-

coloured jug which is inscribed ESTHER 25. 9.88

(12). This was a gift from Mr Pugh to Esther

Kelly on her twelfth birthday in 1888.
40

The

romantic
c/ichds
of the round tower, harp and

wolfhound also occur on goblets and claret jugs:
and in a contemporary account
41
of a visit to

Messrs T. & R. Pugh, we find the engraving on a

water jug is described as follows—’a perfect

portrait of Mr Parnell, surrounded by the Round

Tower, the Irish Wolf dog, and the harp without the

crown, we are decidedly of the opinion, that, for
refinement of design, and high-class workmanship,

the articles on show here are not surpassed by

the production of any other country under the

sun . . .

(figs 8 and 9). Incidentally, one hopes

for the sake of the visitors that the state of
Potters Alley was somewhat changed since the

1860’s, when this street is described in a periodical

as follows ‘As an illustration, take Potters Alley
off Marlborough St: all the filth from the houses is

daily thrown into the street; animal and vegetable
refuse lie rotting in the very centre of a dense

population within one minute’s walk of Sackville
Street. What are the inhabitants to do? There is no
effective drainage, the nearest water being at

Kelly’s corner, Malborough Street (private supply)

or tap in Dublin Flint Glass works, also private.
Not

all

the engraved glass which I attribute to

this glass manufacturer was decorated by skilled
craftsmen, an example being a tumbler with sprays

of shamrocks on which is engraved CORK

EXHIBITION 1883.
42

Models like this were pro-

bably produced in large quantities, decorated by
apprentice engravers, and sold as cheap souvenirs

in Cork at the time of the exhibition. Some glass

was also specially manufactured and embellished

to order, such as a large loving cup for Charles

Stanford, who was Worshipful Master of the Grand
Lodge of Freemasons of Ireland for the year

3884;
43

this goblet was probably presented to the

Lodge in that year by the Worshipful Master

himself to commemorate his year in office.
In the 1882 Dublin Exhibition of Irish Arts and

Manufacturers, T. & R. Pugh were awarded a
medal for flint glass ‘for brilliancy of colour,

rich diamond cutting and engraving’. It is inter-

esting that this appears to be the only Dublin
Exhibition in which Potters Alley Glass was

exhibited under the Pugh name.

LAMPS FOR RAILWAYS AND LIGHTHOUSES

Besides wine glasses, jugs, decanters, etc.

large numbers of lamps for the railways of Ire-

land were made by the Pughs.
44
They also supplied

green wreck lights, and on one occasion when these
were not available for a shipwreck in Kingstown

harbour, green claret goblets were cut to suit

until more orthodox appliances could be supplied

by Mr Pugh.
45
In the 1882 Dublin Exhibition a

certificate
46
was awarded to T.& R. Pugh for Ruby

Glass Chimneys suitable for Lighthouses (fig. 10).

These must have been held in high esteem at the

time, since there is a footnote by the Editor of
The

Irish Builder
47
to a letter concerning the Irish

Lighthouse and Lightship Departments which runs

thus: ‘Mr Pugh is a really competent, practical

man; and he makes the only gold ruby cylinders to
be depended upon in these kingdoms’. In the same

issue there is a letter suggesting that ‘Pugh of

Potters Alley should be elected a Commissioner of

the Irish Lights’. He also appeared to be a man of

some courage, as there is an account in a periodi-
cal of the 1880’s of a meeting of the Home Manufac-

turers Association in which Mr Pugh is quoted as

complaining that the Lord Mayor had not yet

subscribed to the association.

DIFFICULTIES FACING THE IRISH GLASS

INDUSTRY

To enter into a little more detail about the

problems facing a glass manufacturer in Dublin at

the end of the 19th century,

it
is interesting to

refer to the Report from the Select Committee of

Industries in Ireland published in 1885, in which

it would appear that the chief reasons given for the

decline of the flint glass manufacture in Dublin
were, firstly, the importation of cheap glass, and

secondly, want of sufficient commercial enterprise

on the part of the Irish makers, such as enabled

the British, in some measure, to keep pace with

the foreign makers. As an example of the first,

two wine glasses were shown to the committee;
one, which made in Belgium was on sale in Dublin

at that time for 7
1

/
2
pence a dozen including

carriage, and the other was an Irish wine glass,

the price of which was 6 pence for a single glass
with 2 pence more for cutting, or 5/6d per dozen.

In the second case, lack of patronage from the
Irish public was said to be partly responsible.

This lack of patronage is also referred to in
The

Industries of Dublin,
published in 1890:

are surprised that the much vaunted patriotism of

public spirit of certain sections of Irishmen, is not
sufficiently deep-seated to cause them to pay

slightly higher prices for native made goods’.
For the improvement of the trade it was

suggested that there should be protection by duty

on foreign imported glass, and that the English and

Scottish manufacturers might be made to join

some Irish capitalists, since there were places
where Irish glass might be made with the probabi-

lity of success, provided that there was sufficient

confidence in the enterprise. Another suggestion

for the improvement of the trade was that technical

education might be of use. At one time, for

example, 36 hands were employed by Messrs. Pugh;
but it was pointed out that owing to the guild
system which held sway in both England and

Ireland, and to whose rules Mr Pugh was bound,
they were restricted as to the number of appren-

tices that could be taken in. Another suggestion

was that sand from Muckish Mountain, Co. Donegal,
could be used: that is, if the rail terms were more

reasonable. Messrs. Chance of Birmingham had

tried this sand and found it good, but the cost

would have been 30/- a ton and at that time they
could get sand from Fontainebleau for 15/- a ton,

as did Mr Pugh. The reason for the high cost of

the Muckish sand was that it was on the upper

slopes of the mountain at an altitude of 1000 feet,

it had to be rolled down in sacks and it was
impossible to work there in winter.

Thus, it can be well understood, came the

eventual closure of the Potters Alley glass-works

in 1893. This was almost certainly due to the

importation of cheap glass from the Continent,
which was also affecting the industry in England;

and also to the lack of capital which prevented the
Pughs from modernising their factory, and thus

making it competitive with the most technically
advanced glasshouses on the Continent.
And so in the year 1893 the manufacture of

flint glass in Dublin, which had begun at the end of

the 17th century at the Round Glass house near
St. Mary’s Lane, came to an end, and glass of this

type was not made in Ireland again until the

establishment of the modern factory at Waterford.
In conclusion I should like to draw your atten-

tion to the extremely small size of the glass-

industry in Ireland during the second half of the
19th century compared with that in England. In

the year 1871, the total number employed in the

industry in Ireland was about 360
48
and this

included the bottle makers. At the same time,

more than twenty thousand
49
were working in the

English glass industry. When we remember that

the Pugh glass-works appear to have employed no
more than 30 or
40
workers in the 1880’s, the high

quality of their table glass, the individual character

of the shapes they produced, and their vision in

utilising the craft of highly skilled engravers from

Bohemia, speaks very highly of the achievements

of this remarkable family of glass manufacturers.

NOTES

66, occupation recorded as ‘glass-blower from

Potter’s Alley’. He could have been a son of John

1.
M. S. D. Westropp,

Irish Glass,
London (1920), p. 65.

born in 1805, perhaps was the Richard who was

2.
P. Warren,
Irish Glass,

London (1970), p. 52. This

glasshouse was situated in Hanover St.
elected a member of the ‘Flint Glass Makers

Friendly Society’ dated 25th May 1855. This

3.
Marriage Register of St Nicolas Church, Cork; in

this entry the name is recorded as ‘Pew’.
certificate is in the collection of Mrs Thomas

Pugh.

4.
Baptism Register, Christ Church, Cork: Henry, 11
25.

See note 6.

September, 1808: Ellen, 1 July, 1809: Joseph, 17
26.

Ibid.
Died 1912.

November, 1816: Joseph, 28 Febuary, 1819.
27.

Ibid.

5.
Ibid.

19 April, 1805. I am indebted to the Dean of
28.

Ibid.

Cork, the Very Rev. J. N. G. Carey for allowing me
29.

Ibid.

to consult the relevant Registers.
30.

This sketch-book (bearing the date 1869) has

6.
General Records Office, Dublin.
proved enormously helpful in preparing this paper:

7.
As this is the only recorded burial of a Richard

Pugh found in the relevant Parish Records in Cork,

it has been taken that this Richard was the husband
31.

I would like to thank Mr Charleston for drawing

my attention to it.

See note 6.

of Ellen.
32.

Franz Tieze sketch book.

8.
Op. cit.

in note 2, p. 50.

33.
Ibid.

9.
M. Boydell, Technology/Ireland
(Industrial Archaeo-

34.

Ibid.

logy),
28 (July/August 1973).
35.

Ibid.

10.
This signature is clearly written Meash and not
36.

See note 6.

Marsh as printed in Westropp,
op. cit., p.

65.

37.

The addresses of Zinke, Fritsche and Marschner

11.
Op. cit.,
p. 9

are all noted in the Tieze sketch-book.

12.
Op.

cit.,
p. 65

38.
Stanislav Urban in

Glass Review,
7 (1971), p. 202.

13.
According to the Dublin Valuation Office, the

premises were occupied by Richard Pugh & Co.
Meistersdorf later was renamed Mistrovice.

Today it is called Novi Oldrichov.

from 1855 to 1858.
39.

‘Fair Ireland’.

14.
Westropp, p. 65.
40.

Rosc ’71,
Irish Glass,
Catalogue no. 93 (illustrated).

15.
Dublin Directories.

41.
The Industries of

Dublin,London (1890), p. 159.

16.
Registry of Deeds, Dublin.

42.

Op.
cit.

in note 40 (Alterations, additions, National

17.
Ibid.

Gallery of Ireland),
Catalogue
No. 109.

18.
Ibid.
43.

op.
cit.
in note 40,
Catalogue
No.92 (illustrated)

19.
Ibid.

44.
Westropp, p. 66.

20.
They did in fact fail to produce the money and

45.

The Irish Builder

(December, 1883).

Thomas Leetch paid the £300.
46.

In the collection of Mrs Thomas Pugh.

21.
See note 16.

47.
May, 1884.

22.
See note 6.
48.
Census of Ireland, General Report-Summary.

23.
See note 6. Born 1841 and died 1899.

49.
G. P. Bevan,
The Industrial Classes and Industrial

24.
See note 6. This Richard died in 1892 at the age of

Statistics,
London (1876).

Appendix

THE PUGH FAMILY: Also known as PEW and PUE

RICHARD m. ELLEN HURLEY

(d 1823 Burial recorded St Anne, Shandon, Cork)

(dec 1799 St Nicholas Ch Cork)

I
MARY

(Bapt 4.10.1800

Ch Ch Cork)
1

JOHN B

(1805-79)
‘Glass Blower’

Bapt 19.4.1805

Ch Ch Cork
1

HENRY

(Bapt 11.9.1808

Ch Ch Cork)
1

ELLEN

(Bapt 1.7.1809

Ch Ch Cork)
1

JOSEPH
(Bapt 17.11.1816

Ch Ch Cork)
1

THOMAS

(c. 1819-1903)

‘Glass
Manufacturer’
1

JOSEPH

(Bapt 28.2.1819

Ch Ch Cork)

M. as widower in 1866 to ELLEN CARR

I
JOIDI (1841-99) m. 1870 ELIZABETH HACKETT

‘Bottle blower’

(on Death Certificate)
‘Glassmaker’

(on Marriage Certificate)

RICHARD (c. 1826-Jan 1892)
‘Glass Blower’

married from Potter’s Alley (Death Certificate)
1

RICHARD (1840-1912) m. MARTHA O’BRIEN 1868

‘Vitrem’

(on Marriage Certificate)

THOMAS (1883-1968)

RICHARD (18854

MAUREEN

HUSBAND

WIFE

BRIDGET (1830-March 1892)

married from Potter’s Alley (Death Certificate)

Figure 1. Signatures of George Collins, Thomas Pugh, John Pugh and

Joseph Meash, dated 30 September, 1855, on the lease of the Liffey

Street glasshouse.

Figure 2. Part of John Rocque’s map of Dublin

(1750.

Figure 3. Jug engraved by Franz Tieze. About 1880.

Ht. 10
1
/
2
in. (27 cm.). Victoria and Albert Museum.

Crown Copyright.

Figure 4. Page from Tieze’s note-book (p. 47). Victoria and Albert

Museum. Crown Copyright.

_Alidt449

—
“°’

400c
,
uo”on

-,”;•Yr•

•,..1))(-5J.0

‘1: • •

t
Zt
–

10C
1

q•u2,..,
‘

–

4P1
)

.0.0
6
000o
co

-1..0
9
:

•

Figure 5. Claret-jug, probably

engraved by Franz Tieze. About 1870.

Ht. 11
1
/
4
in. (28.5 cm.). Writer’s

Collection. Photo: Jaimie Blandford.

A mug engraved with similar motif
and by the same hand, is inscribed

‘A. A. M. G. 1868’.

Figure 6. Page from Tieze’s note-book (p. 59).
Victoria and Albert

Museum, Crown Copyright.

Figure 7. Claret-jug. Garter-ribbon inscribed HONI SOIT QUI MAILY PEASE

(sic).

About 1880. Ht. at lip 9
7
/
8
in, (25 cm.). Writer’s Collection. Photo: Jaimie Blandford.

A jug of similar form, engraved by the same hand, is inscribed: ‘MANTJFACTURT
(sic)
BY T & R PUGH POTTERS ALLEY DUBLIN (ill. M. S. D. Westropp,

Irish Glass,

PI, 2).

Figure 8. Goblet, engraved with round tower,

etc., and motto ‘ERIN GO BRAGH’. About 1870.

Ht. 7
3
/
4
in.
(19. 5
cm.). Collection of Mrs.

Thomas Pugh. Photo: Jaimie Blandford.

Figure 9. Page from Tieze’s note-book (p. 123).

Victoria and Albert Museum. Crown Copyright.

HAT

,
M.stf

‘ WrAntAka
OW

tim

,,
,

r1
,
–
,

MVIADt

Figure 10. Certificate from 1882 Exhibition of Irish Arts and Manufactures, awarded to

Messrs. T. and R. Pugh for ruby glass chimneys for Lighthouses. Collection of Mrs. Thomas

Pugh.

Glass in 18th century Norwich

by SHEENAH SMITH
A Paper read to the Circle on 23 April, 1974.

Almost all that is known of glass making in East

Anglia was published by Francis Buckley in
1925.
1

His discoveries have been summarised by

several later writers, but little has been added to

the documentary evidence he put forward for glass
manufacture in both King’s Lynn and Great Yar-

mouth. There is still no proof that the horizontally
ribbed glasses commonly attributed to Lynn

originated there, very few additional facts about

the glasshouses have come to light and nothing has

been found to contradict his belief that glass was

not made in Norwich. However there was consider-

able activity in glass selling in Norwich during the

18th century and when considering this, the

proximity of the two manufacturing towns should be

borne in mind, for it seems probable that their
products formed at least a proportion of the stock
of the early Norwich glass-sellers. By the

beginning of the 18th century Norwich was estab-
lished as the home of the textile industry, and by
the end of the century Norfolk had become the

richest farming county in England. Although in

population Norwich, which had been second to
London in size, was overtaken by new industrial

cities such as Birmingham and Liverpool, it

remained an important manufacturing and

agricultural centre. Its position in the middle of

a populous region was attractive enough to

encourage tradesmen and artists from London to
settle there and for auctioneers, itinerant artists

and craftsmen to make short visits. An example

of the latter category was the ‘glass blower’ who

advertised his performance in the
Norwich Gazette

for 2nd September, 1721:

‘For the Diversion of Gentlemen, Ladies, and

others, at the Star in the Market-place in Norwich
(fig. 1, 2) is to be seen the Famous and Noble Work

of a GLASS BLOWER, being the only Artist of this

kind having had the Honour to perform before most

of the Nobility of this Kingdom, who in the Presence

of all Spectators makes and sells all sorts of
curious Figures in Glass, etc. as .Parrs, Tea-pots,

Coffee-dishes, Bottles and Flower-pots, all small

and curious, being very dexterously intermixt

with blue, and other Colours, as natural as Indian
Paintings. Also all sorts of Fruits and Flowers,

Beasts, Birds, Fowls, Images, Figures of Men,

Women and Children, which he Bloweth of all

Shapes and Colours. Likewise Swords and

Scabbards, Knives and Forks, and Grenadoes to

put in the Snuff of a Candle, that give a Report
like a gun. And he shows a wonderful Glass,

wherein are several curious Figures which move

by an invisible Motion. He also performs to any

Gentlemen or Ladies at their own Houses, giving

him an Hours notice and performs to 2 or 3 as

well as to 100. He hath a Wheel, that’s turn’d by
Human Power, which Spins Ten Thousand Yards

of Glass in half an Hour. He performs from 9 in
the Morning till 9 at Night. Note, He stays here

but few Days.

In fact he stayed in Norwich for at least a

month because the advertisement was repeated

weekly until October 7th. This indication of his

success with the public is not surprising, for the

objects which he claimed to make must have

intrigued the 18th century reader as much as they

do the 20th century historian. Although one would
expect that he was a Venetian or Flemish artist

this man may have been English, because other
contemporary advertisements reveal that things
and people from foreign countries were as much

an attraction to the 18th century Norwichgian as

were elephants with six legs and other freaks of
nature to be viewed usually in the Market Place.

This man would surely have announced his

nationality had he been foreign, to increase the

interest of his public. His invasion of their terri-

tory may have annoyed the Norwich glass-sellers

although it is unlikely that their stock would have

included such fantastic items as he advertised.

Their wares were more in the useful category.

The principal source of information for this

Paper has been local newspapers, the first issues

of which date from the first decade of the 18th
century, but other sources indicate that these do

not provide a complete picture of the glass trade.
For example, Freemens’ lists
2
name glass-

sellers for whom no advertisements have been

discovered and some of the advertisements are
sadly uninformative. Lack of detail is particularly

evident for the first half of the century, for even

those dealers who did advertise were disappoint-
ingly vague about the sort of wares they had to

offer, usually just stating that they sold glasses

without listing the different objects. Also in the
early years of the century the majority of dealers

in glass sold a variety of other things as well.

Between about 1710 to 1730 there were at least

six and probably nine men involved in domestic

glass or bottle selling. Of these one was a ‘toyman’
who sold a wide variety of objects made from

materials other than glass, three sold domestic

glass as a sideline to their main business and two

sold bottles as a sideline. In addition there were

three described as glassmen in contemporary

sources but for whom no advertisements have

been found. The presence of so many glass-

sellers at this early date is interesting if not

surprising.

The earliest advertisement for domestic

glasses discovered dates from January 1711:
3

‘At Mr. Skinkel’s, a Button-maker in St. Stephens,

are New Pictures in good gilt Frames, and New

Dutch Tea-tables to be sold at cheap rates, and

fine Earthen Ware, and all sorts of Drinking

Glasses’.

Although Skinkel’s 1711 advertisement is the

earliest discovered so far it is possible that a

contemporary of his, Richard Laws, was also sell-
ing glasses at his china shop in Tombland although

he does not advertise the fact until 1721. Evidence

that he was in business as early as 1707 is pro-

vided by advertisements for patent medicines,

where his address is given as ‘the China Shop on
Tombland’.
4

‘THE most incomparable Cephalick Snuff, that

helps deafness, Clears the Eye-sight, and removes

fix’d Pains in the Head; and likewise a Water that
effectually takes away Sun-burns and Freckles in

the Face, are both sold by Mr. Richard Laws, at

the China-Shop on Tombland in Norwich.’
5

and in the 1710
Norwich Poll Book
he is listed

under St George’s Tombland as ‘Cheny-man’.

He remained on Tombland until about 1714,

when the land tax returns
8
for St. Peter -Mancroft

tell us that he had moved to the Market Place.
Who occupied his Tombland Shop between 1714 and

1720 is a mystery but it continued as a china and

glass
shop, for the sale of the stock was advertised

in September 1720,
7
after which Laws moved

back.

‘At the Potters Shop by the Poppinjay on Tomb-

land in Norwich, are all Sorts of Pots, Glasses

and Brushes to be sold, both by wholesale and

Retale, at Very Reasonable Rates, and the Sale to

continue till all are sold. Note, the said shop is to

be Lett, with all the Shelves ready standing’

and Laws himself announced his return to these

premises in November 1721
8
having advertised

his house and shop in the Market to let.
9

‘MR RICHARD LAWS, China Seller, who liv’d
in

the Market, is now remov’d into the Shop which
he formerly kept upon Tombland; where he conti-

nues to sell all Sorts of fine China, all Sorts of

Tea, and fine japan’d Tea-Tables, Chocolate,

Coffee all Sorts of Earthen and Stone Wares,
Glasses, Mops, and Brushes, Spirits for Lamps,
Cordial Waters, etc. Likewise the Specific

Remedy, so fam’d for curing the Secret Disease.’
10

The Poppinjay next door to his shop was a

public house at the corner of King Street and

Tombland. Laws wrote his will in July 1723,
11

claiming to be ‘infirme of Body but of sound and

perfect mind’ but presumably survived for about
another ten years, for the will was not proved until

June 1733.

Meanwhile a Mr. Blackwell Dixon from London

had taken over the Market Place shop and in
.

December 1721
12

advertised a wide variety of

toys for sale and also ‘Glasses, and all Sorts of
fine Stone Ware’. The shop was on the upper side
of the Market. Similar advertisements appeared

in 1722 and 1723 including in 1722
13

‘all Sorts of

fine Stone-Ware, Earthen Ware, and Glasses’ and

in 1723
14
‘Stone Ware, Delft Ware, Earthen Ware,

Glasses and China’. He was granted the Freedom

of the City in 1724 as a potter and advertised again

in 1725 a slightly different selection of goods with
more emphasis on groceries but still including

ceramics and glasses. The following year he

decided to move and announcedls that he had taken

over the shop ‘late Mrs. Geast and Talbotts
Milleners, next door to Mr. Ransome’s Draper in

the Market’ and that he ‘continues to sell all sorts

of Millenary wares, and other Things, as usually
sold by them, … likewise Coffee, Tea [etc] …

China, glasses, and fine Delph Ware [furniture
etc.] . . . he likewise continues to sell at his

other shop the upper side of the Market the same

Goods as usual till Michaelmas next’. This first

shop was advertised for sale in April 1726
16
as

being next door to Mr. Starling the painter.

In spite of all this moving about, Dixon’s

business may not have been very lucrative, for he

had left his second shop within a year
17
to become

landlord of the King’s Arms near the Red-well. As

a publican he retained an interest in the arts, for
a sale of old master paintings to be held at Mr.
Blackwell Dixon’s at the King’s Arms was adver-

tised in 1735.
18
He presumably remained there

until his death in 1739 because in his will
19

he is

termed innkeeper.
A third tradesman of this early period who sold

ceramics and glass was Henry Minns, who is in-

cluded in the Freemen of Norwich for 1720 as
potter and glass seller but for whom no advertise-

ments have been found and an anonymous dealer

announced the sale of his stock in the
Norwich

Gazette,
4th May, 1717.

‘On Monday the 13th Instant, at the Corner Shop

near St. Laurence Lower Steppings, will begin a

Sale which will hold till all the Goods be Sold:

There is all sorts of Stone-Ware, Earthenware,

House-Brushes, and many other sorts of Brushes,

also Glasses, Bellows, Holland-Pails, Mopps and

several other sorts of Goods. They will be sold
very cheap, the Stone-ware, etc. cheaper than at

any shop in the City . . . the Person that now
keeps the said Shop being design’d to leave off

that Business. Note, it is an old custom’d Shop,

it stands well for the Sale of any Commodity, and
is now to be Let.’
As well as drinking glasses, bottles were avail-

able for purchase in Norwich. A hatmaker,
William Woolerston, who had a shop in the Market,

announced in March 1711
20
and again in 1712

that as well as hats he sold glass bottles. A later

advertisement for bottles was placed in the

Gazette
on 1st December, 1722, by Samuel Spilman,

Corn-Buyer who ‘continues to Buy all sorts of

Corn on Saturday’s at the Dove in St. Benedicts in

the Forenoon; and at the Star in the Market in the

Afternoon. He also Sells all sorts of Glass-

Bottles, and all Sorts of Glaziers Glass, and

Coals, at the Lowest Prices. He can deliver any

of the Aforementioned either at Coslany Bridge, or
at Conisford, in Norwich.’ He was evidently a ship

owner and came from Yarmouth,
22

but his

bottles were presumably not the local product for

he had placed the following notice in the
Gazette

12th August 1721:

‘Notice is hereby given, that there is now arriv’d

at Yarmouth a Ship with a large Quantity of
Bottles, which will be sold for Nineteen Shillings

per Gross ready Money, and Twenty Shillings per

Gross Trust. Whosoever wants may come to
Yarmouth or send their Orders to Mr. Samuel

Spilman there, and they shall be currently
observ’d.’
This rather suggests that the Yarmouth Glass-

house had not yet opened and at present the

earliest record of it is for 1727: ‘This is to give

Notice to all Gentlemen and others, That at the

Glass House in South-Town, near Yarmouth, all

Sorts of Bottles and Broad Glass, as good as any
in England are to be sold. Inquire at the Glass-

House’.
23

Finally for the period 1710-30 there were three

men who are termed glassmen in contemporary

sources but for whom no advertisements have been

found. They were John Trowman, John Anguish and
Geoffrey Seager. All that is known of John Trow-

man is that he was granted the Freedom of the

City in 1724 as Glassman, and the only reference

to Anguish as a glassman is an advertisement
24

for the sale of his house in 1711:

‘THE House where Mr. John Anguish the Glass-
man lately lived, and another in the same Yard

where Mrs. Hawkin’s liv’d, at the Golden-dog-lane

End next to Magdalen Street, are both to be

Let . . . ‘

In a will
25
for John Anguish written and proved

in 1713 he is described as worsted weaver, but

the fact that Richard Lawes the china dealer is
one of the witnesses supports the identification of

this John Anguish with ‘Anguish the Glassman.’

The third glassman, Geoffrey Seager, is included

in the list of Freemen for 1718. An advertisement

in the
Norwich Gazette

for 2nd December, 1727,

tells us that he lived in Conisford Street (now
King Street) which runs alongside the river

Wensum:

‘To be Sold 2 very good Wherries of about 8 Tuns

Burden, late Mr. Summers’s deceas’d . . . Inquire

of Mr. Jeffrey Seager Glass-Seller in Conisford-

Street, or of Mr. Charles Fair Pump-Maker in the

same street, Norwich. ‘

In the land tax returns his stock is valued at

E,50 from 1729 until 1733, the year of his death.
In his will,
26
which was proved in October 1733,

he is described as glass-man and bequeaths to his

wife three shillings a week for life and the re-
mainder of the money arising out of stock and

personal estate to his son Francis and daughter

Arabella. There is a fustrating reference in the

will to an inventory of his stock which was probably
destroyed long ago.

1730 is a convenient date to commence the

second period under review for by, or soon after,

that date all the glass-sellers discussed so far

had died, given up the trade or no further mention

of them has been found. For the years 1730-50 at
least seven new names were concerned in the glass

trade, one of whom, Richard Matthews, was
principally a dealer in domestic glass, two were

toymen who also sold glass, one a silversmith who
also sold glass and three dealt only in bottles.
The first of these to begin trading in Norwich

was Abraham Pigmy an Ivory-Turner from Lon-

don who first advertised in the
Norwich Gazette

on 12th July, 1729.

‘ABRAHAM PIGNE, Ivory-Turner from London,

now living in the Parish of St. Andrew over-against

Mr. John Simpson’s Glover, near the 3 steps,

selleth all Sorts of Ivory and Dutch Toys, fine

Silver . . . Isnuff boxes, jewellery etc.] . .

fine Canes with Chas’d Heads… and Glass

carved… [furniture etc.] … fine China, New-

fashion double-flint Glasses and Decanters …

Brass and Glass Arms … [clocks and watches
and a large Variety of other goods]’

He became a Freeman of the City in 1730 as a

toyman and inserted another advertisement in the
Gazette”
that year which included ‘. . . fine

China of the newest Fashion; Double Flint-Glasses
and Decanters . . . Glass and Brass-Arm . . .

Glass and Brass ink-pots . . . ‘ The next year

and in 1734 from the same address his advertise-
ment was very similar but included ‘newest
Fashion Wine-Glasses, and Decanters, all sorts

of China . . . He continued to advertise until
January 1762, when he announced that he was

retiring from business.” By this date his

address was London Lane. His death occurred

some time before October of that year, when his
will,
2 9

written in August, was proved. In it he is

termed Ivory Turner. A final notice appeared in

the
Mercury
on 30th October, 1762:

‘This is to give NOTICE, THAT all the remaining

Part of the Stock of the late Mr. ABRAHAM
PIGNEY in London Lane, will be sold off at Prime

Cost; with the Sashes and Fixtures directly, as the
Business will be no longer continued. N. B. The

House and Shop to be Lett’.

A rival toyman of the 1730’s was Alexander

Jones, whose advertisements were often placed
next to Pigney’s in the newspapers. He was

granted Freedom of the City in June, 1731, and

inserted his first advertisement in the
Gazette
on

31st July:

‘ALEXANDER JONE S, Toy man, over-against the

Shop late Mr. Lormier’s, near the Red-Well in

Norwich is just returned from London . . . [toys]

. . . China of all Sorts, some of which is very

curious, Glass, and fine White Stone Ware; [cutlery,

tea, coffee etc. Books] . . . N. B. At the above-

said Toy Shop, during the Term of the Assize

Week, there will be several valuable things

raffled for, particularly a very curious sett of

inamelled China, valued at 10 Guineas, and each

Person disposed to try their Fortunes to put in

5 shillings’.
The Mr. Lormier he mentions was a French-

man who gained his freedeom in 1716 as a

cutler, but in other references is described as

toyman. He paid land tax from 1712 until 1729,

when his shop and house near the three steps in

St. Andrews were put up for sale
313
and it seems

quite probable that he also had sold glass, but no

advertisements have been found. Both Pigney and
Jones had shops near Lormier’s old shop so that

as well as advertising simultaneously, for a few
years they were neighbours, whether by accident

or design is not clear.
In 1732 Jones advertised again
31
and this
time was more specific about the sort of glass he

had to offer:

‘ALEXANDER JONES, Toyman, overagainst the

Shop late Mr. Lormier’s near the Red-Well in
Norwich . . . [toys] . . . Salt-Bottles, double or

single, with or without Cases . . . [buttons and

studs in various materials including glass] . . .

Great Choice of China, and fine Stone Ware;

likewise all Sorts of Wine Glasses, Jelly Glasses,
and Decanters; Brass and Glass Arms . . . Glass

and Brass Ink-Pots. ‘

In the following year he decided to move to a

shop near the Market Place and advertised” the

same articles from his new premises ‘late Mr.

Clayton’s in the Cockey Lane’.
No further reference to him has been found but

he may have given up this business, for in 1742 an

Alexander Jones of St. Stephen’s parish adver-

tised
33
as a teacher of English, writing and

arithmetic and merchants’ accounts.

Contemporary with Pigney and Jones was

Nathaniel Roe, a goldsmith whose shop in the

Market Place specialised in gold and silver but

also stocked china, glass and toys. These were

advertised regularly until his retirement in 1750,

when the shop was taken over by his son, also
Nathaniel Roe (fig. 1, 6; fig. 4)

Whilst these dealers offered table glass, three

bottle sellers were operating in Norwich in the

1730’s and 40’s. Perhaps the most interesting

was Elizabeth Tyzack of the well-known Newcastle

family of glass makers, three of whose advertise-

ments were published by Francis Buckley in 1926.

Those discovered date from 1730 to 1733. The

two of 1730 advertised quart bottles at 17s a
gross, that of 1732 a large parcel of bottles and

for March 1733
34
a fourth advertisement not

quoted by Buckley read as follows:

‘At the Sign of the Six-Bottles upper end of St.

Margaret’s Lane in Norwich, are to be sold Glass
Bottles, Quarts and Pints, being a fresh Parcel

newly arrived from the North; where any Person

may be accommodated with what Quantities they

please, at very reasonable rates, by Me
ELIZABETH TYZACK. ‘

Also selling bottles was John Simpson, a

plumber and glazier whose premises were in the
Fleece Yard in St. Simon’s parish. He advertised

bottles from 1733 and in 1736 stated that the
price of
–

wine and cider bottles was reduced from

19s per gross to 18s per gross.

He continued this trade until his death in 1741

or early 1742, when the following notice appeared

in the
Mercury
35

‘AT the Old Ware-House in the Fleece-Yard, in

St. Simon’s, Norwich, late Mr. JOHN SIMPSON’S,

are to be sold [lead etc.] . . . Glass Bottles of

all Sorts
JOHN MARKS

The firm of Marks
&
Co. continued as plumbers

and glaziers into the 1790’s.
The third bottle seller of the 1730’s and 40’s

was Daniel Pycroft, who sold ‘all sorts of Glass
bottles from Half a Pint to a Pottle (i.e. 4 pints).
36

He died in 1748.
37

The third period under review coincides with

W. A. Thorpe’s ‘Age of Ornament’ following the

Excise Act of 1745. During the 1750’s & 60’s

there were two main glass dealers, Jonas Phillips
and Richard Matthews, and several chinamen who

also sold glass. The population of Norwich had
increased from about 28, 000 in 1693 to 36, 000

and glass and china were by now more common-
place articles in the middle-class home.
Jonas Phillips was a prolific advertiser and a

successful businessman with branches in King’s

Lynn and Ipswich, as well as his main premises in

Norwich, whereas few advertisements have been

found for his rival Richard Matthews, who seems
to have restricted his activities mainly to Norwich.

It is probable that the Lynn glasshouse had closed
down by 1750, for the 1747 advertisement in

The Daily Advertiser
3
8
is the latest discovered so

far and could be interpreted as that of a closing-
down sale, doubtless caused by the Excise Act

which came into operation in 1746. The gap

created by this probable closure offered Jonas

Phillips an excellent opportunity to expand his

business.
His opening advertisement in the
Norwich

Mercury
was dated 3rd November 1753:

JONAS PHILLIPS and Comp. Begs leave to inform

the PUBLICK, THAT they have open’d a GLASS

WAREHOUSE, the Corner of St. Andrew’s Church
NORWICH, which for many Years have been Mr.

MANNING’S Yarn and Salt-Warehouse. They

having laid in an entire fresh Stock of Glasses
made of the best Mettle, and from the newest

Patterns now in England, which they will sell by

Wholesale and Retale upon very moderate

Terms; and all Persons that please to favour them

with their Orders, may depend on their being
executed in the best Manner, By their most
Humble Servant to Command JONAS PHILLIPS

and Comp.

and a repeat of this advertisement on 10th
November describes the location of his warehouse

more precisely ‘the corner of Bridewell Alley,

near St. Andrews Broad-Street’ (fig. 3, 12). This

was quite near the river, an obvious advantage

in transporting supplies. The following year he

announced the opening of his Lynn Warehouse on
Monday, February 4th,
39
‘in Captain BURRELL’S

Yard, near the Globe Tavern in Chequer Street’.
Chequer Street (now King Street) runs parallel

to the River Ouse and the position of the Globe
Tavern, which still stands, places Phillips’ Ware-
house precisely, a few yards south along the river

from the Common Staith Yard where the Lynn
glass manufactury had had its warehouse.
For this opening at Lynn in 1754 Phillips had

‘an entire fresh stock of GLASSES containing

upwards of 120 different sorts which are made of
the finest metal that is prepared, and from the

newest patterns now in England . . . ‘ He also

stated now and in all future advertisements that

he would purchase broken flint glasses, presum-

ably to sell to his suppliers.

The Lynn warehouse was to remain his until

his death in 1768 and was opened twice yearly,

in February, during the period of the Lynn Mart,

and again in August for a couple of weeks.
In the
Mercury

for June 15th, 1754 he announced

his attendance at the midsummer fair on Barnwell

Green near Cambridge offering ‘a large new and
compleat Assortment of GLASSES, never before

expos’d to Sale… from the newest patterns now

in England’. Over the years he continued to attend

fairs near Cambridge and in 1755 opened a branch
at Ipswich, which he maintained at least until

1765. The first advertisement for the Ipswich

Warehouse appeared in August 1755:
40

‘JONAS PHILLIPS, Near St. Andrew’s Church in

the city of NORWICH, GLASSMAN, Begs Leave to
inform the Publick, that he has taken a WAREHOUSE

in the ANGEL YARD on the COMMON-KEY,

IPSWICH, where he has laid in a compleat Assort-
ment of the following Articles, viz. Glass Salvers,

Sillabub, Jelly and Sweetmeat Glasses of all sorts,
with Decanters and Wine-Glasses of the newest

patterns now in England and all other Articles in

the Glass way; . . . Any person, by sending a
Pattern or Draught, may have any Quantity of

Glasses made to either of them; or, if desired, any

Gentleman’s coat of Arms engrav’d on Decanters,

Wine Glasses, or any other Articles. The said
Jonas Phillips will give Attendance at the Ware-

house above-mention’d two or three Times in the

Year, which will be properly advertised in the

Norwich and Ipswich Papers; and during the Time

of his Absence, any Person may be served with

any Quantity of Goods, wholesale or retail, by

applying to Mr. John Clark, Shopkeeper, in St.

Clements Forestreet Ipswich . . . To prevent

Trouble, the lowest prices are fixed, and no

Abatement made. N. B. He buys any Quantity of

broken Flint-glass, and gives the best Price for

the same.

This reveals a new enterprise in his under-

taking to have glasses made or engraved to order
(cf. figs. 7, 8) and that in Ipswich he had an agent,
Mr. John Clark. Later in the year he had advertis-

ed
41
from his Norwich warehouse an even more

detailed list of wares which it seems worth

giving in full although it repeats some from the

Ipswich list.

‘JONAS PHILLIPS, At his GLASS WAREHOUSE

near St. Andrew’s Church, begs Leave to inform

the Publick, THAT he has lately come home with

a large and compleat Assortment of the following

Articles, viz. Glass Salvers of all sizes; sillabub,
Jelly, and sweetmeat Glasses cut and plain, also

cut Glass Shells of all sizes for sweetmeats:

New-fashion’d Decanters with Inscriptions
engraved on them viz. Port, Claret, Mountain, White

Wine, Lisbon, Madeira, Florence, Rhenish,
Burgundy, Hock, Beer and Cyder, decorated with

Vine Leaves, Grapes, etc. also great Variety of
the newest fashion’d Wine Glasses of various

Prices, flower’d and plain; Glass Candlesticks,

Salts, Cruets and Mustard-Pots, cut and plain;

Equipages with cut Glasses and Silver Tops, ditto

with ribb’d or plain Glasses, and Ivory or Wood

Tops; also Glass Lanthorns for Halls, Staircases,

etc. with Glass Smoak Shades and Brass Furniture

to fix them up with; Chamber lamps of several

Sorts, which keep light for ten or twelve Hours

with very little Trouble; great Variety of English
and German cut Smelling Bottles; ground Flint

Phials, Specie-Glasses, and Pill-Pots, all sorts of

Shop Pots ready label’d for Ointments, Syrups,

etc. all sorts of white and green Phials and Daffy

Bottles, Gally Pots, Pill Boxes, and Phial Corks,

also Hour Glasses, and upwards of two hundred

different Articles not mentioned in this Advertise-

ment.

Whoever please to favour him with their
Commands . . . . [etc.] JONAS PHILLIPS. NB

He gives the best Price for any Quantity of Broken

Flint Glass.

The next year, 1756, his Lynn Advertisement
42

is similar to this but with the addition of ‘… Like-
wise one of the Newest-fashion’d and grandest

piramids in England’ and in describing the equip-
ages he uses the term ‘moulded’ instead of
‘ribb’d’. By February 1757

43
the number of glass

items he claims to sell has increased to ‘upwards

of Three Hundred different Sorts’ and he states
that ‘The Goods are entirely new, and of the

neatest Patterns now made in England, either cut,

flower’d, enamel’ d, moulded, worm’d, or plain.. .’
This seems to be the first use made by him of the

terms enamelled and wormed. His Norwich ad-

vertisement for 1757
44
reads as follows:

‘JONAS PHILIPS, At his Glass-Warehouse in St.

Andrew’s, Norwich. Has now come Home with a
large quantity of the newest fashion’d Decanters,

Wine-Glasses, etc., and almost every other Article
in the Glass Trade, which consists of many

Hundred different sorts suitable for all Families,
and a complete Sortment of Equipages, with cut,
moulded and plain Glasses, with Silver, Ivory or

Wood Tops; and the following Goods for Surgeons
and Apothecarys, viz. Ground Flint Phials, Specie

Glasses, and Glass Pill-Pots, neatly fitted up.

Also white and green Phials, Galley Pots, Pill

boxes and Phial Corks of all Sizes. Superfine
Flour of Mustard. JONAS PHILLIPS NB He gives

the best Price for any Quantity of broken Flint

Glass.

In this year too he began to advertise that he

sold ‘superfine flour of mustard’ and this was to

become an important sideline in Norwich and at

his other premises. In July 1759 he had moved his
Ipswich warehouse to a site

opposite Mr. John

Clarke’s, Ironmonger, in St. Clement’s Fore-

Street …’ and announced in the
Ipswich Journal

14th July, that the warehouse would be kept open
during race week.
An interesting notice in the
Cambridge Journal

for 15th September of that year reads:

‘JONAS PHILLIPS, at his Glass Booth, in

STIRBECH Fair, has opened a large parcel of all

sorts of the newest fashioned glass now made in
England. He will sell plain glass at 9d. per pound,

Tall Wine Glasses, Bekers, etc. at 2.3d. and 2. 6d.

per dozen’.

and in 1760
45
he was there again selling Mustard

as well:

‘At PHILIPS’S GLASS WAREHOUSE, in St.

Andrew’s Norwich, is sold by wholesale THE
Right Superfine DURHAM FLOUR of MUSTARD,

in Casks of Thirty and Sixty Pounds in each cask,
as cheap as in London, or in any Market in Eng-

land; no Charge will be made on the Casks. If

desired, any Person may have smaller Quantity at

first by Way of Sample. It will also be sold at the
same Price, at his GLASS WAREHOUSE in Lynn-

And from the 25th of this Instant August, til the

6th. of September following, and during the whole

Time of Sturbich Fair, at his GLASS BOOTH near

to the Water-side, in that Part call’d the Pot
Fair; and shall be much oblig’d to all that will

please to favour me with their Orders at any of

the above Places.’

More prices are quoted in his Ipswich advertise-

ment for 1761
46
‘great choice of Equipages of all

sorts from 4/- to £3 each. He gives 2ds. lb. for

Broken Flint Glass. ‘
In May 1762
47
a short-lived sortie into bottle

selling was announced—

‘To be SOLD, at PHILLIPS’S GLASS-WAREHOUSE,
in St. Andrew’s, NORWICH, THE best Champaign

and Common Quart and Pint Glass Bottles; like-

wise Quart and Pint Bottles with large Mouths

for Pickles, preserv’d Fruit, etc. Wine-Merchants
and others may be served with any Quantity of

Bottles at the lowest Price. KB. A house to let

in St. Andrew’s Broad Street …

but by July
48
the next year he had evidently

abandoned this scheme,

‘He returns his most hearty Thanks to all Gentle-

men and others that have been so kind as to favour

him with their Orders for Glass Bottles, and also

begs Leave to inform them that he has entirely

left off that Branch of Trade

So far all the advertisements have stressed glass
or mustard flour as his main goods, together with
lamp oil from 1762, but in an insurance policy
49

dated December 1763 he is described as ‘dealer in

Oil, Glass, China and Earthenware’. This is the
first mention of china although earthenware had

been sold by him in the form of galley pots for
some years. The total value of the policy was
2.700 broken down in the following way:

Stock in Shop, Warehouse & Compting House only
communicating …next the street

400

Stock in Warehouse adjoining Dwelling

House in the Yard West

Household Goods in said Dwelling House

Plate therein

China therein only

Wearing apparel

Stock in Warehouse in the Yard

All the above Thatched.

Stock in his sale Warehouse only situate
in Chequer Street in King’s Lynn in the

County of Norfolk, Brick & tiled

Stock in a Warehouse only in the Yard

30
The absence of any valuation for his Ipswich

concern perhaps indicates the phasing out of this

branch. He only advertised three more times in

the Ipswich paper
50

that he would be at his Ware-

house in Fore Street for short periods, and after

May, 1765, no further notice has been discovered.
However, he continued to advertise the Lynn

warehouse each year, in 1765
51
as follows:

‘PHILLIP’S Glass Warehouse. Next door to the

Globe in Lynn. WILL be opened from this Time

till the second of March, with a curious Assortment

of cut, flowered and plain Glasses, all entirely new

from the best Makers in England: where Gentle-
men, Ladies, Surgeons, Apothecaries, Shopkeepers,

and others may be completely served with every

Article that is wanted in the Glass way, Wholesale

and Retail, at very moderate Prices. Also a large

Assortment of very good Equipages, with the best

cut Glasses with Silver Tops …

and in 1766
52
a more extensive list which

included:

‘… GLASS of all Sorts, new made, to the best

Patterns in England, cut, flowered, and plain. Fine

cut Glass Candlesticks, superfine cut Glass Salts,

Cruets, and Mustard-pots, Ladies cut Toilet and

Smelling Bottles etc. Equipages or Cruet Stands
with Silver, Ivory, Bone or Wood Tops to them;
Glass Lanthorns, very neat for Halls, Stair-cases,

Passages etc. and all sorts of white and green

Phials, Galley-pots and the best Dutch pill-boxes
… [mustard etc.] … He gives the best price for

any Quantity of broken flint Glass’.

adding in 1767
53

‘Compleat sets of enamelled Jars, neatly painted,

the colours more beautiful than China’ and in

1768
54
‘The grandest and one of the best pyramids

ever made’

Soon after this Jonas Phillips died and the

business was taken over by John Cook in November

1769.

Phillips has been dealt with at length because of

all the glass-merchants he was the most persistent

advertiser and his lists of merchandise gave a

full picture of what was available to the East
Anglian public between 1750 and 1770. For this
reason it seemed worthwhile to repeat the ad-

vertisement already published by Francis Buckley

and to add some new ones.

Phillips’ only serious rival in glass-selling

was Richard Matthews, who was in business

several years before Phillips, for he announced
55

that he was moving to new premises in 1749, four

years before Phillips opened his warehouse:

£700

‘RICHARD MATTHEWS WHO for several Years,

have kept the Glass Warehouse near the Duke’s
Palace (fig. 1, 11), Norwich, is now removed oppo-

site the Rampant Horse in St. Stephen’s (fig. 1, 1);

where he continues to sell all sorts of Ground,
Flower’d, and Worm’d Glasses, at the lowest

Price according to their work; also the best Plain

Flint Wine glasses and Decanters; all sorts of

Cheap Glasses by the dozen, according to their

Goodness; where may be had all sorts of Flint
Ground Vials and species Glasses, White and

Green vials, Daffy Bottles, Gally-Pots, Pill Boxes
and Vial Corks. All Shopkeepers will find a

reasonable Allowance that sell again, and may

depend on being served with as good sortment as

anywhere in England, By their Humble Servant

Richard Matthews N. B. I shall wait my customers

with the above Sortment at Sturbich Fair and at

Lynn in the Time of the Mart as usual. ‘

In this advertisement his wares were similar to
those later advertised by Phillips but whilst in

the years that follow Phillips advertised frequently,
not a single notice was placed in the paper by

Matthews. He certainly continued to trade at his
new premises opposite the Rampant Horse Hotel

in St. Stephen’s, for references to it in connection

with house sales occur during the 50’s and 60’s
56

and in Ms will
57
, which was proved on September

15th, 1774, he is termed glass-merchant of St.

Stephen’s. A memorial tablet in the South Aisle
of St. Stephen’s church records that he was an

Alderman of Mancroft ward and was Sheriff in
1774, the year of his death. (He was 65 years of

age when he died so was born in about 1709.)
During the period c. 1750-1770 when Jonas

Phillips and Richard Matthews were the main

glass sellers in the city, one of the china dealers

also sold glass and Abraham Pigney was still in

business during the 1760’s. As the china dealers
were discussed in detail in a paper read to the
English Ceramic Circle last year,
58
only

material relating to glass is included here.

The china business in question was that of John

Dersley, who had a glass and china shop on the
corner of Dove Lane in the Market Place (fig. 1,

7; fig. 4) which he handed over to his brother James

in 1755. That he puts ‘the Various Branches of

Glasses’ before ceramics in his advertisements

and calls the shop a glass and china shop suggests
that glass was the more important item for him.

James Dersley’s advertisements and his inclusion

in
Poll Books
as china-man indicate that he on the

other hand placed more emphasis on the ceramic

side of business, although when he moved to new

premises in 1775 he advertised as a dealer in
glass, china, Nottingham, London and Staffordshire

wares and stated that he gave ‘the Best Price for
Broken Glass’.

Before leaving the third quarter of the 18th

century, the advent of glass auctions must be

considered. In the first half of the century auctions

of glass were not advertised and visits from
itinerant glass makers were rare but after about

1750 both became increasingly popular.
In 1751, thirty years after the first recorded

glass blower’s visit to Norwich, a lady glass-maker

announced her arrival in the city:
59

‘This is to acquaint the CURIOUS, THAT there are

to be Seen and Sold, at the LYON and CASTLE in

the Market-Place, NORWICH, the greatest curio-
sities in GLASS-WORKS that ever were seen in

any Part of England, and performed by a Woman,

who is allowed by the best Judges from all Parts,
to excell all Persons in Europe in the said Art.
There are also to be seen several fine VIEWS, by

the Reflection of a Concave Mirrour, from Paris,

of Twenty Inches Diameter, the best of its kind

that ever was shewn in Publick. ‘

and in 1754 an auction was held at Sir Benjamin

Wrench’s Court (fig. 6), the building which was
later to house the Norwich Society of Painters’

Exhibitions. The auction notice
60
advertised

china, plate, pictures and included ‘a set of cut and

flower’d Glass for a Desart’. It is irritating that
very often catalogues for these sales are men-

tioned in the advertisements but not one is known

to have survived.
In February 1761
61
Mr. John Bench announced

his presence in the town, two months after a simi-

lar advertisement had appeared in the
Ipswich

Journal.
62

‘MR. JOHN BENCH, from Warwick, GLASS TOY-

MAKER and GLASS-BLOWER. HE has likewise a

wheel for spinning Glass; and also blows Hollow
Glass Men, called Merry Merills, to shew the
Pressure of the Air in a Decanter of Water. He

likewise makes Glass Temples and Chinese
Railings for Desserts and Glass Flowers for

Ladies Egrets. This Performance may be seen by

any Number of Persons at any Hour, from Twelve

at Noon til Seven at Night, in a commodious Lower

Room. He also waits on Gentlemen and Ladies at

their own Houses, by giving Notice the Night

before. Price Six-Pence. Any Gentlemen or
Ladies that have seen this Performance, may have

the Pleasure to see it again at any Time, bringing
a Friend or two with them, at his room at the

Angel (fig. 1, 4) in the Market Place.’

Another notice

indicates that he stayed for a

month:

‘Mr. BENCH, At the Angel in the Market-Place

NORWICH, GLASS TOYMAKER, HIS Performance

may be seen from Eleven o’Clock to One, and from

Three to Seven in the Evening. Prices 6d and 3d.

Being the last week he will Stay in Norwich.’

Only two references to bottle selling during

this period have been found. One is an advertise-

ment of 1754
64

‘Quart GLASS BOTTLES, Pint and

half Pint Ditto to be SOLD very cheap by RICHARD

WARD BRAZIER, In the COCKEY-LANE,

NORWICH. ‘ The other
65

announced the retirement

of Mr. John Marks of the Lead Glass and Bottle

Warehouse in the Fleece Yard, St. Simons, on

February 23,1776, with a note that the business

would be continued by his son Thomas. There
were probably other bottle dealers in this period

for whom advertisements have not been found.

The last section covers the period 1770 to

1800. These three decades saw an increase in the
number of glass warehouses from two to four and

an increase in the number of public auctions of
glass.

When Jonas Phillips died in 1769 his business

was taken over by his brother John Cook (pre-
sumably a half-brother). Cook was agent to the

Sun Fire Office, London, and carried on this
occupation from the glass warehouse. He also
maintained the Lynn warehouse and advertised
in the
Ipswich Journal
for September 22nd, 1770,

that he would be ‘At Phillips Glass Booth, Stirbech
Fair’, with ‘An entire new Stock of glass’, but

the Ipswich branch of the business seems to have

been abandoned by this date.
In February 1771 he advertised
66
that his Lynn

warehouse ‘will be operating during the time of
the Mart, with an entire new stock of plain,

enamelled & cut glasses, phials, stone Galley Pots

& Pill Boxes … ‘ and inserted the advertisement
regularly until his death in 1791. One of his

customers was Parson Woodforde, who recorded

in his diary
67

on Nov. 13th 1789 ‘To 4 handsome

Glass Salt-Cellars cut glass at Cooks Glass Shop

paid 0.16.0. Cook’s will” was proved in

September, 1791, and its contents reveal that he was
a wealthy property owner. One of many bequests

was of £ 100 to his clerk Robert Rix, who on Sep-
tember 10th announced in the
Chronicle

‘GLASS WAREHOUSE, St. ANDREW’S NORWICH.

ROBERT RIX and Co. beg leave to acquaint their
Friends and the Public in general, that they have

taken the Warehouse and stock of the late Mr.
JOHN COOK and that they intend carrying on the
Glass Business upon the same extensive plan on

which it has formerly been conducted, with a large

and elegant assortment of useful and ornamental
Glass and China.’

Woodforde continued to patronise the business,

for on 3rd May, 1792, he wrote
69
‘At late Cook’s

Glass Shop, now kept by one Rix & Co. for one

Dozen of the new fashioned common wine glasses

at 14d each paid 0. 14s. ‘ The
Poll Books
for St.

Andrew’s record that Rix & Co. kept on the busi-

ness into the 19th century.
After his death in 1764, trade at Richard

Matthews’ glass warehouse in St. Stephen’s was
carried on by a Susanna Matthews, who was pre-

sumably a relative, perhaps his daughter (his

wife was named Hannah). She did not advertise

but another Matthews, William, announced” the

opening of a third Glass Warehouse in 1771:

‘WILLIAM MATTHEWS, has opened a GLASS

WAREHOUSE, at the Half Moon, late in the Use of
Mr. Barrow, in the Market-Place (fig. 5), Norwich;

where is to be sold Wholesale and Retail, all

sorts of cut, engraved and plain GLASS, as

Chandeliers, Girandoles, Pyramids, Sweetmeat,
Jelly Glasses, Salvers, Castors in sets with plated

Tops and Frames, or without, Decanters, Wine

Glasses, and all other Sorts of Drinking Glasses

of the newest Fashion; also Phials, Gally Pots,

Pill Boxes, Tow Corks, Sparmaceti Oil, and super-

fine Durham Flour of Mustard…

His relationship, if any, to Richard Matthews has
not been established. His warehouse was in the

Hall Moon Yard (fig. 1, 5; fig. 5). One of the many
yards leading from the Market Place, this parti-

cular one was towards the north end of Gentle-
man’s Walk, where he also had a shop. The Market

Place was the area favoured by the china sellers,
so Matthews was in a more fashionable shopping
centre than Cook or Susanna Matthews.

William Matthews repeated his first advertise-

ment in 1772 and again in 1773
71

on the latter

occasion with the addition of syllabub glasses and
a note that he had let part of his shop to Barthole-

mew Snare an engraver and copper plate printer

from London. In the following year a somewhat
bizarre notice appeared in the
Chronicle:
72

‘A person is just come to Norwich and undertakes

to teach ladies and gentlemen to paint in oil

colours to imitate the greatest masters in four

lessons even though they have never before

learned to draw. Specimens may be seen and

Terms known by applying at Mr. Matthews Glass

Warehouse no 7 in the Market Place.’

By 1782 Matthews had moved to a shop called the

Golden Key in the Haymarket. He had probably
moved there in 1776, when the previous occupant,

Jacob Edwards, a cutler, held a sale of his stock.
However, Matthews decided to give up glass

selling in 1782:
73

‘A VERY CHEAP SALE. WILLIAM MATTHEWS,

at the Glass Warehouse, Golden Key in the Market-

place, Norwich, intends declining that Branch of

Trade; the stock, consisting of the following

Articles, are now selling considerably under Prime

Cost: a large Assortment of Wine Glasses,
engraved, Diamond-cut, and plain, elegant Glass

Candlesticks, Salvers, Syllabubs and Jellies,
Confectionary Glasses, Decanters, Engraved and

plain, Goblets, Rummers, Beer and Ale Glasses,
Lamps of all Sorts, Globes, Several Sets of hand-

some Casters, and every other Article in the Glass

Trade. N. B. Apothecaries may be served on the

very lowest Terms with Specie Glasses, Phials,
Gallipots, Tow and Corks.
This was repeated in June, and in July he

announced:
74

‘During the Assizes, and the Two following weeks,

will be SOLD under PRIME COST, AT WILLIAM
MATTHEWS’ GLASS WAREHOUSE, in the Market-
Place, Norwich, a large Assortment of Wine

Glasses, Decanters, Salvers, Syllabub and Jelly

Glasses, Goblets, Rummers, Water Crafts, Glass

Candlesticks, Finger Cups, very handsome Glass

Salts, with every other Article in the Glass

Trade. —some China and Earthen-Ware. N. B.

A Tenement to Lett, adjoining to Mr. William
Booth’s Linen Warehouse, in the Half-moon yard,

near the Market.’

But he may have continued as Glass merchant for

a year or so because in the 1783
Directory
he is

listed as brandy merchant and glassman and in the

1784
Poll Book
as glassman. In the 1802

Directory,

however, he was ‘Importer of wine and foreign

spirits, at the Golden Key, 24 Haymarket’.

The fourth glassman of the latter part of the

century was Charles Basham, whose glass ware-

house was in White Lion Lane, a narrow street

leading east from the Market Place (fig. 1, 3).

The only references to this man as a glass-seller

were in advertisements placed by him in the

papers in his capacity as auctioneer. For example,

for a sale of prints and drawings to be held on
21st January, 1784,
75
the catalogues were ‘to be

had at the Auctioneers Glass Warehouse, White

Lion Lane’. In the 1783 and 1802
Directories
he

is listed as auctioneer of St. Stephen’s Street.
As in the earlier decades of the century, seve-
ral dealers in china also sold glass. William

Beloe, who was originally a cobbler selling

pottery as a sideline, had established himself as

a glass and china dealer by the 1770’s. His shop

was in the Market Place (fig. 1, 8) on the opposite

side from William Matthews. His advertisements

emphasise that ceramics formed the main part of

his stock, but usually contain the phrase ‘all sorts

of Glasses’. One of October 5th, 1776,
76

includes

‘a Good Assortment of cut, flower’d and plain

Glasses’ and in the following year Woodforde

recorded in his diary
77
‘Paid Mr. Beloe China

Man for glasses and decanters 12. 0. ‘

A few yards along from Beloe’s shop was

Studwell’s Glass and China Warehouse (fig. 1, 9;

fig. 3) which was opened in about 1783 by Robert
and Elizabeth Studwell. Woodforde visited this
new shop in October, 1783,
78

and bought ‘2 China

Pint basons, and half a dozen ball pint tumblers,

half a dozen upright Beer Glasses and a black tea

pot.’ The whole lot cost him 13/6. Like Beloe’s,

the Studwells’ advertisements concentrate on

pottery and porcelain, merely stating that glass
was also on sale, but
Directories
list the business

as glass and china warehouse.
The
Universal Directory
for 1793 records four

more glass and china dealers: William Hoe, whose

address was the Maddermarket; Edmund Martin of
London Lane; John Harwood, Market Street; and

George Toll, Market Place.
Whilst these Norwich men were selling glass

on a permanent basis, local and visiting auctioneers

held public sales. In 1772 Richard Bacon held a

glass auction at the Rampant Horse Hotel,
79

which was directly opposite Richard Matthews’
glass warehouse. He listed the items on offer:

‘To be SOLD by AUCTION,

By RICHARD BACON, In a Large Room at the

Rampant Horse St. Stephen’s Norwich, on Wednes-

day the 18th of this inst. July, and the Two following
Days, A large and valuable collection of cutt and

engraved London Flint Glass, consisting of rich

and elegant Lustres, Gerendoles, cut Salvers,
Piramids, Sallad, Cream, and Fruit Dishes;

Sugar and Sweet-Meat Basons, Ewers, Toilet
Bottles, Decanters, Jelly and Sillabub Glasses,

Rummers, Ale and Water Glasses, a great variety
of Neat Smelling Bottles, also a very large Quantity

of Wine Glasses of various kinds, with many

Articles too tedious for an Advertisement. As
Ladies and Gentlemen can form no Idea of the

value of the above Articles, till they are seen,

they may be viewed on Tuesday Afternoon before

the Sale; also on each Morning of the Sale, before

Ten o’Clock, at which Hour each Day’s Sale will

begin precisely. Catalogues to be had at the Place

of Sale, and of RICHARD BACON at No.
4
White-
Lion Lane, Norwich’

and a second sale was held in September of the
same year.
80

The London glassmaker Christopher Haedy

first advertised
81
in Norwich in 1773 and con-

tinued to visit the city throughout the 1770’s and

’80’s. His first advertisement is anonymous but

there is little doubt that he was the man concerned,

for the wording is almost identical to that of a
notice placed in the
Manchester Journal
in the

previous year. His Norwich advertisement read

as follows:

‘To be Sold by Hand, by a Glass Cutter from

LONDON, In the large Room in the late Sir

Benjamin WRENCH’s Court (fig. 6) in the

COCKEY LANE, NORWICH. His Stock in Trade,
consisting of a great variety of Cut, engraved and

gilt glasses, Fine Pyramids, cut Decanters, cut

Jelly Glasses, smelling Bottles, great variety of
girandoles, Cream Ewers, Ladies Toilets, Cut

Candlesticks, Cruets and Castors, the Frames all
glass. Glass Pictures, cut Salvers, Water Crafts,

Syllabubs, Sweetmeats, Tumblers, Soy Cruets,
Chandeliers, Bottles, Tapers, Salts, Blue Stands,

Prisms, Lamps. Also China.

In 1776
82
he revisited the city, this time holding

the sale at the White Swan Inn (fig.
1,
10) in the

Market Place. New items on his list included
‘curious glass Vases with square feet, fine Cut

Goblets and Compotiers, Barrel shaped Decanters

cut upon an entire new plan, with various sizes

of the much admired new invented Vase Candle-
sticks, … cut Wash hand Glasses’ and in June,

1778
83

, his list included ‘new fashioned cut glass

lanthornes, Toys for young ladies, glass dressing

boxes… a choice collection of glass ornaments

for chimney pieces also some very curious

petrifications and a large Chandelier’. In 1781
84

he enlarged upon this description as follows:

‘an elegant set of ornaments for Chimney Pieces

consisting of two beautiful Glass candlesticks with

Lustres, two Obelisks and three vases of Derby-

shire petrifactions. ‘

Finally I have a notice placed in the
Chronicle
85

by S. Benedict from London:
‘S. BENEDICT, Glass-Manufacturer, Cutter, and

Engraver, No. 9, Duke-Street, near Aldgate, London,

at the Corner Shop, opposite Mr. Chase, Printer,

in the Cockey-Lane Norwich; begs leave to inform

the Public in general, that he is just arrived here
with a compleat Assortment of GLASS of various
Patterns; which he sells at the same Price as

before the late Duty, being enabled from the very
considerable Demand he has been favoured with.

He therefore hopes Gentlemen and Ladies will

favour him with their Commands, having great
Reason to flatter himself that the excellent

Quality of Glass, Workmanship, and punctual

Observance of their Favours will give Satisfaction,

Wholesale and Retail. N. B. All sorts of Lustres
in the genteelest Taste. His stay here will not

exceed many Days.’

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This paper follows a similar one on the subject

of china-dealers read to the English Ceramic
Circle in 1973, but whilst that covered only the

second half of the 18th century, this deals with the
entire century. In spite of assistance from the

people listed below, in the time allowed the writer

did not cover every year for which newspapers

survive. It is hoped to continue the work of read-

ing through the remaining years and to publish

any new advertisements at a later date.

The following people assisted with the searching

of newspapers: Jenny Alexander, Martin Brown,
Mary Hodge and Sue Nunn, and a few of the

advertisements quoted were taken from a copy of
Francis Buckley’s
Old English Glass,
annotated by

the author (V & A, Department of Ceramics, 9B47).

Others were found by researchers working for the
Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art
(London) Ltd.
I should like to thank Paul Rutledge, senior

Assistant Archivist at Norfolk & Norwich Record
Office, for suggestions as to which documents

might prove productive, and Philip Armes, City
Engineer’s photographer, for taking most of the

photographs.
Particular thanks are due to Mr. Robert

Charleston for his encouragement and advice

throughout the project.

NOTES

Forenoon. A Large Quantity of Fine Flint Glass,

figured and plain, well sorted, being the whole

1.
Francis Buckley,
A History of Old English Glass,

London (1925).
stock of the Glass House Company there; consisting

of a great variety of the most saleable sorts of

2.
Percy Millican, ‘The Register of the Freemen of

Norwich, 1714-1752’,
Norfolk Record Society,

XXIII (1952). This reference will not be repeated

when further allusions to Freemen are made.
Drinking Glasses, Decanters, Salvers and other Glass

ware. The goods to be viewed at the said Glass

House and at the Company Warehouse in Common-

Staith Yard in Lynn, at any time before the Sale ‘

3.
Norwich Gazette,

31 January, 1711.
39.

Norwich Mercury,
26 January, 1754.

4.
Ibid.,
20 September, 1707.
40.

Ipswich Journal,

16 August, 1755.

5.
Ibid.,
13 March, 1708.
41.

Norwich Mercury,
27 December, 1755.

6.
Norwich Land Tax Returns, 1710-97,1798-1832
42.

Norwich Mercury,

14 February, 1756.

(Norfolk and Norwich Record Office). This refer-
43.

Ibid.,

12 February, 1757.

ence will not be repeated when further allusions
44.

Ibid.,
20 August, 1757.

to Land Tax are made.
45.

Ibid.,

23 August, 1760.

7.
Norwich Gazette,
24 September, 1720.
46.

Ipswich Journal,
14 February, 1761.

8.
Ibid.,
18 November, 1721.
47.

Norwich Mercury,
8 May, 1762.

9.
Ibid.,
29 July, 1721.
48.

Ibid.,
30 July, 1763.

10.
The ‘Secret Disease’ was evidently rampant in
49.

Sun Fire Insurance Policy Records, Guildhall

Norwich during the 18th century because miracu-

lous cures were regularly advertised.
MS. 11936, Vol. 150,205319 (private communication

from Elizabeth Adams, 1973)

11.
Norwich Consistory Court Wills, 61 Tet (Norfolk

and Norwich Record Office).
50.

Ipswich Journal,

28 May, 1763; 7 July, 1764; 18 May,

1765.

12.
Norwich Gazette,
2 December, 1721.
51.

Norwich Mercury,

16 February, 1765.

13.
Ibid.,
8 December, 1722.
52.

Ibid.,

15 February, 1766.

14.
Ibid.,
3 August, 1723.
53.
Ibid.,

14 February, 1767.

15.
Ibid.,

16 April, 1726.
54.

Ipswich Journal,
13 February, 1768.

16.
Ibid.,
2 April, 1726.
55.

Norwich Mercury,
29 July, 1749.

17.
Ibid.,

29 July, 1727.
56.

Ibid.,

18 June, 1757; 16 September, 1758; 1 Oct. 1763.

18.
Norwich Mercury, 11

January, 1735.
57.

Norwich Archdeaconry Court Wills, 134/92 (Nor-

19.
Norwich Archdeaconry Court Wills, 196/70 (Nor-
folk and Norwich Record Office).

folk and Norwich Record Office). The will was
written in February, 1739, and proved in October

of the same year.
58.

Published in

English Ceramic Circle Transactions,

IX, Part 2 (1974). References given there are not
repeated in the present paper.

20.
Norwich Gazette,
24 March, 1711.
59.
Norwich Mercury,

21 December, 1751.

21.
Ibid.,
29 March, 1712.
60.

Ibid.,
15 April, 1754.

22.
The name was common in that town. A Samuel,
61.

Ibid.,
21 February, 1761.

son of Samuel Spilman, gained his Freedom there
62.

Ipswich Journal,
6 December, 1760.

in 1713 and a Samuel, son of John Spilman, in 1714
63.

Norwich Mercury,
14 March, 1761.

(Freemen of Great Yarmouth,
Norwich, 1910).
64.

Ibid.,
9 May, 1754.

23.
Norwich Gazette,

1 July, 1727.
65.

Norfolk Chronicle,
2 March, 1776.

24.
Ibid.,

3 November, 1711.
66.

Ibid.,

9 February, 1771.

25.
Norwich Consistory Court Wills, 338 Dawson
67.

The Diary of a Country Parson: The Reverend

26.
(Norfolk and Norwich Record Office).

Norwich Archdeaconry Court Wills, Book 268,
James Woodforde, 1758-1802,

ed. John Beresford,

III, London (1927) pp. 151-2.

File 103 (Norfolk and Norwich Record Office).
68.

Norwich Consistory Court Wills, 316 Glew

27.
Norwich Gazette, 11
July, 1730.
(Norfolk and Norwich Record Office).

28.
Norwich Mercury,
29 January, 1762.
69.

Woodforde Diary, op. cit., III
, p. 349.

29.
Norwich Archdeaconry Court Wills, Book 241,
70.

Norwich Mercury,

9 November, 1771.

File 132 (Norfolk and Norwich Record Office).
71.

Norfolk Chronicle,

8 August, 1772, and 13
Feb. 1773.

30.
Norwich Gazette,
14 June, 1729.
72.

Ibid.,
20 September, 1774.

31.
Ibid.,
22 July, 1732.
73.

Ibid.,

25 May, 1782.

32.
Ibid.,
21 July, 1733.

74.

Ibid.,
20 July, 1782.

33.
Norwich Mercury,
5 March, 1742.

75.
Norwich Mercury,

16 January, 1784.

34.
Norwich Gazette,

17 March, 1733.
76.

Norfolk Chronicle,

5 October, 1776.

35.
Norwich Mercury,
12 February, 1742.
77.

Op. cit., I,
p. 201.

36.
Ibid.,
18 May, 1736.
78.

Ibid.,
II, p. 101.

37.
His will was written in May and proved in
79.

Norfolk Chronicle,4

July, 1772.

August, 1748. Norwich Archdeaconry Court Wills,
80.

Ibid.,

5 September, 1772.

78/68 (Norfolk and Norwich Record Office).
81.

Norwich Mercury,

31 July, 1773.

38.
The Daily Advertiser,
1 December, 1747: ‘GLASS

82.

Ibid.,

24 August, 1776.

by AUCTION. To be sold by weight to the highest
83.

Ibid.,

13 June, 1778.

BIDDER. At the Glass House in Lynn Norfolk, on
84.

Ibid.,

31 March 1781.

Wednesday the 16th instant, at Eleven in the
85.

Norfolk Chronicle,
14 December, 1782.

Richard Matthews’ second

glass warehouse.

2.
The Star, where a glass

blower performed in 1721.

3.
White Lion Lane, where

Charles Basham’s glass

warehouse was situated.

4.
The Angel, where John

Bench, glass blower and

toy maker from Warwick,
performed in 1761.

5.
The Half Moon Yard (see

fig. 5).

6.
The goldsmith, Nathaniel

Roe’s shop.

7.
John and James Dersley’s

glass and china shop.

8.
Beloe’s china and glass

shop.

9.
Studwell’s china and glass

warehouse.

10.
The White Swan, where

Christopher Haedy held

a sale of glass in 1776.

11.
Richard Matthews’ first

glass warehouse

12.
Jonas Phillips’ glass

warehouse.

Figure 1. Detail from Samuel King’s map of Norwich 1766. The location of

almost all the glass warehouses and the glass and china shops may be found on

this map.
Note. The lane named here as St. Andrews Lane was also called Bridewell Alley.

;11
5
;1
5
:
1

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11
1

1111111111111

Alsk
24
‘

i
–
u

Above
Figure 2.
Norwich Market Place

by Robert

Dighton. Watercolour and bodycolour 7
3
/
4

in. x

17 in. (19. 6 x 43. 3 cm.), signed and dated

bottom right ‘Dighton 1799’, Norfolk Museums

Service (Norwich Castle Museum, 68. 929).

General view of the Market looking east. Many

of the tradesmen’s names and shop numbers

are clearly marked and can be related to the

1802
Norwich Directory.

Right

Figure 3. Detail of left-hand portion of

Dighton’s
Markel Place,

showing Studwell’s

china and glass warehouse.

41i

er.c-F;-1
–Aj.—_It’l’4.h
..;

..1
8
1

f:
1111

111
;
8i
g

5
_

I 11111
1

–

e
r

•

‘

A ‘

Above
Figure 4. Detail of centre of Dighton’s
Markel

Place.
The building to the left next to ‘T. Smith’

was Dersley’s glass and china shop on the
corner of Dove Lane. Further to the right the

last shop in the block was the goldsmith

Nathaniel Roe’s premises.

Left

Figure 5. Detail of the right-hand portion of

Dighton’s
Market Place.
This shows the lower or

Gentleman’s Walk. Between nos. 8 and 9 is the

entrance to the Half Moon Yard, where William

Matthews had his glass warehouse, and his

shop was one of these two.

Right

Figure 6.
Sir Benjamin Wrench’s Court
by Henry

Ninham. Watercolour 8 in x 6
1
/
2
in. (20.3 x 15.9 cm.)

Norfolk Museums Service (Norwich Castle Museum,

42.89.929).

Below left

Figure 7, Wine Glass engraved with the Arms of the
City of Norwich; about 1760. Ht. 5
7
/
8
in. (15 cm.)Norfolk

Museums Service (Norwich Castle Museum, 452. 966).

Below right

Figure 8, Goblet inscribed ‘PRAY GOD PRESARVE/

THE CITY OF NORWICH/AND THE TRADE THEARE/

OF’; about 1760. Ht. 8
5

/
8

in. (22 cm.) Norfolk Museums

Service (Norwich Castle Museum, 9.98).

Who was George Ravenscroft?

by ROSEMARY RENDEL

A
Paper read to the Circle on 21 March, 1974.

By way of introduction I would like to warn you

that this Paper is hardly more than the beginning

of a detective story. I say that as an excuse for
myself because I had hoped to give you more com-

plete information by this time but there are still

clues turning up which have got to be examined

and I have not yet managed to do that. What I

think I can do, conclusively, is to tell you who the

real George Ravenscroft was and much more about

the sort of person he was. But I will leave you

to judge that for yourselves.
Because it is a detective story, I am afraid I

must ask you first to look at the sources used up

till now for the identification of George Ravens-

croft because I do not think they are entirely

adequate; this is the negative evidence.

The description which we have of George

Ravenscroft and which has been generally accepted

is summarised in Thorpe’s
History,
chapter IV,

‘The Ravenscroft Revolution’. I quote: ‘Since the

glass maker and most of his ancestors are des-

cribed as gentleman or esquire and the family

were certainly of good position and in comfortable
circumstances, it is proper
to
regard George

Ravenscroft as a man of leisure and culture
comparable with the potter Dwight, whose interest

in glass making was not primarily commercial.
He seems to have been acquainted with men of

science like Plot and Ludwell and doubtless with

other members of the Royal Society etc. ‘. So

far, so good—this is all perfectly true though

perhaps you may wish to qualify the phrase ‘man

of leisure’. Thorpe also says, and I quote again:
‘He came from an old county family, the Ravens-

crofts of Bretten’ (that is perfectly accurate). ‘He

was the second son of George Ravenscroft of

Shotton in the parish of Hawarden and was born
there in 1618’ (I disagree with this, myself, because

I think he was born in 1632). ‘His eldest brother
John died without issue and his younger brother

Thomas was at one time a member of the Privy

Council’ (I think that Thorpe is confusing the

brothers not only with one another but also with

their cousins). ‘George was thus fifty-six years of

age at the time he received his patent’ (I think
myself that he was only forty-two). ‘Ravenscroft

died early in May 1681 at the age of sixty-three
and on the 8th of the month was appropriately

buried in the Savoy Chapel. His wife Elizabeth,

whose maiden name has not been ascertained,

survived him by two years and was buried in the
same place on 12th July, 1683. ‘ (I doubt all of

this; I think that George died in 1683 and was not

buried in the Savoy Chapel; I think his wife was
called Helena, that we do know her maiden name,

and that they did have children; I think that the

Elizabeth in the Savoy Chapel register is pro-

bably an aunt, a sister or a cousin.)

I would like to suggest to you that the George

Ravenscroft described above by Thorpe does not
necessarily exist. I shall refer to him—this

Shotton man—as the
alleged
George Ravenscroft to

distinguish him from the man whom I think to be

the
real
George Ravenscroft. Thorpe says that the

source for some of the above information is the

family historian, the Rev. Bathurst Ravenscroft.

There are, in fact, two family historians and I

will deal with them in a moment, but it is necessary

just to look
at

the other sources which Thorpe may

have used although he does not specify what they

are.

One obvious other source is the registers—the

Savoy Chapel register and the Hawarden area
registers, at Shotton and at Dodlestone. In the

Savoy Chapel register under 8th May, 1681, you
have an entry ‘buried George Ravenscroft’. But

one needs to remember certain things about the

Savoy register. The actual register starts with

some burials in the year 1681 and the
alleged

George is on the first page; but the title page in

front is dated 1686 and 1687. Further on, one or

two years are out of sequence. We know that there

was some confusion between the registers of the

Savoy Chapel and the registers of St. Mary Le

Strand when the congregations shared the chapel
for a period during the 17th century, and we know,

also, from the State Papers Domestic as well as

from Catholic Record Society sources that during
the 17th century, the Savoy Chapel was used on

occasions as a Catholic chapel. I think that the

Savoy Chapel register may not, therefore, be
absolutely reliable and the only extant book, in

which baptisms, marriages and burials are all
intermingled and which starts 14th December,

1681, may conceivably be a contemporary
copy extracted from the original registers. As

you probably know, the Savoy precinct was a
curiously autonomous area having right of

sanctuary and housing not only the French Pro-

testants and German Lutherans but a house of
Benedictines and a Jesuit school of over 200 boys,

both Catholic and non-Catholic. There is a very
interesting account of the Savoy precinct in Sir

Robert Somerville’s
History of the Savoy.
As far

as the Shotton registers are concerned, there are

no entries for 1618 at all and in the nearby

Dodlestone registers (which record the
alleged

George’s father, also George) there are no

Ravenscroft entries at all between 1610 and 1622.

So the registers are not very helpful. But it

is with the Ravenscroft family historians that we
come across a certain definite confusion. There

were two family historians, cousins, the Rev.
Bathurst Ravenscroft, an Anglican clergyman, and

W. B. Ravenscroft, a Catholic. In 1915 they pub-
lished a history of the Ravenscroft family which

they had written jointly, called
The Family of

Ravenscroft;
this is a very comprehensive collec-

tion of pedigrees although there are one or two

inaccuracies in Christian names and one or two

transpositions in the generations, as shown by
pencilled corrections in the copy at the Society of
Genealogists. This history gives the
Hawarden

branch
with the

alleged

George of Shotton but

without dates and without a wife, not even her

Christian name. The brothers John and Thomas

are there but rather sketchily recorded and
there are uncles with the same names. The book

also gives the
Barnet branch
in which you find my

real George Ravenscroft, together with his

brothers, Thomas and John, but here more details

are known and more dates are recorded. It is

perhaps significant that there is also another

George, uncle to my
real
George, who died on 17th

May, 1678—quite near to the date in the Savoy

chapel register. There are also several
Elizabeths—among them an aunt and a sister to the

real
George—whose dates of death are not known.

The relevant generation for my
real
George is

James Ravenscroft of Huntingdonshire, Barnet and

Holborn, with eleven children—Thomas, the eldest,

George, John, James junior (who was ordained a
priest in 1659 and then became chaplain to the

family of one of his sisters), Francis, Edward (who
became a well-known playwright who quarrelled

with Dryden and who is given in the D.N.B.) and
four daughters. I should like you specially to

remember Francis. By the greatest good luck,

Francis is unique, and is the only Francis in the

whole family pedigree; he is, therefore, something

of a key figure in the identification of the
real

George. This 1915 history was presumably the

only family history available when Thorpe was

writing his 1929 history of English and Irish

glass. I would imagine, on the evidence of style,

that
The Family of Ravenscroft
was written

chiefly by the Rev. Bathurst with help from his

cousin, W. B.
But in 1929, the year of Thorpe’s history, the

Ravenscroft family historians published a second
book called
Some Ravenscrofts.
This consists of

biographical notes about those members of the

family whom they considered to be worthy of
special mention. I think, again on the evidence of

style, that this second history was written chiefly

by W. B. with help from the Rev. Bathurst. This

second book contradicts Thorpe’s account of

George Ravenscroft, apparently without realising
it, and this contradiction is left unresolved. I will

tell you what it says:’George, son of the great bene-

factor, and apparently the right hand man of his

father, was born in the year 1632 and died June

7th, 1683. He was buried beneath the vestry floor

at Barnet and a slab in the north porch of the
church records his age and death. The scanty

records of him which have come down to us would

indicate he was concerned in a good deal of busi-

ness, for we find him several times referred to in

Chancery bills and answers, described as of St.

Andrews, Holborn, and sometimes called ‘gent’,

at other times as of the ‘City of London,

merchant’, all pointing to his being one and the

same man. He had to do with the shipping of

currants from the Levant, sugar, etc. 1673-4.
‘A merchant to Hamborough and other places

beyond the seas. In 1679-82 he was in a legal
dispute over ‘poynt laces and other rich comodi-

tyes of that nature.’ And in 1675 and 1682 also he

is referred to as having a manufacture of ‘looking

glass plate making’ in Vauxhall, Co. Surrey, and

the making of plates of glass 35 and 40 inches

width. It should be mentioned that a George
Ravenscroft in the Savoy Register is entered as
buried May 8th, 1681, and this may be another man.

Seeing a George Ravenscroft was in the glass

trade in 1682, or the Savoy register may have an

incorrect date.’

I think that that is a fair consideration of the

sources used up till now, as far as one can know

them. Unfortunately, neither of the family histo-
rians specify their sources.

I would now like to describe to you the
real

George’s family—the Barnet branch. The sources

which provide this information are chiefly Catholic
Record Society sources and they were brought to

my notice in the first place by a member of that

Society (of which I am secretary) who was, by
chance, working on the Ravenscroft family for
quite other reasons. The
real
George Ravenscroft

was the son of James Ravenscroft of Fould Park,

Middlesex, and Alconbury Weston in Huntingdon-

shire. James also had a leasehold house in St.
Andrews, Holborn, from which he conducted his

legal practice. James Ravenscroft is known in

the annals of Barnet as ‘the great benefactor’,

because he established two charities there which

still exist today and which are known as the Jesus
Charity and the Chancel Trust. Since nearly all

of James’s eleven children were baptised at Alcon-

bury Weston, he would seem to have been a fre-

quent visitor there. We know that James Ravens-

croft was a Catholic but he seems to have been

successful in concealing his religious beliefs for,
in December 1642, shortly after the Civil War had

begun, he was appointed by Parliament a member

of the County Committee for Huntingdon. Had

there been any suspicion that he was ‘Popishly

affected’ or even that he favoured the Laudian

party in the Church of England, this appointment
would never have been made. But only six months

later, we find him secretly sending his two eldest

sons overseas to the English College at Douai to
be educated and brought up as Catholics. The

Douai college diary records the admission on 25th
June, 1643, of Thomas Ravenscroft aged fourteen,

and his brother George aged eleven, the sons of

James Ravenscroft of Huntingdonshire and his
wife Mary. (See
Douai college diaries,

Catholic

Record Society Vol. 11
and first and second Douai

diaries
edited T. F. Knox.) In January 1648 Thomas

left the school and went to join his uncle in

Brussels. (C.R.S. Vol. 11). This was his father’s

younger brother John, who died unmarried in

1681. After returning to England, Thomas married

Magdalene Parris of Pudding Norton, Norfolk. He

died in 1708 and is buried in Westminster Abbey.

My own feeling is that this may be the Thomas who

was, for a time, a member of the Privy Council.

George (the
real

George) stayed on to try his

vocation for the priesthood but left in May 1651

after only two years of the training; he finished

two years of philosophy and was about to begin
the four year course in theology. He, also, went

to Brussels on his way to England. (C.R.S. Vol.

11). Although James Ravenscroft ran the risk of
the ‘Seizure and Sequestration of two thirds of

all his Goods and Estates Real and Personal,’

in 1649 he sent two more sons, James junior and
John to follow their brothers at the college.

(C.R.S. Vol. 11). There is no information about the

two youngest sons, Francis and Edward, arriving
at the college because, after 1654, the college

diaries covering quite a long period have been
lost. But there is a copy of the catalogue of all

those who left the college in 1660 and 1661 in the

Vatican archives. From this, we learn that James
Junior left the college on 1st April, 1660 and went

to his uncle John in Brussels, on his way to
England; and on the same date, his younger

brother Francis (who it says was less suited to
study), left the college and went to live in Venice.

From now on, we can follow some of the

brothers in the Calendars to the State Papers

Venetian in the Public Record Office. On Feb
4th 1662, the Venetian Senate’s despatch to their
Resident in England records that John and Francis

Ravenscroft got into a fight with the English

Consul in Venice, Giles Jones, and wounded him,
in September 1661. The relevant Venetian docu-

ments establish that they are brothers, that they

are merchants and partners, and that the sentence

passed on them for this offence was one of

banishment not only from Venice but, apparently,

from all Venetian territories and Venetian ships.
The sentence does not appear to have been

carried out at once and the despatch of 1662 says

that the Duchess of Modena has sent a special

request by the hand of the Abbot Dini for their

release, and asks the Resident in London,

Giavarina, to find out what Charles II’s feelings

are in this matter. The Resident’s reply is
interesting in its description of the Ravenscroft

family. He writes that he has had a favourable
opportunity of learning the King’s opinion about the

affair of the brothers Ravenscroft and has told
him all the circumstances, including the efforts of

the Duchess of Modena on their behalf. The King

expressed his pleasure at the communication and
his regret for the ill-behaviour of his subjects

while blaming the procedure of the Consul, of

whom all the merchants complained bitterly. The

Resident says that he thinks the merchants pro-

pose trying to replace the Consul. ‘The King

went on to assure me’ he writes, ‘That the Senate

might do what they pleased to gratify the Duchess;

he had no objection to make and was fully satis-

fied. The brothers are of a noble and influential

family in this country, loved and esteemed by His

Majesty for the sufferings, imprisonment and
losses incurred to the rebels, in the Royal

Cause. ‘ The Resident went on to say that, in

pardoning them, the Venetian Senate would do a

favour to their old, declining father (James Ravens-
croft senior was born in 1595) who has no conso-
lation but these sons, putting them all under an

eternal obligation to the most Serene Republic.

As a result of this report and also of the efforts

of the Duchess of Modena, the sentence on the

Ravenscroft brothers appears to have been lifted.

On April 17th, 1666, Charles II himself writes

to the Doge, in Latin, on behalf of George Ravens-
croft, the son of James Ravenscroft, of London,

merchant, requesting repayment of sums of money

from the Venetian State Bank of which George and
his father feel they have been defrauded. This
letter describes George as the right hand man of

his father and states that ‘during his residence

in Venice’, he acted as agent for his father, James.
Unfortunately, we do not at present know the dates

when George was resident in Venice. As a result

of this letter, the Venetian Senate record that

satisfaction was made to George. In the same

year, 1666, there is a further reference to Mr.

Ravenscroft though we do not know which brother

this may be. Mr. Charleston has very kindly sent

me a reference from the manuscripts of Alban

G. Finch in the H.M.C. report of 1913, where the

Earl of Winchilsea writes to Sir John Finch at
Pera, the port for Constantinople, ‘I have desired

Mr. Ravenscroft, the bearer of this . .

I hope

that some research into the papers of the Levant

Company may enable me to identify this episode

and which brother is meant.

Jumping now to 1671, we find that John Ravens-

croft is mentioned again in the matter of appointing

two Vice Consuls to succeed the then English

Consul, John Hobson. John Ravenscroft is there
described as one of the two English merchants

resident in Venice, the other being Edward Wild.

Two years later, in 1673, the Ravenscrofts come

into the correspondence of Alberti, the Venetian

secretary in London. He complains to the Venetian

Senate that George Ravenscroft has secretly
supported a request of the English Consul at

Venice, now called Hayles, and has carried the
point by private means because of his influential
contacts; he describes George as the brother of

the Ravenscroft at Venice who is Hayles’ partner,

and Hinds, the editor of the Calendars of the State
Papers Venetian, identifies the ‘Ravenscroft at

Venice’ as John in his index. Hayles, who was an

honorary Consul, was also a merchant on the side,

and was therefore much concerned with questions
of consulage and import duties on Venetian goods

coming into England.

Finally, in 1674, Alberti writes again on 15th

June, that one Vincenzo has come to London and

intends to work there in the furnace of the Eng-
lishman Ravenscroft,
the one who resided at Venice

for many years where he traded and brought home

a considerable capital.
He then goes on to say that

George Ravenscroft has received twenty cases of

looking glass plates by the ship
Success
which

left Venice last August, and rather implies that

this is almost a matter of smuggling. It is not

clear, though a study of the original document may
make this clear to me, whether Alberti is referr-

ing to one and the same brother in the two pre-
ceding sentences or whether he means two different

brothers. There is a minor sub-plot here in that

Alberti was the son-in-law of Robert Paston,

Viscount Yarmouth, who had the privilege of

farming the glass import duties in England and

therefore Alberti is always trying to cramp the

Ravenscrofts’ glass-making and glass-trading
activities.
And now we are back in London and have
already passed the date when George Ravenscroft

set up his glass house in the Savoy in 1673. Simply

summarising the standard glass histories the
dates seem to be as follows: In 1673 George

Ravenscroft is said to set up a glass house in the

Savoy with two Italians. In 1674 he petitions for

a patent for his special formula for glass making.

In 1675 he moves to Henley and either sets up a
second glass house or works in one already exist-

ing and belonging to the Glass Sellers’ Company;

and Hawley Bishop is working there with him.

In 1676 Dr. Robert Plot visits George Ravenscroft

at Henley. In 1676 Hawley Bishop signs himself

as one of eight ‘shop-keepers and glass sellers’

who will replace, free of charge, any glass made
at the Savoy glass house that is ‘crizzled’. I

mention this because, in 1676, we have entirely
new information—Francis, the younger brother,

who you remember was less suited to study,
reappears.

On 20th August, 1676, Francis Ravenscroft of

London, gentleman, signs a lease with Henry

Killigrew, the then Master of the Savoy, for part

of the Master’s lodging and for all that part which
Hawley Bishop had previously occupied; the sum

involved was £.100, a very considerable sum at
that period. The lease was for eighteen years with

options to break. In the lease it is stated that
‘whereas the said Francis Ravenscroft doth make

glass in this place where the stable formerly

stood,’ he may not burn any coal nor any fuel ‘save

wood only’. Obviously, you have there an early

environmentalist pressure group among the other
residents of the Savoy, who were not prepared to

suffer pollution of the atmosphere. This lease

suggests that there was, in fact, a partnership of

three with the two brothers, George and Francis,
working the two glass houses and Hawley Bishop

acting as designer and marketing man on behalf

of the Glass Sellers’ Company; but these are
questions still unanswered and on which you will
no doubt have your own views.

I think I can now give you the probable reason

why George Ravenscroft terminated his agreement

with the Glass Sellers’ Company at six months’

notice on 30th August, 1678, which he had entered

into as recently as May 1677. This was probably

because he was a Catholic and did not want to
embarrass the Glass Sellers’ Company or attract

notice to himself, the Titus Oates Plot having

come to its climax almost at that very moment.

The Glass Sellers’ Company, for their part, went

along with him and terminated the agreement

nominally but seem to have kept it in being

unofficially—which is rather what one would expect,

as one finds this same sort of practical attitude

in other cases. On 28th October, 1678, the Earl of

Manchester was sent to the King to ask that
‘Mr. Ravenscroft, a glassman at the Savoy may

be secured.’ (See H.M.C. report No.11 app. 2,

p.16.) I think this was the third Earl of Manchester

and I think he was sent because he represented
Huntingdonshire in the Convention parliament at

the Restoration. I think it is just possible that

he may himself have been a secret Catholic; he
died, having retired to Montpelier, a rather

favourite place of retirement for many Catholics,
although he is, in fact, buried at Kimbolton.

Thorpe attributes Ravenscroft’s termination of

his agreement to advancing years because he says

he cannot think of any other plausible reason, but

the
real
George was only forty-six in 1678. On

the other hand, we now have the problem of

whether it was George at Henley or Francis at

the Savoy who was, in fact, arrested. One of them

was probably brought before the Courts and this
episode is described as a rather amusing sequel

in a later diary. This is mentioned in a small
journal associated with the Catholic Record

Society and I will read to you what it says: In
1708, the library of James Ravenscroft, senior,
(which had passed to his sons Thomas, George and

James the priest, in various shares, but not to
Francis, who was not so suited to study) was put

up for sale on the death of Thomas; George had

died in 1683 and his share of the books had
returned to Thomas. The sale catalogue is, in

fact, in the British Museum and lists approximately
1900 books. Thomas Hearne, the 18th century
antiquary and assistant keeper of the Bodleian

library, mentions these books in his diary. On 19th

September, 1721, he noted that Mr. Charles
Eyston of East Hendred in Berkshire, had told

him that Mr. Ravenscroft, who had died about ten

years since, had the best library for Roman
Catholic books of any Roman Catholic in England.

(One must remember that Thomas, who owned this

library, died in 1708, while Francis, who did not

inherit any of the books so far as we know, died

in 1707). Thomas Hearne goes on: ‘Being a

Catholick, he was seiz’d upon the Score of the
Popish Plot, and being to be try’d, he told them

that he requested the favour to defend himself

in Latin, because he had lived for the most part

out of England, & so, signing himself with the
Cross, he made a most elegant speech in Latin,

to the Astonishment & Confusion of the Court, who,

finding themselves incapable of managing in that

Language, told him ’twas a thing out of their way,

& contrary to the Course of the Court, & told him he

must proceed in English. Yet after all, he was

brought off. He was a great Scholar, and admirably
well verst in Latin’. There are several ambigui-

ties about this extract. Francis was certainly not

a great scholar and Thomas, so far as we know,

had not lived out of England. If this is muddling

the date of death and referring to George and a

long residence abroad, in Venice or while trading

in the Near East, it seems unlikely that he would
have wished to defend himself in Latin as a

fairly distinguished business man. It may, of

course, have been a gimmick in order to aid his

defence. But I rather wonder, myself, whether

one has here a picture of Francis, the unbright

boy, who might have been happier in the Latin

language in which he had had his education at

Douai, at such a moment of crisis and nervous
strain.
In conclusion, my own view is that the
real

George Ravenscroft was, in fact, the eldest son

but one of a family of eleven children; a man

educated at the English college at Douai who tried

two years of the training for a priest—the equiva-

lent then of a good university education—Douai

college as you know was founded by scholars from

Oxford. This man then became a merchant, partly
in Venice, partly in London. He married Helena

Appeby, the granddaughter of Lady Gasgoigne,

wife of Sir Thomas, by whom she was brought up
during her early childhood and she then seems to

have lived with Lady Tempest of Broughton. The

Gasgoignes were cousins of the Towneleys, who
led the circle of experimental philosophers in
Lancashire and Yorkshire, corresponding with the

Royal Society, which included William Gasgoigne

and William Shireburn, both astronomers, among

other late 17th century Catholics of similar

background. George and Helena had several
children who were still young when he died. He

made his will in 1683, describing himself as of

St. Andrews, Holborn, gentleman, and naming all
the brothers described in this paper. You may

wish to revise the description of him as ‘a man

of leisure’ and one will perhaps have to look again

at Thorpe’s suggestion that his interest in
glass

was not primarily commercial. But there I must

leave the Ravenscroft brothers for the time being

in the hope that you will, perhaps, be able to

answer some of these questions for me.

Note:
Since the Catholic Record Society

sources are mentioned in this paper, I should
perhaps explain what these are. The Catholic

Record Society is a historical Record Society

which was founded in 1904 to study the history of

Catholics in England and Wales since the Reforma-

tion, and to make the sources necessary for this

study available to historians and scholars. It is

very similar to the Huguenot Historical Society.

It publishes one volume of documentary sources

every year or eighteen months, or sometimes a
monograph on a particular subject; it also

publishes a journal entitled ‘Recusant History’
twice a year. The word ‘recusant’ was the techni-

cal name given by contemporaries to Catholics and

other non-conformists and comes from the word

‘recusare’—to refuse.
The Society has a council and editorial com-

mittee of Catholic historians familiar with the

relevant sources, but an undenominational mem-

bership consisting largely of historical institutes
and libraries and individuals interested in this
particular field of history. The reason why the

information in this paper has not been known up

till now is that ‘recusant’ sources have been very
little used by art historians.

I should like to acknowledge my indebtedness to

Dr Astone Gasparetto of Venice, who has not only

most generously transcribed despatches in the

Venetian State Archives which have elucidated and
complemented references in the State Papers

Venetian in the P.R.O., but who has also discovered

further correspondence between Venice, Florence

and Pisa which may produce additional information
when it has been more closely studied.

How did George Ravenscroft

discover lead crystal?

by D.C.WATTS
A Paper read to the Circle on 16 May.1974.

Following my talk to the Glass Circle about a

year ago, Mr Charleston very kindly arranged for

me to investigate some of the properties of seven

of the oldest known specimens of lead glass,
including two sealed Ravenscroft pieces and the

famous S-sealed fragment in the Victoria and

Albert Museum. The methods I have used were
outlined in that lecture
1
and will not be described

again here. The results are much more exciting

and will take up all our time, particularly since

they led me to a reassessment of the documentary

evidence, whith some significant results, as will be

seen.
But first, let us put ourselves into George

Ravenscroft’s shoes and try to see the problem as
he saw it. The time is 300 years ago last summer,

and George Ravenscroft is about to carry out his
first experiments in the new Savoy furnace erected

to his own specification.
2
What new ingredients

should be tried in the first experimental batch?
With hindsight the problem may be set out dia-

grammatically as in Fig. 1. Two sorts of glass are
in general use, ‘best crystal’ and ‘ordinary.’

Best Crystal uses high-quality sand or flints and

these can be obtained fairly pure. Likewise the
saltpetre, for this is already well-purified for

ordnance purposes—the manufacture of gunpowder.
The real source of trouble is the barilla (impure

sodium carbonate). It imparts a dark colour to

the glass and if one tries to purify it by lixiviation

and evaporation, that is by recrystallization from
hot water, the glass then becomes unstable.

(Ravenscroft could not know that this was because

the all-important insoluble calcium salts were

lost in the process. Discovery of the nature of

this essential impurity had to wait almost another

hundred years.) In ordinary glass, potash or
burnt kelp does the same job as barilla, but for

colour they are even worse and, like barilla, they

could not be purified without creating an unstable

glass. A radically new approach was needed, but

what was it to be if the challenge to produce a
‘bright clear and whit sound metal’ was to be

met?
Returning to the present, we know that the

challenge was met and in such a way that the most
improbable ingredient of ordinary glass, potash,

emerged as the alkali of choice, and yet the stabi-

lity of the glass was preserved. It was this enigma
that was the challenge to me to discover just how

Ravenscroft ‘pulled it off’.
The recorded history of events
3
tells us that

he experimented for about eight months and then,
at the beginning of March 1674, he petitioned the

King for a patent to manufacture ‘a sort of cry-

stalline glass resembling rock crystal’—a metal

described three months later by the Venetian
secretary, Girolamo Alberti, as ‘white’ and

‘thick’, from which English drinking glasses of

‘extreme beauty’ were produced.
4
On March 9th,

Sir F. North gave his favourable report and

tantalizingly indicated the use of new ingredients,

which might or might not have included lead

oxide. The patent was granted for seven years on
March 19th and published on May 16th of the same

year. Alberti had for some time been full of

forebodings about the future of the Venetian glass

industry, particularly when he wrote on September

15th, 1673, of ‘two new furnaces-lately opened for

very fine large crystal’.
5
These, however, were

the Duke of Buckingham’s glasshouses, predomi-

nantly for manufacturing mirrors, and the
emergence of Ravenscroft’s new crystal for

tableware must have seemed the last straw. His
gloom was justified for, on 5th September, 1674,

George Ravenscroft captured an important

agreement with the Glass Sellers (forty-five of
them) which led to his all-important move to

Henley-upon-Thames. This said
2

that for three

years he would not ‘keep more than one furnace

with two chairs and two Master workmen with

their necessary servitors at work at any one time
unless the said Glass Sellers or the major part

of the first thirteen of them shall by writing
require that more glasses should be made,

whereupon Ravenscroft may ‘set up a glass house

at Henley on Thames
6
with one furnace, two

chairs, two Master workmen &c., and shall convey

the said glasses to a warehouse between London
Bridge and Bridewell… ‘. Much has been made of

why Henley was chosen by the Glass Sellers as
the location for the glasshouse and its remote-

ness has been explained in terms of preserving

the secrecy of Ravenscroft’s discovery. In fact,

the agreement makes it clear that his was an

overflow factory to cope, if necessary, with extra
demand and there was no question at this stage

of Ravenscroft’s relinquishing his Savoy furnace.

The question of secrecy cannot, therefore, arise
and we may safely assume that the patent issued

earlier in the year plus the inaccessibility of the
mixing shop provided adequate protection against

plagiarization by other glasshouses. Later, as we

shall see, a second agreement between Ravens-

croft and the Glass Sellers did involve giving up

nominal control of the Savoy furnace and this has

great significance for understanding the origin of
the S-sealed glasses. But for the moment trade

in the new crystalline glass was booming and the

Glass Sellers were not slow to take up their

option to make Ravenscroft increase production.

The next two years must have been busy and

exciting with the move to Henley, the new furnace

to be perhaps built and, certainly, mastered.
Production of designs approved by the Glass

Sellers had to be put into full swing and safe
transportation of the fragile products to the

London warehouse organised. And then, as the

months went by, came the gradual trickle and then

flood of complaints about crizzling. Further
research had to be carried out as the composition

of the metal was adjusted, and was ultimately
found satisfactory for several months before this

achievement was announced on 3rd June, 1676.
This contains the first unequivocal indication of

lead crystal—the test of ‘ye distinction of sound’.

All this is familiar ground, the only additional

comment I would submit being that the time-scale

of these events is so tight that it is scientifically

unreasonable to suggest that Ravenscroft corrected

the crizzling by abandoning the original formula-

tion, for which he took out his patent, and develop-
ing a new metal from scratch. Each new glass

would have to be tested over several months for
durability, since we know from Dr Plot that the
existing metal only just failed to be stable—an

important observation to which I shall return

again later. With the possibility of extensive

experiments being excluded, I believe that the

only possible course was a slight adjustment of

the batch. I will go further and say that Ravens-
croft knew exactly how to do this, and later I will

show you how I think he did it and what the
composition of his original metal might have

been; for, as you know, we do not recognize any
surviving examples.

Sales of the new lead glasses, fortunately for

us, must have flagged somewhat, and by the 5th

October, 1676, the seal of guarantee was introduced

and specifically described as a Raven’s Head on
October 25th of that year. Let us now take a look

at these sealed glasses. Bernard Hughes states
7

that the crizzling was ‘corrected with lead oxide’

and gave a glass ‘tinged with a dark hue’. He also

tells us that the few remaining sealed Ravenscroft

glasses are ‘slightly clouded and display micro-

scopic air bubbles known as seeds’—the inference
being that there is sufficient seed to make the glass

slightly cloudy. In fact, none of these descriptions

fits the sealed Ravenscroft examples I examined.
The first was the stem and foot of a Roemer
(Fig. 2). By comparison with a dated specimen

described by Mr Charleston
8

it is an early sealed

glass (1676-7) and my analysis supports this view.

The first thing that strikes the eye is the extreme

whiteness of the metal, with no dark tinge at all.
Under the microscope the obvious crizzling can

be seen to be confined to the surface of the glass,

with less on the protected underside of the foot

than on the exposed upper surface. The body of the
metal is clear and bright and one has to hunt to

find indications of seed. I think Bernard Hughes

must have been misled, perhaps by the very crizz-

led examples in the Bedford museum as seen

through the walls of the showcase. The probable
reason for this lack of seed, although Ravenscroft

did not know it, was because he had created a

glass containing both potassium and sodium.

Professor W. E. S. Turner, that pioneer glass

technologist, showed back in 1920 that a mixed
soda-potash lead crystal has particularly good

fining qualities
9
—qualities that, interestingly, were

lost when a pure potash-lead crystal became the

order of the day.

Analysis in the spectrophotometer
)
confirmed

that the Ravenscroft Roemer was, indeed, made of

a most remarkable metal almost completely
devoid of impurities. Particularly impressive
is the low iron content. Fig. 3, an updated version

of the results I showed last year,
1
demonstrates

how the content of contaminating iron is high at

the beginning of the 18th century and progressively

falls away to a low level as the century advances
and the technology improves. The amount of iron

in this Ravenscroft glass, however, at 4.3 units,

is about one tenth of that prevailing at the turn of

the century.

The second Ravenscroft fragment I examined,

the Nonsuch fragment (Fig. 4), has a higher level

of iron at 14 units, but still a degree of purity not
consistently achieved in the glass industry for

nearly another 100 years. Indeed, it was an

impressive feature of all seven early fragments

that the highest level of contaminating iron, 19

units, still represented a very high standard of

purity. Returning to the Ravenscroft Roemer, the

only other contaminant was a slight trace of

something coloured that absorbed in the orange-
yellow region of the spectrum. It is not possible
to make a positive identification of this contami-

nant but the most reasonable explanation is that

it is a little cobalt in a glass that is fairly rich in

borax. The presence of borax is inferred because

it changes the colour of the cobalt slightly and

this would move the absorption peak found with
the spectrophotometer to the right place in the

spectrum. No decolorizer seems to have been

used, unless this was the purpose of the cobalt,

but then none would be required in a metal of such

quality.lo Thus it is clear that Ravenscroft
successfully overcame the problem of purifying

his materials while retaining the stability of the
glass, albeit with some difficulty. The suggestion

emerges that he did this by replacing the calcium
lost in the purification procedure by borax, which

is also a glass stabilizer.
This brings us to the crucial evidence of that

‘great Virtuoso and most eminent historian and

geologist’, to use the style of his own writing, Dr

Robert Plot, F.R.S.
11
He confirms the use of

borax and reveals that Ravenscroft did not use

potash at all, but instead a mixture of tartar and
nitre. Tartar is potassium tartrate, a byproduct of

the wine industry which crystallizes out in the
fermentation vats in an almost pure state. Nitre,
or potassium nitrate, as we have already seen, was

purified for ordnance pUrposes. Borax occurs

fairly pure in nature and would be imported. It
is also easy to purify by recrystallization from

hot water. The only disadvantage of this mixture

is that it would be relatively expensive, although

Ravenscroft promised in his application for a
patent to keep his prices to those prevailing at

the time. This mixture would fit the description

of the glass as ‘being made of other ingredients’
used by the Attorney-General, as would of course

the inclusion of lead oxide in the batch; but this

Plot does not tell us.
We come now to the two key questions. Did

Ravenscroft invent the salt mixture himself, and

did the mixture for which he applied for -a patent
contain lead oxide? I shall try to convince you that

the answer to the first question is ‘no’, and to the
second ‘yes.’ To answer the first question we must

take a closer look at that famous passage by Dr
Plot in his
Natural History of Oxfordshire.
The

piece is set out by both Hartshorne and Thorpe

and the first thing I discovered was that the two
quotations had wording that was significantly

different in the most relevant sentence. At that

point there was no alternative but to go back to

the original. Fortunately, the Natural Science
Library at University College, London, has three

copies to which I had ready access. Fig. 5

compares what Plot wrote about the composition

of the batch with the versions of Thorpe and Hart-

shorne. Hartshorne’s errors are easily explained.
The alteration of ‘found’ to ‘formed’ must surely

result from misreading bad handwriting. The

description of Dr Ludwell as ‘formerly’ Fellow

of Wadham College is more curious. This comes

from the 2nd edition of the book, published in 1705,
although the quotation is given as from the 1st
edition, with the correct page number, page 253,

rather than that for the 2nd edition, page 259.
Thorpe gives a totally wrong page number,

page 293, but as elsewhere in his
History

quotes the correct page number I do not think he

used another version. I suspect he simply con-

tracted the statement in the light of having already

decided what it meant. There are about ten errors
in his quotation of this passage, which is sad when

he places so much emphasis on it; and it is
remarkable that these seem to have passed

unnoticed for almost fifty years: In his interpreta-

tion Thorpe takes up Hartshorne’s original

suggestion that Dr Plot is telling the reader that

he removed a piece of Ravenscroft’s original

glass from Henley and had it analysed by Dr

Ludwell. But, one might reasonably ask, why, if

Dr Plot meant a piece of glass, was he so obtuse
as to describe it as ‘their whole mixture’,

particularly when he uses ‘glass’ in the normal
sense a few lines lower down in the passage?
Let me offer an alternative, and I believe correct,

explanation.
12

Instead of reading ‘found’ as

‘discover’ we should give it the specific technical

meaning as used in the glass industry, namely

‘to make glass by melting or fusing’. Similarly
‘by solution of should be taken to mean ‘by

dissolution of’—that is, by dissolving rather than

by resolving or analysing, as I think Thorpe

inferred. We therefore reach the position where
‘about 2 ozs of Nitre, Tartar and Borax were

added to each pound of Flints and Sand because
the ingenious Dr Ludwell fused it (the pound of
Flints and Sand) into a glass by dissolving (i.e.

heating) the whole mixture’. In other words

Ravenscroft and Hawley Bishop were following a

recipe discovered by Dr Ludwell.

How do these conflicting interpretations stand

up in the light of the scientific evidence? The

first thing to appreciate is that heating the batch

decomposes the nitre and tartar, with oxygen,

nitrogen and carbon dioxide being given off as
gas. Potassium oxide is left from both which

combines with the silicon as part of the glass-

forming process. Thus Dr Ludwell, however

ingenious, could not possibly have discovered the
components by analysing a piece of glass. This

is unequivocal and Hartshorne and Thorpe are

therefore wrong. Two possibilities remain.
First, Dr Plot brought from Henley what he
thought

was a sample of the batch. If true, it would have

required no ingenuity at all, particularly for him,

to realize instantly if lead oxide were present.
The red colour of the batch would be unmistakable.

For, whatever else, Plot was a competent mineralo-

gist—in 1677 he had enlisted the Bishop of

Oxford’s support to raise funds for his proposed

History of Minerals.
1
–
3
On this interpretation,

then, we can agree with Thorpe that the sample

contained no lead oxide, but
not
that Ravenscroft’s

glass contained no lead, since if he wished to keep

this component of his batch secret, the very last

thing he would do would be to leave any lead oxide

about to attract the inquisitive eye. It is also

doubtful if Dr Ludwell could have analysed the
mixture of salts. It would be far from simple

even today, and one must not forget that it was

another fifty years before Duhamel discovered

how to distinguish sodium from potassium. So

this hypothesis must also be rejected.
We are left with what I believe to be the only

feasible explanation, which is that Dr Ludwell did
not perform any analyses at all. His ingenious

contribution was the original discovery that it was

possible to make a sort of glass by fusing two

ounces of Nitre, Tartar and Borax with a pound

of powdered flints and sand. Either Ravenscroft

somehow learnt of this or, as I prefer to believe,

he and Ludwell were actually working together in

that ‘esprit de corps’ that one would expect to flow

from the foundation of the Royal Society in 1662,
explicitly to foster cooperation between science
and industry; although neither was in fact an
F.R.S.
13
a

We know very little about the sources of the

ingredients used by Ravenscroft. It is commonly

suggested that he obtained his sand from Maid-

stone, but unless Hartshorne (p. 457) has got it
completely wrong, this is a quite unwarranted

extrapolation of the Houghton letter of May, 1696,

which simply says ‘Our glass men for making

the best flint glass’ use this, among other sands,

instead of powdered flints. However, Plot does
tell us the source of the flints used by Ravens-

croft before going on to discuss the significance

of the controversial Po pebbles. In the chapter
devoted to minerals he writes (p. 70):

‘All along the Chiltern Country of Oxfordshire,
Flints are as plentiful as where else; … and at

Henly they use them in making of Glass, of which

more anon in the Chapter of Arts’

Since the Chapter on Arts discusses the

Ravenscroft glasshouse and no other, this reference

is unambiguous. There is no doubt that Plot was

incensed by the blatancy of Ravenscroft’s

pretence that the crizzling was cured simply by

changing the pyrites
14
and using Italian pebbles

instead of English flints, for, after a diversion, he
returns to discuss their merit in greater detail

(p. 72). After describing sources of both white

transparent and opaque pebbles “about Finstock
and Nuneham-Courtney” and also “in the way be-

tween New-Yate and Ensham” (all places near
Oxford) he goes on to say;

‘These Pebbles when transparent, make an

excellent ingredient for Glass-works; and so do

those which are white, though not transparent,

called by some Authors by the name of Quocoli

and perhaps not much different in nature from the

Cuogolo of Ferrante Imperato, and such are the
Pebbles gathered at Tesino with which they make

the purest glass at the Moran’ (that is, Murano,

and he cites Neri’s
L’Arte Vetraria

in this

context).

Thus, Plot argues, the English pebbles are not

materially inferior to the Italian and one can now
appreciate the scepticism with which, in the para-

graph quoted by Hartshorne and Thorpe, he sums
up Ravenscroft’s pronouncement that the cure for

crizzling was to be found in the use of pebbles

from the river Po:

‘But if it be found otherwise that white Pebbles

are really fitter for their turns than Black
Flints, I think they have little need to fetch them

from Italy, their being enough in England of the
same kind not only to supply this, but perhaps
Foreign Nations’.

It is little wonder he thought the metal was

improved by Ravenscroft’s ‘abating’ the salts
rather than by changing the pyrites—and in this he

was absolutely correct.

Thorpe assumed that Plot actually visited

Ravenscroft’s glasshouse. This is nowhere

stated by Plot and at the beginning of his book he

says;

‘… there being nothing here mentioned, but what

either the author has seen himself, or has

received unquestionable testimony for it’.

It seems more than probable that Dr Plot

never went to Henley-upon-Thames at all, but

received the whole story from the unquestionable

authority of Dr Ludwell himself. What neither
gentleman might know is that a laboratory experi-
ment is one thing, while industrial practice is

another. The Ludwell mixture represents 80%

silicon and 7% borate in the glass, a composition

approaching that of Pyrex that would be exceeding-

ly difficult to melt on a commercial scale—even
more so in the light of Miss Rendel’s new infor-

mation
15
that the Savoy furnace had to be fired

with wood only. This restriction was actually

applied to Francis Ravenscroft in 1676 but we may

reasonably assume that it, like the furnace, was

passed on from George.

The initial problem for Ravenscroft, then, was

how to bring down the melting-point of the
Ludwell mixture without adding Barilla or crude

potash that would destroy the purity, or adding

purified potash or more of Ludwell’s salt mixture

that would destabilize the glass. The answer

was to add red lead, as described by Neri in

another context, and perhaps pointed out by

Signor da Costa, Ravenscroft’s assistant. (It has

been pointed out to me that the Glass Sellers also

promoted the manufacture and sale of lead-glazed
earthenware and that this is another possible

source for the idea of trying lead oxide for glass-

making.) The possible disadvantage that the lead

would corrode the pots, as observed by Neri,

proved not to be serious because the nitre in the

batch provided much more oxidising conditions in

the melt than found with the Venetian formula.
The question is: to what stage had these experi-

ments advanced when Ravenscroft took out his

patent? Was the lead oxide an integral part of the

batch in March, 1674; or, as Thorpe suggests,
16

was it not added until the crizzling was redressed
in June, 1676? Before attempting to answer this

question, let us go back to the glasses and see what

they tell us. The specific gravity measurement on

the Ravenscroft Roemer indicated a lead content

of 10-12% when a modern type of lead glass is

used as the standard. But if the glass were of the

Ludwell borosilicate type the lead content would

actually be a little higher-12
1

/
2
-14

1
/
2
%—because,

as I will explain shortly, the specific gravity
contribution of the borax would be less and that

of the lead correspondingly more to compensate.
Turning now to the famous S-sealed fragment,

dated by Thorpe as about 1681 (Fig. 6, b), one can

see under the microscope that it contains little

seed but has surface crizzling just like the sealed

Roemer. Indeed, the quality of the metal is

virtually indistinguishable from the Ravenscroft

piece and the iron content, at 6.3 units, is again

extremely low, so that no decolorizer was used.
Because the stem is hollow it is not possible to

use the normal weighing method for determining

specific gravity. Instead a small chip, about the

size of a pin’s head, was removed and placed in

turn into a series of liquids with known different
densities until one was found in which it just

floated. This revealed that the lead content is
very similar to that of the Roemer. From the

quality and composition I feel that these glasses
were made at about the same time and would

suggest that the S-sealed glass should be dated
closer to 1677 than to 1681. If industrial espionage

is excluded, for it would require not merely a

breach of Ravenscroft’s patent but also a know-
ledge of his subsequent development of it, then

this glass must have been made by or for the

Master himself. But then, you ask, why seal it

with an S instead of the Raven’s Head? There has

been much speculation as to what the S stands for
but the answer appears really quite simple and

follows logically from a second agreement between

George Ravenscroft and the Glass Sellers dated

29th May, 1677.
17
After a historical preamble we

come to the key statement:

r… Ravenscroft having now brought the work to

better perfection and the Glass Sellers being

willing to buy and Ravenscroft to sell, he shall
not within the term of 3 years keep more than one

furnace with three chairs, and three Master work-

men with their necessary servitors at work in

making the said glasses…

In other words, by this agreement, George

could no longer keep both the Savoy and the Henley

glasshouses going under his own name. The wood-

fired Savoy furnace could hardly support three
chairs for, as the first agreement indicates, an

expansion beyond two chairs necessitated addi-

tional premises at Henley, with all the transport

problems and so on that such a move involved. In

addition, since Ravenscroft would obviously
negotiate the contract to his best advantage, one

is hardly surprised to learn that the Savoy furnace

was already under the management of his

brother, Francis,
15
and had been since 1676. The

outcome was that the presumably coal-fired

Henley furnace was retained to serve the Glass

Sellers with vessels identified by the Raven’s
Head seal, while the family business continued in

competition at the Savoy and, appropriately,
identified its products with an S. Both glasshouses

could operate under Ravenscroft’s patent and any

technological advances would, of course, be avail-

able to both. A further agreement cited by

Young 12
confirms that George Ravenscroft

retained a controlling interest in the Savoy

glasshouse until 1682, when it was taken over by
Hawley Bishop. It refers to the property as being
‘late in the occupation of George Ravenscroft

gent°.
There is one other line of evidence and for this

we are indebted to Mr Charleston. He has

pointed outs that an S-sealed Roemer of crizzled
lead glass in the Barry Richards collection

matches in every detail—except, naturally, the

seal—a sealed Ravenscroft Roemer in the Victoria

and Albert Museum. This close similarity does
not extend to a second S-sealed piece, a posset

pot which is unlike known Ravenscroft models in

having a plain undecorated cylindrical body.

Although it is not known for certain to be of lead

glass it is crizzled and could easily fall within

the Ravenscroft repertoire. More pertinent are

fragments of sealed Ravenscroft wineglasses

almost identical to that shown in Fig. 6, b. Mr
Charleston found it difficult to resist the conclu-

sion that all these pieces were contemporary and

this is completely in accord with all our other
lines of evidence.

Support for attributing an earlier date to the

S-sealed glass than has hitherto been suggested

also comes from a study of the sealed Ravens-
croft glass fragment recovered from a rubbish

pit at Nonsuch palace. Fig. 4 shows the thick
solid base to the bowl and the solid stem crudely

pincered into four lobes—a very simple form of

construction. Under the microscope there is no
sign of crizzling and only a slight surface etching

reflects its two hundred years’ interment. The

durability of lead glass under such insults is
well recognised.
19
The quality of the metal is

again high, with very little seed and with iron

(14 units) and chromium, as found in the

S-sealed fragment, being the only detectable

contaminants. Still no decolorizer was required

and there can be no doubt that the metal, as for all
these glasses, must have been founded in covered

pots constructed, we are told,
20
from Stourbridge

clay. Use of the strain gauge shows that such

solid and vigorously tooled pieces were only poorly

annealed and sharp lines of stress occur running

through the metal. As Bernard Hughes tells us,
21

it is little wonder that 15°4 of the glassman’s stock

would ‘break and fly’ while lying on the shelves.

The lead content of the Nonsuch fragment is

about 25°4, so that if the attributed date of 1680-81
is correct, and this seems reasonable, then the

S-sealed fragment, with about 14% lead, must come
earlier.

The remaining specimens are all conventionally

dated 1681-5 and I suspect that the lack of a seal
is an important consideration here. The hollow

ribbed stem (Fig. 6, e) showed a lead content of
27°/
0
and with the others (Figs. 6a, c, d) all showing

over 30°4 of lead, we move into the era of true

lead crystal. In these glasses chromium is the

common contaminant, apart from iron (Fig. 3),

and manganese makes its first clear appearance
in the glasses shown in Figs. 6, d and 6, a, either

by accident or by design as a decolorizer. The

hollow ribbed stem also contains manganese and
possibly nickel, but only in trace amounts. (There

appears to be no support here for the theory put

forward by R.Wilkinson
22
that nickel was the

first decolorizer to be used, starting about 1725,
and that it was not replaced by manganese until
about 1740.) Thus the lead content and chemistry

of these unsealed glasses are all compatible
with the later date. It is of interest, however, to
observe the similarity of design of the S-sealed

fragment and that in Fig. 6, c, showing how, as

nowadays, a particular design of glass may be

produced over a number of years.
The research of Miss Rendel
15

has extended

George Ravenscroft’s life to 1683, just ten

eventful years after he set up the Savoy furnace.

It seems improbable on the available evidence

that full lead crystal, with 30% lead, could have
been produced much before 1681.
24
But if

George, having severed his connection with the

Glass Sellers in 1679, maintained his glassmaking

interest through his brother, Francis, or Hawley

Bishop (who, as we have been, did not take over

the Savoy glasshouse and make a separate agree-

ment with the Glass Sellers until 1682), then this
is just long enough for him to share in the credit

for this final acl-:evement. Whoever finally broke
through the 30°4 lead barrier,
25

the credit for

pointing the way clearly belongs to George
Ravenscroft. The evolution of true lead crystal

took close on ten years and we can now offer a
reasonable explanation of exactly how it was done.

The departure point from the early metal was

the adoption by Ravenscroft of Ludwell’s formula-
tion. If one reads Plot’s description through once

again, the formula appears extremely vague. But

when the possible mixtures are calculated only

one emerges as practicable. This is the addition

of 2 oz
each
of Nitre, Tartar and Borax to 1 lb of

the flint-sand mixture. This gives a glass of
approximate composition;

Silicon (as Si0
2
)

80°4

Borate

7
°
4

Potassium (as K
2
0)

9°4

Sodium (as Na
2
0)

This glass would have a high melting-point
because of the large percentage of silicon and to

bring it down to within the range of his furnace

Ravenscroft hit on the idea of adding red lead. I
suggest he did this in the simplest possible way.

He just added it to the rest of the batch. This

would have the effect of diluting all the other

ingredients in proportion to the amount of lead

oxide added, or, as Plot would put it, abating both
salts and pyrites.

Following up this idea, we can calculate the

composition of various batches representing Lud-

well’s mixture to which have been added pro-
gressively increasing amounts of red lead. For

each composition we can then calculate the final

percentage of the different ingredients in the glass.

This requires a number of assumptions because,

as was discussed earlier, the salts decompose
during the melting and a proportion of them is

given off as gas, so that the final volume of the

glass is less than the initial volume of the batch.

Nevertheless, the calculation may be done with a
reasonable degree of accuracy. Fig. 7 shows how

the composition of the
final
glass changes as Lud-

well’s mixture is progressively diluted by the

addition of red lead. This in itself is interesting,

but the real value of this exercise is that it gives

us a practical way of testing the validity of the

whole theory because from the composition of any

particular glass the specific gravity of that glass

may be calculated. Now the one thing that we can
readily measure in our real old glasses is the
specific gravity and from this deduce the lead

oxide content. If our theory about how Raven-

scroft formulated his batches is correct then, for

a particular content of lead oxide assumed to have
been added, the calculated specific gravity should

show close agreement with the actual specific
gravity of the glass. If the reader, having strug-

gled through the argument to this point, feels that

the whole thing is extraordinarily complex, one

can but sympathize. Perhaps actual examples
make it easier to understand, for the gratifying

conclusion emerges that the agreement is, indeed,

very good.

The Ravenscroft Roemer has a specific gravity

of 2. 62. As indicated in Fig. 7, Ravenscroft could

have achieved this by adding approximately 3
1

/
2

oz of red lead to Ludwell’s mixture giving 14.5
0
/
a

lead (as PbO) in the glass. Using a modern glass
as standard the specific gravity of 2. 62 indicated

a lead content of 10-12%, which is too low.
26
But

allowance has to be made for the abnormally high

amount of borax, not normally present in modern

lead crystal, which causes us to underestimate the

lead content by about 2. 5%:
27
when this is done,

we arrive at a value of 12. 5-14. 5% lead in the

Roemer by measurement of the specific gravity,

compared with 14. 5% lead by calculation from the

postulated original ingredients in the batch. The

agreement between the two values is sufficiently

good to give confidence that the secret of Ravens-

croft’s metal has, at last, been uncovered.
Analysis of the other old glass fragments gives

results in complete accord with the hypothesis.

Measurements on a chip from the hollow S-sealed

glass
28
indicate that it has a lead content and

composition very similar to the Ravenscroft

Roemer, which supports our earlier proposal that

it came from the Savoy glasshouse. The Nonsuch

glass has a specific gravity of 2.95 indicating

27. 5 lead in the borax-glass. Again this same
value is obtained from the chart in Fig. 7 and would
have been achieved by simply increasing to 8 oz

the amount of red lead added to Ludwell’s mix-

ture.
With this we are quite close to the true lead

crystal formula so far as the lead content is

concerned, but now a new technological complica-

tion arises which only became apparent when the

data for Fig. 7 were worked out. The potash con-

tent of the batch has become diluted to an undesir-

ably low level. This problem would have undoubt-
edly impeded the development of glasses with a

higher lead content. However, as must have been
eventually discovered, this can be overcome by

abandoning the use of tartar, an undesirably
expensive commodity anyway, and returning to the

glassmaker’s first love—potash—which Houghton
29

tells us in 1683 could now be used
well
–

purified.

The reason for this, not known to Houghton of

course, was that the calcium oxide lost in the puri-

fication was replaced by the equally stabilizing
lead oxide. Potash contains about 50% more

potassium (as K
2
O) than an equal weight of tartar,

so that by substituting 2 oz of potash for 2 oz of

tartar in the Ludwell mixture the total potash con-

tent in a glass containing 8 oz of red lead is
increased from 6. 5% to 8.2% as shown in Fig. 7.

Thus this modification increases the total alkali

content (sodium plus potassium) from 8.7% to

10. 3°k.

This improvement still does not give us the

potash content of the later metal and this final

step is achieved by abandoning the use of the other
expensive ingredient, borax, except in very small

amounts as a flux, and again substituting potash.
With 9 oz of red lead this represents a batch

composition of:

Nitre plus Potash

19°k,

Red lead

32%

Sand

49%

which is very close to the classical
1:

2: 3 ratio

that became established in the 18th century. This

particular mixture gives a calculated specific
gravity of 3. 23 and a lead content of 34%. These

are exactly the values I found for the stem shown
in Fig. 6, in accord with the view that it was pro-

duced towards the end of the Ravenscroft era. No

correction for borax was necessary, in agreement

with the hypothesis that significant amounts of this

ingredient were no longer being used.
Further experimenting with the proportions of

the ingredients must have continued for a number

of years. For example, the glass shown in Fig. 6,
d

has about 43% lead. This may have arisen because

we know that the amount of nitre was ultimately

reduced to about one quarter of that originally used

by Ludwell and this must have necessitated further
fine adjustments of the amounts of other ingredients
to obtain the most satisfactory melt. By this time

Ravenscroft’s patent had run out and other glass-
makers were able to develop their own variations

of the lead metal. It is an interesting possibility
that some of them may have tried to do without

the nitre altogether and this, as well as inferior

ingredients and, perhaps, the use of inadequately

covered pots, may explain the attractive dark

colour that became prevalent during the baluster

period. These variations, however, were of a
minor nature as compared with the Ravenscroft

revolution. The basic composition of the batch he

devised was to remain essentially unaltered up to

the present day. Lead crystal, as we know it, was
here to stay.
At this stage it may be helpful to summarize

the merits of the hypothesis presented here. They

are

1.
It explains how Ravenscroft lowered the

melting point of Ludwell’s mixture and produced

a stable glass by the simplest possible procedure

of adding red lead.
2.
It explains how by the simplest variation of

the original ingredients one may end up with the

recipe for modern lead crystal.

3.
It explains how Ravenscroft progressively

adjusted the composition of his metal during the

trying years of 1675-6.

4.
It enables us to predict the composition of

the glasses from the measured specific gravity

and discover that there is good agreement between

the estimated lead content and that indicated from

our deduction about the composition of the batch.

5.
The progressive changes predicted for the

composition of the batch accord with the historical

order of the.old glasses.

6.
It explains the paradox that potash, the most

unlikely salt to start with, ends up as the alkali
of choice. Adding barilla at that late stage would

perhaps have lowered the melting point of the

glass too much and made it too fluid.

7.
Finally, it is in complete accord with the

documentary evidence. While the possibility must

be borne in mind that the time scale of events

from 1676 onwards may have been more com-

pressed than presented here, the author doubts if

this could have happened to any great extent.

Analysis of further glasses may resolve this

problem in the future.

We may make one final prediction and that is

the composition of the batch when George Ravens-
croft submitted his patent, the untried product of

his first eight months’ experiments. It is my guess

that he simply followed the Ludwell rule of 2 and

added 2 oz of red lead to the batch along with 2
oz of all the other ingredients. The procedure is

so simple it would not even be required to be

written down. This would give a glass containing

lead oxide

silicon dioxide 74%

and a specific gravity of 2.48—about the same as
ordinary soda glass. Was the glass that Robert

Plot had by him when he wrote his famous

passage in the
Natural History of Oxfordshire

composed of such metal—a metal that was only
just unstable and which could be rendered as

durable as the sealed Roemer simply by increas-
ing the amount of red lead in the batch from 2 oz

to 3
1
4 for each pound of pyrites (Fig. 7)? We shall

probably never know, but by searching for early
glasses (by now extremely crizzled) with the

properties I have described, we may yet discover

a chance survivor of this first historic step.
30

For there is no doubt in my mind that when George

Ravenscroft’s patent was published 300 years ago

today
31
the legal seal had been set on the first

lead crystal glass.

78
aiD

NOTES

1.
“Understanding the Colour of Old Glass”, by

D. C. Watts (Glass Circle Paper No. 162).

2.
S. Young,
The History of the Worshipful Company

of Glass Sellers of London,
Geo Barber, The Furni-

val Press, London (1913), pp. 56-66.

3.
Unless otherwise stated this is well documented

in W. A. Thorpe’s
History of English & Irish Glass,

London (1929).

4.
State Papers Venetian
(1674), June 15th, pp.264-

265. (This Ref. is cited in full in the sources

quoted in notes 1 and 8.)

5.
Ibid.
(1673) Sept 15th, pp. 115-117.

6.
Henley-upon-Thames and Henley-on-Thames

appear to be alternative spellings. Similarly there

are several versions of the name Hawley Bishop,

who is discussed later.

7.
G. B. Hughes,
English Scottish and Irish Tableglass,

London (1956), pp. 43-44.

8.
R. 3. Charleston,
Journal of Glass Studies,
Vol. X

(1968), pp. 156-167.

9.
F. W. Hodkin & W. E. S. Turner,

Journal of the

Society Glass Technology,
Vol. 4 (1920), p. 120.

10.
It is interesting that a Ravenscroft sealed posset

pot in the Pilkington Glass Museum is described
as ‘pale blue lead metal lightly crizzled’, suggest-
ing a slightly more obtrusive amount of cobalt in

a vessel made about the same time as the Roemer.

11.
Robert Plot,
The Natural History of Oxfordshire

(1st Edn., 1676), p. 253.

12.
I would like to acknowledge the invaluable

assistance of my wife in unravelling the meaning
of this passage. The problem was that not only was

it manifestly scientifically unsound as interpreted

by Thorpe, but also that it did not make sense

grammatically, although Plot’s grammar, in

general, appeared sound. The key discovery made

by Mrs Watts was that ‘found’ has a precise tech-
nical meaning in the glass industry. Only with this

interpretation could the requirements of both

science and the English language be satisfied.

13.
State Papers Domestic
(1676), Aug. 6th, p. 293.

13a. A little information about Dr John Ludwell, M.D.

comes from the notoriously inaccurate
Early

Science in Oxford,
Vol. 1, by R. T. Gunther (Oxford,

1923), discovered after completion of this article.

The Hartshorne interpretation of the Henley glass-
house incident is given with reference to Plot’s

account, and it is suggested that Ludwell appears

to have been the first to realize that glass was a
solution. This shows that Gunther also interprets
the word ‘solution’ in the key phrase ‘found by

solution of their whole mixture’ to mean ‘dissolve’

and not ‘analyse’. Gunther goes on to say that

Ludwell seems to have been commercially minded

for in a speech by a
terrae filius,

it is suggested

that he was making money as a mercer and he was
addressed as ‘alderman’. Thus it would seem that

he abandoned the academic life of a chemist for

the more tangible rewards of a merchant and this
possibly explains why he is referred to as being

‘formerly Fellow of Wadham College’ in the 2nd

79
edition of Plot’s book. Ludwell is said to have

died in 1723 and was buried in the Chancel of the
University Church under a diamond-shaped stone

with his name. The Wadham registers show that
Ludwell followed a distinguished College career

and became Sub-Warden in 1682. His birth-date
is not given, but he would have been about twenty-

seven in 1674, when Ravenscroft took out his patent.

One wonders if Ravenscroft’s own achievements

also inspired his eventual switch to commerce.

14.
Plot (in Ref. 10, p. 70) says of pyrites ‘… Pebbles

and Flints also hold a sulphur, as well as a salt. …
And such are all that with a steel, or any other fit

body, will strike fire, and therefore by a very fit

name called Pyrites, under which genus may be
reckoned not only Pyrites strictly taken, but Flints,

Pebbles, Sand, and whatever else by any quick
and sudden attrition may have its parts kindled

into sparks…’ This test would exclude marble,

limestone and other rocks that are occasionally

confused with flints and sand (e.g. see Thorpe’s

History,
p.125 and p.42 of Ref. 7). It shows clearly

that Plot knew what he was writing about.

15.
Miss R.Rendel, ‘Who was George Ravenscroft?’, a

Paper given to the Glass Circle on 21st March,

1974 (see pp. 69-74 above).

16.
Thorpe,
History,
p. 124.

17.
Set out by Young,

op. cit.,

pp. 67-69. Thorpe

(History,
p. 130) has muddled the situation here,

probably as a result of forgetting the conditions

of the first agreement. There is no positive state-

ment that there were 3 chairs at the Savoy in 1678
as he records in his footnote 1.

18.
Set out by Young,

op. cit.,
pp. 71-72.

19.
F. H. Goodyear,

Archaeological Site Science,
Heine-

mann Educational Books Ltd., London
(1971),
p. 126.

20.
op. cit.
in note 7, p.42.

21.
Ibid.,
p. 49.

22.
R. Wilkinson,
The Hallmarks of Antique Glass,

London (1968), p. 18.

23.
Other difficulties in accepting this idea are dis-

cussed in the Paper referred to in note 1.

24.
In discussing this paper Mr Charleston pointed

out that it is very difficult to date these glasses to
within 3-4 years and that the date for the Nonsuch

fragment is a terminal one. Thus this glass could

have been made as early as, say, 1677 and the full
lead crystal achieved by Ravenscroft before he

retired in 1679. Certainly the chemistry during the

early stages of the development of lead glass is
compatible with this idea. However, as will be seen

in the ensuing discussion, the switch from tartar
and borax back to potash is distinctly more tricky

and could have taken some time to perfect, parti-

cularly since purification of the potash was in-

volved. In this connexion, it was not until 1683

that Houghton comments on the use of purified

potash, and it depends on how much reliability
can be placed on this being a contemporary

observation. The ultimate answer to this problem

would be provided by the identification of a

Ravenscroft or S-sealed glass containing 30″i lead.

25.
As described in the Paper referred to in note 1,

in an analysis of over 80 glasses spanning the 18th

century, not one was found to contain less than
30% lead.

26.
The technique used was that described by E.M.

Elville as outlined in the Paper referred to in

note 1. Because of the possibility that water

might damage these old and partly crizzled pieces

the specific gravity measurements were made
using a 1 : 1 mixture of anhydrous liquid paraffin

and petroleum ether (b.p. 100-120 °C). The glasses
were washed afterwards with anhydrous carbon

tetrachloride and allowed to dry naturally.

27.
The reason that a correction has to be made for

borax in particular is because boron, the fourth
lightest element known after hydrogen, is much

lighter than any of the other substances used by

the old glassmakers and has a disproportionate
effect on the density of the glass.

28.
Specific gravity determinations on tiny fragments

were made by the flotation technique using a series

of mixtures of carbon tetrachloride and diiodo-

methane. The accuracy of the method was checked

with fragments of old glass of known specific

gravity and found to be about 10%.
29.

Hartshorne, p. 457.

30.
For any one possessing a specimen that they think

might fit this description the first test to try is the

fluorescence of the glass under ultraviolet light.

The early glasses with a low lead content give an

almost Oxford blue fluorescence while in the later

glasses with a high lead content the colour is

nearer a Cambridge blue. To do this test satis-

factorily a U.V. lamp that radiates only in the far
U.V. is required. Such a lamp may be indicated

by giving only a very dull purple light and no

fluorescence with a piece of 18th or 19th century

soda glass. Soda glass gives a bright yellow

fluorescence when irradiated with light in the

near U.V. A lamp of the latter sort, often descri-

bed as being not harmful to the eyes, is not suitable
for looking at old lead glass. Old glass with a very

corroded surface, such as that from a rubbish pit,

may not readily fluoresce. With such pieces the

fluorescence should be looked for on any newly

chipped or exposed surfaces. The author will be

pleased to assist anyone lacking suitable facilities.

31.
This Paper was presented on 16 May, 1974.

Mid 17th C.

1673

18th C.

Best Crystal

Ordinary

Ravenscroft

Lead Crystal

Flints/Sand

Sand

Barilla

Potashes or Kelp

Purified potash

Saltpetre

(Decolorizer)
Red lead

Decolorizer

Saltpetre

Decolorizer

Figure 1. The problem of the evolution of lead crystal. Components of the batches for 17th

century glass and 18th century lead crystal; how did George Ravenscroft bridge the gap?

Figure 2. Stem and foot of a
Roemer,
with raven’s

head seal. Ht. 6 in. (13 cm.). Victoria and Albert

Museum (C.96-1971). Crown Copyright.

•

•
x

Relative amount of

Iron in the Glass
i3 0 —

x x•
y…

•
•
X

• K.

•
x
.
7:••….,40,0,

•
A. ltA

WD•••••1
0

0 0

•
8

2°
0

0
o 0 0

/680

/700

1720

174
–

/760

/780

/800

1830

Date
of
Glass

Figure 3. The iron content of English drinking glasses. Graph to show how the general level of contaminating iron

in the glass increases from the Ravenscroft period to the turn of the century and then decreases again as the 18th

century progresses. Each point represents a measurement made on one glass of the following types, •, Baluster

and balustroid; X, Straight stems; • , Air twists;
¨
, Opaque twists; 0, Facet stems; R, The two Ravenscroft sealed

glasses; S, The S-sealed fragment; 4E, Four other early glasses with an arrow indicating the range of iron values

found. The general trend is indicated by the continuous line.

The iron content was estimated spectrophotometrically as described in the Paper quoted in note 1. Absolute

values could not be obtained because of the unknown amount of absorption and light-scattering caused by the

glasses. However, as a guide, a relative value of 20 units is approximately equivalent to 0.03% iron in the glass.
70

4-
0

3
0

2
0

R
S
R

Figure 4. Stem- and bowl-frag-

ment of a wine- or beer-glass, with
raven’s head seal. From Nonsuch

Palace. Ht. 1
1
/
2
in. (3.8 cm.). London

Museum. Crown Copyright.

Figure 5. The original description by Robert Plot

of the ingredients used by George Ravenscroft
(note 11) was misreported by both Hartshorne and

Thorpe. Here the differences in the key sentence

are compared. Their significance is discussed in
the text. The passage runs:

‘The materials they used formerly were the

blackest Flints calcined, and a white Crystalline
sand, adding to each pound of these as it

(1) found by solution of their whole
mixture,

was

(2) found by
the
solution
of these

by the

(3)
formed
by solution of their whole

mixture,

ingenious Dr Ludwell (3)
formerly

Fellow of

Wadham College, about two ounces of Niter, Tartar

and Borax. ‘

(1) Plot,
Nat His1.0x.
(2) Thorpe’s

History.

(3) Hartshorne.

Figure 6. Fragments of drinking-glasses, excavated mainly in

London (a, c-e): the stem b has an S-seal. Ht. of b 1
1
/
3

in. (4. 5 cm.).

Victoria and Albert Museum (C. 589-1925, and C. 188QQ, RR, TT, UU-

1956). Crown Copyright.

EVOLUTION

OF
LEAD CRYSTAL

LUDWELL

0
/
0
IN

GLASS
OF

POTASSIUM
BORATE
RAVENSCROFT

– –

Porcisit

Niter

Pyrites

Red Ie.
►
d_

/683

UNSEALED

Borax
Tartar

‘Voter-
Pyrites

Red Icdd
SEALED

EARLY
LATE

Borax

Tartar

Pouota-i

Niter
Py

Pyrites

/Red Lead

Red Leal

SODIUM
12
S.C. °A
IN

123
class

SILICA
MILD

LEAD

0 1 2 9
if-

5 6 7

8
9

ozs
OF RED LEAD
ADDED

ro
L UDWEL

Figure 7. Chart illustrating a hypothesis of the evolution of lead crystal.
MIX

—– BORAX 2 oz

TARTAR 2oz

NITER 2 oz

PYRITES /60z

anc GLA75

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Sellers offirtecg6sswarc

of ‘Ike) 181k3 anti
.
9tk)

centuries

48 WALTON STREET, WALTON-ON-THE
–
HILL,TADWORTH, SURREY. TADWORTH 3337

ALAN TILLMAN

ANTIQUES

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TELEPHONE: 01-235 8235

TELEX: 916151

U.K. CABLES: TILLWEIGHTS, LONDON, S.W.1

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by Edmund Launert

Available from Meffrs. Unwin Brothers, The

Grefham Prefs, Old Woking, Surrey, GU22 9LH

Price
42.
so pence (Li.sc) to Members of the

Glafs Circle) plus current poftage for 4o° grams weight.

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