The Glass Circle Journal No.3

The Glass Circle 3

The Glass Circle

Edited by

R. J.
Charleston

Wendy Evans and

Ada Polak

Gresham Books

Q The Glass Circle

First published 1979

ISBN 0 905418 23 9

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

Dr. H. J. Kersley
Mrs. B. Morris

E. T. Udall

Dr. D. C. Watts
Miss K. Worsley

Honorary Secretary:
Mrs. C. G. Benson,

Honorary Treasurer:
P. H. Whatmoor, ACA,

43, Lancaster Road, London, W11 1QJ

Copies of
The Glass Circle 2 may

be obtain ed at a cost of

£3. 50 (postage extra: weight packed 15.9 oz. /450 grams),

and of
The Glass Circle 1
at a cost of £3.00 (postage extra:

weight packed 14.1 oz. /400 grams), both from the publisher.

Published by Gresham Books and printed by Unwin Brothers

Limited, Old Woking, Surrey, GU22 9LH.

Contents

Page

The Apsley Pellatts
by J. A. H. Rose

Mr. Jeffrey Rose

Decoration of Glass, Part 4: Printing on glass
by R. J. Charleston

Decoration of Glass, Part 5: Acid-Etching
by R. J. Charleston

The Jacobite Engravers
by G. B. Seddon

‘Men of Glass’: a personal View of the De Bongar Family in the 16th and 17th centuries

by G. Bungard

The English Ale Glasses, Group 4, Ale/Beer Glasses in the 19th century
by P. C. Trubridge

Illustrations
Pages

Figures 1-11 illustrating ‘The Apsley Pellatts’

10-15

Figures 1-12 illustrating ‘Printing on Glass’

22-30

Figures 1-6 illustrating ‘Acid-Etching’

36-39

Figures 1-16 illustrating ‘The Jacobite Engravers’

48-73

Figure 1 illustrating ‘Men of Glass’

Figures 1-14 illustrating ‘Ale/Beer Glass in the 19th century’

89-96

The Apsley Pellatts*

By J. A. H. ROSE

A
Paper read to the Circle on 16 February, 1967.

Apsley Pellatt is a name that was of some signi-

ficance during the last years of the 18th century

and for most of the 19th. It stood for a good deal

in the glass trade during its most successful years,

when the glass of these islands was much in
demand overseas as well as at home.
This Paper is an attempt at offering a short

history of the Pellatt family and some of its

achievements, against a background of the stresses

and strains of the contemporary glass industry.

But the accent will inevitably rest on the Apsley

Pellatt who was the fourth of that name, and who

lived from 1791 to 1863 (fig. 1).

The father of the first Pellatt with the Christian

name of Apsley was William Pellatt (1665-1725),

sometime High Sheriff of Sussex and of The Friars,

Lewes. He married as his first wife Grace,

daughter of Apsley Newton of Southover, Lewes.

The Newtons were granted land in Sussex in the

reign of Henry VIII, and had emigrated from

Cheshire. Sir Isaac Newton was descended from

a younger branch of the same family. William and
Grace Pellatt’s fifth child was christened Apsley

Pellatt. He was born in 1699, died in 1740, and he

lived at The Friars, Lewes. And thus started five
generations of Apsley Pellatts.
Apsley Pellatt II of Lewes and St. Margaret’s,

Westminster, and later of St. John’s, Clerkenwell,
was an iron merchant and brazier and Master of

the Ironmongers’ Company in 1789. He was born

in 1736, and died in 1798. He was the proprietor

of The Friars, Lewes, the old Jacobean mansion
which was vested in the family from 1682. His

third child was Apsley Pellatt III. Glass enthusi-
asts are concerned with the third and principally

the fourth generations.
Apsley Pellatt III was born in 1763 and married

in 1788 Mary, daughter of Stephen Maberly of

* When it was first decided to publish
The Glass

Circle
in book form it was agreed that part of

its purpose should be to reprint old papers

which broke new ground or offered a fresh
assessment of old evidence. A review of past
papers had already suggested the republishing

of ‘The Apsley Pellatts’ by Mr. Jeffrey Rose,
when the news of Mr. Rose’s death was re-

ceived. A short appreciation of Jeffrey Rose by

the President may be found on p. 9.
Reading, at St. Andrew’s, Holborn. Her brother

was an M.P. and forerunner of Rowland Hill as

Secretary of the Post Office.

Apsley •Pellatt III sold The Friars, Lewes, and

it was eventually pulled down to make way for the
railway. He is recorded as being of Holborn, St.

Paul’s Churchyard and The Falcon Glass Works,

Blackfriars, Surrey (figs. 2-4).
1

According to Strype’s map of 1720 there were

at least three glasshouses near the Falcon Stairs

on the South Bank of the Thames near to where

Blackfriars Bridge now stands. The amalgamation

of these small glasshouses made up the Falcon
Glass Works, which were carried on until 1878.

The London Gazette
in 1693 states that Francis

Jackson and John Straw near the Falcon Tavern
in Southwark were making ‘all sorts of the best

and finest drinking glasses and curious glasses

for ornament and likewise all sorts of glass bottles’
(at this time ‘curious’ meant, of course, something
novel, fine or well made). The information about

subsequent owners is rather confused: Hughes
&

Winch 1752; Hughes Hall & Co., 1760; Stephen Hall
& Co., 1765-80. Alexander Thomas Cox & Co.,

were the owners in 1792 and in 1803 Pellatt &
Green. According to Francis Buckley, the works

were moved in 1814 to Holland Street, Blackfriars.

These dates and names do not quite agree with

those mentioned to Mr. H. J. Powell by Mr. T.

Rickman, grandson of Apsley Pellatt IV
2
. According

to Mr. Rickman, Apsley Pellatt III took over the

Falcon Glassworks from Cox & Co. about 1790.

This date seems too early, although there was
apparently some connection then. From 1789 to

1802 he was described in the London Directory as

a ‘glass man’, a cut glass manufacturer and the

owner of a warehouse in High Holborn.

The end of the 18th Century had seen notable

progress in chemical research and the chemistry

of glass had become a matter of great interest to

men like Sir Humphrey Davy and later his protégé

Michael Faraday. At this period both England and
France produced working glassmakers who knew

a lot about chemistry. The Apsley Pellatts were

among them and several formed themselves into

a sort of Society, and corresponded.

Apart from producing domestic glass, Apsley

Pellatt III had experimented on various uses of

glass, and his inventions included a special glass
‘for admitting light into the internal parts of

ships, vessels, buildings and other places’.
3
Two

letters from ships’ Captains confirm the useful-
ness of the invention.
4
At the Philadelphia Museum

of Art, U.S.A. there is a block of glass, apparently

engraved in diamond point ‘Presented by Pellatt

& Green, glass makers to the King, St. Pauls

Churchyard, London, to the Society of Fine Arts

Philadelphia July 1807′. In 1809 Ackermann’s

Repository of Arts
issued a coloured print of the

interior of the premises of Messrs. Pellatt &

Green at St. Paul’s Churchyard (fig. 4). The show-

rooms were 57 feet long and 21 feet broad, fitted

up with great taste, and formed part of their
extensive premises. Here was exhibited an

elegant assortment of glass, china and earthenware

which competed very favourably with the principal
glass shops of the metropolis. Messrs. Josiah

Wedgwood have ten letters or orders from Pellatt

& Green of 16 St. Paul’s Churchyard. One of them,
dated February 1815, seems to be Apsley Pellatt’s

first attempt to establish trade in Wedgwood ware.

The Wedgwood records do not indicate that a very

large trade was done. Another letter dated

September 10th, 1824 asks whether Pellatt & Green
could have the sole agency in London. They had

heard that the Wedgwood showrooms in York Street,

St. James’s Square, were closing down. A note in

Josiah Wedgwood Jnr’s hand states: have no

such intention.’ As already mentioned, Messrs.

Pellatt & Green had taken over the Falcon Glass

House in 1803. It would appear from this that
Messrs. Pellatt & Green had showrooms in St.

Paul’s Churchyard as well as a factory at Black-

friars.
Critchett’s Post Office Directory

for 1816

states that ‘Messrs. Pellatt & Green are Potters
and Glass Manufacturers to the King’. Their name

appears in marks on English pottery and notably

on Swansea ware. Apsley Pellatt III died at

Camberwell in January 1826 aged 63, and was

buried in the Cemetery at Bunhill Fields. He was
one of the Deacons of the Church at Camberwell,

and a strict Nonconformist. He was a great

favourite among a large circle of learned friends.

Whilst able to take part in public business, he was
an active friend of the London Missionary Society

and many other Benevolent institutions. There

were eleven sons and daughters.
5

Apsley Pellatt IV was born in 1791 and is

recorded as being of St. Paul’s Churchyard, London

and Holland Street, Blackfriars, then of Staines,
Middlesex and Stanbridge Park,Staplefield,Sussex.
6

He was educated at the Alfred Academy, Camber-

well, run by a Dr. Wanostrocht, a Belgian and a

well-known educationalist of his time. Apsley
Pellatt IV must have joined his father at an early

age, probably about 1810-12, and he was first
married in 1814. In 1819/1820, at the age of 29, he

obtained a patent and protection for fourteen years

for a process known at first as ‘Crystallo-
Ceramie’, and later as ‘Cameo Incrustation’.?
This consisted of enclosing medallions and orna-
ments of pottery ware, metal, and refractory

materials in glass. In 1821 Apsley Pellatt IV wrote

a book
Memoir on the origin progress and improve-

ment of Glass Manufactures including an account

of the patent Crystallo-Ceramie or Glass Incrusta-

tions,
and later in 1849 he published a revised and

enlarged edition in conjunction with his friend,

Mr. John Timbs, the editor of the
Illustrated

London News.
The book was entitled
Curiosities

of Glass-Making with details of the processes and

productions of ancient and modern ornamental

glass manufacture.
In these two books, part

trade-circulars at the time, he discusses the pro-

cesses, techniques and materials of his predeces-

sors and contemporaries such as Neri, Kunckel,

Loysel and Bontemps. There are illustrations of

the various tools of the trade. He adds his own

skills and inventions, and the two publications
have been standard works of reference ever since

they appeared. Apsley Pellatt informs us that a

Bohemian manufacturer first attempted to encrust

in glass small figures of greyish clay. The experi-
ment was not a great success, the clay not being

of the correct composition to combine with the

glass. After spending a large amount of money he

did succeed in incrusting several medallions of

13uonaparte which were sold at an enormous price.

A Frenchman, Boudon de Saint-Amans, took over
and improved the invention, but no articles of any

size were produced.
8
The patent was then taken

out by Apsley Pellatt, and the process so improved

that arms, cyphers, portraits, etc. could be en-

closed in the glass so as to be chemically imperish-

able. The substance of which these ornaments are

composed is less fusible than the glass. It is in-

capable of generating air and also susceptible of

contraction and expansion, when, in the course of

manufacture, the glass becomes hot or cold. He

mentions the work of two Scotsmen, James Tassie

and his nephew William Tassie, who had made
small cameos in glass from the 1760’s and well

into the 19th century.
9
The idea proved very popu-

lar. It is known that a Charles Brown worked for
both Tassie and Pellatt (See Sotheby’s Catalogue

28th July, 1966).

Apsley Pellatt proceeded to manufacture scent

bottles (fig. 5), jugs, plates, door furniture and

many other domestic items with great success.

His Birmingham agent, Mary Rollason, was adver-

tising in 1822 ‘Ornamental incrustations called
Crystallo-Ceramie which bids fair to form an era

in the art of Glass-Making. By the improved pro-

cess, ornaments of any description, arms, crests,

cyphers, portraits, Landscapes of any variety of

colour, may be introduced into the glass so as to

become perfectly imperishable.’ The cast bas-

reliefs, knows as sulphides, were made of fine

white china clay, and super-silicate of potash.

Great care was needed in grinding this material

so that the sulphides would not break under the
heat of the molten glass.

In 1831, Apsley Pellatt took out a patent for

press-moulding glass and enclosing sulphides in

the glass.
10
The patent is in two portions. The

first concerns the forming of hollow glass vessels
and utensils by blowing the glass into metal
moulds similar to those used for moulded glass

bottles with inscriptions and patterns on the out-

side. A cake of ‘earthy composition’ was made

to the required design and fixed red hot into a
recess in the mould. The vessel was subsequently

blown into the mould and the ‘earthy composition’

was left adhering to the vessel until it was finished

off and annealed. The result was a deeper and
more defined impression on the outside of the

glass. The other portion dealt with the joining of

the segments of a mould. The patent documents

include drawings, and the drawing for the second

portion contains the caption ‘machine for pressing

glass by the mode lately introduced from America’

Whether these patents were used to any extent

by the Falcon Glass House is a matter for con-

jecture, for most of the pressed glass was made

in the Birmingham and Newcastle areas. Sir

Jeffry Wyattville, about 1824, in laying the first
stone of one of the Towers of Windsor Castle,

adopted the mode of recording the event by placing

a Crystallo-Ceramie plaque inside. Crystallo-

Ceramie was a small part of the large output of

the Falcon Glass House, and it is doubtful if it

was a financial success. Later in the 19th Century

the process was used by others in Britain, for

example John Ford of the Holyrood Glassworks,
Edinburgh.
11

But Apsley Pellatt showed examples

of his own glass cameos at the 1851 Exhibition

although they were by then no longer considered

a novelty. To sum up on this particular item,

after the repeal of the Glass Excise in 1845,

simpler and cruder methods of production were

used and the sulphides lost their brilliance and

quality. The Continent also produced Crystallo-
Ceramie in the 19th Century and Pazaurek in

Glaser der Empire and Biedermeierzeit
(1923),

discusses this matter, Some fine Apsley Pellatt

examples were sold in the Applewhaite-Abbott

collection at Sotheby’s in 1953. The Commemora-

tive Exhibition of the Circle of Glass Collectors

in 1962 at the Victoria and Albert Museum dis-

played some pieces.

The introduction of glass cutting was commer-

cially an event of supreme importance to the glass

trade in this country and Ireland. The Bohemians
had been encouraged to come to England and give

a lead, and from circa 1750, London cut glass had

started to displace Bohemian cut glass in the
markets of Europe. The Falcon Glass House by

1810 was producing cut glass in ever increasing

quantities and experimenting with new designs
and cutting. Under the guidance and forceful

leadership of Apsley Pellatt IV, its products were

to secure for themselves a high reputation, and

the 1820’s and 1830’s saw the era of glass cutting

reach its greatest popularity. A popular pattern

in the Falcon Glass House production was the

Strawberry design, a Regency feature. It is a

combination of the double-cut diamond pattern

with a relief of small diamonds. In the 1820’s
they also used vertical arrangements of fine

diamond panels on their glass enclosing the sul-

phides (fig. 5). A type of cut glass jug with a

broad mouth is probably characteristic of the
Falcon Glass House. But they were also producing

styles and patterns very similar to those of the

other glasshouses of the period, and except for a
few special items, it must remain a matter of

speculation that any piece of cut glass is from a

particular factory. The Thirteenth Report of the

Commissioners of Inquiry into the Excise Estab-

lishment (glass) London (1835) should be studied

to understand the quantities of glass that were

manufactured at this time. We have details of

the types of glass that were for sale in several

of the Falcon Glass House advertisements of the
1838-1843 period.
12

The advertisements also

state that ‘glass blowing, engraving and cutting

may be inspected by the purchaser at Mr. Pellatt’s

extensive Flint Glass and Steam Cutting Works in
Holland Street near Blackfriars Bridge any

Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday’. They further
mention that the concern made ‘every variety of

Philosophical and Medical glass ware’ and the

attention of Medical Practitioners was solicited.

In 1846 there were 32 people employed at the

Falcon Glass House.
13

The Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers

in Paris acquired a number of examples of Apsley
Pellatt’s work in 1851, probably in connection with

the Great Exhibition. A finger bowl of iced glass,

a cut glass decanter, a toilet bottle of layered glass

blue over crystal with cut decoration, a wine glass
with stem containing twisted coloured threads, a

bowl decorated with pillar moulding, are illustrated

in Mr. Hugh Wakefield’s book
19th Century British

Glass.
Some other examples are in the Victoria

and Albert Museum. A cut glass scent bottle is

illustrated in
Glass through the Ages

by E.

Barrington-Haynes (1959), Pl. 51, d. The scent
bottle is decorated with an intaglio-moulded head

of William IV and marked ‘Pellatt & Co., Patent.’

It was made about 1835 and is in the Art Gallery

and Museum, Cheltenham. A small paper-weight

was sold in the Applewhaite-Abbott collection

marked ‘Patent London’ printed in brown.

On 28th November, 1966, a small circular glass

medallion with a sulphide portrait of George IV

with fan and hobnail cutting, impressed on the

reverse ‘Pellatt & Green/Patent London’ and a

Crystallo-Ceramie portrait of Queen Victoria

signed ‘Apsley Pellatt’ with hobnail cutting, were

sold in the London auction rooms.
14

There does not seem to have been any hard and

fast rule at this time with regard to the precise
nomenclature of the firm. After the end of ‘Pellatt

& Green’ in the early 1830’s, the styles of ‘Apsley

Pellatt’, ‘Apsley Pellatt & Co’, and ‘Pellatt & Co’,

were interchangeable and overlapping.

By the end of the 1850’s the great vogue for

cut glass was ending and did not revive again till

the 1880’s. Taste was turning in other directions.

New forms of decoration were being imported

from the Continent. The public, always attracted

to something new, forced the English glassmakers

to produce what was more fashionable. John
Ruskin’s famous utterance in his
Stones of Venice

in 1853 that ‘all cut glass is barbaric’, probably

helped to make cut glass unfashionable. Press-

moulded glass was at first made to imitate cut
glass and this too may have made cut glass less

popular. The Exhibitions in London 1862, Paris

1867 and 1878 and others gave opportunities for
enterprise in the new styles and techniques.

Cutting gave way to engraving.

In preparation for the International Exhibition

in London in 1862, Apsley PeHatt held a competi-

tion for designs for engraved glass. The prize-

winning designs were produced by his firm, and at
least some of them were shown at the Exhibition.

In 1864, a year after the death of Apsley Pellatt

himself, the firm presented a selection of these
glasses to the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh,

and in 1967 a few models were transferred to the

Victoria and Albert Museum. Some of these glasses

are illustrated here (figs. 7-11). One very close to

fig. 9 can be seen in the lithograph made by J. B.

Waring in 1863 showing some of the glasses
exhibited by the Pellatt firm in London in 1862
(fig. 6).

The Falcon Glass House showed at The Great

Exhibition of 1851 chandeliers of blue, white and

ruby glass in the Eastern style of the Royal

Pavilion, Brighton. They also produced Anglo-

Venetian and frosted glass. Chandeliers (gas)

were supplied about 1851 to the Brighton Corpora-
tion for the music and banqueting rooms at the

Royal Pavilion at a cost of 21,251/11/-, but when

Queen Victoria sold the Pavilion she took away

more than was first stipulated!
15
The Falcon

Glass House was always pushing ahead and seizing

opportunities to satisfy the public and lead the

industry, while many others were slow to adapt to
new ideas.

Frederick Pellatt (1807-1874) was the younger

brother of Apsley IV. In 1839 Apsley Pellatt IV’s

son Apsley Pellatt V died at the age of 20, a
circumstance which must have upset any plans for

the future of the business. Frederick and Apsley

IV carried on the business together. In 1845,

together, they took out a patent which for the most
part dealt with the architectural uses of glass,

methods for casting glass, forming coloured

designs on sheets of glass, making glass for sky-
lights and roofing.
16
The impression is gained

here that Frederick Pellatt specialised in this

sort of glass, and this is perhaps confirmed by the

fact that he gave a lecture on Plate and Crown

glass at the Royal Institution
(The Athenaeum,

27 February, 1847). In the Library of the Royal

Institution, Albemarle Street, London, there are

a number of interesting references to the two

brothers. Sir Humphrey Davy, Michael Faraday

and Dr. Wollaston all experimented at the Falcon
Glass House. Two manuscript note books written

by Michael Faraday are in the Library of the

Royal Society, and Faraday recorded that an experi-

mental glasshouse was erected on a part of the

premises of Messrs. Green and Pellatt at the
Falcon Glass Works in the 1820’s for optical

glass experiments)
7

In 1847 Apsley Pellatt declared that ‘if any

British engraver of adequate skill should propose

to make an exact copy of the Portland vase in
glass, his firm would undertake the manufacture

of the vessel’. In 1828 he had written to Wedgwood’s
that ‘Mr. Pellatt has called to see the Portland

Vases and begs to know if he takes the whole at

£120 whether you would engage to make them only

for Messrs. Pellatt & Green, what price per vase?’
(It is not certain if he bought them, but Mankowitz

says that it is possible
18
). There seems to have

been a desire to trade in the Portland Vase, in

pottery if not in glass. Wedgwood’s showrooms

closed in 1829. In a letter dated 16th May of that

year, Messrs. Pellatt & Green state that they will

‘accept the offer to send us the few vases (at
manufacturers prices and terms for Etruscan

Vases with a charge of 6/- per cwt. for carriage

and packing). The large vase if still marked at
£25 to the public we agree to purchase for £20

and carriage to London.’

In February, 1848

The Athenaeum
states that

Mr. Pellatt was to have given a lecture at the

Royal Institution on ‘The curiosities of glass
manufacture’, but Mr. Faraday had to stop the

proceedings because a furnace to demonstrate the

lecture got overheated and had affected some

timber. The floor boards were removed and the

lecture cancelled for fear of a panic. The numer-

ous guests were entertained with a collection of
specimens of glass manufacture in another room.

There is a paper copied out in Apsley Pellatt’s

own handwriting signed by him and dated February
1848, called ‘Practical remarks upon anealing

Flint Glass’. It was composed by Joshua Field,

F.R.S. (See
Dictionary of National Biography).
It

was in the Royal Institution and is now in the

Royal Society.

There exists a photograph of Apsley Pellatt

which he sent on request to Michael Faraday and

with it is the explanatory letter dated 14 October,

1857 (fig. 1). Michael Faraday was preparing to
write about his life and friends, and wanted photo-

graphs of them.

In 1838 Apsley Pellatt IV was elected an

Associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers,
where he spoke on (1) ‘The relative heating

powers of coal and coke in melting glass’: (2) ‘On
the manufacture of Flint glass’.
1 9

From 1852-1857 Apsley Pellatt represented

Southwark in Parliament. According to ‘Hansard’,
he was by no means a silent member. He was a

member of the Common Council of the City of
London, a juror at the London Exhibition of 1862

and wrote a report on the glass shown there. A
prominent member of the Congregational body,

(cf.
The Nonconformist
for 22nd April, 1863, p. 309)

he died on April 17th, 1863 and is buried in Staines
Churchyard. He married twice, his first wife

having died in 1815. He left only daughters and

some of his grandsons entered the business. The

obituary notice in
The Times

of 20th April, 1863

reads as follows:

DEATH OF MR. APSLEY PELLATT. —Mr.
Apsley Pellatt died at the residence of his

brother-in-law, Mr. Field, at Balham-hill,
near Croydon, at a late hour on Friday night.

The deceased was for several years the
member for the Borough of Southwark in the

House of Commons as the colleague of the
late Admiral Sir Charles Napier. He was

defeated by Mr. Locke, Q.C., the present

member. During the period that Mr. Apsley
Pellatt represented the borough he was a

staunch supporter of the Liberal party. He

was in his 72nd year.

The London Directory
for 1851 lists Apsley

Pellatt & Co. (late Pellatt & Green) ‘Glass Manu-

facturers to Her Majesty and dealers in tea table
and dessert china, chandeliers, etc., wholesale and

retail, Falcon Glassworks, 58 Baker Street and
5 Kings Street, Portman Square’.

From 1852 Frederick Pellatt was in charge but

the leading light had gone out of the business.

However, it continued to be partly successful and

the firm’s engraved glass was much in demand

during the following years. After the death of
Frederick Pellatt in 1874, there were changes in

the organization. About 1873 the firm had split

into two parts.
The London Directory
for 1872/3

has an entry for Pellatt & Wood with showrooms

in Baker Street. There was also an entry for the
Falcon Glass Works in Holland Street, Blackfriars.

At the 1873 Exhibition in Vienna, Pellatt & Wood

exhibited glassware and porcelain. The Pellatt &

Wood firm lasted till 1890. In 1878 Pellatt & Co.
had showrooms in the City and moved the Falcon

Glass House to Pomeroy Street near the Old Kent

Road, where it closed for good about 1895 and

transferred to Stourbridge. The business has

changed hands many times since. A shop in

Cheapside known as Apsley Pellatt is now control-

led by Messrs. Thomas Goode of South Audley

Street, London. Their records of the old days were

destroyed in the last war.

The information obtainable on Apsley Pellatt
III

has been scanty. The information on Mr. Green

his partner has been practically ‘nil’ save for a

few unimportant references to him in the manu-

scripts of Michael Faraday, which mention him
in connection with the obtaining of materials for

Faraday’s experiments. But great credit must

go to Pellatt & Green for building up the reputation

of their firm, which was so successfully carried

on by Apsley Pellatt IV. While reading the life of
the first Josiah Wedgwood and his son, one cannot

help but draw comparisons with them and Apsley
Pellatt, father and son. The Wedgwoods and

Apsley Pellatts were highly successful in their
businesses. They were personalities, astute

business men, interested in chemistry, in antiquity

and in public service.

It was thanks to men like the Apsley Pellatts

that, in spite of the Excise, British glassmaking
not only kept abreast of the times but even made

a strong impact in overseas markets.

Notes

1.
The information about the early Pellatts has been

found in
Sussex Archaeological Collections,Vols.

XXXVIII (with pedigree) and XXXIX.

2.
Harry J. Powell,
Glassmaking in England,

Cambridge (1923), pp. 89-90.

3.
Patent no. 3058 (1807).

4.
The letters are reprinted in full in
Ackermann’s

Repository of Arts, Vol.
1 (1809), p. 11.

5.
Gentleman’s Magazine

(1826), i, p. 189. See also

obituary notice of Apsley Pellatt III in
Congrega-

tional Magazine
(February, 1826), p. 112.

6.
Obituary notice in
The Times

for 20th April, 1863

(cit.
above, p.8). There is also a long entry on

Apsley Pellatt IV, with a short introduction on
his father, in the
Dictionary of National Biography.

7.
Patent no. C. 210/147 (1819).

8.
On Boudon de Saint-Amans and his work with

sulphides,
see
Paul Jokelson,
Sulphides,
New York

(1968), pp. 30 ff. See also Jeffrey A. H. Rose,
‘Apsley Pellatt Jr, 1791-1863’,
The Connoisseur

(Dec. 1963), p. 232, with illustrations of sulphides.

9.
See
the author’s Paper given to the Circle and

mimeographed as No. 153.

10.
Patent No. 6091 (1831).
11.

Other British makers of sulphides are mentioned

by Bernard Hughes in ‘Simple Mystery of Crystal

Cameos’,
Country Life,

21st July, 1966, pp. 183-4.

12.
A four-page price list from Apsley Pellatt from

c. 1840, illustrated with line-engravings, is pub-

lished in full by Hugh Wakefield, ‘Early Victorian

styles in glassware’,
Studies in Glass History and

Design, Papers read to Committee B Sessions of

the VI
–
11th International Congress on Glass,

London, 1968,
London (n.d., 1970).

13.
Essays on the Glass Trade in England,
published

by The Worshipful Company of Glass Sellers of

London, London (1883).

14.
Sotheby’s catalogues 30th June, 1952, Lot 54; and

28th November,1966,Lots 12-13.

15.
H. D. Roberts,
A History of the Royal Pavilion,

London (1939) .

16.
Patent no. 10669 (1845).

17.
Faraday’s experimental researches in chemistry

and physics, Oct. 1858. Glass Furnace Notebooks,
The Royal Society, p. 283.

18.
W. Mankowitz,

The Portland Vase and the Wedg-

wood copies,
London
(1952), pp. 46-7.

19.
Minutes of Proceedings of the Institution of Civil

Engineers, 1863-64,
Vol. 23, p. 511.

Mr. Jeffrey Rose
Members of the Circle will learn with sorrow of
the sadly premature death of Jeffrey Rose on
30th August, 1977, at the age of 66.

Mr, Rose joined the Circle in 1955, and became

a member of the Committee in 1957, since when

he has given the Circle continuous loyal service

as a Committe-member. He was a frequent host

at our meetings, and on a number of occasions
took the chair in the absence of the President.

Jeffrey Rose had a keen and continuing interest

in history, and this came out in the Papers which

from time to time he read to the Circle—the first

on
English Glass Pictures
or

The Art of ‘Painting

Mezzotinto’
in April, 1959, followed by
Glass and

the House of Hanover,
the first part in May, 1960

and the second in February, 1961. These general
studies showed patient research and meticulous

attention to detail, and have proved fruitful sources
of information for subsequent students. They were

followed by more specialised studies of individual
artists and craftsmen—The

Apsley Pellatts
in

February, 1967,
James and William Tassie

March, 1968 and
Henry Gyles of York, Glass

Painter 1645
–

1709
in November, 1969. It is particu-

larly appropriate that
The Apsley Pellatts

should

have been selected as one of the Circle’s existing

Papers which warranted reproducing in Volume III

of
The Glass Circle.

Already at the time of joining the Circle, Mr.

Rose had a fine collection of English Glass, and he

lent unstintingly from it to the Circle’s Commem-

orative Exhibition in 1962, and to the Exhibition

of English Glass held in the Victoria and Albert

Museum in 1968, on the occasion of the meeting

in London of the International Commission on
Glass.
Jeffrey Rose was a shy and reserved man, but

once his friendship was gained, it was a friendship
for life. Many members will have cause to re-

member with affectionate regard his generosity

of spirit, his individual
acts
of kindness, and his

unfailing courtesy.

Figure 1. Apsley Pellatt IV. Photograph presented to Michael Faraday at his request, and

sent to him with the following letter: “Staines, Oct. 14,1857. My dear Doctor, Several years

since you shewed me a number of Portraits of your friends and acquaintance & asked me if
I could give you a Lythograph of my own, which I did not then possess; if you think the

accompanied Photograph would answer the same purpose I shall deem it an honour to be
placed among the eminent worthies in your Portfolio undeserving as I may be of the favour.
With kind regards I remain my dear Sir yours very sincerely

Apsley Pellatt.

To Dr. Faraday FRS FGS.”

The Royal Institution, London.

1
0

PARISH

OF
S’MARY

•
.rne

intr.

a
ri
d’
Gan

WM+

n
tatre

Iremd Jan/

Albion
Wharf

4.4
.1Zwirmnberhred 471nri
.

71
–

6
.1

0.44

Pottle Wharf

‘

ail
PARISH

CHRIST

Timber liers1
5,
1.
11
:fied

.
kaor

`Wk
Jam.

Slreei

Figure 2. Position of the Falcon Glass House (upper right) on a map published

in 1811.

Figure 3. Interior of the “Falcon Glass House, Holland Street, Blackfriars. Mr. Apsley

Pellatt Proprietor… “, from E.W.Brayley,
A topographical History of Surrey,

Vol. 5 (1850).

Figiire 4. The showrooms of Messrs. Pellatt & Green in St. Paul’s Church Yard. Lithograph,

hand-coloured, in Ackermann’s
Repository of Arts,

Vol. 1 (1809), pl. 22.

Figure 5. Flacon with a ground stopper, richly cut and with sulphide portraits of

George III and Princess Charlotte of Wales, d. 1817, married 1816 to Prince Leopold,
later first King of the Belgians. (For the portrait of Princess Charlotte, see Paul

Jokelson,
Su/pi/ides,

New York (1968),figs. 3-4). Ht. 4
1
/
8

in. (10.5 cm.)

Coll. Jeffery Rose.

Figure 8. Wine-glass with

moulded spiral stem and

wheel-engraved decoration
showing a boy riding a dolphin.

caption to Fig. 7) and made by
Pellatt & Co. about 1862.

Ht. 71/2 in. (19 cm.). Victoria

and Albert Museum, No. Circ.

618-1967.

Figure 6. Various glasses shown by Pellatt & Co. at the International Exhibition in

London in 1862, from J. B. Waring,
Masterpieces of Industrial Art and Sculpture at the

International Exhibition,
London, 1863.

(Photo: Frank Power, Dudley, Worcs).

Figure 7. Amphora, “Early Italian Design”, wheel-

engraved and resting on a silver-plated tripod.

and made by Pellatt & Co., about 1862. Ht. of glass
11
1

, in. (29 cm.). Royal Scottish Museum, Edin-

burgh,No.
1179.4

and a, and subsequently Victoria

& Albert Museum, No. Circ. 617 and a-1967.
(Photo: Tom
Scott,
Edinburgh).

Figure 9. Claret glass, with

wheel-engraved decoration.

Second Prize design (see p.7)

by Miss A. Boyde, Edinburgh
College of Art. Ht. 5 in.

(12.5 cm.). Presented in 1964 by

Messrs. Pellatt & Co. to the

Royal Scottish Museum,

Edinburgh, No. 1179.5, D.

(Photo: Toni Scott, Edinburgh).
Figure 10. Decanter and glass, with wheel-

engraved decoration. Ht. of decanter 11
3
/
4
in.

(30 cm.). Presented in 1864 by Messrs. Pellatt
Co.to the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh,

No.1179,16 and a and E. (Photo: Tom Scott,

Edinburgh).

Figure 11. Two stemmed glasses with a wheel-engraved pattern of fleurs-de-lis. Presented by

Messrs. Pellatt & Co. in 1864 to the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh, No.1179,15 F and G. Ht. 5
1
/
8
in.

(11.5 cm.) and 4
5

/
8

in. (13 cm.). (Photo: Tom Scott, Edinburgh).

Decoration of Glass, Parts 4 & 5*

by R. J. CHARLESTON

A Paper read to the Circle on 16 November, 1
–
972.

Part 4—Printing on Glass

In the porcelain industry of the 18th century
England was the country where,,par
excellence,

the manufacture was in private hands, rather than

being, as on the Continent of Europe, under the

patronage of rich noblemen, or even royalty, pre –

pared to suffer heavy monetary losses for the
sake of an establishment which would add lustre
to their name. In England, therefore, it was natural

that porcelain-manufacturers should be constantly

on the lookout for methods of cheapening their

production—for body-compounds which would cut
down losses in the kiln, and for methods of decora-

tion which would reduce the high cost of handpaint-

ing and gilding. In the latter field the great
English contribution was the development and

widespread use of transfer -printing, both over-
glaze in enamel-colours and later on under-glaze

in cobalt blue. The process, however, was prob-

ably not first invented in the ceramic industry,

but in the manufacture of enamels on copper, a

branch of industry which commenced in England

probably some years before the middle of the 18th
century.
1

The first commercial-scale production of

painted enamels on copper probably took place in

the South Midlands, in the general area of Birming-

ham. It was from this city, in 1751, that a certain

John Brooks, an immigrant Irishman, submitted a

petition for a patent for his method ‘of printing,

impressing, and reversing upon enamel and china
from engraved, etched and mezzotinto plates, and

from cuttings on wood and mettle, impressions of

History, Portraits, Landskips, Foliages, Coats of

Arms, Cyphers, Letters, Decorations, and other
Devices. That the said art and method is entirely

new and of his own invention.’
2

It will be observed

that this process related only to the decoration of

‘enamel and china’, and printing on both these

media may be traced in the years immediately

succeeding—on Bow and Worcester porcelain;
3

and on enamels, probably first at Birmingham and

then, after 1753, at the better-known Battersea

factory. It was here that on 25 January, 1754,

*
For earlier parts, see
The Glass Circle,
1,18-24

and note 1.
Brooks petitioned again for a patent: ‘the Petition

of John Brooks of York Place in the parish of

Battersea…. engraver, Showeth that your peti-
tioner has found out and discovered the art of

printing on Enamel, Glass, China and other Ware
History Portraits Landskips Foliages Coats of

Arms Cyphers Letters Decorations and other De-
vices. That your petitioner in finding out and

discovering the same hath been put to great ex-

penses as well as great study and labour…. That

your petitioner is advised and verily believes that
his method of printing on enamel glass china and

other wares will be of public utility as your peti-
tioner will be able to supply foreign markets with

the stone and earthenware manufactories of this

country beautifully printed and decorated at so

easy and so cheap a rate as to produce a very
considerable trade and advantage to these King-

doms. That the said art and method of printing

upon enamel glass china and other wares is en-

tirely new and of his own invention

‘
4
The

enamels printed at Battersea, mostly from plates

engraved by the Anglo-French artist S. Ravenet,

are well enough known.
This process of transfer-printing was done in

either one of two ways. In the first, a pull was

taken from an engraved plate in an oily ink on

paper: this was ‘transferred’ to the surface of the

object to be decorated, and an oxide colorant in

the form of a fine powder was sprinkled over the

surface and the surplus removed: the object was
then rapidly fired in a muffle-kiln. By the second

process, the paper was inked with an ink which

itself contained the metal-oxide. A later develop-
ment saw the use, in place of the paper, of a gela-

tinous ‘bat’, which was probably better adapted to

transferring stipple engraving, and could also be

used more readily on curved surfaces.
Brooks’s first patent may in fact have been in-

tended to cover glass as well as porcelain and

enamel on copper, for the 18th century used the
term ‘enamel’ to denote an opaque-white glass as

well as an enamel on copper.
5

We know that

opaque-white glass was being made in the Mid-
lands by the middle of the 18th century;
6

and that

printing was being used on (probably opaque-white)

glass one year after Brooks’s first patent-applica-
tion is suggested by an advertisement published in
the
B.W. (British Weekly?) Intelligencer

11 July, 1752, for
The Magazine of Knowledge and

Pleasure;
printed by J. Hinton at the King’s Arms,

Newgate Street, London. Volume 10 of this was

advertised to contain a section entitled ‘Art of
making Glass—with art of painting and making im-

pressions on Glass etc. etc. and laying on gold and

silver together with the method of preparing the
colours for Potter’s Work, or Delftware.’
7

echo of this is perhaps to be heard in an advertise-
ment inserted by the Liverpool engraver Thomas

Lawrenson, in the
Liverpool Advertiser

for 11 and

18 February, 1757,promising a pamphlet on ‘the

new and curious art of printing or rather re-

printing from Copper -plates, Prints upon -Porce-
lain, Enamel and Earthenwares, as lately practised

at Chelsea, Birmingham, etc

‘

8
The reference

to Birmingham is particularly significant.
That printing on opaque-white glass was

actually practised in the third quarter of the 18th

century is proved by a flask in the Schreiber

Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum

(figs. 1-2). This bears on one side a print in black

of a mounted Oriental hunting a leopard in the

shadow of what appear to be the Pyramids: on the

other side there is a second print, of a lady and
gentleman in European costume, the latter offering

the former a hare. The first of these subjects is
very close to a number of prints used on enamels

of Birmingham, or generally South Staffordshire,

origin; and the second subject is also found, slightly

adapted, on enamels of the same provenance.
9

That Lawrenson’s advertisement appeared in a

Liverpool paper is perhaps of particular signifi-

cance, for the remaining history of printing on

glass in England seems to be intimately connected

with Liverpool, and in particular with the career

of one Henry Baker. This man first turns up in

Staffordshire, in a document dated 1 January, 1756,

in which he is referred to as Henry Baker, of

Liverpool, Enameller.
10
He seems to have dis-

appeared from Staffordshire by December of the

same year_
11
Some account of Henry Baker is to

be found among the Entwistle papers in the Liver-

pool Public Library. He was apparently a native

of Mallahow, Co. Dublin, and is mentioned as an

enameller in
Williamson’s Liverpool Advertiser

1756 (28 May): ‘Henry Baker, Enameller, having

finished several flower pieces in Basso Relievo in

imitation of the Dublin Patterns, yet not inferior
to them, proposes to sell them at reasonable prices

and to continue to carry on this branch of the
Business. Specimens may be seen at Mr. Robert

Williamson’s, bookseller and printer near the

Exchange.’
12

He is alleged to have been in business

at Hanley Green, Staffs., as an enameller and

printer on earthenware, in 1770, and Simeon Shaw

in his
History of the Staffordshire Potteries
(1829)

wrote: ‘…. the first black Printer in the district

is said to have been Harry Baker, of Hanley,prior
to Sadler and Green practising it; and from some

plates borrowed from and belonging to a Book
Printer…. as several persons were now employed

by Messrs. S. and G. (i.e. Sadler and Green), Baker

offered his services to any of the manufacturers
in the district, as a printer on the glaze of cream

colour, in Black, Red, etc. and soon was fully em-

ployed….’
13

A note among the Entwistle papers

at Liverpool records: ‘Harry Baker, who pencilled
(with the Brush) many subjects on teapots, also

produced (by a patent process) subjects after the

style of Bartolozzi, in colours, the complete

picture was made by means of three sheets of

glass, each with a print of the subject, two
the these

had sections printed in different colours, the whole

when assembled gave the lights and shades to the
completed picture. They are signed ’11Baker, F.

Leverpool’
(sic).

14
Simeon Shaw is frequently

criticised for inaccuracy but his account gains

corroboration from several sources. John Sadler,
the famous Liverpool printer, wrote to Josiah

Wedgwood in Aug. 1763: ‘Baker has printed some
teapots and sold a few. He’ll never hurt us….

Your London dealer says Pencilled ware the same

pattern as yours. I know Baker does a deal of

pencilled Teapots, etc. for the work here and I have

seen some pieces of his printing, but I am sure the

Londoners wd. buy none of them at any price. He

cannot hurt us.’
15

In the same year Baker started

an account, which ran into 1764, with John

Baddeley, the potter, of Shelton. In the latter year

he received crates of ware, presumably for print-

ing, returning to Baddeley ‘printed ware’ on 17

January and 8 March, 1764.
16
‘Pencilling’ usually

referred to a style of linear painting, normally in

black.

In 1770-71 Baker was working with Humphrey

Palmer at Hanley, in Staffordshire, for on 21
January, 1771,Wedgwood wrote to his partner

Bentley: ‘I am told this morng. that Palmer set

out for London again yesterday, and has taken his

head Enameler (Baker late of Liverpool) along

with him.’
17

It is worth noting that Palmer was

one of the most enterprising of the Staffordshire

potters of this period, regarded as a serious rival

even by so renowned a potter as Josiah Wedgwood.

In 1781 Baker was back in Liverpool, being men-

tioned in
Gore’s Directory
of that year as an

enameller living at 32, Mersey Street and (pre-

sumably later that year) at 57, Plumbe St., Liver-

pool, and practising the art of painting on glass,

painting in colours, etc. In view of what follows,

we may assume that these entries refer to the

same man, for in the same year Henry Baker peti-

tioned for and obtained a patent, the terms of

which run as follows:

‘TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL

COME, HENRY BAKER, of Liverpool, in the

County of Lancaster, Enameller, sends greeting.

WHEREAS the said Henry Baker did, by his

Petition, humbly represent unto His present

most Excellent Majesty King George the Third,
that he, the Petitioner, had, by great application

and study, invented ‘A NEW METHOD OF

ORNAMENTING GLASS BY A COMPOSITION

OF COLOURS OR MATERIALS IMPRINTED

OR MADE UPON THE GLASS, BY MEANS OF

COPPER OR OTHER PLATES AND WOODEN
BLOCKS OR CUTTS’, and which would be of

public utility, and therefore the said Petitioner

prayed that His said Majesty would be pleased
to grant unto him, the said Petitioner, his

executors, administrators, and assigns, His
Royal Letters Patent, under His Great Seal of

Great Britain, for the sole making and vending
the said Invention…. and his said Majesty,

being willing to give encouragement to all arts
and inventions that might be for the public

good, was graciously pleased to condescend to
the Petitioner’s request, and did therefore, by

His Royal Letters Patent, bearing date at

Westminster, the Twenty-fifth day of June, in

the twenty-first year of His reign…. give and

grant unto the said Henry Baker…. his
especial licence, full power, sole priviledge

and authority, that he, the said Henry Baker….

during the term of years thereby expressed,

should and lawfully might make, use, exercise,

and vend, his said Invention…..
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the

said proviso, he, the said Henry Baker, cloth

hereby describe and ascertain the nature of the
said Invention, and in what manner the same is

to be performed, as follows, that is to say:-
The first process, or preparation of in-

gredients for ink No. 1: Take one gallon and

half of linseed oil, one pound of umber burnt,

and half a pound of amber. Boil these till of a

proper consistence. This preparation must be

thinned for use with oil of turpentine. No. 2,

essential oil or balsam of amber No. 3. Venice
turpentine. No. 4, for colours, gold dissolved in

aqua regia, and precipitated with tin. No. 5,

silver dissolved in aqua fortis. No. 6, tin cal-
cined to ashes. No. 7, copper calcined. No. 8,

copperas or vitriol of iron calcined. No. 9,

white lead. No. 10, borax. No. 11, cobalt. No. 12,
flint calcined and ground. No. 13, antimony

calcined. No. 14, umber calcined to blackness,

No. 15, white flux composed of one part borax

and two parts flint glass. No. 16, yellow flux,

composed of three parts white lead and one

part flint calcined.
Second process for compounding colours:-

Black for printing; A, three ounces of Number

14 and one ounce of Number 10. Red (B), three

ounces of Number 16, and one ounce of Number
8. Purple (C), six ounces of Number 16, and

half an ounce of Number 4. Blue (D), one part

of Number 11 and three parts Number 15.

Orange (E), one part Number 8, one part
Number 13, and three parts Number 16. Dry
black (F), one ounce of Number 14, and half an

ounce of Number 9 or 10. Green (G), one part of

Number 7, one part Number 12, and seven parts
of Number 9. Yellow (H) one part of Number 5,

No. 6, or No. 13, and seven parts of Number 16.

Rose colour (I), one part of Number 4, and six-

teen parts of Nuniber 15.
Third process, or application of coloured

impressions by means of copper plates on

glass, which plates may be either engraved,

scraped, etched, or otherwise wrought. (K)

When the glass is cut to the size intended, bed
it upon a block with putty, then in a tea-cup mix

one part of Number One with one part Number

Two well together; fill the copper plate with
this ink; clean it as the printers do, having pre-

pared it as follows:-

Fourth process, or application of impression

for colours on glass:- (L) Take one pounds of

isinglass, one pound of glue, melt these together

in water over the fire to such a consistence

that when poured out upon a glass and cold, it

will leave it. Cutt off a piece the size of the

copper plate, put it even upon your plate, it

being before charged with ink, and clean, press

it equally hard with a cushion of leather, then
take it off and put it upon the glass intended to

be printed, and squeeze it on in the same

manner; and so will the impression be made

upon the glass; when, having the colours intended
to use ready, dip a little cotton in them, and

apply it to the impression on the glass, and it

will take a sufficient quantity for burning in

such a furnace and such a degree of heat as is
necessary for such glass.

Fifth process, for application of impressions

of colours on glass:- (M) Take a sheet of thin

paper, and having dissolved some gum arabick

in water, spread it with a pencil on one side of
the paper; let it dry; then take one part of

Number Two and one part of Number three for

ink; put the copper plate on a charcoal fire or

stove to warm, and into this ink put such a

colour as you please to print with, and rub it

into the plate, and clean it well as printers do.
Then put the plate with a gummed paper on it

through a rolling press; take it off the plate and

put it on the glass; rub it with flannel to fix it

on the glass, then soak it in water, and the

whole impression will quit the paper, and be

left on the glass, which burn as above.
Sixth process, of applying impressions of

colours on glass:- N, Take the ink, K. Number

One and Number two mixed, filling the copper

plate in the usual manner with it, having papers

steeped all night in water. Warm the plate, and
the paper being in proper order, put it on, and

pass it through a rolling press; then take off
the paper and put it on the glass; put another

piece of dry paper on that, and with a steel
burnisher rub it well equally; then apply the

cotton dipped in such colour as is chosen, as
before at L.
Seventh process (0), another method of pro-

ducing a different effect and more expeditious:-
Take a block of wood or plate of tin or any

other metal, cut or engraved, or otherwise

wrought with any device. The ink ready pre-

pared, as at K or M, having two bosses, such as
the letter printers use, with which charge the

block or plate; then take off the impression with

paper, and put it on the glass in the manner as
before directed. (Note.) If all the variety of

colours the antients used is wished, have a

stencil cut, through which introduce such
colours as are desired after the manner of the

paper stainers.
In witness whereof, the said Henry Baker,

hath hereto set his hand and seal, the Thirteenth

day of October, One thousand seven hundred and

eighty-one.
HENRY (L. S.) BAKER

Signed and sealed in the presence of
BETTY STATHAM
JOHN KENYON’

The character of the alternative processes

specified hardly requires any annotation. The use

of a ‘bat’ is noteworthy, and in fact the only works

certainly attributable to Baker are taken from

stipple engravings. The first (fig. 3) shows a
woman leaning on a crook and supporting a winged

putto
carrying a torch, while a woman in the back-

ground plays a lyre, accompanied by a further

torch-bearing
putto.

The central figure in this

composition is derived from an engraving of the

Comic Muse
on a ‘Ticket: for the Benefit of Mr.

Giardini’ issued in 1775 and engraved by Francesco
Bartolozzi, R.A. (1727-1815) after G. B. Cipriani.

An example of this is preserved in the Prints and
Drawings Department of the Victoria and Albert

Museum.” The second of the Baker prints (fig. 4)
shows a woman seated as if stricken with grief,

two
putti
at her feet and a crown, sceptre and

beaided mask to her right. No doubt she repre-

sents the
Tragic Muse.
Both these prints on glass

were published in the
Catalogue of Liverpool

Pottery and Porcelain
(Liverpool, 1907) prepared

in connexion with a Loan Exhibition there. Item

118 records: ‘Glass (two pieces of), with classical

scenes in transfer, in original frames. The pic-
tures are signed ‘H. Baker, F. Leverpoole’
(sic)’ .

At this time the panels were in the possession of

the Rev. Septimius Firman. In the meantime, un-

fortunately, they seem to have disappeared.

A glance at the subject of
The Tragic Muse
will

show how an area of colour has been superimposed

on the underlying print. Unfortunately, the avail-

able descriptions of these pieces do not make it

clear whether they are formed of one or more

layers of sheet glass.

1781, the year of Baker’s patent, and 1782 were

evidently years in which the idea of printing on

glass was working powerfully in Liverpool. In

1781 John Sadler, the famous Liverpool pottery-

printer, recorded in his note-book a formula for
enamelling a green colour on glass: earlier he had

noted ‘Good Black for printing on Glass for Stain-

ing—very good.’
19

In the same note-book occurs

the memorandum: –

‘Peckitt of York, glass-stainer’, apparently

datable to the year 1766.
20
James Dallaway, in

Observations on English Architecture
(London,

1806),p. 283, states ‘Peckitt obtained a patent for
taking off impressions from copper plates and

staining them on glass’. The late J. A. Knowles,
however, the authority on William Peckitt in par-
ticular and York stained glass in general, was of

the opinion that this assertion was unfounded, and

that the process was probably attributable to

Francis Eginton (1737-1805), the Birmingham

glass-painter, who brought out such a process and

used it for his first window
–
The
Good Shepherd

about 1784, a significant date.
21

When Peckitt died

in 1795, however, his death was noticed in a Liver-

pool paper,
22

so it seems not unlikely that he

should have had at least some hand in the develop-
ment of a printing-process on glass. He was

certainly a man of an inventive turn of mind.

In 1782′
Williamson’s Liverpool Advertiser
for

5 December carries the notice: ‘Printed and

Stained Glass Manufactory, Liverpool 28 November

1782. The public are desired to take notice, That
this Manufactory of
Printed

and
Stained Glass

carried on in the name of John Mackay, Esq., and

Company, is discontinued, and all persons are re-
quested to refuse credit to any orders given on the

account of the said concern.’ The notice was signed

by John Mackay and Mathew Turner. Nothing

further appears to be known about this company,

and the reference to ‘Stained Glass’ would perhaps

suggest that these men, like Baker and Eginton,
were mainly concerned with the decoration of

window-glass.
There are, however, a number of pieces of

printed vessel-glass which can be firmly asso-

ciated with Liverpool, although we do not know
either who made the glasses or who executed the

printed decoration. The Exhibition of Liverpool

Pottery and Porcelain already referred to included

under item 119: ‘Drinking glasses, printed subjects

representing Haymaking and Masonic Arms.

H.
33

/
4
in.’ then in the Merton A. Thorns Collection.

The glass with the Masonic Arms was destroyed in

the Blitz in 1944, but fortunately a photograph of it

dating from about 1910 is extant. It is shown to be

a beaker of opaque-white metal with a curious
oblique lip, printed with the Masons’ Arms (fig. 5,

(a)) and inscribed with their motto: ‘Amor, Honor et

Iustitia’ .
23
Accompanying it on the photograph is

the companion-piece from the Thorns Collection,

printed with a
Haymaking
subject and showing the

same distinctive oblique lip (fig. 5, (b)). This piece

has fortunately survived in the collections of the

City of Liverpool Museums. Its Liverpool origin

is virtually guaranteed by the character of its

printed decoration. The
Haymaking

scene is one

which re-appears on the pottery made at the

Herculaneum pottery which flourished from 1796
to 1840 on a site then near the City of Liverpool

and now incorporated within it.
24
On the reverse

of this beaker is a spray of flowers composed of a
tulip, three rose-buds, and a sprig of some cinque-

foil flower perhaps not to be identified (fig. 6).

Fortunately, this print too can be traced in virtu-

ally identical form at Liverpool (fig. ‘7).

A third beaker, also in the City of Liverpool

Museums, may with an equal degree of probability
be assigned to Liverpool. On the front (fig. 8) is

represented a ship under half-sail: on the reverse

is a print showing ‘An East View of Liverpool

Light House and Signals on Bidston Hill’ (fig. 9).

There are other variants of this print, which

occurs on English creamware, both that made in
Liverpool itself and that from other factories, sent

to Liverpool for the addition of printed decora-

tion.
25

It will be observed that this beaker has the

obliquely trimmed lip common to the other two

glasses mentioned.
If the Liverpool origin of these glasses seems

assured, the same cannot be said of two further

examples of printed glass which I have been able
to trace. Both are shuttle-shaped scent-flasks of
opaque-white glass. The first, now in the Mint

Museum (Delhom Collection), Charlotte, North

Carolina, U.S.A., bears on one side (fig. 10) a some-

what smudgy print of a milkmaid watched by a boy.

On the reverse, however, it is painted, not printed,
with a spray of flowers and blue scrollwork, and

bears the inscription ‘ 1793’. Round the lip runs a

border of blue dashes. The second flask (figs. 11

and 12) is in the collection of one of our members.

On one face it bears a pastoral subject rather
better executed than the milking scene on the flask
just mentioned; on the other, within a wreath border

outlining an oval panel, is the inscription: ‘When
this you see Remember me and keep me in your

Mind Let all the World say what they will speak of
me as you find’. The date on the one bottle, and the

top hat on the head of the man on the other, guaran-

tee for these two pieces a date late in the 18th
century, almost certainly later than that of the

three opaque-white tumblers. Their identical
shape suggests that they were both made in the

same glasshouse. Where that was is at present

uncertain, but Liverpool seems to be a reasonable
guess. As is well enough known, the Bank Quay

Glassworks at Warrington, owned by Josiah Perrin
and Co. advertised ‘White and Painted Enamil….’

on 3 April, 1767,
26
but this is rather early for our

purposes. We know, however, that John Knight of
Liverpool in 1783 supplied Josiah Wedgwood with

‘Glass and Enamel’.
27

Gore’s
Liverpool General
,

Advertiser
for 21 May, 1779, carries the entry

‘John Knight, late
Foreman
at the
Old Glass House,

begs leave to acquaint
his

Friends

and the

Public,

that he has begun a
Glass House

at the Bottom of

Queen Street,
in

Liverpool

‘
A John Knight and

Company, however, appear to have been established

at the Old Dock, Liverpool between 1766 and 1781.

The will of a John Knight of Liverpool was proved

at Chester in 1801.
28

The later history of printing on glass is perhaps

of less interest. As already mentioned, the Bir –
mingham glass-painter Francis Eginton, in the

first church window that he produced, employed
the process used in making his so-called ‘poly-

graphs’ to transfer an impression from one of the

plates used at Soho
(The Good Shepherd)
to his

glass, later finishing it off with enamel-colours.”
This must have been a fired process. The Stafford-

shire potter Peter Warburton, who in 1810 took out

a patent for printing in gold, included glass with

pottery in his specification.” The printing on opal

glass practised by the firm of Richardson at

Stourbridge is rather too late in date to concern

us here.”

On the Continent also there were efforts in the

Ibid.

Cf. Alan Smith,
Liverpool Herculaneum Pottery,

London (1970),pp. 24,25, fig. 29. I am greatly in-

debted to Mr. Alan Smith for his help in obtaining

the photographs of Liverpool printed glass shown

here.
Ibid.,
p. 24, figs. 24, 17, 28B.

See e.g., B. Rackham,
Catalogue

of the Schreiber

Colledtion, II, London (1930), No. 412; Knowles

Boney, “Bidston Hill in Pottery Decoration”,

Apollo
(August, 1961), pp. 37-40.

R. J. Charleston, “English 18th century Opaque-

white Glass”,
Antiques

(December, 1954), p. 488.

Entwistle papers in Liverpool Public Library.

Ibid.

Knowles,
loc. cit.

(see n. 21); see also “Glass

Painters of Birmingham: Francis Eginton, 1737-

1805″ ,
Journal of the British Society of Master

Glass Painters,
2, No. 2 (October, 1927), pp. 63-71.

Reginald G. Haggar ,” The Warburton Family of

Cobridge”,
Apollo

(November, 1955),p. 143.

Hugh Wakefield,
19th Century British Glass,

London (1961), p. 32. Other firms doing the same

sort of work about the middle of the 19th century

were J. F. Christy’s, of Lambeth, and George
Bacchus and Son, of Birmingham. Bacchus

appears, however, to have begun printing about

1809.

Gustav E. Pazaurek,
Glaser der Empire- and

Biedermeierzeit,
Leipzig (1923), p. 169, figs. 149-

150.

A.
Brongniart and D. D. Riocreux,
Description

MEthodique du Musee Ceramique,
Paris (1845),

No. 524.
Perhaps tin-oxide.

Ibid.,
No. 535. J. Barrelet,

La Verrerie en France,

Paris (1953), pp. 133,177, records that Legros

d’Anizy discovered a process of printing on glass

(1808-18), and exhibited in 1819 and 1823; and the

brothers Girard, who obtained a patent in 1807, in

1816 produced a beaker with royal portraits ob-

tained by this method-see Pazaurek,
op. cit.,

pp. 237-8 and fig. 223.

B.
A. Shelkovnikov, “Russian Glass of the first
half

of the 19th century”,
4

Journal
of Glass Studies,

(1964), p, 119 and fig. 30;
id., Artistic Glass (in

Russian), Leningrad (1962), p. 68 and fig. 66.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

first half of the 19th century to develop printing as

a mode of decorating glass. The famous Dresden

glass-decorator Gottlob Samuel Mohn appears to
have made some experiments in the field.
32
In

1845 Brongniart and Riocreux in their descriptive

account of the contents of the Ceramic Museum at

Sevres mention a plate of opaline glass printed in

purple-red in the glasshouse at Choisy-le-Roi,

probably attributable to the great glass technolo-
gist G. Bontemps. It had been shown at the Paris

NOTES
1.
Bernard Watney and R. J. Charleston, “Petitions

for Patents concerning Porcelain, Glass and

Enamels, with special reference to Birmingham,

‘The Great Toyshop of Europe’ “,
Transactions of

the English Ceramic Circle,
6, Part 2 (1966),

pp. 57-123.

2.
Cit. ibid. ,p.
61.

3.
Ibid.,

pp. 82 ff.

4.
Cit. ibid.,
pp. 61-2.

5.
See R. J. Charleston, “English Opaque-White

Glass”, Circle of Glass Collectors, Paper No. 111,

pp. 1 ff.

6.
Watney and Charleston,
loc. cit.,
pp. 59-60, ’72-3

7.
British Library, cited in a note of the late W. J.

Pountney.

8.
E. S. Price,
John Sadler, a Liverpool Pottery

Printer,
West Kirby (1948),p. 24; apparently first

quoted by R. L. Hobson,
Catalogue of the Collection

of English Porcelain… in the British Museum,

London (1905), p. 61.

9.
See Watney and Charleston,

loc. cit.,
pp. 78-9.

10.
J. V. G. Mallet, “John Baddeley of Shelton…”,

Transactions of the English Ceramic Circle,
6,

Part 2 (1966),pp. 128.

11.
Ibid.

12.
Cit.
also Knowles Boney,

Liverpool Porcelain of

the 18th century,
London (n.d., 1957), p. 157.

13.
Op. cit. ,
pp. 192-3.

14.
The source is not stated. Boney,op.
cit.,

p. 158,

states that the printing was executed in purple, on

a ground of “deep ochre”.

15.
Price,

op. cit.,
p. 38.

16.
Mallet, “John Baddeley…”, Part II,
Trs. E.C.C.,

6, Part 3 (1967), p. 207 and p. 4.

17.
(ed.) Lady Farrer,
Wedgwood’s Letters to Bentley,

1762-80,
London (1903), II, p. 392*. Boney,

op. cit.,

p.
158, records that in 1770 Baker advertised from

Hanley Green in the
Liverpool Advertiser

con-

cerning a runaway apprentice, Edward Gerrard.

18.
See A. Baudi de Vesme,
Francesco Bartolozzi:

Catalogue des Estampes,
Milan (1928), No. 1926.

I am grateful to Mr. F. H. Dickinson for this iden-

tification.

19.
Price,
op. cit.,

pp. 83, 93.

20.
Ibid.

21.
J. A. Knowles, “William Peckitt, Glass-Painter”,

Yorkshire Architectural and York Archaeological

Society, Annual Report. . .
(1953/4),p.

113.
Exhibition of 1834.

The succeeding item in the

Description Methodique. .
is a tariff of the baths

at the Louvre, printed in black on ‘ordinary window-

glass rendered matt with enamel white’
34
(‘verre

a
vitre ordinaire depoli au blanc d’email’). This

was made by a M. Billard and was shown at the
Paris Exhibition of 1839.
35
About this time print-

ing was introduced, and fairly freely used, at the

Russian Imperial Glass Manufactory at Saint
Petersburg.
3 6

Figure 1. Flask of opaque-white glass printed in black and painted over

in enamel-colours. Probably South Staffordshire; about 1760-70. Ht. 8
1
/
4
in.

(21 cm.) Victoria and Albert Museum (Schreiber Collection, III, No. 442).

Crown Copyright.

Figure 2. Reverse of the flask shown in fig.l.

“11Ba
ker.

Leve

l
“.

Live
rp

l;
a

bou

1781.
L.

in.

N
N

•
,
c;

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o
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.5,
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cd

up
.0

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8
a

c:13

g
ti

fai

0
0

Figure 4. Panel of glass with print of (?)

The Tragic Muse.

Signed as fig. 3. Liverpool; about 1781. L. 6 in. (15 cm.). Present whereabouts

unknown. Photo: Stewart Bale, Ltd.

Figure 5 (a-b). Pair of beakers, opaque-white glass printed in black. Liverpool; about 1785-90. Ht. of 5(b),

3
5
/
8

in. (9.5 cm.) Merseyside County Museums, Liverpool 5(a) destroyed in the War).

Figure 6. Reverse of the beaker shown in fig. 5(b).

Figure 7. Design from a series of drawings of

flower-sprays as used on Liverpool cream-coloured

earthenware. Merseyside County Museums,
Liverpool.

Figure 8. Beaker, opaque-white glass printed in black. Liverpool; dated 1788. Ht. app.4 in. (10 cm.).

Merseyside County Museums, Liverpool.

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Figure 9. Reverse of beaker shown in fig. 8
29

Figure 10. Scent-flask,
printed in black, the re-

verse enamel-painted, with

the inscription ‘
1
4S

3
‘.

Liverpool; dated 1793.

L. 3
1

/
4
in. (8.2 cm.). The

Mint Museum of Art
(Delhom Collection),

Charlotte, N.C., U.S.A.
Figure 11. Scent-flask,

printed in black. Liverpool;

about 1790-1800. L.3
7
/
8
in.

(10 cm.). Private Collection

Figure 12. Reverse of the

flask shown in fig. 11.

Part 5—Acid-etching on Glass

The first use of acid-etching on glass is usually

deemed to have taken place with the discovery by

the Swede Carl Wilhelm Scheele of hydrofluoric

acid, produced by dissolving fluorspar in nitric

acid. This discovery was published by Scheele in

1771 under the title
Undersokning om fluss-spat

och dess syra (Investigation of fluorspar and its

acid).
1
It was long ago noticed, however, that

Heinrich Schwanhardt, son of Georg Schwanhardt,

the founder of the Nuremberg school of glass-

engravers, had done etching of a kind on glass.

Doppelmayr in his
Historische Nachricht von den

Niirnbergischen Mathematicis und Kainstlern.
(Historical Account of the Nuremberg Mathemati-

cians and Artists)
published in Nuremberg in 1730,

wrote of Heinrich Schwanhardt:

. a very clever

glass-engraver of Nuremberg, in 1670 found by

happy accident (unvermuthet gliicklich) how to

etch glass panels, the ground being matt, the

inscription appearing perfectly bright…
‘
2

He is said to have been given the hint by retrieving

a lens which had been dropped into a container of

“Scheidewasser” (nitric acid). One would have

felt inclined to dismiss this as yet another

fabrication concerning the discovery of an art,

were it not for the fact that a glass panel or plaque

survives in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in

Nuremberg which has every appearance of having

been etched, and which is dated 1686 (fig. 1). It

bears in addition the Latin inscription ‘AUXILIUM

IESV CHRISTI ADVENIAT’ (‘May the help of

Christ Jesus be at hand’), which by the alternation
of small and large capitals suggests that it also

embodies a tchronostichont (chronograrn). Below

it-is a typical calligraphic flourish, a feature to be

expected in the work of Heinrich Schwanhardt, who

was renowned for his calligraphic engraving.

This panel was first published in 1828
3

, and at

that time there were apparently two further panels
in the same collection—one with an interlace-mono-

gram and the Latin inscription ‘Domine conserva

nos in pace. Vivat 1686 Vivat’. It is not stated

that this piece was attributable to Heinrich

Schwanhardt, but the coincidence of date and the
character of the inscription put it into the same

category as the example at Nuremberg, and sub-
jects it to the same inferential attribution.
The third panel, however, also apparently lost,

bore the inscription: ‘Anno 1703 den 23 Apprill

ist bey den Herrn Conradt Riissen disses Fenster

gemacht worden von Johann Helmhack’ (‘on the

23 April, 1703, this window-pane was made in the
presence of (or perhaps ‘in the house of’) Herr

Conrad Riissen by Johann Helmhack’). Here,

therefore, we have a second practitioner of the
art, probably a son of the better-known Nuremberg
glass-artist Abraham Helmhack. Johann

Helmhack was born in Nuremberg 22 December,

1679, and was enrolled in the guild-book of the
Guild of Glaziers in 1692 as ‘glazier and glass-

painter’, becoming a Master in 1704. He was also

a noted organist. He died in 1760, at the age of
81.
4

The intrusion of Johann Helmhack into what

might have been regarded as the private secret

of Heinrich Schwanhardt leads one to suppose that

this art was not quite so secret as the notice by

Doppelmayr and the single surviving panel would
suggest. That this was indeed the case seems
likely from the circumstance that the process was

published as early as 1725 in the
Breslauer

Sammlungen von Natur und Medicingeschichte,

based on the work of Dr. Matthius Pauli of

Dresden, who was alleged to have etched

‘numerous figures, coats-of-arms and landscapes

in bright relief on a matt ground’.
5

The mystery surrounding these earliest essays

in etching reduces itself to the questions: how was
it done, and what was the etching-medium

employed? There seems little doubt that hydro-

fluoric acid was discovered, perhaps accidentally,

before Scheele systematically investigated it and
published his findings in 1771. An essay by a

certain Mr.Wiegleb, published in the London
edition of
The Chemical Essays of Charles William

Scheele
(1786), is entitled ‘Chemical Investigation

of Fluor Acid…. This mentions
6
an

‘observation. . . by Mr. Margraaf (A. S. Marggraf,

1709-82) to the Academy of Sciences in 1768, that

a peculiar volatile earth might be obtained by

distillation from fluor, to which vitriolic acid had

been added…. The author of the article in

which the three etched panels were published

adds that a quantity of fluorspar had been found
in an old Nuremberg chemist’s shop marked
‘BOhmisches Smaragd’ (‘Bohemian emerald’); it

was greenish and consisted of small particles

which on heating emitted a fairly strong radiance.
It is not clear, however, whether the further stage

of adding acid had been reached.
7

The etching effects of hydrofluoric acid are

stated to have been discovered in England before

Scheele’s ‘invention’,
8
and we know that the

English scientists James Watt and Joseph Black

were in correspondence on this topic at least as

early as December, 1772.
9

A second possibility, however, exists. A

potash glass, particularly one rich in sulphur,
may apparently be attacked by hydrochloric or

nitric acid. As far as I know, no actual analysis

has ever been made of the clear ‘crystal’ glass

used by the Nuremberg engravers, but a scientific
investigation, and a determination of whether it

would yield to the etching action of the two acids

named, might help to resolve this ancient
riddle.
10

Once Scheele’s discovery had obtained a

wider currency, information on the topic of

hydrofluoric acid came thick and fast. Sir John

Hill, in the second edition of his
Theophrastus s

History of Stones
(London, 1774) included some

‘Observations on the new Swedish acid, and of the

stone from which it is obtained’; this described the
effects of the acid on the glass in which it was

concocted, and concluded: ‘Here then is found a

fossil (i.e. mineral) capable of dissolving Glass;

a Power not known in any other body’.
11
We have

to wait another fifteen years, however, before we

get clear evidence of the use of the acid for the

artistic etching of glass. The year 1788 in parti-
cular was a vintage one for literature on the

subject. In that year the
Monthly Journal of the

Berlin Academy of Arts and Sciences
repeated an

earlier essay on the subject by the German

scientist M. H. Klaproth
12

, and in the
Allgemeines

Litterarische Zeitschrift (Universal Literary
Journal)
appears an account of the method used by

Professor Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, of

Gottingen, also repeated in his
Vermischten

Schriften (Miscellaneous Writings),
Vol. VI.

Lichtenberg’s process consisted of covering the

glass with etcher’s wax, using the needle, and then
holding the side of the glass so treated over a pot

set on coals and in which was crushed fluorspar
covered with sulphuric acid (‘Vitriolsaure’). The

fumes arising from this ate into the uncovered

parts of the glass. Perhaps more important,
because related to an identifiable object, was the

publication in the same year of 1788 of Vol. XI

of C. Amoretti and F. Soave’s
Scelti Opusculi

sulle Scienze (Selected Papers on the Sciences),

containing a paper on acid-etching by Marcassus

de Puymaurin (1757-1821).
14

With this we emerge

into the daylight. In the Conservatoire National

des Arts et Metiers, in Paris, is a small pane of

colourless glass on which is apparently represented
Fanaticism and Superstition trampled on by
Liberalism,
who carries in his left hand a book

inscribed ‘Edit. des non-Catholiques’, while the
recumbent figures appear to have been toppled off

a globe on which are represented the lilies of
France (fig. 2). The inscription below is difficult

to read, but seems to run: ‘Puymaurin fils inven.

artois 1787 tolosa grave par l’acide fluorique en
recouvrant la glace d’un vernis comme les

graveurs l’eau forte’. (‘Puymaurin fils invenit,
a man of Artois, at Toulouse: engraved with hydro-

fluoric acid by covering the glass with a varnish,
as is done by those who etch with nitric acid’. )

About 1789 Klindworth at GOttingen
13
and the

Strasburg artist Renard
16

were making similar

experiments, and in 1790 a full acount of the pro-

cess was given in the
Chemische Annalen (Annals

of Chemistry).
17

It may perhaps be convenient to turn rather to

an English source for a description of the method

of etching glass in this way—in Dionysius Lardner’s

Cabinet Cyclopaedia,
published in London in 1832,

pp.311-315 (239ff.in the Philadelphia edition of the
same year), Lardner describes the masking

varnish as ‘a solution of isinglass in water, or

common turpentine varnish mixed with a small

proportion of white lead’. He adds that ‘good

crown glass is the most proper to be chosen’ for

the etching process. First the panel was to be

treated in a sand-bath, and then evenly coated with
a layer of bee’s wax thin enough to be transparent

(here Lardner appears to forget the masking sub-

stance which he has already prescribed). Then the

design to be copied should be affixed to the under-

side of the glass, and copied by etching with a

point through the mask. Coarsely powdered

fluorspar should then be placed in a Wedgwood
evaporating basin with strong sulphuric acid, to

form a thin paste, and the panel placed over it,
waxed surface down. The basin should be heated

to about 120-140° Fahrenheit, and the rising fumes

would etch the exposed portions of the glass.

An alternative method is described in a

communication of 1829 by Herr Hann of Warsaw

to the
Annales de l’Industrie.

18
The best con-

stituents of a masking varnish were said to be

drying linseed-oil, or even better, an oily copal-
varnish, mixed with a blackening substance finely

ground, and mixed with oil of turpentine. This was

to be applied in successive thin washes until the

coating was opaque but not too thick. The design

was then pounced on, and etched in with a point,
the panel being tilted at an angle of 45° and lit from
behind. The acid was then prepared and brushed on

with a camel-hair brush, being finally washed

off with water after a biting-time calculated from

experiments on spare slips of glass. Nuances of

etching could be obtained by varying the quantity

of acid used and the duration of the application.

A number of objects dating from the end of the

18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries is
known. A medallion bearing the half-length
portrait of a man in jabot and perruque is (or

was) in the Miihsam Collection,
19

and bears the

signature ‘fec . Hager ‘(fig.3). Karl Gottlob Huger,

a porcelain-painter and copper-plate engraver

who was born in Annaberg (Saxony) in 1761,

practised his art at Gera and Volkstedt in
Thuringia, where he died young in 1799.
20

Another

porcelain-painter also was attracted by the

possibilities of glass-etching, in the person of a
man named Fehr, who worked in Berlin and London,

and examples of whose work were exhibited in

the Berlin Academy in 1798 and 1810.
20
Somewhat

later the process interested the Dutch diamond-

point engraver De Castro. A small tumbler and a
tall (probably English) ale-glass etched with De

Castro’s arms and initials, and dated 1833 (fig. 4)

are preserved in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
2

In England, Smith’s
Liverpool and its Commerce

(1825) informs us that “Liverpool claims ‘The

Art of engraving on glass by a Chemical process
by Caddick’.” This work, however, does not say

who Caddick was, nor what engraving on glass he
may have executed. He may have been the William

Caddick of Liverpool who was a painter and who
is dealt with at some length by Frank Falkner in

his
The Wood Family of Burslem.
2 2

All these essays, however, were the isolated

works of men who in this field were essentially

amateurs. More important is the question of when

the process achieved any sort of widespread

commercial employment. Before we tackle this

question, however, one curious bye-way is perhaps

worth a moment’s exploration.

Thomas Hodgson, in his
Essay on the Origin

and Progress of Stereotype Printing,
published in

Newcastle in 1820, records: ‘About the latter end

of 1797, Professor Wilson of Glasgow, who had

been engaged in a series of experiments to apply

etching on glass by means of fluoric acid to the

purposes of art, but who was dissatisfied with the
result, as even the best impressions taken from

such etching were very paltry, thought it might be
possible to obtain from an engraved copper-plate

any number of polytype plates of glass

23 March, 1798, Professor (Patrick) Wilson wrote

to an unidentified correspondent (probably Sir
Joseph Banks): ‘Some years ago, upon the dis-

covery of the singular property of the fluor acid
in corroding glass, when it was so common to

hand about bits of glass-plate frosted over by

this chemical agent, it happened to strike me that

we were indulging too long in a barren admiration

of mere novelty, and overlooking a matter of real
importance to which it evidently pointed. The
general effect of what then so much amused us,

when the plates were viewed by transmitted light,
suggested the possibility of formally etching with
delicacy and perfection upon glass. This thought

no sooner occurred than it challenged some

attention in consequence of perceiving that glass,

from its extreme hardness and lubricity, would

preserve the execution bestowed upon it vastly
longer than copper-plate, were it possible to

introduce its services at the rolling press.’
It is clear that ‘some years’ before 1798 etching

of glass had become something of a common

curiosity in Great Britain. In the end the acid-

etched glass plate was discovered to be ineffective

for purposes of stereotype printing, and Wilson

had recourse to James Tassie (a fellow Scot, in
London) to make glass impressions from copper-

plate engravings to this end.
23

Let us return, however, from this diversion to

the question of the commercial application of
acid-etching on glass. Apsley Pellatt, writing in

1849
(Curiosities of Glass-making,
p. 127), stated:

‘Etching by fluoric acid has been introduced, but

its bite is not sufficiently rough, and is not found
effective for general purposes…. ‘ He had not

even mentioned it in his
Memoir on the Origin,

Progress and Improvement of Glass Manufacture,

published in London in 1821.

By the 1860’s, however, we get a different

picture. Eugene Peligot, in his
Douze Lecons sur

l’Art de la Verrerie,
of which an edition appeared

as early as 1862, refers to a M. Gugnon, of

Metz,
24
who, by using a sort of stencil, covered

with a resistant masking-substance the areas
between the components of the design, which was

then left in relief by 30 or 40 minutes’ immersion

in liquid hydrofluoric acid. He adds ‘This process

is very rapid; using it, two workmen can etch in a

day as much as 20 metres superficial of sheet or

plate.’ He also points out that this process can be
used to etch a flashed glass so that the design is

left in colour on a colourless ground. ‘This method

of engraving’, he writes, ‘is very much used in
England.’
25

How much before 1862 these processes were

instituted seems at present uncertain, but G.
Bontemps in his
Guide du Verrier
of 1868, states

(p. 620) that it was only after the Exposition

Universelle of 1855 that the new process was

applied to crystal-glass in France. He comments

with justice that if each glass had to be decorated
by engraving with a point through a layer of
masking-material, the result would be as expen-

sive as the wheel-engraving it was intended to
replace. This disadvantage was overcome by

printing the surface to be decorated by means of

paper inked with a substance resistant to the acid.

A M. Kessler had the credit of applying this pro-
cedure to curved surfaces as well as flat ones.

The formula for the masking ink was:

2 parts of stearic acid

3 parts of Judaean bitumen

3 parts of essence of terebinth.

The paper used for the printing had first to be

wetted in soapy water to prevent it sticking to the

glass on application.
26

This process produced a brilliant finish to the

engraving, and experiments were made to get a

matt finish. Success was reached by MM. Kessler,

Tessie du Motay and Marechal.
27
The technique

was to mix the hydrofluoric acid with carbonate
of soda or ammoniac, and add a weak solution of

hydrochloric acid. The crystal glass-houses at
Baccarat and Saint-Louis made extensive use of

these techniques.
Peligot,
in Le Verre: son histoire.sa fabrica-

tion..
Paris (1877) adds
28
that MM.Dopter,

A. Gugnon and Bitterlin, extended the use of acid-
etching to decorate mirrors and window-glass

for shop-fronts, cafes, etc. To M.Dopter was
owed a process for reproducing faithfully by

lithography original drawings to be etched on

glass.
2 9

Taking together the statements of Apsley

Pellatt, Peligot and Bontemps, we may reasonably
conclude that the industrial use of acid-etching in

England came in between about 1850 and 1860,

probably at first on flat glass. An apparently

early decorative use of the etching-technique on

vessel-glass is shown in fig. 5, a piece made at

a so far unidentified manufacture.

POSTSCRIPT
Since this paper was read, our member

Mr. John Smith, has presented to the Victoria and
Albert Museum the tumbler shown in fig. 6. It is

inscribed within a decorative border: ‘Sarah the

Daughter of James and Mary Tanner was Born

the 25 March 1783 Done by C. Whitcomb LON.’

Assuming, as one reasonably may, that the glass

was etched shortly after Sarah Tanner’s birth, the
tumbler ranks as one of the earliest etched

glasses known. It has not yet been possible to

identify C. Whitcomb.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

Fuessli,

loc. cit.

ibid.
Ibid.

(ed.)J. G. Dingier,
Polytechnisches Journal,

35 (1830), p. 311 (Sect. LXXIII, “Verbessertes

Verfahren mittelst Flussspatsa:ure… auf Glas zu
gravieren… von Hrn. Hann zu War schau “, quoting
from
Annales de l’Industrie
(July, 1829),p.518.)

R. Schmidt,
Die Glaser der Sammlung Miihsam,

I, Berlin(1914), No. 357, now in the Metropolitan

Museum of Art, New York.
G. E. Pazaurek,
Glaser der Empire- und

Biedern2eierzeit,
Leipzig(1923), p. 345.

KOG 1616, a tumbler with etched Hebrew

inscription, signed “DC” in diamond-point, and

KOG 1593, the glass illustrated, signed in diamond-
point “DFDH de Castro fecit 1833” (both from the

De Castro Collection, Nos. 64 and 42).

London(1912), pp. 33 ff. See also A. Graves,
Royal

Academy Exhibitors,
London(l 905-6), s.v. recording

that W. Caddick, of North Walk, Liverpool, exhibited

in 1780 a “Portrait in the character of Circe”

(No. 81).

See John M. Gray,
James and William Tassie,

Edinburgh(I894), pp.45-7. Tassie himself may

have used hydrofluoric acid in working up his
cameos—see Gray,op.
cit.,
p. 39.

E. Pdligot,Douze
lecons sur l’Arl de la Verrerie,

Paris(n.d. ?1862), p.459. See also p.20.

Op cit.,p.
460. Bontemps, in the work cited below

(p. 620) states that the English were the first to

make extensive use of the etching process on flat-

glass. This observation was no doubt based on his

experience at Chance Brothers after 1848.
Op. cit.,
pp. 620-1.

Ibid.,
p. 621.. Pdligot in
Le Verre…,

Paris(1877),

p. 64, adds that MM. Tessie du Motay and

Marbchal made use of the acid in “the celebrated
stained-glass manufactory of M. Marechal, of

Metz”.

Op cit.,
p. 64.

Ibid.,
p. 69.

NOTES

1.
Undersokning onz fluss-spal och doss syra,
first

presented as a paper to the Swedish Academy of

Sciences. C.W.Scheele was born at Stralsund, in

Swedish Pomerania, probably on 9 December, 1742,

and after a distinguished career in chemistry,

died at Hoping on 22 May, 1786
(Svenska Miin och

Kvinnor, s. v.)

2.
I. G. Doppelmayr,
Historische Nachricht von den

Niirnbergischen Malhematicis und Kiinstlern,

Nuremberg (1730), p.250. See also the very full
account given by Fuessli,
Allgemeines Kiinstler-

lexikon,
Part 2, Sect. 5, Ziirich (1810), p. 1570.

3.
Dr. Seebeck, “Ueber den Erfinder der Kunst

Glass zu Xtzen”,
Verhandlungen des Vereins zur

Beforderung des Gewerbefleisses in Preussen,

VII, Berlin(1828), pp. 246-7.

4.
Further details concerning both Johann and Abra-

ham Helmhack are given
loc. cit.
in n. 3, p. 247.

5.
“mannigfaltige Figuren, Wappen und Landschaften,

erhaben und hell, mit mattem grunde” (Fuessli,
loc. cit.)

6.
loc. cit.,

p. 37. .

7.
/loc. cit.in
n.3, p.247.

8.
Fuessli,
loc.

9.
(edd.) Eric Robinson and Douglas McKie,
(Part-

ners in Science: Letters of James Watt and

Joseph Black,
London(1970), p.38 (Black to Watt

on 31 December, 1772:”I have not made any

Exp(erimen)ts yet upon the Acid of Spar—but if

you attend to the one I mentioned made with the

d
vessel/(a bit of Gun barrel)/and wet charcoal

you will I imagine find an answer to the Question

you put…” This relates to a letter dated 23

December referring to “A memoir in the late

Swedish Transactions”
(ibid.,

pp. 35-6)

10.
I am indebted to Dr. Roy Newton for his advice on

this question.

11.
op. cit.,
p. 277.

12.
Monatschrift der Akad. der Kiinste und Wissen-

schaften zu Berlin,
II (1788),
cit.

Fuessli,
loc. cit.

13.
Fuessli,
loc. cit.

14.
W. A. Thorpe, A
History of English and Irish

Glass,
London(1929), I, pp. 47-8.

This preliminary note on a topic which has

hitherto been somewhat neglected, is offered by a

scientific ignoramus as a basis on which others
may build. It has not been possible to follow up

many of the leads given by the sources quoted.

Figure 1. Plaque etched by Heinrich Schwanhardt. Nurem-

berg; dated 1686. Diam. 5
7
/
8
in. (14.9 cm.) Germanisches

National-Museum.Nurember
E.

Figure 3. Medallion etched by Karl Gottlob Riiger. Thuringia;

about 1790. Diam 1
7

/
8
in. (4.7 cm.). Metropolitan Museum of

Art, New York.

Figure 2. Panel etched by Marcassus de Puymaurin. (?)Toulouse; dated 1787. Ht. 8

3
/
4
in.

(22.1 cm.). Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, Paris(No.8066).

Figure 4. Ale-glass etched by D. H. De Castro.

Amsterdam; dated 1833. Ht. 5
7

/
8
in. (15 cm.). Rijks-

museum, Amsterdam.
Figure 5. Rummer, etched with

chinoiserie
scene and

marked: “Patent Etching and Ornamental Glass

Company. Globe Works Sheffield”. Sheffield; about

1860. Ht. 5 in. (12.5 cm.). Victoria and Albert
Museum. Crown Copyright.

Figure 6. Tumbler, etched by C. Whitcomb. London; dated 1783. Ilt.3 in. (7. 5 cm.). Victoria and Albert

Museum. Crown Copyright.

The Jacobite Engravers

by G. B. SEDDON

Paper read to the Glass Circle on 13 May, 1975.

When studying Jacobite glass a viewpoint not
usually considered is that of the engravers them-

selves. I would like to see if we can discover

anything at all about the engravers responsible

for the Jacobite glasses, because we know virtually

nothing about these craftsmen. We do not know

who they were, nor even how many there were. Nor
do we have any knowledge of the manner in which

they worked: whether they were individual artist
craftsmen who secretly engraved these glasses for
trusted customers, or whether, as some authorities
have maintained, the Jacobite glasses were freely

available and were the commercial product of

certain glasshouses. It has also been suggested

that some Jacobite glasses, notably certain por-

trait glasses, may not be the work of English

engravers and may have been engraved on the

Continent. So any fragments of evidence which we

can piece together may help our understanding of

this complex subject.
For the past four years I have been taking

photographs of Jacobite glasses in an endeavour

to see if any discernible pattern exists among the

engravings. Known, authenticated glasses have
been used as the cornerstones of the study and, by

attempting to identify the different engraving
styles, I have tried to group Jacobite glasses under

the various engravers.
About half the glasses photographed are from

major collections such as the Victoria & Albert
Museum, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the

Cecil Higgins collection in Bedford and the Hale
collection at the Grocers’ Hall in the City of Lon-

don. The remainder are from smaller private
collections and glasses which I have photographed

in auction rooms.

The series to date numbers 206 Jacobite glas-

ses:

5
:

Amen

2
:
Enamelled Portraits

20
:

Engraved Portraits

140
:

Rose

24
:
Other Flowers

5
:
Disguised Jacobites

3
:
Coin Glasses

7
:

Other Jacobite Glasses

Total:
206

With the exception of the two enamelled port-

raits and the three coin glasses they are all en-

graved glasses, but in this paper we will only be
considering the Jacobite glasses which display

rose emblems; that is, the twenty engraved port-

rait glasses and the 140 rose glasses, as sum-

marised in the Table below.
Studying the photographs it very soon becomes

apparent that recognizable patterns of engraving

do exist and that it is possible to identify the
styles of certain engravers. The first notable

feature, when grouping engravings in this way, is

that the number of major engravers in this field
is really quite small. I have only been able to

identify five such engravers and I have labelled

their groups, A, B, C, D and E. Then there are
three smaller groups, F, G and H, and together

these eight groups account for about two-thirds

of the rose and portrait glasses.

Table summarising engravers of rose and portrait glasses (figures 1 to 15).
GLASSES
MOTTOES

20
Portraits
6

Newcastle
13

Audentior Ibo (Portraits)

(15 with
19
Plain

44
Fiat (1 Portrait)

mottoes)
100

Air Twist
8

Revirescit

2
Incised Twist

3
Redi

140
Rose
19

Opaque Twist
2

Redeat

(63 with
(2 Colour Twist)
2

Turno Tempus Erit

mottoes)
4

Facet
1
Hic Vir Hic Est (Portrait)

4
Rudimentary
5

Others

160
Total
4

Decanters

1
Bowl

1
Tumbler

When trying to identify an engraver’s style

certain factors have to be taken into consideration.

It has to be appreciated that the engravings of any

one engraver may span a period of several years,
during which time his technique may well improve

and his style will probably be subject to certain

variations. So one must not expect an engraver to
produce identical engravings throughout, and over

a period of time, if a number of variations have

crept into an engraver’s style, identification can

sometimes be difficult. In saying that two glasses

are by the same engraver you have to decide just
how much variation you are going to allow. Cer-

tain arbitrary rules had to be imposed and I de-

cided that before I would accept a glass into a

given grouping at least two separate features of

the engraving must match.

ENGRAVER A
This group is the largest of the five major

groups. (Nine glasses by this engraver were

shown of which three are illustrated—Figs. 1,2

and 3)

Fig. 1 — shows an early single budded glass.
The rose, with the scooped out edge

to the outer petals and the two inner
petals, is typical of this engraver.

Fig. 2 — This is a two budded FIAT glass and
is one of the glasses from Chastleton

Manor. The open bud, which is al-

ways a good guide to an engraver’s

style, is typical of Engraver A.

Fig. 3 — A small portrait glass by the same

engraver.

One of the decanters from Chastleton Manor

can be attributed to Engraver A and also the two

TURNO TEMPUS ERIT glasses in the series.

Another glass carrying the motto REDEAT is also
the work of this engraver. Grant Francis’ was of
the opinion that the REDEAT glasses belonged to

the Oak Society, the secret Jacobite Club which
met in the Crown and Anchor in the Strand. This

is because the word appears on a medal which was

struck for that Society in 1752. I have reserva-
tions about this because REDEAT is known to have
been a Jacobite motto some years before 1752.

ENGRAVER B

(Eight glasses shown, two illustrated—Figs. 4 & 5)
With this engraver the rose has a different con-

struction, displaying three inner petals. The wavy
line across the centre of the open bud is a con-

stant feature as also is the lettering on his FIAT
glasses. Engraver B was a very neat consistent
engraver.

Fig. 4 — This is one of the glasses discovered
at Oxburgh Hall.

Fig. 5 — A number of the REVIRESCIT glasses
can be attributed to this engraver and

this glass is an example. The Prince
of Wales feathers on the foot are of

a different design from that of Fig. 4,

but the rose is the same and the buds,

although they have been elaborated
slightly, are a good match.

The REVIRESCIT glasses are also thought to

have belonged to the Oak Society and Grant Francis
2

dates them at 1750 because the Society had a medal

struck in that year which resembles these glasses

very closely. The medal carries the word

REVIRESCIT and depicts the same severed oak.
It is probable that the glasses did belong to the

Oak Society but I am not too sure about dating the
glasses from the medal and I would like to discuss

this question of the dating of Jacobite glasses in
more detail later. It is, after all, possible that the

glasses may have been engraved before the medal

was struck. There was certainly nothing new

about the severed oak because this emblem dates
back to the 17th Century.

ENGRAVER C

(Five glasses shown, two illustrated—Figs. 6 & 7)

There are certain similarities between this

group and that of Engraver B. The rose is simi-

lar but the buds and some other features differ.

Fig. 6 — A beautifully proportioned glass
finely engraved by Engraver C.

Fig.? — A rare REDDAS INCOLUMEN glass

with the same matching features.

In the Jacobite glass from Chastleton Manor

there were two decanters. One, as mentioned
earlier, was by Engraver A, who also engraved the

wine glasses. The second Chastleton Manor de-

canter can be attributed to Engraver C. So Henry

Jones, the original owner of the Manor, must have

obtained his Jacobite glass from more than one

source.

ENGRAVER D
(Five glasses shown, two illustrated—Figs. 8

& 9)

Again a different engraving style; the rose hav-

ing two inner petals and rather long striations be-

tween the inner and outer petals.

Fig. 8 — A single budded rose with a crown
and thistle.

Fig. 9 — A portrait glass by the same en-

graver.

This is one of the portrait glasses on which the

Pretender faces to the right of the glass and is
depicted with the Star and Riband of the Garter on

the wrong side of his chest. For this reason Grant

Francis
3
thought that these glasses had been en-

graved on the Continent, but it can be seen that this

glass is clearly the work of the same engraver
responsible for all the other glasses in this group.

Ingenious theories have been devised to explain

these unusual glasses.
4

ENGRAVER E
(Eight glasses shown, three illustrated—Figs.

10, 11
&
12)

This engraver managed to combine a very high

quality of craftsmanship with considerable versa-
tility of design. He did a number of different por-

trait glasses and frequently altered the design of
certain features in his engravings.

Fig. 10 — A typical two budded rose design.
Three inner petals on the rose and
a rather distinctive design of closed

bud.

Fig. 11 — A single budded glass by the same
engraver. An identical closed bud,

but a variation in the design of the
centre of the rose.

Fig. 12 — A beautifully engraved portrait

glass by Engraver E.

These then are the five major engravers and

now the lesser groups F, G and H. These are con-

siderably smaller than any of the preceding groups

and the quality of the engraving tends to be inferior.

ENGRAVER F

(Three glasses shown, one illustrated—Fig. 13)

Fig. 13 — The inferior quality of the engraving
is immediately apparent. There are

five glasses in the series belonging
to this group and they are all en-

graved with this design. Four of

the glasses are opaque twists and

include the two colour twists in the

series. The fifth glass is a facet

stem.

The chart, below, summarises the various groups
that we have been considering.

ENGRAVER G
(One glass shown, one illustrated—Fig. 14)

There are four glasses in the series belonging

Table summarising engravers of rose and portrait glasses
Group
No. of

Glasses
No. of

Portraits
Thistle

Oakleaf

60. 6%
A

37
23.1

3
1

B
18
11.2

1
1

C
19
11.9
3
1

D
8
5
2

E
15

9.4
5

2
1

27-5°/,,
5
3.1

G
4

2.5

H
4

2.5

Others
31

11-9%
19
3

to this group and they are all cordials with opaque

twist stems.

Fig. 14 — All the engravings are of this de-
sign with a multipetalled rose, a

single bud and a thistle.

ENGRAVER H
(Two glasses shown, one illustrated—Fig. 15)

Again there are four glasses in this group.

Three of them are air twists and:

Fig. 15 — this SUCCESS TO THE SOCIETY
glass with an opaque twist stem.

Engraver A accounts for thirty-seven glasses

in the series, that is 23. I% of the rose and port-
rait glasses. Of the thirty-seven glasses, three

are portraits. Engraver B accounts for eighteen

glasses or 11.2%. Engraver C, nineteen glasses or

11.9%. Engraver D, eight glasses or 5% and En-

graver E, fifteen glasses or 9.4% of the series.

Five of the portrait glasses can be attributed to

this last engraver.

Together these five major engravers account

for 60.8% of all the rose and portrait glasses and

they appear to have been responsible, with a few

exceptions, for all the really important Jacobite

rose and portrait glasses. Virtually all the FIAT
glasses and most of the other mottoed glasses can

be attributed to them. I have grouped these five
engravers together because I think that not only

are the glasses in this section fully authentic but

they are also the glasses which are historically
the most significant since I believe these are the

engravers who were working when the Jacobite

Movement was most active.

Groups F, G and H in the middle section are, I

think, equally authentic but probably not as signi-

ficant historically. Here Engraver F accounts for

3.1°4, G 2.5% and H 2-5%. This section also con-

tains thirty-one ‘other’ glasses. These include a

few glasses which I have only been able to match

into pairs, although as the series grows some of

them may come to form small groups. There are

also three portrait glasses which have good pro-
venances but do not match with any of the previous

engravers. One of these is the HIC VIR HIC EST

glass, a well known glass illustrated in Grant

Francis
5

and matching one of the portrait glasses

found at Oxburgh Hall.
Rightly or wrongly, all the remaining opaque

twists and facet stems have been included in this

miscellaneous group of ‘other’ glasses. Some of
these are isolated glasses, some are poorly en-

graved and with some the rose and the buds are
very stylized. In short they do not rate very highly

as Jacobite glasses but they have been included in
this section because I think they are probably

authentic for this very reason.

The glasses in the lower section of the Table on

p. 43, which account for 11
.
9% of the total, are the

ones which worry me. These are glasses, usually

air twist or plain stemmed, with engravings that do
not fit into any of the previous groupings, and do

not match with any other glasses in the series.

They are what may be called unsupported glasses.

Many are quite well engraved and pass all the usual

tests which one applies when examining an en-

graving. It may be that some of them will match

up with other glasses in the future but in the ab-
sence of a very good provenance, going back at

least to the first quarter of this century, I have

now come to be very suspicious of any air twist

or plain stemmed Jacobite glass which does not

fit into one or other of the previous groupings.
The question is: Are these unsupported glasses

fake-engraved or are they isolated surviving en-
gravings of more obscure, less experienced, 18th

century engravers?
The engravers who have falsified genuine 18th

century glasses are described by Thorpe
6
as ‘the

real serpents’ among fakers, and well might they

be so called, because the problem of authenticity
can be a very difficult one and the difficulty seems

to be more pronounced with Jacobite engravings

than with other types of commemorative glass.
We all know that a relatively simple 18th cen-

tury glass can have its value increased more than

tenfold if it also carries Jacobite engravings, and
we must assume that for some wheel engravers the

temptation to fake-engrave genuine 18th century
glass with Jacobite emblems must have been too

great to resist. But how are we to distinguish

these glasses, some of which may have been fake-

engraved over half a century ago? Indeed, once a

genuine glass has been fake-engraved is there any

way at all of saying for certain that it is a fake?
Perhaps not; but it is a pity that a greater effort

is not sometimes made to make a distinction and
that one sees glasses with doubtful engravings

realising prices which do not reflect the possibility

that the engravings may not be genuine. (Five

glasses from this lower section were shown at the
meeting; three of which had been sold at auction

and had realised the ‘full’ Jacobite price. In one
instance, a portrait glass, the price realised was

more than ten times the recommended saleroom

reserve.)
These examples underline the uncertainty that

exists about some Jacobite engravings, and the

authenticity of some of these glasses can present

difficulties. There is no absolute proof that the

glasses in the lower section are fake-engraved

but, in the absence of a reliable provenance, I

believe they should be treated with suspicion. If

we endeavour to familiarise ourselves with the

engraving styles which we know to be genuine, and

the photographs may help in this respect, then we

will be that much less likely to make a mistake.

Let us now see if the study has told us anything

about the engravers of the Jacobite glasses. We

now have an idea of the number of engravers en-
gaged in this work. We do not know who they were

but I think we can safely say that certainly the five
major engravers were artist craftsmen, because

each one has shown himself to have been capable

of work of a high standard.
I

do not believe there-

fore that Jacobite glasses were a commercial pro-
duct of the glasshouses; nor do I feel that Jacobite

glasses are likely to have been freely available, at

any rate during the period when the Movement was
politically sensitive, because if the authorities had

known that an engraver was producing anti-Govern-
ment material on a scale such as that of any of the

major engravers, they would surely have taken

steps to prevent it.

The engravers themselves must have been

devoted to the Jacobite Cause. So far as an en-

graver such as A is concerned one feels that at

some period he must have spent most of his time

engraving Jacobite glasses, because his output is

really quite considerable. Here we are talking

about one engraver being responsible for 23°4 of
the rose and portrait glasses, and if we assume

that at least some of the glasses in the lower sec-

tion of the summary chart (above) are fake-
engraved, then his percentage of the glasses in

existence in the 18th Century is nearer 25°4. Hun-

dreds of Jacobite glasses must have been des-

troyed, either accidentally or intentionally, since

the time when the Movement was politically active,
and we can only hazard a guess at the total number
of Jacobite glasses in existence in the 18th Century,

but it could run into thousands and this engraver
must have been responsible for several hundreds

of these glasses.
However, the series is not fully representative,

because to date it has been confined to England and

the percentages may change when I am able to

take my camera to Scotland. If an engraved thistle

is any indication that a glass is Scottish then the

thistle/oak leaf ratio (see chart) may be significant.

With A it is 1:4. That is for every glass by this
engraver displaying a thistle there are four dis-

playing oak leaves. With B it is 1 : 9 and C 1 : 3 but

with
D
and E the emphasis is reversed. With D the

ratio is 3 :1 and E 2:1. I am inclined to think

therefore that A, B and C were probably English
engravers and, from the sheer volume of his out-

put, I feel it likely that A was London based. D and
E could be Scottish or nearer the border, possibly

Newcastle, and it will be interesting to see if their

relatively low percentages increase in relation to

the others when I am able to go to Scotland. If
they do then the picture will change and A’s per-

centage will not be quite so high.
The five major engravers, as was mentioned

earlier, seem to have been responsible for most of

the really important Jacobite rose and portrait

glasses and they
must
be the engravers who were

working when the Jacobite Movement was most

active. But, when were they working? When was
the Movement most active?

Horridge
7
believed that the upsurge in Jacobite

glass occurred between 1748 and 1752 as a result

of the Bill of Pardon which was passed in 1747.
This Bill restored to certain Jacobites their lands

and titles and this relaxation on the part of the

Government led to some revival of Jacobite hopes.

Horridge maintained that this period of revived
hope was responsible for most of the two budded

glasses as well as the glasses with oak leaves,

stars and FIAT; in other words the important

Jacobite glasses just referred to. Horridge also
stressed that this was the period when the main

stem forms—plain stems, air twists and opaque

twists—were all available and that the Glass Ex-

cise Act of 1745 was responsible for the small-

bowled variety of Jacobite glasses.

This view agrees with that of other authorities.

Barrington Haynes
8
states: ‘It is very unlikely

that any glass bearing the word FIAT is of pre-
Culloden date. …It is to the two decades after

Culloden that so many of our rose glasses and our
FIATS, and all our portrait and motto glasses be-

long.’ It also agrees with Grant Francis who, as we
have already seen, dated the REVIRESCIT glasses

and the REDEAT glasses from the Oak Society

medals of 1750 and 1752. The evidence is com-
pelling and the weight of expert opinion is strongly

in favour of this dating. However, there are factors
which, if confirmed by further photographs, may

make it necessary for us to consider a slightly
earlier dating for the important Jacobite engravings.
Historically, although there may have been a

revival of hope in 1747, I have always thought it

odd that the Jacobite Movement is supposed to have

risen to such popularity in defeat. Occasionally it

may be true to say that ‘from the ashes of disaster

grow the roses of success’, but it is rare for events

in history to support this concept, and one would

really have expected the Jacobite Movement to be
more popular around the time of the ’45 Rebellion

itself.

The small-bowled Jacobite glasses referred to

by Horridge do not necessarily preclude this pos-
sibility. Thorpe stresses
9
that many of these

small-bowled designs were not the direct result of

the Glass Excise Act, which came into effect at the

beginning of 1746, but were the natural development
of a trend in design which had started some fifteen
years previously. He maintains that many of the
small-bowled glasses, particularly of the drawn-

stem variety, were in existence several years
before the Excise Act.

So far as this particular study is concerned

there is one rather striking feature about the

glasses engraved by the five major engravers. If
Horridge’s dating is correct and the majority of

Jacobite glasses were engraved in the middle of

the 18th Century, when all the main stem forms

were available, then one would expect a represen-

tative spread of these stem forms among the

glasses of these major engravers, who were active

at this time and who, as we have seen, were res-

ponsible for most of the glasses referred to by

Horridge. In the series of 160 rose and portrait

glasses which we are considering, there are 19

plain stem glasses and 19 opaque twist glasses.

Now since these five engravers were responsible

for 60% of the glasses in the series then approxi-
mately 11 of the glasses attributed to them should

have plain stems and 11 opaque twist stems. So

far as the plain stems are concerned this is exactly

what we do find; 11 of the glasses by the five major

engravers have plain stems; but not so with the

opaque twists.

In fact, of their engraved glass, which in this

series totals 97 pieces, the wine glasses are all,

without exception, either Newcastle stems, plain
stems or air twists. In the series that I have gathered

so far
not one
of the five major engravers has en-

graved a single opaque twist stemmed rose glass.

Most authorities put the earliest opaque twist

stems at 1750 (Fig. 16) and some will say even
earlier than that; Thorpe’° refers to a dated ex-

ample of 1747. If these five engravers were at the

height of their activity between 1748 and 1752 it is

inconceivable that they would all have ignored the

new opaque twist glasses. It may be that some

opaque twist rose glasses will emerge which can
be attributed to one or other of these engravers,

but if any such glasses do exist they must be very

few in number; far fewer than one would expect if
these engravers were active when all the main stem

forms were available. They must have been com-
ing to the end of their rose and portrait engraving

period when the opaque twists were beginning. The

distinction is quite marked. It is as though a cur-
tain descends on the five major engravers and
then the rose glasses emerge again on the opaque

twists in the hands of a new set of engravers. The

overall quality of many of the new engravings is
not up to the standard of the earlier glasses, as if

the new engravers were having to learn the art of
engraving Jacobite roses all over again.

Something dramatic must have occurred; some-

thing which inhibited the activities of all these

major engravers who had been responsible for so
much Jacobite engraving from the very earliest

single-budded glasses.

The only curtain that descended about this time

which would have had such a dramatic simultane-

ous effect on these early engravers is the after-
math of the ’45 Rebellion, and I am going to suggest

that the mainswell of Jacobite glass occurred

earlier than most authorities would at present

accept. Not much earlier, maybe only five years—
say 1743 to 1746—but it could be significant, and I

think that having come to a peak, Jacobite glass

did not gradually decline but suffered an abrupt

setback from which it never fully recovered.
There is ample evidence that Jacobite hopes

were running high from 1739 onwards, when Walpole
was dragged into war with Spain and we then be-

came involved in the War of the Austrian Succes-
sion. Government spies maintained a constant

watch on the Pretender’s movements in Rome
because some attempt to reclaim the throne was

anticipated. In 1743 Louis XV sent his own spy

to England to assess the mood of the English

Jacobites, and he was obviously satisfied with the
report he received because he immediately started

to gather an invasion force under Marshal Saxe.
Charles was sent for and anticipation must have

reached fever pitch in 1744, when it became known

that the Young Pretender had arrived in Paris.

Louis cancelled the invasion after the fleet had

been badly damaged in a storm but this must

surely have been a time when Jacobite hopes

reached a peak; probably more so than the following

year when Charles, to everyone’s consternation,

arrived unexpectedly in Scotland with his small

group of companions.
The maximum output of Jacobite glass could

have continued into 1746 for some six months after

the Excise Act came into operation, but following

the failure of the ’45 and the defeat at Culloden
Moor in April 1746, the pressures on the Jacobites

must have been very considerable.
We know that just under a hundred Jacobites

were executed but this says nothing of the great

numbers who were butchered by the Duke of

Cumberland in his ruthless suppression of the
Highlands. A thousand were transported to the
West Indies and the American Colonies, and it

would be interesting to know if any of these were

glass engravers. Be that as it may, the sight of

Jacobite heads on the spikes at Temple Bar must
have had a sobering effect upon even the most

ardent Jacobite glass engraver and, to put it mildly,
there must have been a considerable slump in the

demand for their glasses.

The Government eased their repressive mea-

sures with the Bill of Pardon in 1747 but even so
there were 85 exceptions to the Bill and as late as

1753 Archibald Cameron was drawn and quartered

for his Jacobite activities.

The Jacobite glasses which were engraved after

1746, and these may include some of the portrait
glasses and the REVIRESCIT glasses were, in my

opinion, the tail-end of the mainswell of Jacobite
engraving and not the beginning. If further photo-

graphs confirm this opinion Jacobite glass may

follow more closely the pattern one would expect

from the historical evidence; that is, rising steeply

in anticipation, falling sharply in defeat and being

followed by a revival in sentiment with the opaque

twist glasses.

I would like to conclude with one further

thought. If this slightly earlier dating of the Jaco-

bite rose and portrait glasses proves to be the

more likely one, it could have another important

implication, and that is in the interpretation of the

Jacobite rose emblems.

The theories that have existed about these em-

blems are well known. The old theory was that the

rose is the white rose of the Stuarts and represents

the Old Pretender, James Francis Edward Stuart,
and the buds his two sons; the open bud for Prince
Charles and the closed bud for his younger brother

Prince Henry. This theory was demolished by

Horridge in his well-reasoned paperil to the Glass
Circle in 1944, when he put forward the concept

that the rose is heraldic, representing the Triple
Crown, and the two buds are for the Old Pretender,

James, and his son the Young Pretender, Prince

Charles. Horridge believed that in the two budded
glasses the open bud always represents Prince

Charles and that these glasses are all post Cul-

loden.

Barrington Haynes
12
, while agreeing with Hor-

ridge that the rose is heraldic, maintained that the

open bud belongs to the Old Pretender and that
Charles, with the exception of the early single

budded glasses, is always represented by the clos
,
–

ed bud. The arguments become complicated but

suffice it to say that the Barrington Haynes modi-

fication of the Horridge theory is now generally
accepted as correct.

The Horridge-Barrington Haynes theory, how-
ever, does involve making what I think is a sweep-

ing historical assumption. Their theory is ab-

solutely dependent upon the supposition that Prince

Henry was considered to be unimportant by the

Jacobites and was therefore not represented on
their drinking glasses. Mrs.Steevenson
13
, in one

of her many papers to the Glass Circle, points out
that this is difficult to substantiate historically and

I am inclined to agree because I too find it hard to
believe.

Prince Henry was born in 1725 and was five

years younger than Charles. He grew up in his

brother’s shadow, but he was always popular.

Being more studious than Charles he showed an
early interest in religion. Nevertheless, when

Charles left Rome in January 1744 at the start of

his fateful venture, Henry, who was then nineteen,

was more than anxious to take up his sword and

follow his brother. James forbade Henry to follow

Charles to Scotland; he was unwilling to have both

his sons at risk, which shows that James at any
rate considered Henry important to his cause.

In 1745, while Charles was in Scotland, James,

against his better judgement, allowed Henry to go

to Paris to plead his brother’s cause with the
French. Henry was still in Paris in September,

1746, when he greeted Charles after his escape

from Scotland. There is no evidence whatever to

indicate that the two brothers were other than

devoted to one another up to this point.

Charles, flushed with adventure, returned to

Paris in high spirits. The Parisians received him

as a hero and, as usual, he succumbed to the flat-

tery. Never lacking in sell-confidence, Charles
soared even higher in his own estimation and he
went about in a state of conceited euphoria, appar-

ently unaware of the political reality of his situa-

tion. Henry, although he would undoubtedly have
liked to have shared in the glamour of his brother’s

adventures, showed no jealousy; but Charles must
have been insufferable. In Paris the brothers lived

next door to one another and they dined together

each day. Poor Henry had to endure endless ac-

counts from Charles of his exploits and his plans

for the future. Henry had the wisdom and fore-

sight to see, as indeed James could see, that the

Jacobite cause was lost and in May,1747, he had
had enough. He decided to leave Charles to his own
egotistical devices and he departed from Paris
without telling his brother of his intentions.

Charles’s fury when he discovered that his

brother had deserted him was nothing to that which

he later displayed when he learnt that Henry, with

James’s approval, had become a Cardinal in the
Church of Rome. This move made Henry very un-
popular with Protestant and Presbyterian Jacobites

and was very damaging to the Jacobite Cause.

Nevertheless, I think Henry had shown that he was
prepared to uphold his father’s cause as long as

it was a viable possibility; and if Charles had been

killed in Scotland everything would have fallen on

Henry’s shoulders.
There is no historical reason why Henry should

not have been considered important to the Jacobite

Movement until he became a Cardinal, because if

there is one thing which all Jacobites had in com-
mon
it
was surely their devotion to their legal King

and their belief in the creed of Divine Right. The
very fact that Henry’s becoming a Cardinal was
considered damaging to the Cause indicates that up
to that point he had been considered important to

the Cause.
The white rose, as opposed to the heraldic rose,

is known to have been an emblem of the Stuarts

even before the 1715 Rebellion, and each year on the

10th of June, the Old Pretender’s birthday, these

flowers would be worn by his supporters. The old

theory that the rose on Jacobite glasses is this

same white rose, belonging to the Old Pretender’s

family, and that the buds represent the two sons, is

surely the most natural interpretation of these
emblems. But, with the generally accepted dating

for Jacobite rose engravings, it becomes very
difficult to account for an
increasing

number of

two budded glasses occurring around 1750; that is,
after Henry had made himself unpopular by be-

coming a Cardinal. This was one of the main ob-
jections to the old theory. However, if the earlier
dating proves to be the more acceptable, then the

old theory begins to look much more attractive,

because most of the two budded glasses would oc-
cur
before
Henry became a Cardinal, and the two

budded glasses that were engraved after 1747

could be attributed to Roman Catholic Jacobites

who might still have retained a place in their

hearts for Henry.

There are, of course, other objections to the

old theory apart from the representation of Prince
Henry, but none of these loom so large in my mind

as the misgivings I feel about the present theory

and it may be that the Jacobite rose emblems

merit further study.
Doubtless there is something to be learnt from

the fact that we are still debating the issue and

that we never seem to find a theory that fits all
the Jacobite engravings. Controversy is inevitable

in any discussion on this subject and this paper

appears to have posed more questions than it has

answered. But this is often the way with Jacobite

glass and the mystery that still surrounds these

relics of the 18th Century is surely what makes

them so uniquely fascinating.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am very indebted to Mr. Charleston who first

allowed me to photograph the glasses in the Vic-

toria & Albert Museum and to many other who

have kindly allowed me access to the glasses in

their care.

NOTES

1.
Grant Francis,
Old English Drinking Glasses,

the back of the glass so that, when viewed from behind,

London (1926) pp.189-191

the portrait had FIAT superimposed upon it.

2.
Grant Francis,
op. cit.,
pp. 187-189

5. Grant Francis,
op. cit.,

pp. 182-183, Plate LXIII

3.
Grant Francis,
op. cit.,
pp.

192-193

6. Thorpe W. A.,

A History of English and Irish Glass,

4.
Bles J.,
Rare English Glasses of the 17th & 18th

London (1929) p.306

Centuries,
London (n.d. 1926) pp.88-89. In the course

7. Horridge W. ,

Glass Circle Paper,

No. 56 (1944)

of the discussion following the paper the suggestion

8. Barrington Haynes,
Glass Through the Ages,

Har-

was made that the simple explanation might be that

mondsworth (2nd ed, 1959) pp. 171-172

these glasses were intended to be viewed from behind

9. Thorpe W. A.,

op. cit.,
pp. 205-207

the bowl while drinking. This possibility had also

10. Thorpe W. A.,

op. cit.,
p.

213

occurred to me and I think it is probably the most

11. Horridge W., loc.

cit.,

likely explanation. Viewed in this way the portrait

12. Barrington Haynes,

op. cit.,
pp. 168-169

appears correct with the Star and Riband of the Garter

13. Steevenson M.,
Glass Circle
Paper,

No. 144 (1966)

on the left breast and I think it is significant that this

type of glass never has any motto above or below the

portrait. I have only seen one such glass bearing a

motto; that was the word FIAT which was engraved on

Figure 1. (a) Engraver A. Wine-glass

with air-twist stem and ‘vermicular’
collar. Ht. 6
15
4
6
in. (17.5 cm.). By

permission of Howard Phillips.

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Figure 1. (b) to (d) Details of the glass illustrated opposite

(a)

Figure 2. (a) Engraver A. Wine-glass with air-twist stem. From

Chastleton Manor. Ht. 5
11

4
6
in. (14.4 cm.). By permission of Howard

Phillips.

(b)

(d )
(C)

(e)

(f)

Figure 2. (b) to (f) Details of the glass illustrated opposite

(a)

Figure 3. (a) Engraver A. Firing-glass, inscribed ‘Audentior Ibo’. Ht. 3
3

/
8
in. (8.6 cm.). Hale

Collection, by permission of the Worshipful Company of Grocers.

(b)

(d)

(
1
)

Figure 3. (la) to (g) Details of the glass illustrated opposite.

Figure 4. (a) Engraver B. Wine-glass with plain

stem enclosing tear. Ht. 7 in. (17.6 cm.). Hale

Collection,by permission of the Worshipful Com-

pany of Grocers.

(b) Detail of engraving on foot.

(g)

Figure 4. (c) to (g) Details of the glass

illustrated opposite.

)

(e)
(d)

(1
)

Figure 5. (a) Engraver B. Wine-glass with air-twist

stem. One of set of 0 glasses. Ht. 6S/
$

in. (16.8 cm.).

Collection of Mr K.A.Alexander.

(b) Detail of engraving on foot.
56

(d)

(1
)

(c)

Figure 5. (c) to (f) Details of the glass illustrated opposite.
57

Figure 6. (a) Engraver C, Wine-glass with double-knopped air-twist stem. Ht. 5

3
6
.6
in.

(14.8 cm.). By permission of Howard Phillips.

(b)

(d)
(c)

(0)

Figure 6. (b) to (e) Details of the glass illustrated opposite.
59

Figure 7. (a) Engraver C. Wine-glass with air-twist stem, inscribed ‘Reddas Incolumem’.

Ht. 6’i
2
in. (16.4 cm.). By permission of (the late) Alan Tillman.

(c)

(d)

(e)
(1)

Figure 7. (b) to (f) Details of glass illustrated opposite.
61

Figure 8. (a) Engraver D. Wine-glass with double-knopped air-twist

stem. Ht. 63/4 in. (15.7 cm.). Marshall Collection, Ashmolean

Museum, Oxford.

(b)

(d)
Figure 8. (b) to (e) Details of glass illustrated opposite.
63

Figure 9. (a) Engraver D. Wine-glass with air-twist stem. Ht.6

/
16
in. (15.5 cm.). Hale

Collection, by permission of the Worshipful Company of Grocers.

(b)

(c)

(d)
(e)

Figure 9. (b) to (e) Details of glass illustrated opposite.
65

Figure 10. (a) Engraver E. Wine-glass with double-knopped air-twist stem. Ht. 5

3
4 in.

(14.6 cm.). Rees Price Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum.

(b)

(d)
(c)

(e)

Figure 10. (b) to (e) Details of glass illustrated opposite.
67

Figure 11. (a) Engraver E. Wine-glass with double-knopped air-twist stem.

Ht. 61/4in. (15.8 cm.). Rees Price Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum.

(b)

(c)

(d)

Figure 11. (b) to (d) Details of glass illustrated opposite.

(a)

(b)

Figure 12. (a) Engraver E. Wine-glass with double-knopped

air-twist stem. Ht. 5
3
/
4

in. (14.6 cm.). By permission of

(the late) Alan Tillman. (b) detail of engraving on foot.

(d)

(f)

Figure 12. (c) to (f) Details of glass illustrated opposite.
71

Figure 13. (a) Engraver F. Ale-glass with double-series enamel-twist

stem. Ht. 7
1

/
4
in. (18.3 cm.). By permission of Sotheby’s.

(b)

(d)
Figure 13, (b) to (e) Details of glass illustrated opposite.
73

Figure 14. (a) Engraver G. Wine-glass with double-series enamel-twist stem.

Ht. 5
9
/
16
in. (14.2 cm.). Peter Lazarus Collection.

(c)

(d)

(b)

Figure 14. (b) to (d) Details of glass illustrated opposite.

Figure 15. (a) Engraver 1

.
1. Wine-glass with double-series enamel

–
twist stem. Ht, 515/16 in.

(15.0 cm.). Rees Price Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum.

(b)

(e)

(d)

Figure 15. (b) to (e) Details of glass illustrated opposite.

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.47

bILL IF PARDON.

1
51-51
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Gri-oss Et.c+sE
Ael

‘MEN OF GLASS’ A Personal

View of the De Bongar Family in
the 16th and 17th Centuries

by G. D. BUNGARD

A paper read to the Circle on 15 February, 1977

The De Bongars were one of four families of glass

makers in Normandy, the others being the De

Cacqueray, De Brossard and Le Valliant, who were

established from the beginnings of the glass

industry 4n the area. All four of the families were

interrelated and according to a descendant of the

le Vaillantsl who had done extensive research, the

De Bongars were located in the Fork de Lyon, to
the east of Rouen, by the year 1130. The same

writer also claimed that they were descended from

the Dukes of Normandy through the female line.

Whether these claims were spurious is uncer-

tain; however, it was well established that the glass-

makers had certain rights and privileges asso-
ciated with the title of ‘Gentilhomme Verrier’.
2

Briefly these rights were:

I. The right to rank as Noblemen with exemption

from appropriate taxation.

2.
Exemption from Military Service but the

obligation to offer hospitality to the Sovereign and

his entourage.

3.
The right to cut timber for furnace fuel and

also certain grazing rights.

4.
The products of their glasshouses to be free

from customs taxes and tolls.
5.
Hunting and fishing rights.

Although the origins of these concessions are

obscure, they evidently carried some authority, for

they were upheld from at least the 12th to the I7th
centuries. The glassmen themselves were a unique

and proud band with their own laws, rules and
customs, which had been handed down from father

to son, and from master to apprentice. Many of

their traditions were similar to those carried on

by the glassmakers in other parts of Europe, notably

on the island of Murano near Venice. Patriarchal

status determined the ownership of the individual
glasshouses and there were repeated inter-

marriages, over many centuries, between members

of the principal families. This protected their

trade secrets and maintained the hereditary system
of ownership. It also led them to adopt a rather

superior and haughty attitude to outsiders.
This, then, was the background to the family, two

of whose members were persuaded, in the summer

of 1568, to come to England with several other

glassmakers. The man responsible was one Jean

Carre of Antwerp, who had applied to Queen

Elizabeth for a licence to make window glass in the

Weald of Sussex, and also the Aldermen and Mayor

of London to start a manufacture of crystal vessel
glass in the city.
3

Thanks to his Antwerp connec-

tions Carre had the necessary experience with the

continental glassmakers and was apparently able

without difficulty to persuade the brothers Pierre
and John de Bongar, with the former’s wife

Madelin and their family, to come over to England.

Undoubtedly the offer of a more stable abode, with
capital backing supported by the Queen’s patent

grant,
4
was sufficient inducement to bring the

glassmakers, apparently Protestants to a man,

away from the turbulent situation in France. At the

same time there also came members of the De
Hennezell family from Lorraine, notably Thomas

and Balthazar. It was they, in partnership with

Carre and a merchant called Anthony Becku, who

set up the first furnace at Alford, on the Surrey-

Sussex border, for the production of window glass
by the cylinder or ‘muff’ method.

Unfortunately there quickly arose a dispute

between Becku and the De Hennezell brothers over

the training of Englishmen in the craft. The two

brothers promptly left the works and returned to
France in the summer of 1569. They did not return

to settle their affairs until twelve months after this.

In the meanwhile the de Bongar brothers carried on

with manufacture of window glass by the ‘crown’
method at the second of Carre’s two glasshouses.

Becku soon tried to interfere in the same manner

with them and sent first his son, also called

Anthony, and then his son-in-law James Arnold, to
enforce his demands. The Bongars would have none

of it. First Pierre assaulted young Anthony and

drove him away and when reinforcements arrived
in the shape of James Arnold, both brothers

attacked him. The contemporary report of the

incident is worthy of quotation:
5

‘First it appeared unto us by the testimony of many

and sufficient witnesses that Peter Bongar and John

Bongar his brother being the glass makers without

any just occasion ministered to them did the 19th of

July last make an assault the one with a great staff

the other with a hot iron having hot glass metal

upon it upon James Arnold son in law to Anthony
Beku and his deputy there and did so strike wound

and burn to the great peril of his life whereof he is

now recovered. Also that the said Peter Bongar did

at one other time before without any just cause

make affray upon Anthony Beku and strike him on

the head with a staff.’

Thus we can see from an early stage in the glass

disputes the question of the training of Englishmen

in their trade secrets was a vexed one, due no doubt

to the long tradition of operating a ‘closed shop’.

This was not the end to their difficulties for in

1574 a plot was hatched at Petworth by some of the

local populace to ‘rob the Frenchmen and burn

their houses’.
6
Fortunately the plot was discovered

in time and duly frustrated. Shortly after this
Becku, who had received judgement and costs after

the fight at the glasshouse, was still unsatisfied

with his share of the profits and sued the two
brothers for arrears of royalties in the sum of 230.
7

During this early period in England little is

known of other members of the family although the
evidence indicates that Peter and Madelin had had

a number of children before leaving France and
others after their arrival in Sussex.
9
Amongst the

latter was their son Isaac, who was to play such an
important part in the coming feuds between the

forest glassmakers and the various patent holders
and monopolists who became interested in glass-

making during the next fifty years. In spite of

extensive searches of Wealden and some London
Paris Records, nothing has been uncovered of

either the baptism or later marriage of Isaac and

his wife Ann. Other evidence suggests Isaac’s birth

to be about 1570 and he stated on more than one
occasion that he was born in England. There is

little doubt that whilst he was a growing boy he was
carefully instructed in the arts of glassmaking by

his father and other relatives.

The first contemporary record of Isaac is dated

1595 and is a contract in which he was concerned

with his mother, then a widow, ‘Madelein Bongard
of Greenwich’ in the supply of five hundred cases

of Normandy Glass to one Thomas Lawrence, a

citizen of London.
9
In the twenty years preceding

this contract the glassmakers had enjoyed a period

of relative calm. By 1576 the original patent issued

to Carre and Becku had fallen by the wayside and

the forest glassworks had proliferated throughout

the Weald, well supported by further influxes of

French glassworkers. In London Jacob Verzelini

had established his own position in the manufacture
of crystal glass tableware in spite of the original

grant of patent rights to the then deceased Jean

Carre.
19

Some time before 1579 the Bongar family moved

their operations to Wisborough Green, doubtless to

take advantage of cheaper river and sea transport
for their window glass, for which the main outlet

was the lucrative London market. Mrs
E.
S.Godfrey,

in her excellent book
The Development of English

Glassmaking,
suggests that the overland transport

costs from their earlier base near Alfold were

much too high and prevented them from competing

against cheap imports from the Continent.
11

Cer-

tainly by 1579 the French community was large
enough for Peter Bdingar to request a licence from

the Bishop of Chichester, to minister and serve
communion to his compatriots in Wisborough Green

Parish Church, using the French language.
12

The

newcomers included members of the families of
du Thisac, de Hennezell and Thietry from Lorraine.

It is perhaps significant that their arrival coincided

with the renewal and intensification of religious

persecution on the Continent.

The forest glassmakers continued to flourish,

and it was during this period that the young Isaac

Bungar began to develop commercial outlets for

window glass, particularly in London. The French-

men continued to dominate the trade and it was
only over a considerable time that Englishmen

were able to glean sufficient knowledge to compete
on the manufacturing side. It was an Englishman,

Lionel Bennett, with whom Isaac eventually joined

forces and between them they began to predominate

in the supply of window glass to the London
glaziers. They achieved notable success from their

,;o-operation and when, many years latelr, their

exploits were recounted in evidence before the

glass commission, it gave some idea of the lengths

to which they were prepared to go.
13

The following

is a short extract from this evidence:

‘First about the year 1605, began Bungar and

Bennett the sole ingrossing of all the glass made

in Sussex, wherewith the city of London long before
was usually served with great store, and continued

the same until the time of the patent’ Through

their cunning practices and devices we were con-

strained to pay them
xxii. s
vi. d which was of so

small a size that … • it was not worth above

xvii. s at the most. If at any time we paid less, it

was when another man set up a furnace. Then they

would advance their size and fall their price,
though it were to their loss, of purpose to over-

throw the party which in short time they effected.’

The success of their enterprise did not go un-

noticed and soon attracted other speculators into

the field. The first few years of the 17th century

were but the lull before the storm. It was about

1607 that the first of the difficulties began to make

itself felt. This was the shortage of wood fuel for

the furnaces. In the main, billets of beech wood

were burnt, and intermittent shortage of these had

been a problem ever since manufacture commenced
in the Weald. Apart from the normal demand for

constructional timber and shipbuilding needs there

was an ever-increasing requirement from the iron-

works, always more numerous than the glasshouses.

The Bungar family largely overcame the problem

in the last quarter of the 16th century by buying up

extensive woodlands, but this turned out to be too

expensive a procedure to be continued indefinitely.

Isaac was still buying some woodlands as late as

1612, however, when he bought a wood at Dedsham
Park
14
and in 1614 he bought further timber and

trees at Crawley.

The next and more important threat to their

enterprise came about in 1611, when, as a direct
result of the timber shortages, a furnace capable of

using coal as fuel was developed. When letters
patent were issued for the process, the still un-

popular alien glassworkers came under further

pressure. The principal patentee for the coal pro-
cess (not the inventor) was Sir Edward Zouch and,
on the 4th March, 1614,a new patent was issued to

him and his partners which effectively excluded

the use of wood as a fuel for all types of glass-

making. The principal intention of the authorities

was to preserve the woodlands for other purposes
rather than to suppress the glasshouses, although

it was on this latter course that Zouch now em-

barked. In November 1614 a number of Wealden
glassmakers were summoned before the Council for

infringing the new patent. Isaac Bungar came along

as principal spokesman and maintained that if the
patent were to be enforced they should at least be

allowed to use up their stocks of raw materials or

else Zouch should be made to purchase the mate-
rials from them.

The Council chose the latter course at first and

it was agreed that the forest workmen should work

for the patentees so long as they worked correctly.

This latter request was made ‘since for divers

causes they have reason to fear some indirect and

underhand practices of Henezy and Bungar thereby

to seduce and corrupt those servants whom some-

times they employed.’
15

The monopoly patent was further reinforced

within a few months when it was altered to include

additional partners, amongst whom was Sir Robert

Mansell. Within a few months Sir Robert had taken
control of the company and so for the first ‘time

effective control of the whole industry moved into

the hands of an Englishman. A bitter feud then
began between the forest glassmen and Sir Robert

that was to last for over twenty years, with Isaac
Bungar being his most bitter and unscrupulous

rival. During the five years from 1615 to 1620

Isaac continued to harry Sir Robert at every turn
and contemporary accounts of their struggle make

entertaining study. Whilst, on the one hand, Sir

Robert tried to enforce his monopoly with a ruth-
less zeal, on the other, Isaac and his colleagues

used fair means and foul to prevent him from build-

ing a stable industry. For example, in the case of

the excess of materials mentioned earlier, Isaac

was eventually given permission to work them out
himself over a period of 60 weeks.
16

One of the

factors which influenced the Council’s decision was

the undoubted shortage of window glass in London,

Sir Robert’s works having been unable to meet the
demand. The reason for the scarcity was stated by

Sir Robert to be:

‘because some malicious person had been enticing

away his workmen and causing other difficulties.’
17

Later in the year he again petitioned the Council,

saying that now he had taken a whole interest in the
glass patent, he had found so much corrupt practice

that he had been forced to expend a great deal of

money in order to remain in business. He then went
on to request the support of the Council against

Isaac and those others who continued to make glass

in defiance of the patent. Presumably Isaac

ignored these warnings, for in July 1619 he

was arrested and ordered before the Council for
examination. The case was deferred until October

but meanwhile there were several more infringe-

ments and also complaints from some of the

London glaziers that Sir Robert’s glass was unfit

for use. Isaac now redoubled his efforts to over-

throw the monopoly. Sir Robert opened up other

works in different parts of the country and also
began to allow other factories to commence work

under licence. Within a short time of establishment,

however, up would spring the irrepressible Isaac

with fresh attempts to frustrate him. When Mansell

set up his first Newcastle works there were many
problems besides perfecting the coal-firing pro-

cess. One of the worst was the difficulty of obtain-

ing suitable refractory clay for the crucibles. At

first Mansell obtained it from the Stourbridge area

but soon found that antagonistic workmen there
corrupted it before shipment. The same thing hap-

pened when he imported further supplies from

Rouen, probably through the interference of other

Bungar family members there. He tried yet again,
this time by importing from Spa in Germany and by

further sabotage lost the entire shipload.
18
Event-

ually satisfactory clay was found in Northumberland

and this solved the matter.

There were also labour difficulties, and when

Mansell brought skilled workmen from the Weald

and the Stourbridge area, many of them turned out

to be members and descendants of the original
Lorraine and Norman families. They lost no time

in creating further havoc, some defected and some

engaged in sabotage such as cracking the crucibles

etc. At this time Mansell complained to the Council

that he had spent £24,000 and stood to lose it all if

matters could not be settled. He attested further

that Bungar had bribed the workmen and ‘showing

them a bag of money promised that they should not

want whilst it lasted’.
19
When the matter was later

investigated by one of the Glass Commissioners,

Sir George More, he agreed that ‘there were

devices to spoil the glass’.
20

In spite of all these setbacks, Mansell, to his

credit, persisted; and after Bungar’s licence to

work out his stock of materials had expired, all

wood-burning furnaces were suppressed and any
offenders prosecuted in the courts. Mansell then
went on to offer Bungar £200 per annum to manage

one of his factories,but this was refused and Bun-

gar stated openly that he still had £1, 000 left with

which to confound the patent! Shortly after this a
number of London glaziers petitioned the King about
the high price and poor quality of Mansell’s window

glass, and also complained of the unfair distribution

of the best lots by Mansell’s agents.
21

The defence

against these accusations was detailed, and to some
extent provided justification for the difficulties.

For example, one reason offered was the loss of

twenty skilled workmen due to an outbreak of the
Plague.

Further disputes arose and the Privy Council

became involved in further controversy. This
concerned the selling in London of drinking glasses
which Bungar and his friends had shipped from

other parts of the country and then sold at well

below the normal London price. The London glass-

makers, operating under an expensive licence from

Mansell, could no longer afford to compete and in

cutting their selling prices could not maintain

licence-fees to Manse11.
22

As a result of this dis-

pute and other arguments concerning importation

of glass from Scotland, the Privy Council set up a

new committee, ‘The Lords Commissioners for
Glass Works’, consisting of two Scottish and two

English Lords.

The new commission appointed the Glaziers’

Company to inspect and report on the condition of

the glass in the London warehouses. The resulting
report indicates that a mixture of qualities were

available although one minority account stated that
all the glass was unserviceable and bad. Mrs

Godfrey is of the opinion that this latter report

was probably written by Bungar or one of his
friends in a yet further attempt to upset Mansell’s

works.
23
After the completion of their examination

the Commission ordered that no more glass should

be imported, as they felt that the London market

was adequately supplied by the home-manufactured

product. Mansell had therefore won a further

round in his fight to establish and maintain his

monopoly.

On the 20th July 1620, Mansell was recalled to

the Navy to lead an expedition against the pirates

on the Barbary coast and when, in October, his fleet
set sail Isaac Bungar no doubt thought that the field
was clear for the overthrow of the monopoly. He
had not, however, bargained with the tough character

who had been left as administrator of the glass-
works, Sir Robert’s wife, Lady Mansell. Sir Robert

had scarcely departed for the sea when Bungar had

a violent quarrel with Lady Mansell and in
February, 1621, he was thrown into the Marshallsea

prison for uttering ‘disgraceful speeches’ against

Sir Robert.
24
Within a few days, however, Lady

Mansell appears to have forgiven him, for she

wrote to the Privy Council appealing for his re-

lease providing that he was prepared to give a

written undertaking that he would not disturb the
glassworks or contracts again. This the wily Isaac

refused to do lest it be ‘to his future incon-

venience.’
25

In spite of his recalcitrance he was soon re-

leased and decided to try other means. He went to
Scotland and persuaded the Scottish shippers to
double the price of coal and then to cut off the sup-

plies altogether for three weeks. Scottish coal
exclusively was used in the London crystal glass-

houses as it was very clean-burning in comparison

with that from other sources. Lady Mansell, not to

be thwarted, immediately embarked on attempts to

use Newcastle coal. The experiment was com-

pletely successful and, as Mrs Godfrey
26

puts it,

‘Bungar unwittingly brought about a reduction in

his adversary’s cost of production’.

A further attack on Mansell’s patent arose as a

result of the general review of patents carried out

by Parliament early in 1621. The King was already

under considerable pressure to abolish the more

notorious patents granted to his courtiers and in
due course the glass patent came up for review.

Both sides in the dispute had prepared their case

in advance when the committee for grievances met

on 30th April. About twenty charges against the
patent were brought by Bungar and his friends.
27

They included claims that:

1.
Making glass with coal was not a new invention

2.
There was an unwarranted increase in the

price

3.
Quality had deteriorated

4.
Numerous people had been imprisoned unjustly

and prevented from carrying on their lawful
occupation.

The defence counsel had been more than ade-

quately briefed by Lady Mansell and her case was
supported by affidavits from the Glaziers’ Company
regarding both quality and price. Claim and
counter claim went on for almost two weeks with

many witnesses contradicting each other. Bungar’s

supporters included no less a per
–

son than Inigo

Jones, the King’s Surveyor, who complained that the

King lost £150 to £200 a year through the supply of

bad quality glass for the King’s buildings. Such was
the level of prejudice against patents in general

that Bungar’s evidence was, in the end, given the

most credence and the patent was adjudged by the
committee to be a grievance. Before the Commons

could put pressure on the King to cancel this and

the other patents similarly judged, Parliament was

dissolved.

The King tried, however, to keep faith with the

Commons and in July abolished eighteen patents.
The glass patent was not included in the list. The

disappointment of Bungar and his allies was to be

further increased when the Privy Council made an
order
28

that the patent should remain in force until

Mansell’s return from the Naval expedition. Lady

Mansell had thus triumphed against all the odds and

managed to keep the business intact at least for the

time being. Even now Bungar was not defeated and

immediately petitioned the Council for permission
to make glass during the moratorium, but without

success. He was, however, able to import glass
from Scotland and lost no time in arranging for the

supply of considerable quantities. This continued
until October 1622, by which time Mansell had
returned and had petitioned the Council for settle-

ment of all the disputes. After review of all the

facts they decided on the issue of a new and re-
vised patent to Sir Robert and this was granted on

22nd May, 1623. This was done in spite of repeated

further petitions by Bungar to the Council. When,

in 1624,the ‘Statute of Monopolies; was passed by

Parliament and patents were made illegal, Sir

Robert’s Glass Patent was one of those specifically

excluded. He had achieved this by preparing a
lengthy printed document
29
defending his privilege.

This document used all the arguments set out by

Lady Mansell two years earlier, with the addition
of others, and it was circulated to Members of the

House of Commons in advance of the debate. One

of the main claims made was the great saving in

timber and wood-fuel that had been made by insist-

ing on the change to coal.

Isaac Bungar produced a printed reply
30
and

defended his position before both Houses of

Parliament. On the question of wood-fuel he

claimed that only light branches were used, from

pollarded trees, and that in any case the iron-

masters consumed far more wood than ever the
glassmakers had, and without interference! He also
claimed that the forest glassmakers and their

families were poverty-stricken as a result of the

patent and were forced to beg to keep from starva-

tion. This last claim was certainly untrue in his

own case, as was presumably evident to all those

with any knowledge of his affairs ! In the end his

case was defeated and Mansell had triumphed once

more. Although vanquished yet again Bungar made

one more attempt to upset the monopoly by bringing

a case against it in the common-law courts in

1626. Mansell, who must by now have been heartily

sick of his persistent adversary, petitioned the King

to stop the case.
31
The Privy Council supported

him yet again, stopped the trial and ordered Bongar

to refrain from any further interference with the
patent either inside or outside the courts, upon

‘paine of punishement’.

Thus finally ended the long feud, and at this point

Isaac seems to have returned to Sussex to live a

quieter life with his family. Between 1590 and 1615

his wife had presented him with ten children, seven

daughters and three sons. Two sons and three of

his daughters survived him although only his eldest

son, also called Isaac, had sons to carry on the

family name. In 1628 he was living in Pulborough,

where he paid a subsidy totalling twenty-seven
shillings in June and a further amount of twenty-

four shillings in October, an indication that he was
still a. man of considerable means. The next

evidence of his continued activities was again over

a legal matter. This time it was the Parish of

Billingshurst who were after his blood. The over-
seers took him to court over the maintenance of
one of his servants. The synopsis of the case is as

follows:
32

‘Whereas—Greenfield a poore inhabitant of the

parish of Billingshurst who for diverse years past

was and continued the servant of Isaac Bungard of
Pullborough, who being now become sick and

impotent is by the said Isaac Bungard unduly put

out of his service and by him left to the Parish of

Billingshurst aforesaid where he was born. It is

therefore ordered that the said Greenfield be sent

and returned again to Isaac Bungard by the
parishioners of Billingshurst and shall provide for

the said Greenfield as by law he ought.’

If this incident illustrates the worse side of

l3ungar’s character, at least there were others to

show the better side of his nature. In an interesting
case a few years earlier we find Isaac stoutly

defending the rights of a group of sawyers who

were being forced to work under conditions of vir-
tual slavery for two purveyors of timber employed

by the King. This particular case enumerated a
number of complaints including poor working con-

ditions in all types of weather, underpayment of

agreed wages and in some cases no payment at all.

The poor sawyers were also threatened with gaol

or ‘pressing’ into the King’s service if they dared to
complain. In spite of the purveyors’ influence the

Sussex Magistrates supported Isaac, and the

accused were found guilty and bound over to keep

the ,peace.
33
In 1642 Isaac was still involved in

business in London for, on 15th February, when the
returns required in the ‘Protestation Act’ were

signed in Pulborough, they were attested by his
sons, he being quoted in the record as being absent

in London.
3 4

This is the last mention of Isaac that has been

discovered. He died in Pulborough on 16th

September 1643. His will is located at Somerset
House and makes most interesting reading.
35
The

details concerned a number of bequests to his large

family and totalled £64.2s 6d. Considering that

several years earlier he had claimed to have over
£1, 000 capital with which to upset the monopolists,

this total is surprisingly low. The complete extent
of his wealth is not really known, however, since

the residue of his estates and his lands, of un-

disclosed value, were left to his wife Ann. Never-

theless it is evident that he was still a man of con-
siderable means, and other evidence suggests that

he numbered amongst his friends several members

of the county gentry.

Thus we come to the end of the story of the

glassmaking Bungars, and in particular the
‘Truculent Isaac Bongar’, who for thirty years had

been at the centre of controversy and argument, in
an industry that had changed from a forest craft to

one of the country’s more successful commercial

enterprises, located close to most of the major
population centres of the land. Earlier historians

have commented on Isaac in a number of ways but

mostly with a more than’ critical tone. For
example, Hartshorne
36
says that he was ‘assuredly

a vindictive untruthful and unscrupulous knave’.

C. H. Ashdown in his history of the Glaziers’ Com-

pany
37
was equally severe in his opinion. On the

other hand later authorities have taken a rather

kinder view and feel that his actions were only

those of any 17th century entrepreneur who was

trying to protect his craft and traditional skills.
There is little doubt that men like Sir Robert

Mansell used all and any means in their power,

including influence at Court, to thwart the struggles
of the forest glassmakers, when they recognised the
potential profit to be made. It is really to be

wondered at that the unequal struggle continued for

so long.

NOTES

1.
Le Vaillant de La Fieffe.
Les Verreries de la

Normandie; Les Gentilshommes et Artistes

Verriers Normands,
Rouen (1873). The variant

spellings ‘De Bongar’, ‘Bungar’, etc. showed a

tendency to develop towards the ‘Bungar(d)! ver-

sion at the end of the 16th century, and Isaac’s

name was normally spelled in this way.

2.
E. Graham Clark, ‘Glassmaking in Lorraine’,

Journal of the Society of Glass Technology,

15 (June, 1931).

3.
Slate Papers Domestic

15/13, No. 89, Summer

1567.

4.
Patent Rolls, 9 Elizabeth pt 11,8 September,

1567.

5.
Loseley
MSS.
18 August, 1569-More to the

Council (Guildford Muniment Room).

6.
State Papers Domestic

12/95, No. 82-Bishop of

Chichester to Privy Council.

7.
Loseley MSS., Vol. XII, No. 39, undated but

circa 1575 (Loseley House).

8.
Vaillant de La Fieffe, p. 14 (see note 1).

9.
Guildhall MS. 5758, No. 5 (This MS. is extremely

difficult to read and badly faded).

10.
E. S. Godfrey,
The Development of English

Glassmaking, 1560-1640,
Oxford (1975), p. 29

and n. 3. This most thorough and detailed study

of the period from 1560 to 1640 has greatly
clarified the enormous number of contemporary

sources dealing with the glass patents and

must be of the greatest interest to anyone
concerned with this particular branch of

economic history.

11.
Thin ,p.
34 and n. 3.

12.
West Sussex Record Office, Chichester Con-

sistory Court Diary, Vol. C, folio 22V.

13.
W. Notestein, F. H. Reif and H. Simpson,

Commons Debates 1621,
Yale University Press,

New Haven (1935), p. 547, App. B.
14.

Chancery Court Depositions, Bridges Division,

1620, Bungar v Martin (PRO).

15.
Acts of the Privy Council, Vol.X30M1,

21 December, 1614, f. 252.

16.
Ibid.,

Vol.. XXXIV, 3 April, 1616, f. 213.

17.
Ibid.,f.329.

18.
A.Hartshorne,
Old English Glasses,
London

and New York (1897), p. 196.

19.
State Papers Domestic

14/162, No. 231b.

20.
Commons Debates, 1621

(see note 13), Vol. III,

p. 256.

21.
State Papers Domestic
14/113, No. 48.

22.
The Development of English Glassmaking,

p. 96, n. 3, quoting Exch. Kings Roll Depositions
E134/22,Mansell v Clavell.

23.
Ibid.,
p. 99.

24.
Acts of the Privy Council, Vol. XXXVII, 342/3.

25.
State Papers Domestic,

26.
op.
cit.,
p. 105.

27.
Commons Debates, 1621

(see note 13), Vol. IV,

p. 353.

28.
Acts of the Privy Council, Vol. XXXVII, 400/1.

29.
Slate Papers Domestic
14/162,No.231b.

30.
Ibid.,No.

231a.

31.
Ibid., 16/521,

No. 148.

32.
Acts of the Privy Council, Vol.XLI, f.195b

33.
West Sussex Record Office, QRW 14-outer

membrane, Easter, 1625.

34.
Sussex Record Society, Vol. 5, pp. 141-5, West

Sussex Protestation Returns.

35.
The will of Isaac Bungard was found at

Somerset House in an unnumbered bundle
dated 1547, and is un-indexed. I am indebted

to the late F. W. Steer, of Sussex, for my copy

of this will (Wills before 1858 have now been
transferred to the Public Record Office,

Chancery Lane: Ed.)

36.
See note 18.

37.
C. H. Ashdown,
History of the Worshipful Com-

pany of Glaziers of the City of London,
London

(1919).

William de Bongar – Glassmaker of La Haye, Foret de Lyon

Pierre Bongar = Madelin de Cacqueray

d. circa 1595
I

m. 1556

David

John Bongar

James
bur. 6th Mar 1594

Wisborough Green
Mary = John Tizacke

b. circa 1563

m. 20th Feb 1584/5
Wisborough Green
Anthony

b. circa 1568

bur. 29th Nov 1589

All Hallowes London Wall.
Isaac Bungar(d) = Ann

bur. 16th Sep 1693

Pulborough

Susanne = Tobias Henesey
of North Chapel

b. circa 1590

m. 6th May 1610
Joan = Owen Humphrey

b. circa 1597
m.
4th May 1617

Wisborough Green
Anne

= John Bristowe

Deborah = ?

bapt. 28th Dec 1600

bapt. 27th Dec 1602

Wisborough Green

died before 1642
Elizabeth

bapt. 6th May 1609

Wisborough Green

Rachel Ben

bapt. 6th Feb 1615

bur. 23rd Feb 1615

Wisborough Green

Maud = ? Hine
Peter = ?

John Bungard = ?

bapt. 6th Apr 1606

bapt. 9th Jun 1614

Wisborough Green

Billingshurst

d.1680 at Pulborough

(Innkeeper)

Elizabeth

Marie

Elizabeth
Isaac Susanne = (i) 7

Mary = Thomas Boxall

Jane

(ii) Andrew Linster
Tanner

GENEALOGY OF THE GLASSMAKING BUNGARD FAMILY

Ale/Beer Glasses in the 19th

century

by P. C. TRUBRIDGE
A Paper read to the Circle on 19 April, 1977

The glasses used for drinking ale/beer from 1690
to 1830 have already formed the subject of two

papers read to the Circle’, and collectors will be

familiar with the forms taken by these glasses.

Prior to 1690 the drawings which formed a part

of the orders sent by John Greene of London to
Allesio Morelli of Venice from 1667 to 1673 shew

that several types of drinking glass were used for
‘beare’ and in some cases the same glass was

specified as suitable for ‘beare, sherry and french

wine’
2

The Glass Sellers Company of London in 1677

agreed prices for all the glassware produced by

Ravenscroft, and among the many items listed we

find separate glasses for use with Claret, Sack and
Beer. The beer glasses were the heaviest, which

suggests that they were by this time larger than

those used for wines, which agrees with what we

know of 18th century drinking glasses.

The year 1830 used to be considered the end of

the ‘antique’ period and as a result we find very

little research has been carried out on many of the

items produced during the remainder of the 19th

century. The recent increase in the number of

collectors has necessitated an interest being taken

in the 19th century, and this suggested to the writer

that research into the 19th century ale/beer
glasses, about which nothing had been written,

would bring his work on this special subject up to
date.
Collecting started about three years ago with

the assumption that information concerning such an

everyday item as a beer glass would be readily

available from the records of today’s glassmakers.

So far, however, all that has been found are some of

the design books of Richardson’s of Wordsley
(figs. 12-13)
3
and Thomas Webb’s (fig. 14)
4
.

These books are thought to cover the designs

used from about 1850 to 1870 and contain thousands
of sketches of all sorts of glassware together with

their prices and weights. Dates of manufacture were
not however mentioned. Only a few designs of ale/

beer glasses were found. Fortunately, however,

these fitted into the pattern that had emerged as a
result of collecting, and were therefore of assis-

tance in giving approximate dates to each type.

Before continuing the subject of beer glasses it

will be of assistance to be reminded about the
various types of malt drinks available during the

19th century, as this obviously has a bearing on the
capacities of the glasses.

Strong ale, so called in order to distinguish it

from the ordinary thirst-quenching ales and beers,

can be brewed with an alcohol content of nearly

12°4, which is equal to that of a heavy red wine,

and explains the reason for the small 3
1
/
2
to 5

fluid ounce glasses that have been used to drink it

since John Greene imported glasses from Venice

in the 17th century. The same capacity of glass

was also used in the 18th century, and it is interest-

ing to note that designs of Wrythen ales having the

same capacity were also found in the design books

of Richardson’s of Wordsley, from which we can

assume that strong ale was still being brewed

during the middle years of the 19th century.

Today brewers are still producing strong ales

that are sold under names like Barley Wine, Prize
Old Ale and Imperial Russian Stout, and these ex-

amples chosen from about a dozen of the types

available all have an alcohol content of between
9
0
/
0
and 10
1

/
2
%. They are supplied in Nip bottles

containing six fluid ounces and when ordered from

a Bar are still served in a medium-size wine
glass. Special 1977 Queen’s Jubilee Ales are now

being brewed, but it is doubtful if these will be as
strong as those mentioned.

Bottled beers and Porter were also available in

the 19th century—in fact Guinness claim that
Napoleon drank their bottled Porter when he was
on St. Helena
5

. Here the interest lies in the fact

that bottling probably increased the gas content
and caused frothing, which may have influenced the

shape of some of the 19th century beer glasses.
The descriptions ale and beer have long been

synonomous and generally refer to a thirst-

quenching malt beverage whose alcohol content
controlled both its selling price and the capacity of

glass or other container used to drink it.

19th century commemorative Rummers of a half-

and one-pint capacities, such as those engraved

with the Sunderland Bridge and many other designs,

frequently include a hops-and-barley motif suggest-

ing they were to be used for beer-drinking. These

glasses provide useful information regarding styles

at a particular date and examples can be found

illustrated in most books on drinking glasses.
They form a specialist collector’s subject as well

as being sought after by Museums.

Ordinary Rummers of a half and one Pint and

sometimes larger are well-known forms of early

19th century glass that make a convenient starting

point for collecting, and those engraved with a hops-

and-barley motif were obviously intended for

drinking ale/beer. Generally these glasses have

good-quality engraving, which suggests that they

might have been used at table for drinking mild

still ales.
19th century Tumblers with capacities from a

quarter to one Pint are also found engraved with
the hops-and-barley motif, and this range of sizes
suggests that they could have been used both for

strong ale and for ordinary mild ales both at table

and in taverns.
The description ‘U’ bowl ale is quite new but

seems an obvious choice in view of the shape of

these glasses. The early forms have an engraved
ale motif, identical in style to early 18th century
examples. These are followed by similar glasses

with moulded and cut decoration and each of the
early types appears to have been made available

in four capacities of about 5, 8, 10 and 12 fluid
ounces. After 1850 the `LP bowls become very

thick and heavy and are then only found in 10 and

12 ounce capacities.
Up to now all the 19th century beer glasses

had been produced by blowing. This method of

manufacture appears to cease around 1860, when
pressed ale/beer glasses also with ‘U’ bowls,

again only in 10 and 12 ounce capacities, are

introduced.
We therefore have three types of 19th century

ale/beer glass—namely, Rummers, Tumblers and

‘U’ bowls. Why these were all necessary is not

clear but rising living standards and increased

duty on alcohol would obviously have played an

important part in the changes in the drinks and

the glasses used to serve them.
So far we have only considered glasses pro-

duced by blowing and decorated by the use of
moulds, tutting or engraving. These were skilled

and time-consuming methods of production that

had already become too slow and expensive for the

expansion taking place early in the 19th century.
The answer to the increased production that was

required was found in pressed glass, which is

thought to have originated around 1820 in America,

where Bakewell of Pittsburgh and the New England

Glass Co. were pressing glass door knobs and
simple salts as early as 1826
6
.

In England Rice Harris of Birmingham started

pressing glassware in 1838 and they were soon

followed by Bacchus & Green and other glass-

makers.
The Encyclopaedia of the Great Exhibition of

1851 states that ‘many items of glassware were

now being produced by pressing glass into

moulds, faithfully copying the work of the skilled
glasscutter at a price that was within reach of the

public’.
A recent find of mine is a pressed glass

Tumbler with diamond-point engraving reading

‘—S.REDLER 1843—’. This appears to confirm the

date of 1840 suggested by Hugh Wakefield for the

first available English pressed Turnblers
7
.

Some items of Pressed glassware can be found

carrying makers’ Trade Marks
8

, and by 1839 the

Patent Office ‘Diamond shaped’ Registration Mark

was introduced, which enables the date of registra-
tion of the pattern to be determined. This continued

until 1884, when Registration numbers commencing

were introduced. Sometimes both the maker’s

Trade Mark and a Registration mark are found on

the same piece.
The one-pint cans
(fig.

11) both have geometric

designs similar to many illustrated in the design

sheets of Edward Moore & Co. Tyne Flint Glass-

works, Gateshead
9

. Neither of these cans has a

maker’s or Registration mark; c.1860/70.

NOTES

1.
See
The Glass Circle, VoIs. 1

and 2.

2.
British Library, Sloane MS 857.

3.
Richardson’s of Wordsley ceased production in the

mid-19th century. Design books can be seen at the

Dudley Museum
&
Art Gallery.

4.
Now Dema Glass Co., Stourbridge,

5.
Barry E.O. Meare,
Napoleon in exile.

6.
Lura Woodside Watkins,

American glass and

glassmaking,
London (1950), pp. 65 ff.

7.
H. Wakefield,
19th Century British Glass,
London

(1961), p. 56; also Sidney Crompton,
English Glass,

London (1967), p. 35.

8.
Known 19th century Trade Marks-

Sowerby’s Ellison.

Greener & Co.
George Davidson.

John Derbyshire.

9.
The V
&
A Museum, Dept. of Circulation has a

small collection of late 19th century designs of

Sowerby’s Ellison, Edward Moore and others

Figure 1. Three engraved Rummers. Two date from c. 1800/20 and are made

from good-quality 18th century type metal and have large ‘lemon squeezer’ feet.
The bucket-bowl capstan-stem Rummer of c. 1850 is made from heavy straw-
coloured metal and the engraving is stylised.

Figure 2. Three engraved Rummers. The centre glass is a lighter type from

c. 1850 and is engraved with an old-style hops-and-barley motif: similar glasses

can be found without engraving. The glasses to left and right are both from c. 1875/

90 and are given this date because they are made from a crystal-clear metal and

have elaborate hops-and-barley engraving.

Figure 3. Three engraved tumblers. The left-hand glass is made from the same

crystal-clear metal as the later Rummers and can therefore be assumed to be

from the same period (c. 1875/90). This glass in addition to an elaborate hops-and-

barley motif has an additional engraving of a man hanging from a gibbet cut into the

base, which suggests that it must have been known as a ‘last drop’ glass. The
centre tumbler has a moulded imitation of a star-cut base, and both this and the

small
1/4-pint
glass are engraved with old-style hops-and-barley motifs, c.1820/40.

Figure 4. Ale/beer glasses with ‘U’ bowls. Moulded arch and wrythen decoration

is combined with the old-style hops-and-barley engraved motif. Capstan stems,

heights 5
1
/
4
to 7
1

/
4
in. (13.3-18. 7 cm.); c. 1800/20. The wrythen example is probably

the last of the engraved glasses that have a thin bowl.

Figure 5. Ale/beer glasses with conical or funnel bowls, moulded arch decoration

and capstan stems. Heights 5
3
/
8
to 7
7

/
8
in. (13.6-20 cm.); c. 1820/30.

Figure 6. Ale glasses with ‘U’ bowls and moulded arch decoration. The knopped

stem has
been
introduced although one glass still has the earlier form of capstan

stem. Heights 5
1

/
4
to 7
3

/
8
in. (13.6-20 cm.); c. 1820/30.

Figure 7. Ale/beer glasses with ‘U’ bowls made from thicker metal and decorated

with cut thumbprints and moulded wrythen designs. Heavy knopped stems. Heights
6
3
/
8
to 7
3
/
8
in. (16.8-18.7 cm.); c. 1840/50. No small sizes of these classes have

been found so far. The use of heavier metal presumably follows the repeal of the
Glass Excise.

Figure 8. Ale/beer glasses with ‘U’ bowls made from very heavy thick metal and

decorated with cut thumbprints and cut flutes, very heavy knopped stems. Heights
7
1
/
8
to 8
1
/

8
in. (18.1-20.6 cm.); c.1850/60. Illustrations of these types were found in

the design-books of Thos. Webb & Co. (fig. 14). No small-capacity glasses found.

Figure 9. (a) The Wrythen short ale is similar to those produced in the 18th cen-

tury except that it has a thick foot and poor proportions, points which confirm this

glass
as a mid-19th century example. Similar types were found illustrated in the

design books of Richardson’s of Wordsley (fig. 12). Height 4
1

/
2
in. (11.5 cm).

(b)
The ‘tot’ glass, height 1
3

/
4
in. (4. 5 cm.) has very simple stylised hops-and-

barley engraving; in spite of this it is of 1976 manufacture. Funnel-bowl glasses
about 8 in. high with similar engraving have also been noted, so prospective

collectors should beware.
(c)
The deceptive glass, height 2
3

/
4
in. (7 cm.) with a capstan stem is the only glass

other than an ale so far found with this form of stem, so perhaps deceptive glasses

were also used for strong ale; c.1840/50.
(d)
The plain-bowl short ale, height 5
1

4 in. (13.5 cm.) with a lemon-squeezer foot,

is often referred to as a Georgian ale. The metal is of good quality; c.1800/20.

Figure 10. The two glasses to

left and right are typical ‘U’-

bowl pressed ale/beer glasses

with simulated thumbprint
designs and capstan stems.

Glasses similar to these can be

found illustrated by Sowerby’s
Ellison
9
and others; c.1860/90.

The centre glass is an example
of a ‘U’-bowl moulded ale/beer
glass with a diamond pattern and

capstan stem. The pontil mark

under the foot suggests that this

glass could have been made
earlier in the century. Heights
71/4 to 8 in. (18.4-20.3 cm.).

Figure 11. Pressed half- and

one-pint cans, as they were
called in the 19th century, are in

my opinion the most attractive

of all the pressed glasses.
The half-pint can has a granu-

lated background or ‘lacy’

design, as the Americans call it,

which gives the appearance of
ground glass. The decoration is

of flowers and barley, and the

base is stamped with a ‘lion
rampant in castle’, the trade-

mark of Davidson
&
Co.; c. 1880.

Figure 12. Three designs for ale-glasses from Richardson’s pattern-book. Ht. app. 6 in. (15.2 cm.);

c. 1840/50. Dudley Museum and Art Gallery.

Figure 13. Sketch for an ale-glass with eight flutes and

eight thumbprints, from Richardson’s Estimate book;

c. 1840/50. Dudley Museum and Art Gallery.
Figure 14. Design for an ale-glass with ten

flutes, No. 3652 in Thomas Webb and Sons’

pattern-book; c. 1850/60. Ht. app. 8 in.
(20.5 cm.). Dudley Museum and Art Gallery.

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