The Glass Circle Journal No.4

The Glass Circle

Edited by

R. J.
Charleston

Wendy Evans and

Ada Polak

Gresham Books

First published 1982.

ISBN 0 946095 02 7

The Glass Circle
President:

R. J. Charleston

Honorary Vice-Presidents:

Dr. Donald B. Harden, FSA
Paul Perrot

G. H. Tait

Committee:
Miss W. Evans

Dr. H. J. Kersley

Mrs. B. Morris

C. Truman

E. T. Udall

Dr. D. C. Watts

Cyril Weeden

Honorary Secretary:
Mrs. C. G. Benson

Honorary Treasurer:
P. H. Whatmoor, ACA,

43, Lancaster Road, London, W11 1QJ.

Copies of
The Glass Circle 4

may be obtained from the

publisher at a cost of £9. 50 (postage extra: weight packed

15 oz/400 grams). For
The Glass Circle 1-3,
see inside

back cover.

Published by Gresham Books and printed by Unwin Brothers

Limited, Old Woking, Surrey, GU22 9LH.

Contents

Page

Some English Glass-Engravers: late 18th-early 19th century
by R.J. Charleston

English Rock Crystal Glass, 1878-1925
by Ian Wolfenden

Reverse Painting on Glass
by Rudy Eswarin

The Manchester Glass Industry
by Roger Dods worth

The Ricketts Family and the Phoenix Glasshouse, Bristol
by Cyril Weeden

Illustrations
Pages

Figures 1-11 illustrating ‘Some English Glass-Engravers’

13-19

Figures 1-24 illustrating ‘English Rock Crystal Glass’

28-45

Figures 1-11 illustrating ‘Reverse Painting on Glass’

54-63

Figures 1-18 illustrating ‘The Manchester Glass Industry’

70-83

Figures 1-8 illustrating ‘The Ricketts Family’

95-101

Some English Glass-Engravers:

late 18th-early 19th century

by R. J. CHARLESTON

A Paper read to the Circle on 20 February, 1975.
It has often been rubbed into us, in the literature

of glass, that English engraving was never up to

much, and that in any case the first engravers in

this country were of German or Bohemian origin

(which is no doubt true). Perhaps for this reason

—a generally underdog sort of attitude to the
subject—little really seems to have been done to

identify the wheel-engraved work of the 18th and
early 19th century, an omission encouraged also

by the circumstance that English engraving of this
period seems on the whole to be in fact somewhat

stereotyped and unenterprising. Perhaps when
Dr. Seddon gives us his paper in May, we shall

begin to look at this question with new eyes.’
My task is in some ways simpler, since I pro-

pose to stick to engravers whose names are known

and sometimes also whose works are known

through signatures. I should also make it clear

that I shall be dealing only with wheel-engravers,
and not with practitioners of the diamond-point.
Although I do not propose to give a long his-

torical retrospect, it may perhaps be convenient at

the outset to clear up two points, the first technical,

the second historical. First, technique. Wheel-
engraving on glass, as its name implies, is

executed by means of a series of (usually copper)

wheels of varying diameter and thickness, on to
the edge of which an abrasive (usually, at the

period we are considering, emery-powder) is fed

in an oily medium. The depth of the cutting

governs the apparent relief of the modelling of the

subject engraved. These cuts with the harder
metal wheels can subsequently be polished with

wheels of progressively softer material (pewter,
lead, wood, cork, etc.) using abrasives of a dimini-

shing harshness (tripoli, putty-powder, etc.).

Second, history. Opinions have differed as to just

when wheel-engraving was introduced into this
country, and in the absence of any decisive evi-

dence, it is probably not very profitable to specu-

late upon the point. Suffice it to say that on 30

August, 1735, the following advertisement appeared
in the
Daily Journal:
‘The Glass Sellers Arms.

Where are to be had the best Double Flint Glass,
Diamond-Cut and Plain, with several curiosities

engraved on Glass . . .
t2
The wording of this last

phrase is a pretty good indication that the items

referred to were in the van of fashion. This ad-

vertisement was inserted by one Benjamin Payne,
who had already referred, in an earlier advertise-

ment dated 12 June to ‘the Arms of all the Royal
Family finely engraved on glasses’.
3
It might be

objected that the wording of these advertisements

is no absolute guarantee that this work was

executed in Benjamin Payne’s workshop, or even

in this country—let alone that Payne himself was

a glass-engraver; but there seems a strong possi-

bility that he was. Curiously enough, the year 1735

also brings us a notice of a man who most cer-
tainly was a glass-engraver—one Joseph Martin,

then referred to significantly as the only glass-
engraver in Ireland. His advertisement ran:

‘Whereas several gentlemen and ladies whose

curiosity led them to have their arms, crests,

words, letters or figures carved on their glass

ware, and as several have had cause to complain

of the extravagant prices, these are therefore to
advertise the public that Joseph Martin living in

Fleet Street, Dublin, opposite the Golden Ball, is

the only person that was employed by the managers

of the glass house in Fleet Street in carving the
said wares, and that there is no other person in

the kingdom that does profess to do the like work.
He therefore having broken off with the said
gentlemen does propose to deal more candidly

with those as are pleased to employ him by work-
ing at such moderate rates as none hereafter may

have reason to complain.’
4

A John Martin, a sub-

stantial London glass-grinder, is mentioned in the

British Mercury
for 24 February, 1714, and crops

up again in Probate Court of Canterbury
Invent-

ories
for 14 September, 1726, shown as a glass-

grinder of St. Martins in the Fieyo1s.
6

Joseph

Martin is very likely to have be6n related to this
man, and to have come from London, which was

unquestionably the seminal centre for develop-

ments in the glass-industry at this period.
Beginning in 1742 Jerome Johnson, of the Entire

Glass Shop, at the corner of St. Martin’s Lane,
issued a long series of advertisements listing

‘flowered glasses’, and implying that he was the

maker of the objects he listed.
6
That Johnson did

in fact execute, or have executed, in his workshop

the glasses that he lists seems evident from two
later advertisements which Francis Buckley found

but was not able to include in his
History of Old

English Glass.
The first occurred in the
London

Evening Post
for a number of issues in February

and March of 1751: ‘For Glass-engraving or

flowering, cutting, scalloping and finest polishing

upon Glass in general. At the Intire Glass Shop,
over against the New Exchange in the Strand . . . ‘

The second fell some five years later, in Novem-
ber, 1756: ‘Jerom Johnson, at the entire Glass

Shop . . . is determined to sell off all, and retire

into the Country, by Lady-Day next. The whole

Stock in Trade consists of various Cut-Glasses

and others; . . . Also working tools, Lapidary

Benches, Scalloper’s Mills, Glass Flowerers and

Engraving Tools (too Tedious to mention). All to

be sold cheap.’
7
Despite all these protestations, he

was still in business in 1760. One can only guess

whether Johnson himself had ever been an execu-
tant engraver, but if he had, it seems likely that he

must long since have relinquished that activity in

favour of organising an obviously large-scale

workshop. As was set forth in A
General Descrip-

tion of all Trades
(published in London in 1747):

‘Glass-Sellers. These are a set of Shop-keepers,

and some of them very large Dealers, whose only
Business is to sell all sorts of White Flint Glass,

who may very properly come under this Title;
though here and there one are Masters also of the

Art of
Scolloping glass,
which is now greatly in
vogue’. The firm of Maydwell and Windle’s, at the

King’s Arms in the Strand, which seems never to

have advertised, but which almost certainly was in

a big way of business, as may be seen from their

tradecard
8
, seems to reflect the same sort of situ-

ation. At the bottom of their trade-card is added

the sentence ‘Engraving on Glasses of every kind

in the Newest Taste at ye most Reasonable Rates’.

This, taken in conjunction with the scenes of cut-

ting illustrated at the bottom of their card, very
strongly suggests that the work was done on the

premises. In the same way, but at a later date,

W. G. Cave announced himself on his trade-card
as ‘Glass Cutter, Manufacturer of Cut Glass in all

its Branches . . . 157 Fenchurch Street, near Lime

Street, London. Glass Engraver, Chemical Stop-
perer . . . (fig. 1). As with Maydwell and Windle,

the card shows cutters (both overhand and under-
hand) at work, and we may reasonably surmise that

the engraving too was done on the premises. But

in neither case do we know who the engraver was.
What happened in London was echoed, after a

due lapse of time, in the provinces. In 1749, for
instance, Richard Matthews, whom those of you who

were present will remember from Miss Sheenah
Smith’s paper on the Norwich glass-sellers, ad-

vertised on the 29th July that at his new address
he continued to ‘sell all sorts of ground, Flowered

and wormed Glasses at the lowest Price, according

to their work . . . ‘
9
Matthews almost certainly got

his glasses ready-made from London, but another

retailer of London glasses in a provincial centre,
Phillip Elliott, of Clare Street, Bristol, when in

December, 1785, he advertised ‘an elegant assort-
ment of cut and plain glass’, added ‘N. B. Glass cut

and engraved to any pattern, as he keeps a glass
cutter and engraver’.
10
We do not know who this
man was, but the

Universal British Directory
of

1790 records a James Padmore, ‘Glass-engraver,

of 11 Somerset Square, Bristol’, and in the same
Directory
John Percival, described as a ‘Glass-

man’ lived at the same address (12, Union Street)

as Messrs. Parr and Wright ‘engravers’, who

might of course have been ordinary copper-plate
engravers, but whose sharing the same address

with a glassman suggests that they may in fact
have been glass-engravers. No work attributable

to any of these men is recorded, so far as I know.

W. Matthews, in his
New History, Survey and

Description of the City . . . of Bristol . . .,
pub-

lished in 1794, lists, apart from the men already

recorded:

William Clark Glass-cutter and Engraver,
Temple Street.

Jacob Samuel, Glass engraver, Temple Street.

Joseph Smith, Glass engraver, Cathay.

One has the impression that by this date—the

80s and 90s of the 18th century—the glass-engraver

was beginning to emerge as an artistic personality
in his own right, whereas in the middle and third

quarter of the century he was just one craftsman

among others in a workshop. Bernard Hughes in
his
English, Scottish and Irish Table Glass
quotes

an advertisement from the
Weekly Mercury
in

July, 1771 for a ‘glasscutter and flowerer’, who

would no doubt have carried his skill into the
atelier of his new master.
11

Such a man would

have submerged his personality in anonymity,

whereas when we approach the end of the 18th
century, we begin to get glasses signed by the

artists who executed them.

The first of our identifiable signing engravers

is a man named John Unsworth. Wigan Corpora-

tion is the appropriate owner of a tumbler (which

was shown in the 1968 Exhibition of English Glass

held in the Victoria and Albert Museum, No. 256)
cut round the base with flutes and inscribed:

‘PROSPERATION (sic) TO THE CORPORATION’,

and on the reverse: ‘A GIFT TO THE WORTHY

CORPORATION OF WIGAN FROM JOHN
UNSWORTH, CUT AND ENGRAV’D GLASS

MANUFACTURER TO HIS MAJESTY AND HIS

ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE OF WALES,

MANCHESTER’. (fig. 2). It stands some 4
1
/

inches high. We know that John Unsworth was

elected a Burgess of Wigan on 4 October, 1800, so

this is no doubt the date to be put on this glass,

which, after being missing from the Corporation’s

collection of plate and other treasures, was re-

stored to it by purchase in 1939. As luck would

have it, I came across Unsworth’s trade-card in

the Banks Collection in the British Museum (fig. 3).

Somebody has written in ink at top and bottom the

date 1792, which seems reasonable enough, although

no warrant is given for it.

Nothing else seems to be known about this man.

It is worth recalling, however, that on 22 December,

1795,
The Manchester Mercury

carried an advert-

isement by Atherton and Whalley, ‘Cut and En-

graved Glass Manufacturers . . . have opened a
shop at 3 Market Street-lane, and laid in a large

and elegant assortment of ornamental and plain
goods. N.B. Glasses of all sorts cut to any
pattern.’
12

Clearly therefore cutting was done on

the premises, and the title ‘Cut and Engraved

Glass Manufacturers’ at this date seems to imply

that the firm did its own work, despite the flavour

of shop-keeping conveyed by the wording of the

advertisement. It would be worth bearing in mind
that Unsworth might have worked for this firm as

well as on his own account. The Athertons were a
Liverpool glass -making family. 13

In Liverpool itself we find one Thomas Billinge,

described as ‘glass-flowerer’, recorded in

Directories
between 1767 and 1800.”
Gore’s

Directory
for 1773 records one Thomas Skidmore

at Hanover Street; and this man is shown in 1803

as ‘glass engraver’,
15
so it may reasonably be

assumed that for thirty years he followed the
calling of glass -engraver, without leaving a single
identifiable glass behind him.
Gore’s General

Advertiser
for 11 September, 1800, carries an

advertisement: ‘James Holt, Glass Cutter and
Engraver No. 51 Lord St., Respectfully informs the

Nobility Gentry and public in general, in the town

and neighbourhood of Liverpool, he has opened the

above shop, where he purposes selling all sorts of

Plain, Cut,
and
Engraved Glass,
on the lowest

terms. N.B.
Arms, Crests,
and
Cyphers
are ably

engraved on the shortest notice. Orders for ex-
portation thankfully received and duly executed.’

A firm by the name of Thomas Holt
&
Co., Glass

Manufactory, of Hanover Street, flourished between
1781 and 1790, but there is no evidence to suggest

whether these two concerns were in any way

connected.
16

A third Liverpool engraver was John Pattison,

who is shown in
Gore’s Directory

of 1810 as being

established at I, Tristram Court.
17

From the north-west we may now perhaps turn

our eyes towards the north-east, where a few
glasses as well as a few names may be found.

Francis Buckley in
A History of Old English

Glass
18

quotes Boyle’s
Vestiges of Old Newcastle

(1890) in recording: ‘Mr. Charles W. Henzell of

Tynemouth possesses a magnificent glass bowl,
questionless of Tyneside manufacture, on which
these (the Henzell) arms are engraved with the

name and date, ‘John Henzell, 1756″. The bowl

itself seems to have disappeared, but a decanter

with three-ringed neck, engraved with a bird and
the rose, thistle and shamrock symbolic of the

Union of the three Kingdoms with Ireland (after

1801), bears also the name ‘Tyzack’ engraved on

it. This name, and the fact that the decanter is in

the Laing Art Gallery at Newcastle, strongly

suggest that it was made and engraved on Tyne-

side. The same is true of a probably somewhat
earlier tankard (fig. 4), acquired for the Victoria

and Albert Museum in 1958 together with a silver

medallion inscribed: ‘Samuel the Second Borne

Sonn of John and Sarah Tizacke Was borne att the
Glass House New Castle ye 27 of September Anno
Domini 1677.’ The tankard itself is engraved with

hops and barley and the inscription: ‘G.Tyzack,

Glass Maker’. Unfortunately, it has not so far been
possible to identify this member of the Tyzack

family, but the association of the tankard with the

silver medallion makes it most likely that it too

was produced and engraved on Tyneside. These

two glasses are alas! anonymous, but the names of

some contemporary Newcastle engravers are

known. Francis Buckley records from the

Newcastle Directories:
19

Thomas Alexander
1778-95

Isaac Levy
1778

Robert Hudson
1787

E. Jackson
1795

Thomas Alexander is first mentioned in J.R.

Boyle,
The First Newcastle Directory, 1778

(1889)

under the heading ‘Glass Grinders and Flowerers’,

as being ‘near Close Gate’, the area in which most
of the flint glasshouses found themselves. In

W. Whitehead’s
Account of Newcastle upon Tyne,

published in 1787, he is shown as ‘glass-cutter and

engraver, west-end of the Close’, so he really was

an engraver. In the same author’s
Newcastle and

Gateshead Directory for 1790
he is shown simply

as ‘glass-engraver, &c., without Close Gate’; and

in Hilton’s 1795
Directory
as ‘glass-engraver,

without Close Gate’. He therefore had a career of
more than twenty years as an engraver in New-

castle,but nothing can be attributed to him. The

Isaac Levi of the 1778
Directory,
however,does

not appear again in the
later•Directories,

and was

perhaps a rolling stone like his namesake Henry

Levy, recorded in the
London Gazette

for 15 Sep-

tember,I772, as ‘Fugitive debtor . . . Henry Levy,

formerly of Stourbridge, late of Shoemaker Row,
London, glass-flowerer’.
20
A Mordecai Levi

‘Glass Engraver and China Mender’, is recorded

at the China Jar, near Exeter Change, the Strand,

in 1765,

21
so glass-engraving seems to have run

in this family. We know nothing of the work of any

of these Levys.
With Robert Hudson, the third on Buckley’s list,

we get on to firmer ground. He is mentioned in

Whitehead’s
Account of Newcastle . . .
in 1787 as

‘glass cutter and engraver, Closegate’; and in the

1795
Newcastle and Gateshead Directory

as ‘glass

cutter, Close’. He was still going strong in 1803,

for in May of that year he rendered an account to

the Assembly Rooms for ‘Repairing one Jerren-
dole’, the bill having a printed head ‘Bought of

Robert Hudson Glass-cutter and Engraver’, thus

confirming that he had in fact been an engraver

throughout the period.
22

W. A. Thorpe, in ‘Some

Types of Newcastle Glass’,
(Antiques,

June, 1933,

p. 208), writes: ‘The name of R. Hudson (Robert

Hudson) occurs in Newcastle Directories for 1787

as a cutter and engraver of glass. There is reason

to believe that Thomas Hudson, who was probably
his son, occupied a glasshouse on a site near the

Close, later in the hands of Sowerby’s, and that he

was a manufacturer as well as an engraver of

glass. A record exists of a christening glass
dated 1787 which was made and engraved by

Thomas Hudson. Another glass engraved by him

carried a view of St. Andrew’s Church, Newcastle,

with his own name and that of his wife Margaret.
Made to commemorate his second marriage, it is

dated 1808 . . . ‘ Unfortunately, it has not been
possible to trace either of these glasses, and one

may feel a little sceptical of a glass engraved by

Thomas Hudson as early as 1787, when his father

was still living in 1803, and he himself was not

mentioned in the
1787

Directory.
Thomas Hudson

was still active in 1836, when he is recorded as
‘glass-cutter’ in the
Newcastle Directory,

occupy-

ing premises in Nun’s Lane and at 13 Woodbine-

Terrace, Gateshead. He does not appear in
Pigol’s

Directory
of 1837, however, so he may have died

or given up work in the meantime; although

absence from a Directory is by no means decisive

evidence. For Thomas Hudson, however, it is at
last possible to produce a glass—a rummer en-

graved with Neptune driving his car, signed
‘T.

Hudson eng.Newcastle,No.9’—probably familiar to
many either from Mr. Thorpe’s article, or from

Mr. Wakefield’s
19th Century British Glass.

The former draws analogies with the glasses

engraved to commemorate Nelson’s death in 1805;

the latter prefers a date about 1840. The glass

was shown in the 1968 Exhibition
(Catalogue

No.

265).
Of the E. Jackson recorded in the 1795
New-

castle and Gateshead Directory
as ‘glass-cutter

and engraver, Quayside’ nothing more seems to be
known. There was, however, a Thomas Jackson in

the glass business, a ‘Turner and Glass-cutter’ in
Mutton Lane, Clerkenwell, in 1785
24
: and it is no

doubt to this concern that Mr. Blakeway, of ‘Blake-

way and Hodsdon, Cut and Plain Glass Manufactory
. . . No. 71, Strand . . . ‘ referred when he called

himself ‘Blakeway from Jacksons Manufactory,

Clerkenwell’.
25

Glass-cutting may have run in the

Jackson family.
A somewhat later Newcastle engraver was John

Williams, who is referred to in the 1824
Directory

as ‘Glass engraver, Middle Street’. In the 1838 and
1839
Directories
he is described as ‘Glass

engraver and dealer in glass, 18 Pilgrim Street’,

and in 1847 as ‘John Williams, Engraver, 18 Pil-
grim Street’. From his hand we have at least one

piece, a jug in the Nelson Museum, Monmouth (fig.
5), shown in the 1968 Exhibition as No. 264. It is

decorated with vertical flutes round the base, and

is engraved with figures of Tame’, ‘Britannia’,

etc., symbolizing Lord Nelson’s victories at sea.

It is signed on the base in diamond-point ‘John

Williams Engraver, Newcastle’ (fig. 6). The shape

of the jug would suggest that it was made perhaps
towards the beginning of his recorded career

rather than at the end of it, although the Nelson
cult was going strong about the middle of the 19th

century.
Glasses which enjoyed a singular popularity on

Tyneside and probably also elsewhere, were the

rummers engraved with a view of the Sunderland

Bridge, opened in 1796, but commemorated there-

after for fifty years or more. So far as I know,

none of these is actually signed, but it seems
likely that some at least of them were engraved by

members of the Haddock family at Sunderland –

Thomas, who was born in 1797 and died in 1866,

and Robert, who is apparently recorded in the

Sunderland
Directory
for 1834, and went on until

about 1860.
26
It was no doubt a collateral who is

mentioned in the
Cork Evening Post
of 17 January,

1793—one Marsden Haddock, of Cork, who ‘supplies

Cork and Waterford glass, does the cutting himself,
and also employes (sic) a cutter from England.’
27

Before moving south from Tyneside, I should

refer to one engraver whose name is recorded and

who may have worked in that region. In the Art

Treasures Exhibition held in 1932 Messrs. Cecil

Davis showed a table-service from Lambton Castle
decorated with heavy cutting and engraved with the

arms of the Earl of Durham. One fingerbowl from
this service was stated to bear the signature

‘Greener sculp.’
28
A Robert Greener is recorded

as an engraver at Sunderland in the second quarter
of the 19th century.
29

It is worth bearing in mind

that in the Newcastle Procession of Glassmakers

in 1823, one of the items carried by the glassmen

of the Wear (from Messrs. White and Young) was

‘A Prince of Wales’ decanter, with four wines, and

engraved with the arms of J. G. Lambton, esq.’
3

Lambton was the family name of the Earls of

Durham.
One last glass should be mentioned in this

context—a rummer once in the possession of Mr.

Howard Phillips, engraved with a view of Newcastle

Bridge, and signed ‘R. YOUNG’. I have not been

able to find any trace of this man, but the subject

of the glass suggests Tyneside and a date in or
slightly after 1835.

Let us now turn south, merely noticing as we go

that
Etheringlon’s York Chronicle
for 22 July, 1774,

carries an advertisement: ‘Thomas Surr, shopman

to the late Mr. Marfitt, Glass Seller, has purchased
his late master’s stock in trade, consisting of a
large and elegant assortment of Cut, Flowered and

Plain Glass, and purposes carrying on the business

in all its branches in the same shop. The same

hands are engaged for cutting and engraving.’

From March 1775 until July, 1778, Surr advertised

in the same journal ‘the best manufactured cut

engraved and plain glass of the newest and most

fashionable patterns. Gentlemen may have glass
cut or engraved to any pattern as well as in

London, upon very short notice’,
31
an indication

that the work was still being done on the premises.
One of the first indications of engraving at

Stourbridge comes to us, perhaps significantly,

from the north. The
Newcastle Chronicle

for 30

December, 1769, records: ‘Samuel Richards,
apprentice to Pidcock, Ensell and Bradley, to the

glass-engraving business, near Stourbridge,

absconded his masters’ service’. I have already
mentioned Henry Levy, the fugitive debtor formerly

of Stourbridge, who was a ‘glass-flowerer’, and a

curiously parallel case is that of Samuel Benedict

in 1767, an ‘engraver of glass’ who, being bankrupt,

went off to London. He is presumably the same S.

Benedict recorded in the
Manchester Mercury

for

1 November, 1785, as having ‘arrived from London

at Manchester with a large quantity of all kinds of

cut glass in the present fashion . . .
‘

32
For every

glass-engraver who ran away, there were presum-

ably several who stayed put. One of these was

Thomas Dudley, recorded as an engraver in Dudley

in the 1790
Directory.

33
As far as I know, no single

18th century wheel-engraved glass can confidently
be attributed to the Stourbridge district. When we

come to the 19th century, however, the picture

brightens. Shortly before our preparations began

for the 1968 Exhibition, a large rummer was
brought to the Museum by a Mr.A.R.Fenn-Wiggin.

It was engraved with a coach and four, inscribed on
the door: ‘London and Aylesbury’, and on the

reverse with the initials J. J.W. within a wreath.

It was signed ‘W. Herbert Eng. Dudley’. Although

not dated, its date was suggested by the fact that

the coach-owner’s name (‘Hearm’ for ‘Joseph
Hearn’) was inscribed on the coach-door, and this
man is recorded as running waggons and coaches

between London and Aylesbury in 1830 and 1837.
The driver of the coach was a certain James Wyatt,

whose initials are presumably those on the bow1.
34

William Herbert had already been brought into the

literature by Mr. Wakefield in his
19th Century

British Glass,
35

as working for the Dudley firm of

Thomas Hawkes, a connection which was confirmed

by the form of the signature on this glass. In 1835

the firm was stated to have produced an important

presentation ‘plateau’ both engraved and etched by

William Herbert. No trace of this presumably

ambitious piece apparently survives. Herbert’s
oeuvre
has, however, recently been greatly ex-

tended by a number of pieces which came to light
in an auction in the West Country and found their

way to London. A claret-jug at present on loan to

the Victoria and Albert Museum is both embel-
lished with cutting of high quality, and engraved

with another coaching-scene, the coach this time
being inscribed ‘The Road’, ‘The Wonder,

Birmingham-Stourbridge-London’ and the signa-
ture ‘W. Herbert’ 1883′ (fig. 7). Two virtually

identical claret-jugs remain in private hands, the

first also with a coaching-scene, signed ‘W.

Herbert’ and dated 1828. In case it should be
thought that Herbert could engrave nothing but

coaches, the second of these decanters is decora-

ted with a hunting-scene, inscribed ‘The Field’ in

exactly the same way as the jug with ‘The Road’,

although it is not signed.

In nearby Birmingham, the firm of T.Illidge and

Son advertised in
Wrightson’s Triennial Directory

of Birmingham
(1818) that they had set up in

business in Cherry Street, coming from West

Smithfield, London. Illidge referred to himself

primarily as ‘Glass Engraver’, and his advertise-

ment makes clear that the work was done on the
premises (fig. 8).
Illidge came from London, and in the capital

there must have been great numbers of glass-
engravers at work, their identity concealed be-

neath the names of the larger
entrepreneurs

for

whom, or in whose workshops, they worked. We
have already noted the cases of Benjamin Payne,

Jerome Johnson, Maydwell and Windle, Mordecai

Levy and S. Benedict. In 1773 a Philadelphia news-

paper recorded ‘Lazarus Isaac, Glass Cutter and

Engraver on Glass . . . being just arrived from
London’, who went to work for Stiegel only a month

after arriving in Philadelphia.

36
Later on in

London there were W. G. Cave and T. Illidge, both

already referred to. The following are recorded
in the
Universal Directory

of 1790:

George Armstead, glass-engraver and cutter,
New Street Square.

James Byrne, glass-engraver, 79 Little Britain.

Thomas Frankland, glass-cutter and engraver,

59 Redcross Street, Cripplegate.

No glasses can be connected with these three
craftsmen.

A certain Samuel Collings is listed in this

Directory
as ‘Lapidary and glass-cutter’, of Earl

Street, Seven Dials, and this combination of crafts

strongly suggests that he may have been a

glass-engraver too. In the Victoria and Albert

Museum is a rummer with lemon-squeezer foot,

engraved with a formal border and the initials EM;

below the initials is the diamond-point signature

‘Collins Engraver’. This signature has always

hitherto been associated with the name of William

Collins, a well-known glass-maker at 227 The
Strand, at one time a member of the partnership of
Perry and Collins at that address. This man is
recorded as a stained glass artist, a likelihood

borne out by his trade-card in the Banks Collec-

tion in the British Museum, running: ‘Gallery of

Stain’d and Painted Glass. Wm. Collins Glass

Manufacturer to Her Majesty and the Royal

Family . . . Extensive variety of Lustres and

Grecian Lamps and Cut Glass of every description

. . . ‘ This is dated in ink ‘1815’. There is nothing

in all this to make one suppose that this illustrious

entrepreneur
would engrave with his own hands a

simple glass and sign it as ‘engraver’. Perhaps

the artist was indeed Samuel Collings, the mistake

in a name in the 1790
Directory
being a common-

place occurrence for that compilation.

The second identifiable London engraver whom

I have been able to trace was brought to my notice

by a jug then in the possession of Cecil Davis

(fig. 9). It bore on the front the arms of the City of
London, and was accompanied by a hand-written

card signed by a certain John Pye, to the effect

that the jug had been engraved by his ancestor,

another John Pye, for the Lord Mayor’s Banquet of
Alderman Bull, who was inducted into the Mayoral-

ty in 1773. This date did not seem to agree with

the probable date of the jug on stylistic grounds.
I was finally able through the Free Masons’ Hall

to get in touch with living members of the Pye

family. The Family Bible, in the possession of
Miss E. D. Pye, of Ipswich, contains the following

entry: ‘John Pye, Glass Engraver, London born

March 20th 1822 as son of John Pye, Glass
Engraver, Freeman of (the) City of London . . .

and a number of glasses remain in the hands of

this lady.
37

Unfortunately, as their style pro-

claims, these must have been the work of John Pye,
junior. Fortunately, Robson’s
Directory
of London,

published in 1833, contains the first traced entry

for a John Pye, glass engraver, he being then resi-
dent at 11 Redlion Court, Fleet Street.
38
An earlier

reference, however
,

is contained in a hand-written

Memoir
of a certain George Perry, who was part-

ner in the famous London firm of Perry and
Parker, under the date 1819: ‘Went with Richard
(Perry) and Pye to Snaresbrook Aug
t 29th,39 It

seems evident that at this date the elder John Pye

was employed by this firm. The business was
mainly concerned with the manufacture of glass

chandeliers and lighting-fittings; and, like T.

Midge, Pye no doubt engraved the borders on the
candle-shades which normally formed part of the

chandeliers made at this period. When the firm of
Perry and Parker supplied chandeliers to Gold-
smith’s Hall in 1835, the estimates included a

memorandum: ‘Engraving the Glass Shades with

Vine Border 2s. 9d. each shade extra’.
40
So far,

however, only one other glass by John Pye has been

traced — a mirror engraved with the representa-

tion of a sailing ship, signed ‘J. Pye’ , in the posses-

sion of our member ,Dr.Richard Emanuel.
A large rummer in the possession of a former

Circle member, Lady Black, is engraved with an

emblem of the Glass Makers’ Friendly Society,

and is signed ‘Eng. by A. Conne’.
41
This man is

probably to be identified with the Augustin Conne

who showed engraved glass in the Great Exhibition
of 1851.
42
He is first mentioned in a Directory for

1852, his name continuing until 1859. He was pre-

sumably the son of Nicholas Conne, glass engraver,

first mentioned in
Pigot’s Directory
for 1823-4 as

‘Nichs. Come’
(sic)

and continuing until 1854, after

which his name disappears. In 1856 ‘Conne

Goodwin’, ‘designers in glass & manufacturers,
engravers & cutters to the trade’ are mentioned at

the same address as Nicholas Conners and contin-
ued there until 1868. After 1859 the Conne of this

partnership was probably Mrs. Emily Conne, also

described as ‘engraver on glass’ and first men-

tioned in 1860. She was presumably Augustin’s

widow.
43

In 1784 (10 July) the
Norwich Mercury
carried

an advertisement: ‘Yarmouth. Glass, China and
Earthenwares. William Absolon, Junior (who last

Year took the Stock in Trade of Mrs. E. Clabon, on
her retiring from Business) . . . [He] has lately
laid in a fresh assortment from the best Manu-

factories . . . and a Number of other Articles

which he is enabled to sell on the cheapest Terms,

at his Shop, the lower end of the Market Row . . . ‘

In May, 1785, he had a trade-card engraved, by

which time he was established at 4, Market Row:
this advertised among other things: ‘a great

Variety of cut and plain GLASS and EARTHEN-

WARES of all Kinds, from the best Manufactories
in the Kingdom.’ In fact, Absolon derived his stocks

of both ceramics and glass from a number of
sources, of which the most important was almost

certainly London. His painted and gilt glasses are

frequently identifiable by the fact that they are

signed. With engraved glasses the situation is
obviously more difficult, since they are not signed.

Absolon’s later trade-card, showing him as dealing

from 25, Market Row, adds: ‘Where he has a Manu-

factory for Enamelling & Gilding his Goods, with
Coats of Arms . . . (etc.) N.B. Glass Cut or En-
graved to pattern on Short Notice.’ From this it

has been concluded that the engraving was done on

the premises, but the wording of the card perhaps

rather suggests that there was a distinction be-

tween the enamelling and gilding, done on the pre-

mises, and the engraving done at short notice. Be

that as it may, there are a number of glasses

which by their Yarmouth and generally East
Anglian subject-matter, and their affinities of

shape and style, clearly indicate that they eman-

ated from Absolon’s shop. There is no evidence

that he himself was an engraver, but we may

safely refer to this craftsman as the ‘Absolon

engraver’.
44

POSTSCRIPT
Since this paper was compiled, a number of

further pieces of information have come to notice.
Some of them have already been set out in the

foot-notes to this paper (n. 21, Arthur Jacob; n. 26,
R. Pyle; n. 29, Thomas Bulmer).
Our member Mrs. Arlene Palmer Schwind has

kindly drawn to my attention three further British
engravers who migrated to America—John Moss

(in Philadelphia, 1796-1800) and Moses Moss

(1797); and James Hay (1774-1826) from Scotland,

who sojourned at Chelmsford, Mass., 1810-26.
An important reference, culled from the list of

Employers in the Register of Apprentices in the
Public Record Office, was kindly brought to my

notice by Mr. Eric Benton: ‘1766 Joseph Koonert,

Glass Engraver, St. Mary le Strand.’ Koonert was

evidently a member of the important Thuringian

glass-making family of Kiihnert. A Joseph

Kiihnert is recorded as a master glassmaker at

Henriettenthal (Sachsen-Saalfeld) in 1834, so the

Christian name Joseph may have run in this
family.

He may well have been practising his

craft for many years previous to 1766.
H. Clifford Smith,
Buckingham Palace,
London

(1931),p. 137, records that a glass-cutter or

-engraver named Wainwright executed the sky-

lights in the Guard Chamber of Buckingham
Palace, apparently in or before 1831 (information

kindly supplied by Mr. John Harris).
46
This

simple decoration (fig.10) appears to be executed

by ‘intaglio engraving’.

The account-books of the London firm of silver-

smiths Parker and Wakelin (in the Victoria and

Albert Museum Library) record a long account

with the London glass-making enterprise of
Blakeway and Hodsdon, whose trade-card (in the
British Museum) shows them at No. 71, The

Strand, apparently in 1797: the partnership seems
to have been dissolved in the following year

(London Gazette,
15 December, 1798, reference

found by F. Buckley). On 1 November ,1798, how-

ever, they charged Parker
&
Wakelin 1/4d. ‘By

Engraving 4 Liquor Bottles’; so they too must

have had an engraver on their staff.

An otherwise undocumented engraver named

Coles decorated a small oval plaque shown to the

Victoria and Albert Museum some years ago (fig.

11). Its somewhat unskilful decoration probably

dates from the years about 1800. It is perhaps

worth mentioning that in 1780 James Cole
(sic)

‘Decorator’, showed at the Society of Arts a ‘Speci-

men of a new invented, painted and set christalline

ornament for Coach Pannels, Tablets, etc.’
4 7

As might be expected, evidence has come to

light that Jonathan Collet, Thomas Betts’s succes-

sor at The King’s Arms, Charing Cross, employed

an engraver on his staff, even if he was not an en-
graver himself. A bill in the Henry Francis Dupont

Winterthur Museum dated 2 July, 1781, and ren-

dered to the Revd. Thomas Moore, includes ‘2
Burgundy Decanters neatly cut and engraved

22.2.0’. This evidence confirms the interpretation

of a second bill, in the Victoria and Albert Museum

Library. Dated 3 July, 1786, and rendered to ‘Mr.

Morris, Dover Street’ it includes ‘Christed (i.e.
presumably crested) Champagnes to Patti? E6 (?)’

The Winterthur Museum also possesses a bill

dated 9 May,1788, rendered to ‘Mr.Michie’ by
‘Standfield & Smith’. On the printed bill-head the

‘& Smith’ have been scratched out by pen. This

conforms with the known history of the firm, for

The World
of 6 May, 1788, records that John Smith

was leaving the partnership ‘Standfield
&
Smith’.

The bill includes the item: ’12 Best Wines with

End Bord(ers) 7s.’
A renewed perusal of Messrs. Churchill’s

History in Glass
(London (1937), p. 38, No. 172)

turned up a tumbler engraved with a coat of arms

and inscribed: Prosperity to the House of Down-
ing.’ A further inscription records that ‘the glass

was made by Mr. John Parrish of Wordsley near

Stourbridge, to commemorate the coming-of-age of

David Pennant, Esq.: the names of the donors are
given and the date 1817’. D.R.Guttery
48
records

Wordsley glass-cutters named James and Thomas
Parrish,who were bankrupt by 1803. It seems

most likely that the glass was engraved in the

workshop of John Parrish,whether by himself or

an engraver employed by him.
Finally, a John France ‘glass engraver’ is

listed at 1 King Street,Snowhill,in the London

Directory
of 1799.

NOTES
1.
This paper was read on 20 February, 1975. Dr.

Seddon’s paper, entitled ‘The Jacobite Glass

Engravers’ and read on 13 May, 1975, was printed

in
The Glass Circle,

No. 3 (1979), pp. 40-78.

2.
F. Buckley,
A History of Old English Glass,

London

(1925), p. 120, No. 8(b) (Abbreviation:
OEG).

3.
Ibid.,No.
8(a) and foot-note. •

4.
M. S. Dudley Westropp,
Irish Glass,
London (n.d.,

1920), p. 49, quoting the
Dublin Evening Post
of

February, 1735.

5.
P. C. C. Inventories List Probate 3, in P.R. O.

1718-82 (1726, Part
II 25/157.
14 September ‘John

Martin St. Martin’s in the Fields.
Glass Grinder’

(reference kindly supplied by Miss Nathalie

Rothstein). Martin is mentioned in the
Evening

Post
for 12 February, 1713, and insured his goods

with the Sun Fire Insurance Office
(British

Mercury,
24 February, 1714). Both these refer-

ences are from F. Buckley’s unpublished list of

London glassmen (Guildhall Library).

6.
For Johnson, see
F.

Buckley,
OEG,
pp. 120-1; W. A.

Thorpe, A
History of English and Irish Glass,

London (1929), pp. 239,241,246-8,313,323

(Abbreviation:
History); id., English Glass,
London

(3rd ed. 1961), pp. 201,216-20.

7.
F. Buckley, ‘Great Names in the History of English

Glass, VII—Jerom Johnson’,
Glass
(September,

1928), pp. 392-3.

8.
Illustrated G. Bernard Hughes,
English, Scottish

and Irish Table Glass,
London (1956), fig. 28.

9.
Sheenah Smith, ‘Glass in 18th century Norwich’,

The Glass Circle,
2 (1975), p. 55.

10.
Buckley,
OEG,
p.
134, No. 60.

11.
Hughes,
op. cit.,

p. 141.

12.
Buckley,
OEG,

p. 138, No. 83.

13.
James Atherton is recorded there in 1761, William

Atherton appears in the Liverpool Freeman’s

Liverpool Public Library).

14.
Buckley,
OEG,

p. 141.

15.
F. Buckley, ‘Old Lancashire Glasshouses’,

Trans-

actions of the Society of Glass Technology,
13

(1929), p. 237; the 1803 reference derives from

Entwistle’s notes (see n. 13).

16.
Based on P. Entwistle’s notes.

17.
Based on P. Entwistle’s notes.

18.
Op, cit.,

p. 146, No. 112.
19.

Ibid„p.
141.

20.
F. Buckley, ‘Notes on the Glasshouses of Stour-

bridge’,
Transactions of the Society of Glass

Technology,
11
(1927), p. 121.

21.
When he took out a policy with the Sun Insurance

Company (Vol. 161, p. 485, No. 221405, kindly com-

municated by Miss N. Rothstein). See also Zoe

Josephs, ‘Jewish Glass-makers’,
Jewish Historical

Society of England, Transactions,
XXV (1977),

p. 109, who adds that Mordecai Levy trained up

Arthur Jacob as an engraver and Isaac Levy. The

latter was no doubt the Newcastle engraver.

Mordecai Levy was described as ‘glass-flowerer’

of Whitechapel when declared a bankrupt in the
London Gazette
in 1770.

22.
Bill formerly in the possession of the Newcastle

Assembly Rooms.

23.
H. Wakefield,
19th Century British Glass,
London

(1961), p. 37 and P1.48B.

24.
Sun Insurance policies Vol. 150, No. 220517, com-

municated by Miss N. Rothstein.

25.
Printed on their trade-card, in the Banks Collec-

tion, British Museum Print Room (400219 (1817),
Banks D. 2).

26.
Barbara Morris,
Victorian Table Glass and Orna-

ments,
London (1978), p. 78, states that Robert

Haddock appears in the local
Directories

as an

engraver between 1827 and 1853. She also records

Robert Pyle as an engraver, 1834-47.

27.
Westropp,
op. cit.,
p. 199.

28.
W. Buckley, ‘Art Treasures Exhibition,
IV.

Glass’

Burlington Magazine,
LXI

(1932), p. 178, Pl. VI, B.

A rummer from this service was exhibited at

Grosvenor House in 1976 by Alan Tillman
(Antiques) Ltd.
(Country Life
(3 June, 1976),

Supplement p. 52).

29.
Sunderland Museum,
The Class Industry of Tyne

and Wear Part 1: Glassmaking on Wearside,

Gateshead (1979), p. 8. The author also records
Thomas Bulmer as an engraver at this time.

30.
R. J. Charleston, ‘To Satyrize the Crispinites’,

Glass Circle Paper,
No. 155, p. 5.

31.
F. Buckley,

OEG,

p. 138, No. 85.

32.
Id.,
‘Notes on Glasshouses of Stourbridge’,
l.c.,

p. 119.
In 1767 he was shown as ‘now or late of

Stourbridge’.

33.
Id., OEG,
p. 140.

34.

Victoria and Albert Museum,
Exhibition of English

Glass, 1968, Catalogue,
No. 268, illustrated VAM

English Glass,
London (1968), fig. 62.

35.
Op.
cit.,

pp. 37,41.

36.
Kindly communicated by Mrs. J. McNab Dennis.

37.
I should like to express here my gratitude to Miss

Pye for giving me access to her family’s treasures.

38.
I owe this reference to Mr. Donovan Dawe, former-

ly Principal Keeper, the Guildhall Library.

39.
Manuscript temporarily deposited in the Ceramics

Department, Victoria and Albert Museum, the

property of Mr.Weston-Bird.

40.
Manuscript in the possession of the Worshipful

Company of Goldsmiths.

41.
Illustrated Derek Davis,

English and Irish Antique

Glass,
London (1964), fig. 65.
42.

Hugh Wakefield, ‘Glasswares at the Great Exhibi-

tion of 1851’,
Annales du 7e Congres de l’Associa-

lion Internationale pour l’Histoire du Verre,

Liege (1978), p. 426.

43.
I owe this information to Mr.Hugh Wakefield.

44.
The subject is treated at greater length by our late

member A. J. B. Kiddell, ‘William Absolon Junior

of Great Yarmouth’,
Transactions of the English

Ceramic Circle,
5,Part 1 (1960),pp. 53-63.

45.
H. Kiihnert,
Urkundenbuch zur Thiiringischen

Glashiitlengeschichte,
Jena (1934), p. 17.

46.
See also John Harris
el al., Buckingham Palace,

London (1968), pp. 44,46.

47.
A. Graves,
The Society of Artists,

London (1907),

p. 61.

48.
D. R. Guttery,

Front Broad Glass to Cut Crystal,

London (1956), p. 113.

–

n
}

6.)10&-3k_t-tt

”
C/i/
a//iZ
/

–‘–

—–
“Ttr1.1-
r

–
SALK

r-G1/1.1.17)0L;

tt;

–
LIVIM:1″

Iffimill/ /me/ il-pw

Gt.-Agri:it/Lei

717.1.1,311f. I 7’ rRIt.1.:LIWETi:1111:Y.

/•

••

//i/

Figure 1. Trade-card of W. G. Cave, 157 Fen-

church Street, London, early 19th century.

Guildhall Library, City of London.

Figure 2. Tumbler, cut and wheel-engraved by
John Unsworth of Manchester, about 1800.
H.4
1
/
t
in. (11.5 cm.) Metropolitan Borough of

Wigan.

•

7).
Iv

Figure 3.
3. Trade-card of John Unsworth, of Manchester, dated in ink ‘1792’.

Trustees of the British Museum.
SWOR:rh

—–____

(-(// /4
/

62;,
ISSI , /
kpft

af.// /7
–
7
/

i/
__.,/

/1/
/

Figure 4. Tankard inscribed ‘TYZACK Glass Maker’. Pre-

sumably Newcastle-on-Tyne, second half of 18th century.

H. 6 in. (15.2 cm.) Victoria and Albert Museum. Crown Copy-

right.

Figure 5. Jug, wheel-engraved with themes commemorating Lord Nelson, by John Williams of

Newcastle-on-Tyne (see fig. 6). H. 61/4in. (16 cm.) Monmouth District Council. Photograph: Rex

Moreton.

Figure 6. Signature in diamond-point on base of jug shown in fig. 5.
15

Figure 7. Claret-jug, cut and wheel-engraved by W. Herbert of Dudley, dated 1833. Signed ‘W, Herbert’.

H. 11
5
/
b
in. (29. 5 cm). Private collection. Victoria and Albert Museum photograph. Crown Copyright.

IIILIIIIMEE A SAM

Respectfully inform the MERCRANTS and MANUFACTURERS of

(or in) Birmingham and its Vicinity, that they have commenced Busi-

ness in the above Line, at No. 33, Cherry-street, nearly opposite

the end of Cannon-street, where a great Variety of Specimens of

Nngravings and Etchings may be seen. Awns, CRESTS, REGIMENTAL

BADGES, rich and plain CYFUERS, FRUITS, FLOWERS, BoRDER4,

and FANCY DEVIC
ES
executed in a superior Manner. INDIA and all

other SHADES, MooNS, kInd CHURN EYs bordered or otherwise orna-

mented. Liouoa BOTTLES, ACID BOTTLES, and CRUETS lettered and

labelled. Su E 1.1.1 NO BOTTLES screwed, and handsomely engraved.
.DRILLING. All Kinds of MEASURES for CHEMICAL and other Poi Lo-

SOPilleAL Purposes, graduated into any Number or equal Parts,
Cubic Inches and their Decimals:, or in any other Manner. The

various
EAKU
RES for the UsE of AroTRECARI ES, as ordered by the

Lond
on
R

yal College or Physicians, kept for sale, or graduated and

figured to order with the utmost Accuracy.

T.Iilidge, sen. begs leave to add, that besides receiving particular

:Instructions from the late Mr. T
.

thy Lane. F.R.S. the Inventor of

Apothecaries’ Measures, he has been favoured with the following

Testimonial from the Gentleman appointed
by

the College to edito

their last Pharameopicia.

From my Intercourse with Mr. Lane, and the Communica-

‘
tions and Explanations which I had with him at the Time of

•
the Monti

of his Division of Liquids by Measure or Bulk

for Medical Use, I believe that the Principles adopted by Mr.

•
[Midge, to be those which were applied in their original Forma-

‘ lion, and to afford the Means of obtaining correct Measures.

R. PO WELL, M.D.’

Bedford Place, Dec. 24, 1816.’

It is T. Illidge, sen.’s Intention to spend much of his Time in

Birmingham, personally to superintend the Execution of the Orders

which they may be favoured with, and he trusts that the Quality of

their Work, and their Punctuality and Dispatch of Business will

merit their Approbation, stud secure the Encouragement and Confi-

dence of their Employers.

Letters addressed to T. I. and Son, either in Loudon ur Bir-

niingbani, will be duly attended to.

Figure 8. Advertisement of T.Illidge & Son, London and Birmingham,

from Wrightson’s
New Triennial Directory of Birmingham

(1818),

pp. 72-3.

Figure 9. Jug, wheel-engraved with arms of the City of London by John Pye,

London, about 1820-30.

H.
8in. (20. 5 cm.). Private Collection. Copyright: Cecil Davis Ltd.

Figure 10. Skylight in the Guard Chamber, Buckingham Palace,

wheel-engraved by Wainwright, about 1830. Reproduced by Gracious
Permission of Her Majesty the Queen.

Figure 11. Plaque, wheel-engraved and signed ‘Coles’,

early 19th century. D. app. 4in. (10 cm.) Private

Collection. Victoria and Albert Museum photograph.

Crown Copyright.

English Rock Crystal Glass

1878-1925

by IAN WOLFENDEN

A Paper read to the Circle on 19 May, 1977

‘Ornament’, wrote Ralph Wornum in 1851, ‘is not a

luxury, but, in a certain stage of the mind, an ab-

solute necessity.’
1
This belief influenced industrial

design in England through most of the Victorian

period. Many Victorian styles were ornamental

styles. They were also historical, and a basic
problem for the Victorian designer was how to

clothe the ornamental styles of the past in a con-

temporary dress. Owen Jones, in his
Examples of

Chinese Ornament,
written in 1867, declared: ‘I

venture to hope that the publication of these types
of . . . Ornament . . . will be found, by all those in

the practice of Ornamental Art, a valuable aid in
building up what we all seek,—the progressive

development of the forms of the past, founded on

the eternal principles which all good forms of Art
display.’ In Jones’s view the best historical styles
revealed the principles of ornament. Progress

would be achieved by modifying the styles in

accordance with the principles. Such ideas were

widespread in the mid-nineteenth century, and

glass, in common with other industrial arts,

benefited from them. Rock crystal glass was rich

in ornament, and it provides us with a notable

example of the Victorian pursuit of artistic pro-
gress.
Technology furthered the development of orna-

ment in all Victorian art industries. New manu-

facturing and decorative techniques flourished and

there were revivals and improvements of tradi-

tional methods. The glass industry developed
copper-wheel engraving so that, in the second half

of the nineteenth century, it enjoyed a commercial
success unprecedented in its history. Mostly this

success was based upon long established practice,

but rock crystal glass was an innovation. In
simple terms ‘rock crystal’ was an engraved glass

which had been wholly polished. In the best work
the glass was thick and the engraving deep. The
polish was obtained, as on cut glass, by the appli-

cation of putty powder or, after about 1890, by
immersion in acid.
2

The bright finish of the en-

graving stressed the relationship with cut glass

and in much ‘rock crystal’ cut and engraved
patterns were complementary. The term ‘rock

crystal’ defined an engraving technique ,but cut

decoration formed the basis of many styles of

rock crystal work. Traditionally, English en-
graving had been pictorial, inscriptional or

heraldic, and its predominantly matt texture con-

trasted with a bright glass ground. Rock crystal
glass, through polished engraving, cutting and

sometimes etching, achieved more varied effects.
These were occasionally derived froth oriental

jade or rock crystal carvings, which were one

source of inspiration for the new technique.
English rock crystal glass was primarily the

work of West Midlands factories. In the Victorian

period the West Midlands, in particular the Stour-

bridge area, gradually assumed leadership in

tableglass design. During the third quarter of the
nineteenth century Stourbridge became a major
influence on English engraving. In the 1850s and

early 1860s, as engraving became increasingly

fashionable, some of the best English work was

done to the order of London retailers. The re-

tailers produced designs for blanks supplied from

outside and had them engraved locally. Sometimes

the blanks were sent from Stourbridge.
3
By the

1870s the Stourbridge firms themselves were

designing and engraving glass of high quality. At

this period Central European engravers, immigra-

ting in small but decisive numbers, were settling
in various British glass centres. In Stourbridge,

Thomas Webb and Sons took on two Bohemians,

Frederick E. Kny and William Fritsche, to run

engraving workshops. At the Paris International
Exhibition of 1878 Webb’s gained the Grand Prix

chiefly for their engraved glass.`

The presence of Bohemian engravers in Stour-

bridge in the 1870s greatly facilitated the intro-
duction of rock crystal glass. Deep engraving,
characteristic of rock crystal work, was traditional

in Bohemia. It had been admired, but not imitated

in England at least since the 1840s. With Bohemian
craftsmen at their disposal the Stourbridge fac-

tories of the late nineteenth century were now
capable of engraving deeply on thick glass, and the

technical foundations of English rock crystal were
laid chiefly by the firm of Thomas Webb. On

Webb’s glass shown at the Paris International

Exhibition in 1878 the
Art Journal

had these com-

ments: ‘Another development is that of deep, bright

cutting, sometimes in relief, like a cameo, some-

times sunk, as in intaglio; in either case thick glass

is employed and the deepest portions are sunk to

the depth of an inch or more. This method has
been adopted with great effect both by the French

and English manufacturers and engravers. . . .
Our own countrymen have largely employed figure

subjects, generally taking them from the antique.
In Messrs. Webb’s collection is a portion of the

frieze of the Parthenon, executed in relief and
polished, producing an object of truly high Art.15

A vase signed by Frederick Kny, now in a private

collection, indicates the type of glass shown by

Webb’s in Paris in 1878 (fig. 1). Figures derived

from the Parthenon sculptures are engraved

around the body of the vase in high relief. The

figures have received a light, irregular polish.

Kny’s glass is presumably modelled upon the Elgin

Vase of John Northwood, finished in 1873 and now

in the Birmingham City Art Gallery; its date should

be c. 1875-78. Its type represents what seemed in

1878 the distinctive English contribution to the new

deep and polished engraving.
The
Art Journal
account of the engraved glass

shown at the Paris Exhibition is interesting for

several reasons. The term ‘rock crystal’ is not
used anywhere but certainly the deep, bright
engraving ‘sunk, as in intaglio’ was done in what

we should call rock crystal technique. Apparently

the French produced most of this sunk work and,

in this respect, may have influenced the early

development of English rock crystal. The English

relief engraving, on the other hand, is given a
prominence in the
Art Journal
commentary which

its influence scarcely merits. It is now clear that

at the 1878 Paris Exhibition the fashion for glass

with figures after the antique effectively ended,

whether these were sunk or in relief. The mid-
1870s are a watershed in English glass design, at

least as far as engraved glass is concerned, and

the introduction of the rock crystal technique is
one sign of the onset of the Late Victorian period.
As early as 1851 Owen Jones had said: ‘Here, in

Europe, we have been studying drawing from the

human figure, but it has not led us forward in the

art of ornamental design. Although the study of the
human figure is useful in refining the taste . . . it

is a roundabout way of learning to draw for the

designer for manufactures.’
6
Nevertheless much

mid-Victorian design was based upon the human

figure. Renaissance and Greek art provided the

main sources, and in engraved glass the Greek

Revival or ‘Grecian’ style was pre-eminent from
about 1850 until the early 1870s. Those pages of

the Webb factory pattern books which may be dated

to the early 1870s bear charmingly naive drawings

for engraved glass, with figures derived from
Greek vase paintings or the sculptures of the Par-

thenon. By 1878 Grecian designs scarcely appear.

The new rock crystal technique was accompanied

by new styles, which often had their entire basis in

ornamental design and rarely employed the human

figure.
The chief impulse towards fresh, predominantly

ornamental styles came from Oriental art. Webb
patterns and those of Stevens and Williams of

Brierley Hill show Oriental influence by the mid-
1870s, and some of the English engraved glass

shown at the Vienna Universal Exhibition of 1873

had a Japanese or Chinese flavour.? An account of

the glass exhibited in Vienna by Pellatt and Co. and
Pellatt and Wood of London noted: ‘an infusion of

Japanese art which is steadily moving into Europ-
ean designs was apparent in a very charming

service with engraved panels in which were storks

and vases with plants, and the conventional key
bands and scrolls of Japan work . . . reminded the

observer of some of the highest qualities of

Chinese engraving on pure rock crystal.’
8
There

is no indication that this English engraving of 1873

was either polished or deep. Nevertheless it may

have influenced the earliest French deep, polished

work, which was apparently that shown in Paris in
1878. Of this French glass the
An Journal
noted:

‘Our neighbours . . . have adopted some square

and rhomboidal forms similar to those often em-

ployed by the Chinese and Japanese potters and

have produced bold floral patterns with birds and

other objects in this deep engraving, which is
brilliantly polished:
8

In particular the use of

natural rock crystal by the Chinese and the floral

and other motifs of Japanese art were important

for the development of a rock crystal glass.
However, these Oriental influences did not

wholly determine the styles of English rock crys-
tal. Possibly the first piece of English rock
crystal glass was a silver-mounted claret jug in

Celtic style, shown by Thomas Webb and Sons in

Paris in 1878 (fig. 2). It was described in 1885 as:

‘purchased . . . at the Paris Exhibition, 1878.

Partly etched with acid and then engraved in

detail . . . and polished with very small wheels.’ 10

The jug is not described as ‘rock crystal’ but the

technical description allies it both to the French
deep engraved glass of 1878 and to the earliest

documented English rock crystal glass. Almost
certainly the jug was designed by J. M. O’Fallon,

who wrote the 1885 description and who was
Webb’s Art Director for the Paris Exhibition.
11

The use of the Celtic style, with its rich interlace

work, is indicative of the growing interest in orna-
mental as opposed to figurative design. But as an

individual style the Celtic could not compete with

the Oriental styles, which were easier to execute,

and it did not long survive.

On the evidence of the mounted claret jug it

seems reasonable to credit J. M. O’Fallon with the

introduction of English rock crystal glass in the
early months of 1878. There is support for this

view in the manuscript ‘Reminiscences Industrial’

of the Webb cameo carver, Tom Woodall. Woodall’s
‘Reminiscences’ were written in 1912, and the

simplest interpretation of the following passage

from them would suggest O’Fallon as the origina-

tor of ‘rock crystal’: ‘We had a good run (sc. in

cameo glass) but had to follow up in ordinary

Flint work mostly engravings and ‘Rock crystal’

or Intaglio which was polished by cutters and

eventually by acid. I would like to say that the

first intaglio was designed by O’Fallon who was
chief designer for the firm for the Paris 1878
Exhibition and was some intaglio exhibited there

executed by cutters but was eventually done on

special lathes.’
12

The ‘intaglio’ technique is quite

different from ‘rock crystal’ and originated in

about 1890.
13

If we allow for Woodall’s later con-

fusion of the two techniques we may accept that he

associates O’Fallon with the introduction of rock

crystal work.

The earliest extant record of the term ‘rock

crystal’ is in the Webb factory pattern books,

dated 6th July, 1878.14
A

group of three patterns

bears the note ‘Engraved as Rock Crystal (Kny)’

and the date. The first two patterns are for tan-
kards, the third for a jug (fig. 3). Drawn in a

naturalistic manner the tankard designs are of

fish among rushes, the jug design of owls. At this
date no other English firm seems to have been

producing rock crystal work. The earliest known

glass is in the Webb factory collection, a wineglass

with an engraved acanthus scroll and monogram,
of August 1878.
15
Brush polished and slightly matt

in texture, the engraving is fairly shallow on thin
glass. The delicate acanthus scroll is in a Re-

naissance manner, and the glass has the appear-

ance of a transitional piece (fig. 4). In 1878 there

was an experimental air about Webb’s rock
crystal glass but the technique quickly became

established. Following its introduction matt en-
graving declined in Stourbridge and Brierly Hill.

For the next twenty five years or so the major

firms of Webb and Stevens and Williams made
little engraved glass other than rock crystal. A

Stourbridge publication of 1903 noted: ‘Polished
rock crystal may be named among the styles in

which delightfully rich effects are produced. The

old style of engraving was one in which a dulled

appearance was in fashion but in the present there

is a strong contrast to this in the bright finish

that is in vogue.’
15

Analysis of the broad development of English

rock crystal from its tentative beginnings in 1878

to its culmination in the early years of the twen-

tieth century reveals several basic features.
First, there is the combination of cutting with

engraving, natural on the thick glass. The favour-

ite cut motifs are the flute and the pillar. Both

these motifs were popular in the Victorian period,

particularly in its early phase. The pillar was an
Early Victorian speciality, developing from the

Regency pillared flute under the influence of

Bohemian glass of the Biedermeier period.

Pillars are slightly convex panels, framed by

mitre cuts which usually form a rounded arch at

the top of the panel. The mitre cuts are smoothed,
or ‘pillared’, along their whole length. On early

rock crystal glass up to about 1885 the pillars are

most often vertical and arranged in series around

the bowl or body of a vessel (fig. 5).
17

Flutes tend

to accompany the pillars on stems or necks. From

the mid-1880s, particularly on Webb glass, the
pillars often assume a curved form (fig. 6).
15

During the 1890s, again particularly on Webb glass,

the pillars may twist through the whole form of a

glass in a serpentine line, losing their arches and,

on stems at least, becoming much thinner.
19

The

flute, which tends to remain vertical, consequently
diminishes in importance.

The basis of much rock crystal work, the table-

services in particular, is therefore the cut pillar.

Grafted on to the pillar work is engraving in a

variety of ornamental styles. These styles, in the
best rock crystal glass, are usually new to glass
engraving. Rock crystal glass is in large measure

an amalgam of essentially Early Victorian cutting

and Late Victorian engraved ornament. It is not

therefore Revivalist or Historicist as was the

Grecian engraved glass of the 1850s to 1870s. It
is worked in a new manner, which may now be
considered in more detail.

The first rock crystal patterns, as noted above,

are of fish and owls in a naturalistic style. These

were the work of Frederick Kny, who had pre-

viously carried out much figure work for Webb’s,
particularly in the Grecian style.
20
Kny tended to

specialize in birds and other animals and in the

human figure. He was expert in figurative work in

the Mid-Victorian manner. Thus, although he did

accept the Late Victorian ornamental styles fos-

tered by rock crystal, he seems where possible to
have employed figure designs in the new technique.

A fine example is the ‘Hunting the Eagle’ decanter,

now in the Victoria and Albert Museum (fig. 7).
21

This is engraved in an essentially naturalistic

style and shows
putti

hunting eagles amid inter-

twined oak and ivy branches. The design is

apparently adapted from that on a silver salver by
Christesen’s of Denmark, shown in the Paris

Exhibition of 1878.
22
Kny has substituted eagles, a

favourite subject of his,for a boar on the salver;

an eagle and oak branches also feature on a design

for a matt engraved jug produced by Kny in about

1865.
23

The ‘Hunting the Eagle’ glass may be

dated c. 1878-80, although it is traditionally given

as c. 1890.

The style of Kny’s ‘Hunting the Eagle’ decanter

is conservative for the late 1870s. Nevertheless,

naturalistic ornament is significant in early rock
crystal glass. On Webb glass it usually takes the

form of flowers and birds engraved on simple
pillars. Examples date from 1880-81.
24
Much

contemporary work by the Stevens and Williams

factory is also of this type, but the style is more
distinctly Japanese. Japanese floral and bird de-

signs had featured on the French deep engraved
glass at Paris in 1878. Stevens and Williams

exploited the commercial possibilities of this

naturalistic Japanese work on their rock crystal
glass from 1879 until 1885 and sometimes beyond.

The first reference in the Stevens and Williams
pattern books to polished engraving is in Novem-

ber, 1879; the design is in Japanese style.
25
A

glass of December 1879 survives in the factory

collection (fig. 8).
26
This champagne is brush

polished and slightly matt like the earliest known

Webb glass of 1878. Japanese floral work is
engraved freely across unemphatic vertical cuts

in a fashion adopted for other Stevens and

Williams rock crystal. A jug of 1884 in the factory
collection (fig. 9) and a decanter of 1885 in the

Dudley Art Gallery both have freely arranged en-

graved ornament in the Japanese manner.
27
At

least some of this Japanese ornament was de-

signed for Stevens and Williams by a freelance

Bohemian designer and engraver, Joseph
.

Keller.

The design for the 1879 champagne, for example, is

found in Keller’s Design Book.
28
However, the

extent of Keller’s contribution to early rock

crystal designs is uncertain; the actual engraving

was almost always done in the factory workshop.

In charge of the shop at this period was a man
named Miller or Millar, who was possibly of

Bohemian extraction; the slang term ‘millrock’ is

still remembered in the factory for his rock

crystal glass.
29

Japanese designs were commonly chosen for

their naturalistic element. Stevens and Williams’
glass in this style may be regarded as the equi-

valent of Webb glass decorated with a European

flora and fauna. The whole development, beginning

with matt work of about 1873, was in reaction to

the formalities of the Grecian style. A further
reaction occurred in about 1883, when rock crystal

glass, at Webb’s in particular, became increasingly

ornamental. Stylized designs replaced naturalistic.

Above all, the basis of the new work was stylized

floral ornament, especially as derived from

Chinese art. One of the most spectacular pieces in
the new style was the bowl designed by John North-

wood and made by Stevens and Williams for the
International Health Exhibition in 1884 (fig. 10).
30

The ornament was probably copied from plate

LXXXV of Owen Jones’s
Examples of Chinese

Ornament.

Jones’s book was particularly influential on

Webb glass of the years 1883-90.
Examples of

Chinese Ornament
offered a recantation of Jones’s

earlier view of Chinese art, expressed in his

Grammar of Ornament
of 1856. There Jones had

said: ‘If we go to nature as the Egyptians and
Greeks went, we may hope; but if we go there like

the Chinese . . . we should gain but little.’ When

he wrote his
Grammar
Jones had little knowledge

of the conventional forms of Chinese ornament but

by 1867, the date of the
Examples,
his awareness of

Chinese art was much fuller. He became convinced

that Chinese ornamental forms could provide the

basis of an industrial art style. Thus the
Examples

illustrated designs for cloisonné enamel work,

where the technique tended to impose stylization.

Such designs were adopted by Webb’s for their
rock crystal glass, in two distinct manners. Some-

times the form of the glass itself might appear

Chinese and the ornament therefore wholly in sym-

pathy; sometimes the ornament was grafted on to

a pillar type glass with a resulting ‘Anglo-Chinese’
effect.
31
A glass to a pattern of 1883, recently

acquired by the Pilkington Glass Museum, is an

example of the former method (fig. 12).
32

A sherry

and a hock of 1884 and 1889 respectively will
serve to show the Anglo-Chinese style (fig.11).
33

The sherry and hock in question are both in the

Webb factory collection. Both have Chinese-style

floral ornament engraved on cut pillars of ogival
shape. The pillars are alternately upright and re-

versed. Plate XLIX of Jones’s
Examples of

Chinese Ornament
gives a range of flower designs

from which the ornament was apparently adopted.

The round funnel bowls, baluster stems and fluted

knops of both glasses are thoroughly Victorian.

Yet this mixture is undoubtedly successful. The

reason lies in the ease with which the Chinese

patterns could be rendered in the copper-wheel
engraving technique. Simple ball cuts and edge

cuts render the peculiar scrolled forms of the

Chinese-style leaves. Similar cuts fringe the
pillars and echo the main ornament. A unity of

style is thus achieved through attention to tech-

nique. One is reminded of Owen Jones’s thirteenth

proposition of his
Grammar of Ornament:

‘Flowers, or other natural objects, should not be

used as ornaments; but conventional representa-

tions founded upon them, sufficiently suggestive

to convey the intended image to the mind, without

destroying the unity of the object they are em-
ployed to decorate.’ Jones, and also Matthew Digby

Wyatt, had praised the qualities of stylized Oriental

ornament since the early 1850s. Webb’s Anglo-

Chinese glass is a fine example of where their

theories and example could lead.
Economy of technique is perhaps the main

reason for this change in style from naturalistic

to conventional in the early 1880s at Webb’s. Not
only rock crystal glass but cameo work assumed a

Chinese appearance for a while. The effect was to
reduce still further the opportunities for animal or

human figure work, already decreasing under the
Japanese influence of the late 1870s. The basic

concern was to abandon the concept of engraving

as a ‘picture on the glass’ in the interests of unity

of design. In some of their art glass of the 1880s

Webb’s further developed the relationship between

form and decoration. A series of designs for vases

and bowls decorated with fish amid waves inte-
grated the cut and the engraved work so closely

that the distinction between the techniques dis-

appears. The vessels date from 1885 to 1890 and

reproduce the effect of carved Oriental vases.

One bowl, dating from 1890, is attributed in the

factory pattern books to George Woodall, the

cameo carver.
34
The finest glass of the series is

perhaps the twelve-inch vase now in a private

collection (fig. 13).
35
In this glass of 1889 fish are

scattered across the surface like fossils in a bed

of rock. The design has a unity reminiscent of the

moulded glass of Rene Lalique. Such Webb art

glass, and the tableware in Chinese style, all dating

from the 1880s, are perhaps the most successful of

all rock crystal glass types. In a typically Vic-

torian manner they combine technical innovation

with rich ornamental and formal design.
Fashions changed rapidly in Late Victorian

glass. Between 1880 and 1900 Webb’s alone
created approximately 13,000 new patterns, an

average of over ten per week. In assessing the
most significant development in rock crystal glass

of the later 1880s and the 1890s it is useful to
concentrate for a while upon the work of the finest

of the rock crystal engravers, William Fritsche of

Thomas Webb and Sons. Fritsche’s work is
traceable through the fairly large number of

patterns ascribed to him in the factory pattern and

price books. From these it is clear that his style

came to maturity in the period from about 1884 to

the early 1890s, and there is good reason to believe

that this style was in large measure personal to
him.
36
It should also be noted here that at this

date Stevens and Williams were producing less

advanced work and that during the 1890s they made

only a small quantity of rock crystal glass.
The style of William Fritsche may first be

studied in his most remarkable work, the ewer now

in the Corning Museum of Glass in the U.S.A. The ewer is signed, ‘W. Fritsche Stourbridge 1886’

(fig. 14).
37
It is an example of what the Victorians

termed ‘High Art’, an art which, in the words of

John Stewart, ‘appeals not to the eye only, but to

the mind of the spectator’.
38
This description of

the ewer in a contemporary pamphlet amplifies
the point: ‘The whole ewer may be said to rep-
resent the progress of a river from its birth in a

rocky hillside till it loses itself at last in the blue

infinity of the sea. The neck of the ewer repre-

sents the mountain birth-place of the stream . . .

On the front of the neck is carved, in very bold
relief, the beautiful head of the water god himself,

garlanded with rushes and aquatic plants, and with

his curling beard flowing into the stream of clear

water beneath. . . . The rush and hurry of the

rapid river are wonderfully expressed by the

strong, clear, curving volutes of the body of the
ewer. . . . The lowest part of the body of the ewer

is formed of a great fluted shell, which is sym-

bolical of the bottom of the sea. . . . The decora-

tion of the foot is a bold treatment of shells and

weeds, from which rises a water spout or sudden
upheaval of the waters of the ocean, thus forming

the pedestal, and consistently carrying out the

artist’s idea.'”
In essence the Corning ewer is a work of narra-

tive sculpture. In working it Fritsche brought into

focus certain technical and stylistic preoccupations

of the mid 1880s. The upper parts of the body are
cut pillar work, mingling with the deeply engraved

areas above and below as elements in a single

design. A powerful rhythm, reminiscent of
Baroque art, informs the whole vessel. Occasion-

ally a lighter, flickering scrollwork suggests the

Rococo. All parts of the ewer are subject to the

narrative theme, which demands a reading from

top to bottom, from river source to sea-bed.

Narrative elements, other than in such a ‘High

Art’ glass, are rare in ‘rock crystal’. However,
the swirling lines of mixed cut and engraved work

are not uncommon in Fritsche’s tableservice de-

signs of this period, which develop gradually

towards a Rococo Revival in the 1890s.

The lip of the Corning ewer is notable for its

restless outline and its tight scrolls. These fea-

tures, coupled with the strong sense of movement

in the whole glass, are typical of William

Fritsche’s best rock crystal work. Restlessness

is perhaps the dominant characteristic. Fritsche
regularly visited his Bohemian homeland and per-

haps there became aware of the deep engraved
Baroque and Rococo glass of Silesia, which shares

this character.
40

The curved pillars and tight

scrolls feature on Fritsche’s glass as early as

1881, in a tableservice with lizards engraved along

the edge of the pillared cuts (fig. 15).

The full

sense of movement is seen in several designs of
1886 and is still found in a service of 1897 (fig.

17).
42

The 1897 service illustrates Fritsche’s

cavalier treatment of the pillar style in certain of

his designs of the 1890s. The pillars in this in-

stance take the form of the ‘Indian Pine’, a textile
motif discussed and admired by design reformers

such as Ralph Wornum and Owen Jones since the
1850s. Set free in a swirling design so beloved of
Fritsche, the pillar has lost its traditional function

of stabilizing and articulating the ornament. In the
stemmed vessels from this service the restless-
ness is further expressed by thin, twisting pillars

which curve from the foot-rim to the lower part of

the bowl.
Fritsche’s ornament of this type may perhaps

be termed, from its major motifs, ‘scroll and
pillar’ work. It is extravagant and unrestrained

and it represents the most thoroughly Bohemian
contribution to English engraving made by the

immigrants of the later nineteenth century. Com-
parable in their richness are the designs of F.

Kretschmann, a Bohemian who worked for Webb’s

in the late 1880s. Kretschmann is found in the

Stourbridge Almanack and Directory
as a glass

engraver living in Wollaston from 1886 to 1892.

This may well be the period during which he

worked for Webb’s. His designs, which are not
common, suggest a predilection for heavy, sym-
metrical forms, sometimes of Renaissance inspir-
ation (fig.16). He made use of tight scrollwork

and, occasionally, of the Chinese ornament popular
in the 1880s.
43

There is insufficient evidence to

clarify his design relationship to Fritsche but he

worked deep in the glass and was undoubtedly a

kindred spirit.

Note has been made of a Rococo element in the

glass of William Fritsche in the 1880s. This was

a significant feature, for by the late 1880s Webb’s

were on the verge of a Rococo Revival. A Fritsche

design of June, 1889, is an early example of the

style. The pattern is for a clareteen with Rococo
C -scroll and diaper work.
44

Tightly packed

flowers and leafy scrolls enrich the design in the
manner of the ‘scroll and pillar’ work. In the

1890s the ornament is reduced to more strictly

Revivalist motifs and the total effect simplified.

A decanter of 1894, now in the Merseyside County

Museums, may be taken as an example (fig. 18).
45

The glass is thin except for the lower part of the
body, which is pillar moulded. Above this there is

shallow engraved Rococo-style decoration. Such a
glass was cheaper to produce than the deeply cut

and engraved work typical of the 1880s, and there
seems little doubt that economic motives were in
part responsible for the introduction of the new

style. Both Webb’s and Stevens and Williams seem

to have faced financial problems around 1890.

From John Northwood II’s biography of his father

we learn that the costly cameo glass technique was
virtually abandoned in about 1890 in favour of the

cheaper intaglio process. Similarly, Webb’s made
increasing use from this date of moulding tech-

niques on their rock crystal glass. They also

tended to employ thinner glass. However, a further

impulse towards a new style may well have been

the success of Rococo enamelled work produced

for Webb’s in the early 1890s by the Frenchman,

Jules Barbe.
48
Barbe did many designs in a

Rococo Revival manner at this date and they are

closely related to rock crystal work in rococo

style. A sherry in rock crystal technique by

Fritsche, dated 1894, shows Rococo ornament on

the bowl above a twist pillared stem (fig. 19).
47

Although overlapping with other styles in the 1890s

the Rococo Revival predominates in Webb rock
crystal work at this period.

The re-introduction of an historical style marks

the beginning of the decline of the rock crystal

technique. The decline may be observed partly in

technical factors such as shallower engraving and

thinner glass and partly in a decrease in origin-

ality of design. Above all, the revival of Histori-
cism perhaps inevitably led to the return of matt

engraving, since the historical styles had originally

been rendered in the matt technique. At Webb’s

there was still little matt engraved glass in the

1890s, when the Rococo style was predominant.
However, in the early years of the twentieth
century the Rococo was gradually replaced by

Neo-classical styles for which matt work came
increasingly to be used to offset the polished

engraving. Edwardian Neo-classic glass was

probably a reaction to the Art Nouveau style,

which appears in rock crystal glass chiefly at
Stevens and Williams. Garlands in the Neo-classic

manner are found on Webb rock crystal as early

as 1889, but the style reaches its height only c.
1900-1910.
48

As late as 1907 deep and wholly

polished work in Neo-classic style occurs at

Webb’s, as on a tumbler and liqueur in the factory

collection.
48
After this date there is usually some

matt work accompanying the polished; the term

‘rock crystal’ is used less and less and by 1908-09

it is doubtful if the term should be applied to any

of the polished work still being done. ‘Engraved

bright’ is now normal factory usage. Some pretty

designs of 1912, with parrots and garlands, illus-

trate the type. A bowl and sherry with these
motifs are in the Dudley Art Gallery collections

(fig. 20).
5
° An exquisite tall wine in the Webb

factory collection, signed by Fritsche, has engraved

rose garlands, now largely matt.
51
This also dates

from 1912 and is very far removed from Fritsche’s

rock crystal glass of the 1880s.

By about 1900 other firms in the Stourbridge

area were producing rock crystal glass. L. and S.

Hingley showed ‘rock crystal’ in London in 1908

and both Stuart and Sons and Webb Corbett have
series of rock crystal work recorded in their

pattern books for the early 1900s.
52

Surviving

glass in the factory collections of Stuart’s and

Webb Corbett does not suggest that either firm

made much of high quality. The best rock crystal

glass of these final years of the technique was

almost certainly that of Stevens and Williams of
Brierley Hill. This firm specialized for a few

years in work in the Art Nouveau style. The de-
signer Frederick Carder, who left for America in
1903, was probably responsible for many of the

Art Nouveau patterns, which were executed in the

factory workshop under the direction of John

Orchard. Some of the glass simply has Art Nouv-
eau motifs applied to a body cut in pillar style. A

puff box of 1900 in the Victoria and Albert Museum
(fig. 21) and an inkwell in the factory collection,

dating from 1902, illustrate the manner (fig. 22).
53

In a tumbler of 1901 in the factory collection the
spirit of Art Nouveau is captured far more suc-

cessfully (fig. 24).
54
A series of pillarintas, or

small pillars, around the base of the tumbler form

the basis for a flowing line that rises through the
glass like a cold flame. A fine decanter of 1903,

now in a private collection, has deep, sinuous cut-

ting and rich floral work of Art Nouveau type (fig.
23).
55

The pattern for this glass is dated June,

1903 and may represent an alternative to Carder’s

more orthodox versions of the style. Certainly the
decanter is in some respects reminiscent of

Webb’s rock crystal of the 1880s and 1890s,

although the detail is undoubtedly Art Nouveau.

Originating in 1898, Stevens and Williams’ Art

Nouveau is in decline by 1905-1906. As at Webb’s,

the rock crystal technique is scarcely recorded in

the pattern books from 1907. However, it does

survive the First World War; a series of vases of
1923 were engraved by or under H. Whitworth in

Japanese flower and bird style, for Stevens and

Williams. The commercial limit of the technique
was reached quite early in the Edwardian period.
In attempting to assess the contribution of ‘rock

crystal’ to the glass history of the late nineteenth

century the complexity of the period must be borne

in mind. Rock crystal glass was one of a large
number of new types of glass introduced at that

time. However, it may be suggested that, as a
major innovation in glass engraving, rock crystal

glass is indicative of Late Victorian attitudes. In

engraved glass the final quarter of the nineteenth
century is marked by a shift from figurative to

ornamental work. The Stourbridge factories
developed styles of conventional ornament in some

of their rock crystal glass which reflected possibly
the theories and certainly the example of the de-

sign reformers of the mid-century. This may be
interpreted as a move away from an historicist

approach, in which specific historical styles were

accorded a partisan favour, to one concerned with
principles and the development of original styles

of ornament. In place of the respect granted the

Grecian style a range of oriental styles—Chinese,

Japanese, Indian and Persian—were employed and
modified. The words of John Stewart, writing in

the
Art Journal
in 1862, no longer applied to the

glass engravers of the rock crystal period:

. .

the productions of the best, and, indeed, of nearly

all the British makers, have attained high success
in purely Grecian forms . . ‘
66
From the mid-

1870s a greater breadth of outlook is apparent.

We seem to move from the Mid to the Late Vic-

torian era.
Perhaps because of this wider outlook the Late

Victorian period offered greater opportunities for
individual expression. The work of William

Fritsche, the most talented of the Late Victorian

engravers, is original and personal. The ‘scroll

and pillar’ work, which roughly defines the rest-

less manner frequently associated with Fritsche

in the Webb pattern books, is a treatment of glass

unique in English glass history. In the Corning

ewer Fritsche produced, perhaps the most power-

ful ‘High Art’ glass of the Victorian period.
Nevertheless, individuals were rarely allowed

public credit for their work. Rock crystal glass

was a factory, not an individual, product. It

emerged at a time of intense competition between

factories, fostered by the great international
exhibitions of the day. Originating in the year of

the Paris International Exhibition of 1878 rock
crystal glass declined as such exhibitions became
less important in the early twentieth century.

Increasingly too the factories abandoned the
dangerous path of innovation. Traditional cut glass

patterns exerted a growing influence. In rock

crystal glass we see the last great example of

English factory engraving.

NOTES

1.
R. N. Wornum, ‘The Exhibition as a Lesson in Taste’,

in the
Art Journal Illustrated Catalogue of the

Industry of All Nations,
London (1851), p. XXI.***

2.
Webb pattern book V. Note by pattern 17723 (‘first

large piece polished by acid’). July, 1889.

3.
See, for instance, the glass exhibited by Messrs.

W. and G. Phillips at the International Exhibition of
1862
(Art Journal Illustrated Catalogue of the

International Exhibition,
London (1862), p. 164).

4.
J. M. O’Fallon, ‘Glass engraving as an Art’, in the

Art Journal
for 1885, London (1885), p. 313.

5.
The
Art Journal Illustrated Catalogue of the Paris

International Exhibition 1878,
London (1879), p. 144.

6.
Quoted by John Stewart, ‘The International

Exhibition-its Influences and Results’, in the A
rl

Journal Illustrated Catalogue of the International
Exhibition,
London (1862), p. 32-33.

7.
Webb pattern book L. See, e.g., patterns 8729, 8765

datable perhaps c. 1873-74. Stevens and Williams
description book 3. See, e.g., pattern 4390. The

book dates from 1875 to 1877.

8.
Prof. T.C. Archer, ‘Report of the Manufactures of

Glass, including Enamels’, in
Reports on the Vienna

Universal Exhibition of 1873,pt.III,
London, H.M.S.O.

(1874), p. 173.

9.
As reference (5).

10.
J. M. O’Fallon,
op. cit.
in
n.
4, p. 312.

11.
It is noted in the
Art Journal Paris Catalogue (ibid.,

p. 137) that ‘Messrs. Webb’s Art manager, Mr.

O’Fallon, has produced admirable examples in

Gothic and Celtic styles’.

12.
MS in the possession of Mrs.Wilday Allin.

13.
‘Intaglio’, in the sense recognised in Stourbridge, is

an underhand grinding process, like engraving, done

on stone wheels, as in cutting.

14.
Webb pattern book 0. Patterns 10991, 10992 and

10993.

15.
Dudley Art Gallery Exhibition Catalogue

English

Rock Crystal Glass 1878-1925
(1976), no. 11

(hereafter referred to as
ERC).

16.
The Black Country and its Industries,
No. 1,

Stourbridge, Mark and Moody (1903), p. 6.

17.
Webb pattern book Q. See, e.g., pattern 13175,

datable to 1881.

18.
Webb pattern book

S.
See, e.g., pattern 14276, dated

1883.

19.
Webb pattern book X. See, e.g., pattern A 12,

datable to 1892-1893.

20.
Webb pattern book J. See,e.g., patterns 7303, 7377,

datable to the late 1860s.

21.
ERC,
no. 14.

22.
The Art Journal Paris Catalogue,op.cil.

in
n.
5,

London (1878), p. 32.

23.
Webb pattern book J. Pattern 6932.

24.
Webb pattern book Q.
See,

e.g., pattern 13175,

datable to 1881.

25.
Stevens and Williams description book 4. Pattern

5689, engraved by Millar.

26.
ERC,

no. 51.
27.

ERC,
nos. 53 and 58 respectively.

28.
A collection of patterns for the use of Glass Dec-

orators designed by Joseph Keller
(n.d.), fol. 237.

The book is in the possession of the Dudley Art

Gallery.

29.
Information kindly supplied by Mr. Tom Jones,

Designer for Royal Brierley Crystal.

30.
ERC,

no. 56.

31.
Examples of forms influenced by Chinese bronzes

occur as late as 1889. See Webb pattern book V,

patterns 17365 ff, dated March, 1889.

32.
The pattern for this glass is Webb 14072 in book S.

There are slight differences between the glass and

the pattern.

33.
ERC,

nos. 17 and 19 respectively.

34.
ERC,

no. 21.

35.
ERC,

no. 20.

36.
Alfred S. Johnston, ‘The Fritsche Ewer’, typescript

dated 1886 in the Webb factory files. Johnston notes:
‘Mr. Fritsche generally designs his own work.’

37.
ERC,

no. 18a.

38.
J. Stewart,

op.
cif. in n.
6, p. 95.

39.
Alfred S. Johnston,
op. cii.
in
n.
36.

40.
For Fritsche’s visits to Bohemia, see his obituary

in the
Stourbridge County Advertiser,

29 March,

1924.

41.
Webb pattern book R. Pattern 13380.

42.
Webb pattern book U. See, e.g., patterns 15625,

15887.
ERC,

no. 33.

43.
For the use of scrollwork see Webb patternbook V,

pattern 17457, dated 1889. Also in book V (pattern

16613) is a jug with Chinese ornament, dated 1888.

44.
Webb pattern book V. Pattern 17681.

45.
ERC,

no. 31.

46.
Webb pattern book W. See, e.g., patterns 18625,18559.

47.
ERC,
no. 30.

48.
For the early pattern see Webb pattern book W,

pattern 18021.

49.
ERC,
nos. 36 and 37.

50.
ERC,
nos. 47 and 48.

51.
The pattern is in Webb pattern book 1, no. 34934.

52.
For Hingley’s rock crystal glass see
The Pottery

Gazette,
October, 1898, p. 1246. I am grateful to

C. R. Hajdamach for this reference.

53.
ERC,
nos. 67 and 69 respectively.

54.
ERC,
no. 68.

55.
ERC,

no. 71.

56.
J. Stewart,

op. cit.
in
n.

6, p. 112.

PHOTOGRAPHIC ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks are due to David Griffiths for the photographs,

with the exception of the following: Corning Museum of
Glass, New York (fig. 14), Christine Hajdamach (figs. 7,

18 and 24), Phillips Auctioneers, London (fig. 1) and the

Victoria and Albert Museum (figs. 10 and 21).

A •

–

alln

‘T..7

e
el

Figure 1. Vase, matt engraved by F. E. Kny. Thomas Webb and Sons, Stourbridge, c. 1875.

H. 7
9
/

in. (19.2 cm.). Private Collection.

•

a’

Z;EltARC

..,

„ r•ZAII.FT
“‘”

”;• • -‘-••••:
40•0 •••.”

-••••• •
•…
1

••••

– •

„Iti.gt=i4i6LU,

•••

.0.-,

.1′

_.,

;Wiri4

0 ii

i;i
1•
•
n
7

:’
.

C
-4

:`”••

•

• L

–,

C.:
‘ • -,

—
_.–,

– -,

– -,-,

‘
.,.
.

–
n
–.V—-

,.,–

-.-

..,_
–.. I_

, ,

Figure 3. Drawing for jug, rock crystal engraved by F. E. Kny. Thomas Webb and Sons,

Stourbridge, pattern 10993, 1878. Dema Glass Ltd.

Figure 4. Wineglass, rock crystal engraved. Thomas Webb and Sons, Stourbridge, 1878. H. 41/2in.

(11.4 cm.). Dema Glass Ltd.

Figure 5. Drawing for bowl, rock crystal engraved.

Thomas Webb and Sons, Stourbridge, pattern 13175, c. 1881-
82. Dema Glass Ltd.

Figure 6. Drawing for wineglass, rock crystal engraved.

Thomas Webb and Sons, Stourbridge, pattern 14276, 1883.

Dema Glass Ltd.

Figure 7. Decanter, ‘Hunting the Eagle’, rock crystal engraved by

F. E.

Kny. Thomas

Webb and Sons, Stourbridge, c. 1880. H. 14
7
/
8
in. (37.8 cm.). Victoria and Albert

Museum.

Figure 8. Champagne, rock crystal engraved. Stevens and Williams, Brierley Hill, 1879.

H. 6
1
/
b

in. (15.6 cm.). Royal Brierley Crystal.

Figure 9. Jug, rock crystal engraved. Stevens and Williams, Brierley Hill,

1884. H. 8in. (20. 3 cm.). Royal Brierley Crystal.

Figure 10. Bowl, rock crystal engraved. Stevens and Williams,

Brierley Hill, 1884.
D. 10
5
/

8
in.

(26.9 cm.). Victoria and Albert

Museum.

Figure 11. Drawing for wine, rock crystal

engraved. Thomas Webb and Sons, Stour-

bridge, pattern 14660,1884. Dema Glass

Ltd.

“fq

/ktei\/

Figure 12. Drawing for bowl, rock crystal engraved. Thomas Webb

and Sons, Stourbridge, pattern 14072,1883. Dema Glass Ltd. (A bowl

with closely similar design is in the Pilkington Glass Museum,
St. Helens, no. 1967.7).

Figure 13. Vase, rock crystal engraved. Thomas

Webb and Sons, Stourbridge, 1889. H. 12in.

(30.5 cm.). Private Collection.

Figure 14. Ewer, rock crystal engraved by William Fritsche. Thomas Webb and Sons, Stourbridge, 1886. H. 15

3
/

/6
in.

(38.6 cm.). Corning Museum of Glass, New York.

Figure 15. Drawing for wineglass, rock

crystal engraved by William Fritsche.
Thomas Webb and Sons, Stourbridge,
pattern 13380, c. 1882. Dema Glass Ltd.

1///
i

r 1.. -1;

Figure 16. Drawing for bowl, rock crystal engraved by F. Kretschmann.

Thomas Webb and Sons, Stourbridge, pattern 17457, 1889. Dema Glass
Ltd.

Figure 17. Claret decanter, rock crystal engraved by William Fritsche. Thomas Webb and Sons,

Stourbridge, 1897. H. 13
7
/
b
in. (35. 3 cm.). Dudley Metropolitan Borough.

Figure 18. Decanter, rock crystal engraved. Thomas Webb and Sons, Stourbridge, 1894.

H.
11
1
1
2
in. (29.2 cm.). Merseyside County Museums.

Figure 19. Wineglass, rock crystal engraved by William Fritsche. Thomas Webb and Sons,

Stourbridge, 1894. H. 41/2in. (11.4 cm.). Dema Glass Ltd.

Figure 20. Wineglass, polished and matt engraved. Thomas Webb and Sons, Stourbridge, c. 1912.

H.43/4in. (12.1 cm.). Dudley Metropolitan Borough.

Figure

21. Puff box, rock crystal engraved.

Stevens and Williams, Brierley Hill, 1900.

H. 3in. (7.6 cm.), without cover. Victoria and

Albert Museum.

Figure 22. Inkwell, rock crystal engraved. Stevens and Williams,

Brierley Hill, 1902. H. 3in. (7. 6 cm.). Royal Brierley Crystal.

Figure 24. Tumbler, rock crystal engraved.

Stevens and Williams, Brierley Hill, 1901.
H. 4
1

/
4
in. (10.8 cm.). Royal Brierley Crystal.

Figure 23. Decanter, rock crystal engraved. Stevens and

Williams, Brierley Hill, 1903. H. 15
1

/
t
in. (39.4 cm.). Private

Collection.

Reverse Painting on Glass

By RUDY ESWARIN

A Paper read to the Circle on 14 June,1977.

My subject is painting on glass, in fact behind it,

on the wrong side of the picture, as it were, and
reversed in several other ways as well. Only

recently has the awareness of this craft become

more common among glass collectors. In the

absence, however, of readily available specimens

for examination outside selected museums and
private collections, the interest remains regionally

specialized. Since the more frequently encountered

objects happen to be pictorial renderings on flat
surfaces for use as wall decorations, it has been

argued that this kind of painting has very little to

do with glass, except in a mechanical way, and that
it is seen and handled like any other picture under

a sheet of glass in a frame. This is not so, as I
shall try to demonstrate. Even though most of the
reverse paintings coming on the market are of
late date, collected by individuals and museums

chiefly as expressions of folk art, this technique

and its many uses belong to the art and history of

glass.
Cold painting on glass (as opposed to fired

enamelling), whichever side it is on, has been one

of the ways to embellish a plain surface since late
Antiquity. Once this surface has been covered with

pigment, however, the opacity of the painting tends

to diminish the importance of the glass, unless the
item is a hollow vessel. One traditionally expects

glass to be translucent, a see-through thing as

opposed to a look-at thing, yet many chemical
compositions and appearances of glass objects

argue against this. Reverse painting as a type of

glass decoration depends for its effect entirely on

this very transparence of the material to which the

opaque pigment is applied. The peculiarly un-
changing freshness and the brilliance of the colour

are uniquely partial to this process in which glass
becomes an integral part of the painting in a way

that is totally different from any other technique.

We are looking at the picture through its
base.

The transparent support is simultaneously a fused
cover of the artwork and, once broken, cannot be

repaired more-successfully than any other glass

object.
In the production the normal process of painting

is reversed. The artist
begins
with the highlights

and the final detail of the image, progressing by
moving backwards in successive layers of develop-

ment until the all-covering last step, the back-

ground, has been reached. The word has lost here
the technical connotation it has in other types of

painting and describes only a visual effect. Under

these conditions it follows that each brushstroke
must sit just right, and each colour must blend

properly. Second thoughts are not permitted, and

corrections by overpainting are impossible without

destroying the preceding work. When the panel is

turned for viewing from the proper side, another
reverse occurs as the elements on the left and the

right of the picture are transposed; a particularly

important factor when lettering is involved. The

technique is rather demanding on the ability of the

artist who is creating an original and must visual-
ize the finished work in every detail before he

touches the support surface with his brush. On the
other hand, life can be much easier for the less

competent. The mechanics of this process permit

the development of simple routines and repetitive

mass production patterns for anybody with a mini-

mum of ability to follow quite successfully, as

much of the available evidence amply de-
monstrates. The core of my presentation,by
necessity,must be the considerable reverse-

painted glass output in Central Europe during the

one hundred and fifty years between the middle of

the 18th and almost the end of the 19th century.

This time segment encompasses the sources of
the rapidly diminishing supply to the interested

collector, and some well defined areas for re-

search and study.
Cold painting on glass was known in various

parts of the Roman world, and examples of poly-

chrome images on the reverse surfaces of free-

blown objects have survived. An important

example, possibly from Antioch, Syria, about
200 A.D., is the well-known Paris Plate in the

collection of the Corning Museum of Glass. The
painting, depicting the mythological Judgement of

Paris, is rendered in shades of gray, yellow, brown,

violet, white and black, on a reddish background.

The unfired pigment is applied to the convex

underside of the plate, 21 cm in diameter, and the

picture is viewed by looking into the shallow dish

of colourless glass. A large group of painted

vessels, some in poor condition, was found at
Begram in Afghanistan. Of these, some were

painted in cold colours with similar compositions,

while others were enamelled.’
The decoration on the pyxis cover in the

Newark Museum (fig.1) has been applied the other

way round. The figure of Eros, holding a bunch of

grapes, is painted on the concave inside and seen

through the outside surface when the cover is in

place. Separated from the vessel, it belongs to a

series of similar objects, and there are speci-

mens in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New

York, the British Museum and the Fitzwilliam

Museum at Cambridge. They are in nearly every

instance from Cyprus if the find spot is recorded.
2

Numerous reverse-painted fragments exist, but

complete objects in good condition are very rare.

Most specimens appear to have originated in the

Eastern Mediterranean area between the 1st and
3rd century A.D., and a vessel with cold-painted

decoration cannot be found again until the 16th

century. The chromatic surface techniques seem

to have been forgotten during the interval, and the

attempts to bridge a gap of some twelve centuries
have not succeeded, leaving the sudden flowering
of painting on flat glass in Northern Italy without

apparent ancestry. I would like to venture the
opinion that we have before us two separate

developments of a basic idea—one belongs to

Antiquity, the other to the Renaissance; both are

different in concept as well as execution, and

there is no continuity to look for.

By the 14th century unfired pigment was used

on small glass panels with gold foil engravings as

a filler and background colour to offset the metal-
lic designs in the manner of the
fondi d’oro.
These

panels were the inlaid decoration of reliquaries,
crosses and house altars. In 1309 an order was

issued in Paris making it illegal to apply gold or

pigment to glass in imitation of enamel.
3
It had not

occurred to anyone that coloured pigment could be

used to create a work of art in its own right.
One of the earliest reverse-painted specimens

with a truly polychrome pictorial rendering, in
addition to the still dominant gold foil engraving,
is a small oval panel in Turin. Of French origin

from about 1420, and designed in the Gothic tradi-
tion of Cologne, the painting shows the Virgin and

Child in green and red garments before a gilt

arras, with an angel in white playing a harp. The
Museo Civico di Torino has on permanent display

one of the most comprehensive collections of

panels and objects, beginning with the 14th and

continuing into the 18th century. Venice and Padua

were the leading early production centres, but a
number of items have been made outside Italy in

the Low Countries, France and Spain.

From the 15th century onward most of the sub-

jects were derived from contemporary woodcuts

and engravings after paintings by well-known

artists in addition to original blocks cut for the
purpose of producing prints. The 16th century

panel depicting Christ under the Cross on his way

to Calvary (fig.3) appears to have been inspired

by Martin Schongauer’s engraving of the same

subject, a popular model for a number of inter-
pretations. The colours are mostly opaque tans

and browns with a terracotta city in the mountains
under a blue sky. The massive gold leaf areas are

outlined by the Cross and the flying banner. The

garments of the soldiers are rendered partly in

translucent colours underlaid with gold to enrich

the texture.
A similar effect was occasionally achieved by

placing silver foil under transparent sienna paint

shaded to simulate gold. The metallic surface
helped to heighten the colour as can be seen on the

Elizabethan English armorial panel, with the arms

of Shuckburgh and Skeffington, in the glass collec-

tion of the Victoria and Albert Museum. A reverse
painting based on a 16th century engraving by

Marcantonio Raimondi after Mantegna can be seen

in the same collection, together with other rep-
resentative examples of the period.
During the 16th century much use was made of

gold leaf under clear glass, or translucent pigment,
in every reverse painting almost without exception.

The refractive properties of the irregular glass
surface and the freedom from oxidation and dis-

colouration of the metal created an effect which

could not be achieved with any other material or

technique. The ambition of the artist was limited

only by the available size of the glass, which was

of such importance that it appeared preferable to
make additions to the engraving, used as the

pattern, rather than cut the panel down to the re-

quired dimensions. Two reverse paintings exist of

the
Adoration
by Albrecht Diirer, one at the Veste

Coburg, the other in the Bavarian National Museum,

possibly by the same Venetian hand, where neutral

pictorial elements have been added to stretch the

image so that it would fill the available space on

the almost square panel. In some instances artis-

tic license was also taken to fit the model to the

ability of the interpreter, but mostly the mono-
chrome prints were quite agreeably transformed

into sparkling paintings by craftsmen working in

the centres of art and commerce north and south
of the Alps. In Venice large circular dishes of
clear glass and bowls with elaborate
lattimo
cane

twists were further embellished by a colourful
painting on the plain base, often of a female head

after a contemporary woodcut. Examples can be

found in a number of museums, and there are two
splendid bowls in Turin.

By the early 17th century, tastes and fashions

were beginning to change, and the reverse-painted

glass production followed the trends. The stylistic

and conceptual attitudes of high art were adopted,

the forms became more supple, the colours shaded

to create an illusion of depth, and the painting was
executed with meticulous attention to realistic

detail. Some technical achievements were truly

spectacular, and one of the outstanding performers

was Hans Jakob Spriingli. Born in Zurich about

1559, he became known beyond the borders of his

country and collaborated with top goldsmiths of

the period in the production of work destined for
the regal treasure vaults of Europe. We shall

look at one example—the
Prunkhumpen
in the Swiss

National Museum (fig. 2). Produced about 1620-

1630, the silver-gilt mount of the tankard was made

by the goldsmith Hans Heinrich Riva of Zurich, and

the three reverse-painted polychrome panels on

the outside are allegorical interpretations of Faith,
Love and Hope by Spriingli. The cylindrical

interior glass liner is decorated along the cir-
cumference with a continuous procession of

children in warlike costume, rendered in black on

a gold background. The tankard is one of five
objects in the Museum with paintings by Spriingli,

who must be seen as the most important and
accomplished practitioner of this craft regardless

of time and place.
4

In the collection of Schloss Pommersfelden,

near Coburg, there is a picture to epitomise the

stylistic treatment of reverse paintings at the

time leading into the 18th century. The picture of

Venus and Mars
is South German, about 1700, but

painted in the Italianate manner after an original

influenced by the Venetians of the late 16th century.

It is a very handsome example of a style and pur-

pose which would be served today by the so-called

full colour reproduction. From here on, the

gradual development of new ideas in the arts and

sciences of the period, with their chief creative

sources in France, Germany and England, changed

the popular designs from the baroque to the rococo

interpretation.

To simplify matters I would like to take a short

cut to Augsburg which is one of the wellsprings in

the development of reverse glass paintings from

the high style of the city studio
Stilkunst
to what is

now commonly accepted as folk art produced by
cottage industry in widely dispersed country work-

shops. The situation in Augsburg around the turn

of the century has been well documented by Dr.

Gislind Ritz in her book
Hinterglasmalerei.

5
The

accomplished individuals working on glass, a Jan
van Heyden (1637-1712) for instance, were seen as
equals to a master painter. The lesser talents,

however, belonged to the class of craftsmen and a
slightly lower social order. As such they wished

to benefit from the organized protection of a guild,

and in 1693 the glass artists of Augsburg applied
in a unique move for permission to join forces

with other painters, sculptors, glaziers and makers
of gold and silver wire. This led of course to the

establishment of cooperative shops and the produc-

tion of multiples, a logical and profitable move in
a major centre of the graphic arts and printing.

The multiples, in contrast to the later quantity out-

put, retained some of the studio quality, and the

repeats had an individual touch. A good example of

the typical style around 1750 is the small painting
of St. Bartholomew (fig. 10). It was quite common

for many pictorial ideas to be treated as pairs—
the
Good Shepherd
and the
Good Shepherdess
in

flamboyant contemporary dress—or to be worked
up in sets like the
Seasons
or the
Continents,
with

symbolic imagery and attributes of a somewhat

wild character.

The paintings in the Augsburg style (many

originated in France) were sold far and wide

during the second half of the 18th century, and the

demand permitted the development of production
in other localities influenced, but not controlled,

by the main centre. In Oberammergau and the

Staffelsee region south of Augsburg, particularly
in Murnau on the old trade route to Italy, the city

tradition was soon modified under the guidance of

talented individuals, and a local style evolved, with
a hint of the folk art to come. The Gege family

workshop was prominent through several genera-
tions well into the 19th century, and the name is
highly regarded by collectors. Some of the

painters became known by name in almost every

production area, but the vast majority worked in

anonymous groups turning out incredible numbers
of pictures on a great variety of subjects. It has

been calculated that in the village of Raimundsreut,

near the Bohemian border, from 30, 000 to 40, 000

reverse paintings were produced by five workmen

in 1830. Between 1852 and 1864 the output of a

single family workshop in Sandl was 386, 000

pictures, and other workers painted up to 200 a

day.
6
It stands to reason that streamlined produc-

tion methods were necessary to make this pos-
sible, and a system not unlike the modern assem-

bly line concept was used in many locations.

As in any other mass production, a model to

work from was a basic requirement. An engraving
after Lukas Cranach, or a nameless popular print

from Augsburg, was translated into a line drawing

which became the indispensable outline pattern

(Riss) to be laid under a precut sheet of cheap flat
glass. The outline was redrawn on the surface

following the pattern underneath the panel, and
evidence seems to exist that the task was sub-

sequently handled by several workers taking turns
to apply the various colours until the painting was

completed. Some of the colour areas were marked

by numbers on the outline pattern.
The finished picture, a very popular Nativity

from Sandl (fig. 4) can be compared with the
pattern (fig. 5) from which the painting was made.

The design elements were transposed from left to

right in the process of redrawing the outline. The

basic colours are from the typical Sandi chromatic

range: a warm, but bright red on the stable roof

and on the garments, intermixed with similarly

bright green and blue, against a mustard yellow

background. The pattern was discovered rotting in

a damp attic in the village and is now preserved,

with about one hundred others from the same find,
in the Museum ftir Volkskunde in Vienna.
In the workshop, having gone through the neces-

sary number of steps to completion, the painted

glass was fitted into a prefabricated simple soft-

wood frame, usually of fir, with a shingle backing
for protection, and stacked to be picked up by the
distributor. In a cradle, designed for the purpose,

a pedlar carried the stack of pictures on his back

over hill and dale to farmhouses and distant mar-

kets, crossing a few borders on his way. A litho-

graph of a
Markel Fair

in Transylvania, published

in 1819 by F.Neuhauser, shows a salesman holding

up a pole with crossbars, hung with pictures for

the customers to see. This appears to be the

stand of a single traveller who, having sold his

portable stock, would return to the source.

The supply was geared to the demand, and the

salesmen could order pictures for specific reli-

gious festivals and places of pilgrimage. The
more popular images were available in one form

or another from every workshop, and even special

orders were accommodated to please a customer.

The big business, however, was handled by distri-

buting companies regularly shipping considerable
quantities of paintings to representatives within the

country and abroad from Hungary to Spain. A

warehouse was established in Cddiz for handling
shipments to the Americas, with a steady supply

coming from the production centres in Bavaria and

the Bohemian region, also the Black Forest and

Alsace. The picture industry flourished in the
geographical areas of Europe with a particularly

strong Catholic orientation, and a population con-
ditioned to visual representation of its religion.

Every farmhouse had the best corner in the com-
mon room devoted to a display of the crucifix

surrounded by pictures in brilliant colours, featur-
ing the appropriate name-saints and protectors of

the household, with periodic additions from the

passing pedlar’s cart as the family increased.

The organized production methods and the massive

output made it possible for these pictures to be-

come truly a folk art within reach of the slender

purses of the people.

The technology being essentially the same, and

the subject matter similarly derived from common

sources, the identification of specimens rests on
stylistic differences particular to a production

area or some specific locality. The basic styling

of reverse glass paintings in the 19th century was

shaped by two major factors. Like two confluent
rivers joining to become a single stream, the one

tributary originated in the painterly pictorial

tradition of Augsburg, the other in the Bohemian

glass industry and its predominantly mechanical
methods of glass decoration (e.g.wheel-cutting and

engraving). Although this attempt to build a theory

on circumstantial evidence may oversimplify the
situation, it helps to understand and recognize the

formative influences.
The development of these pictures, rooted in a

glassmaking tradition, cannot be traced to one
dominant source, and we have to deal with a series

of neighbourhoods in Silesia and Bohemia. A

natural relationship exists between the south-

western region and the adjoining parts of Bavaria.

Some centres, with a substantial output of reverse

paintings identified by the names of specific

villages, almost dovetail geographically, and it is

not always a simple matter to make attributions on

stylistic grounds. For instance, Buchers and Sandi
are less than four miles apart, but an individual

character has been ascribed to both in defiance of

the proven interchange of workers and the probable

use of the same outline patterns.?

Further north, on both sides of the wooded

Riesengebirge mountain range, most of the indi-
vidual glasshouses were surrounded by abundant

supply of the all-important fuel for the furnaces.

Among a number of centres Hirschberg, Warm-

brunn and Haida are some of the more familiar
names representing the popular concept of

Bohemian glass. The relationship between hollow

and flat glass is very close if we remember that

the early small panes were made with the blow-
pipe by the crown or muff process. ‘Venetian’

mirrors were produced in Silesia by 1700, and

glass frames were made later, with similar

appearance and construction, to hold coloured

prints of engravings. The decorative techniques

to embellish the flat surfaces entailed cutting,

wheel engraving, acid etching after Heinrich

Schwanhardt’s discovery about 1670, and toward

the approaching end of the period came imitation

of the aforementioned effects with common white
paint. Coloured pigment was used in the tradition

of enamelled hollow glass, and backed with a re-

flecting mercury coating. At some point it
occurred to somebody to do the whole thing and
paint a picture within the frame.

Of course, the various methods of glass decora-

tion required special skills, and trained craftsmen

were employed to work on different effects. In

good time a stable relationship of long standing

was created. When the glasshouse found itself
sitting in a large clearing, with the cheap fuel used

up, it had to move to a new place and a new forest,

but workers who had established themselves in
dwellings with small land holdings were unable or

unwilling to follow. For these people it was a

natural choice to settle for scanty income to con-

tinue the familiar work as individual suppliers. In

due course a market opened for reverse paintings,

and a cottage industry came into being at a number

of locations near glasshouses. A foreman guided
the activities of the workshop, maintained contact

with sources of raw materials, often the former

employer, and arranged distribution of the finished
product. With this background information in mind,

we can better appreciate the mirror picture (fig.

6) from South Bohemia, or possibly Raimundsreut,

about 1800. It contains every type of the mechani-

cal decoration under discussion as well as painted

flowers around a polychrome central figure of the
crucified Jesus. The ornamental framework con-

sists of copper wheel abrasion combined with

acid-etched flat areas and interspersed with cut

and parcel-polished ovals. The legend below has

been lettered with white paint. The background is
completely mirrored, with large areas now blind,

but with the oval printies still sparkling. A simi-

lar treatment can be seen in other specimens on a

black background with the cut and abraded parts
underlaid with gold which, together with a bright
vermilion red and a cobalt blue pigment, creates

a magnificent effect.
The trained craftsmen gradually disappeared,

and the obsolete engraving wheel was replaced

with a paintbrush. The picture of the
Infant Jesus

with the Orb
(fig. 7), from Silesia north of the

Riesengebirge mountains, illustrates the absence
of mechanical means and the attempt to maintain

the concept with a rendering in line and coloured

pigment. The rosettes recall the star cut on the

bottom of a tumbler, and the ornamental flowers in

the upper corners can be found on enamelled
glass vessels of the period. The placement and

treatment of the figure reminds one of portrait

engravings on the better spa glasses.
Once the special skills of a glass engraver

were no longer available or desired, and every-

body could simulate most design effects by other
means, similar concepts and technology became

quickly adopted throughout the producing areas.
It is interesting to compare the pictorial and
decorative treatment of a late painting from

Raimundsreut (fig. 8) with one of about the same
period from Alsace, possibly Colmar (fig. 9).

They are distinctly and identifiably different in
colour and layout, with a clearly established

provenance from two areas 300 miles apart in a

straight line and at least twice that by road. The

obvious relationship, however, can be accepted as

proof that the studio and the glasshouse traditions

were ultimately combined in the reverse-painted

pictures of the mid 19th century regardless of

their geographical origin.
In the countries outside the arbitrary boundar-

ies of ‘Central Europe’ this form of folk art was

originally introduced by traders extending their

territories as far as they could manage. In some
areas the foreign inspiration was taken up and the
ideas transformed according to long-established

attitudes of the ethnic environment. The imported
pictures acted as a catalyst rather than as examples

to be followed by imitation.
It is now held that the Bohemian export of re-

verse paintings introduced the concept to Romania,

where it was quickly modified and endowed with

indigenous features thereby creating a virtually

original style. The composition, for instance, and

the unerring instinct for sparingly chosen colours
give the Romanian icons, as they have rightly been
called, an unmistakable character of their own,

with the imagery strongly influenced by the Ortho-

dox Eastern Church.
The production in Italy flourished in the South,

particularly Sicily, where other colourful forms of

folk art, like the painted carts and implements,

provided a natural context. And yet, the influence

of high art can be felt in some instances where the

foreshortened figural composition seems to be-
tray the attention the painter might have paid to

the frescoes in his church. The Italian style
seems to be the least affected by formal repeat

patterns, and the painting has been done with an

exuberantly baroque freedom of individual expres-

sion.
Spain, with its folk art tradition in painted

ceramics and other ornamental crafts, was a re-

ceptive ground for inspiration derived from the

Central European supply through the warehouses
established in Cadiz since about 1750. Most of the

production seems to have originated in the

southern region of Andalusia, with some activity in

the areas of Barcelona and Toledo. The Spanish
pictures were once again interpretations rather

than imitations, with the religious subjects often

treated in a high-spirited secular manner in the
styles and colours one expects to find in the South

of Spain. The village belle appears to have been

the model for the
divina pastora,
and a sweetly

relaxed attitude seems to contradict the suffering

of the Saviour.
Even outside Europe the exported ideas and

examples were helping to establish indigenous

production of reverse-painted pictures as far

away as the Orient. Persia and India must be

mentioned because the growing popularity of the
relatively late paintings has made specimens

easily available to the collector, possibly pro-

duced to recent orders. The trade and missionary

contacts of the 18th century introduced the con-

cept to the Far East, and the resulting Chinese

output returned to fill the better houses in

Western Europe with reverse-painted mirrors
set in Dutch cabinets and English Chippendale

frames. Production was geared to export on all
levels, and in the early 19th century sailors

arrived back home with souvenir pictures featur-
ing stereotyped geishas or loving couples in com-
promising situations.

A closer examination of the reverse paintings

from international production areas or single

locations spottily dispersed throughout the world,

including North America, is beyond the scope of

this paper. It will be necessary, however, to
briefly mention two other methods of putting
images on the reverse side of a glass panel—the

foil engraving and the mezzotint transfer.

The similarity between painting with cold pig-

ment and engraving metallic foil on the reverse

side of a suitable transparent support must be
perceived as the same relationship in which easel

painting is paired with linear drawing. Both are

technically different but thematically identical

means of rendering a chosen image. Nowhere

approaching glass paintings in popularity and
variety, the foil engravings, sometimes called
‘gold glass’, appear in the late Roman period in

the peculiar form of the
fondi d ‘OM
found imbedded

as grave markers in the plaster walls of the

Christian catacombs. Believed to be the bottoms

of broken drinking vessels they are decorated with
expertly engraved portraits to identify the burial

site of a specific person, often with the addition of

a written sentiment praising the good life. Also,
the stylised figures of the more popular saints

appear frequently, with pictorial references from
the scriptures in renderings bearing the hallmarks

of a stock selection prepared to order. This
argues against the theory of the glass bottoms, in

spite of the bowl fragments with similar decora-

tion in the British Museum. The weight and con-

struction of the gold glass medallions makes it
difficult to imagine a drinking vessel with such a

base, and not one complete object has been dis-
covered. A few specimens can be found in the

major museums, and the world’s largest collection

of well over a hundred is in the Museo Sacro of

the Vatican Library, including some examples
linked with the Jewish faith.

This type of glass decoration disappeared, along

with the reverse-painted variety, and was not en-

countered again until the 13th century. Most of the
engravings from the Renaissance have been attri-

buted to centres in Northern Italy, notably Padua,

where toward the end of the 14th century an
account of working on gold foil appears in the

famous manuscript
11 Libro dell’arte
by Cennino

Cennini. Some exquisite small panels from that

period can be seen in the Victoria and Albert

Museum.

Reverse foil engraving on glass is widely

known by the name
verre eglomise.

The origin of

this unfortunate common label is best explained by
quoting in full a paragraph from an article written

for
The Connoisseur
by W. B. Honey.
8

‘A word is perhaps called for in explanation

of the term ‘Verre eglomise’, which has for
long been applied to this work, in common with

the art of painting under glass. The name, as Mr.

F. Sydney Eden rightly stated in
The Connois-

seur
(June, 1932) is derived from that of one

Glomy, an eighteenth century dealer. But the

manner in which the name came to be adopted

is not generally known. Glomy was also a

picture framer, who introduced a fashion of

surrounding a subject with a border of gilding

and colour painted behind the glass, and prints

framed in this way, when the style was taken
up by others, were referred to in the trade as
egionzisees.
The word was first adopted

officially, so to speak, in a catalogue of the

Musee de Cluny in 1852; when taken over by

the Italians as
agglomizzalo

it began to

assume an air of respectable antiquity and
became the customary term for all sorts of

painting and gilding behind glass, of any date.

Purists have denounced the term as an anach-

ronism, as indeed it usually is, but in the

absence of any other short name it is quite
likely to survive.’

In the early 18th century reverse foil engraving

was successfully established in certain areas, and

craftsmen in the Low Countries, France and
Bohemia employed this very suitable technique to

decorate small objects from caskets to snuff

boxes and jewellery. Wall pictures were the
domain of more accomplished artists working

after copperplate prints by the prolific engravers

of the time, with city views and landscapes as
particularly popular subjects.

A considerable technical ability is required to

overcome the inherent difficulties of the process.

As with reverse painting, no corrections can be

made on the delicate engraving. The opaque

properties of the material do not permit a pattern

to be laid under the glass, and the work area looks
like a metal plate on the surface of which the
image is drawn with the sharp point of a needle.

After the completion of the drawing the panel is

covered with a layer of paint for contrast and
protection. This coating is seen from the other

side behind the linework of the engraving, and the
effect is not unlike that of a print on a gold back-

ground.
The best known practitioner of this art form

was Jonas Zeuner (1727-1814) of Amsterdam.
His work is well represented in major collections,

and a splendid panel depicting the Sadler’s Wells

Theatre is on display in the glass department of
the Victoria and Albert Museum. Zeuner engraved
a number of English views, but it is not certain

that he ever actually worked in England. A charac-

teristic example of his style is provided by a
riverside village scene in the Corning Museum of

Glass (fig.11). The landscape has been treated
like a metallic cutout in front of a sky rendered in

soft tones of pinkish gray colours, with cloud for-
mations and birds in flight. This treatment of the

sky as a device to quickly fill a large area of the

panel, and the very effective use of silver foil in

combination with two shades of gold to make up

the engraved area have become a Zeuner trade-
mark. The modern category of mixed media

would perfectly fit his standard choice of

materials and layouts.

As in the case of studio painting, the foil en-

graving technique also found its way into folk art,

and the early 19th century craftsmen in Silesia

and Bohemia produced signed panels with en-
gravings in silver or gold foil featuring religious

and secular subjects.
No illustrations of the so-called English Glass

Pictures are needed for members of the Glass

Circle, and I shall touch only briefly on this third

type of reverse-painted glass. In 1959 Jeffrey
Rose read a paper to the Circle on
The English

Glass Pictures or the Art of Painting Mezzolinto,

and there is very little that can be added to his

thorough coverage of the subject, even after nearly

twenty years of further study.
During the 18th century, and up to the Victorian

period, these pictures were a natural part of the

decorative components in a household of refine-
ment. The apparently insatiable appetite of the

Georgians for portraits depicting persons of

quality was met by royalty and nobility at one end

of the scale, actresses and ladies of fashion at the
other. Paintings by Sir Godfrey Kneller and other

popular portrait artists of the time were made
into mezzotints, and the soft velvety tones of the

print were particularly suitable for colouring

behind glass. It has been said that the mezzotint

transfers were put together, or at least finished,

by ladies of leisure as a hobby, and how-to-do-it
instructions were indeed printed in contemporary

manuals. Although the development might have

been started by individuals, commercial production

soon took over.
The effective and relatively cheap pictures

could be manufactured quickly in a large selection.

They were widely distributed and even exported to

the Colonies. Advertisements appeared in the

Boston Gazette
and other newspapers for mezzo-

transfers, featuring as subjects: the
Months,
the

Seasons,
the

Four Times of Day,
the
Five Senses,

the
Elements,
the

Royal Family
and various prints

after Hogarth and Reynolds. The
Four Seasons

after Rosalba were extremely popular, and com-

plete sets keep turning up in the salerooms of

London.
The production process consists of a few

basically simple steps. First lay a moistened
mezzotint on a tacky sheet of varnished glass,
printed side down, and wait for the bond to set.

Then thoroughly soften the paper with lots of

water, and rub it off carefully in rolled little bits
so that only the ink remains adhering to the glass.

After drying, the image can be coloured in layers

of transparent glazes until the desired effect has
been achieved. Opaque white paint will provide

the background cover and reflect the light to bring
out the subtle colouring. Rough and messy at

first, the process is very delicate in the finish, and

at least some artistic talent may be required to do

the job well.
The Victorians changed the popular taste and

interrupted the continuity by putting the pictures

away in attics and other depositories, from which

they have been only recently retrieved, so that we

must view the English glass pictures as a purely

Georgian phenomenon. Modern attitudes have

hardened against the whole concept of these pic-

tures, and make it difficult for us to appreciate

them for themselves. We tend to view them in an

antiquarian spirit, as examples of an old craft.
Conversely, I would like to think that all is well

with the art of reverse painting on glass, and that
the concept did not do what it is supposed to have
done—meekly give up the ghost sometime in the

late 19th century. Although it ceased to play a

significant economic role and was replaced by the
atrocious oleo prints, the art form was carried

over to the present time by some individuals con-

tinuing the tradition and by others who picked it
up anew. In Sandl, for instance, some work was

done in the old style beyond the turn of the century.

Around 1910 Wassily Kandinsky, Gabriele Minter

and a few others of the group of artists
Der Blow

Reiter
picked up the thread in Murnau and contin-

ued to experiment with the technique for their own

purposes. In 1918 Picard published
Expression-

istische Bauernmalerei,
the first book on the sub-

ject relating it to artistic attitudes. In Bern there

is a collection of reverse paintings by Paul Klee,

and serious contemporary work is being done in a

number of places in Central Europe, notably

around Munich.
Contrary to the widely accepted notion that the

Blue Rider group must be credited with the ‘dis-

covery’ of reverse painting as folk art worth pre-

serving, it may be that their real contribution lies
in the fact of their having done something new with

it. By taking the well established technique away

from utilitarian applications and placing it back in
the realm of pure art, they closed the proverbial
circle, but kept the options open.
One cannot help but wonder why anybody would

willingly go through the misery of painting back-

wards on a piece of glass at a time when the most
advanced techniques and materials are available

for the asking. Perhaps one should look for the
answer in the simple statement by the rather
sophisticated ‘naive’ Yugoslavian painter Ivan

Generalid:

‘colours on glass are more beautiful, more

luminous’.
9

NOTES

1.
The Corning Museum of Glass,
Glass from the

Ancient World, The Ray Winfield Smith Collection,

Corning,
New York (1957), p. 165.

2.
The Corning Museum of Glass,
op. cit.,

p. 167.

3.
Gislind M. Ritz,
Hinterglasmalerei,

Munich, Verlag

Georg D. W. Callwey (1972), p. 8.

4.
Admirably described by Franz-Adrian Dreier, ‘Hans

Jakob Spriingli aus Zurich als Hinterglasmaler’,

Zeitschrift fur schzveizerische Arclzdologie und

Kunstgeschichte,
Band 21, Heft 1 (1961), pp. 5-18.

5.
Gislind M. Ritz,
op. cit.,
p. 49.

6.
Wolfgang Bruckner,

Hinterglasmalerei

(Keysers

Kunst- und Antiquitatenbuch, Band 3), Munich,

Keysersche Verlagsbuchhandlung (1976), p. 89.

7.
Leopold Schmidt,

Hinlerglas,
Salzburg, Residenz

Verlag, (1972), p. 34.

8.
W. B. Honey, ‘Gold-Engraving under Glass ‘,
The

Connoisseur,
92 (December, 1933), pp. 372-375.

9.
Nebofga Tomagevie,
The Magic World of Ivan
Generalie.,

New York, Rizzoli International Publica-

tions Inc. (1976), p. 93.

Selected Bibliography
Herbert Wolfgang Keiser,
Die Deutsche Hinterglas-

malerei,
Munich, F. Bruckmann Verlag (1937)

Cornet Irimie and Marcela Focsa,
Romanian
icons

painted on Glass,
London, Thames and Hudson (1970)

Leon Kieffer,
La Peinture sous Verre en Alsace,
Stras –

bourg, Librairie Istra (1972)

Antonino Buttitta,
La Pitlura su Vetro in
Sicilia,

Palermo,

Sellerio Editore (1972)

Friedrich Knaipp,
Hinterglasbilder,
Linz/Donau, Verlag

J. Wimmer (1973)

Raimund Schuster,
Auf Glas Gemalt,

Regensburg, Verlag

Friedrich Pustet (1973)

Max Seidel,
Hinterglasbilder,

Stuttgart, Belser Verlag

(1978)

Figure 1. Pyxis lid, Roman (Cyprus), 2nd-3rd

century A.D. D. 3
3

/
8
in. (8.5 cm.). The Newark

Museum, New Jersey (73.132).

Figure 2. Tankard, Swiss (Zurich), 1620-1630. H.7
5

/
g
in. (19.5 cm.)

Swiss
National Museum, Zilrich (32365).

Figure 3.

Christ bearing the Cross,
Italian (possibly Venice), 16th century. 9
1

j
8
x 7

5
/Sin. (23 X 19.5 cm.).

Private collection.

Figure 4.

Nativity,

Austrian (Sandi.), ca. 1840. 9

7
4
3
x 6

5
/
y

in. (25 x 17 cm.). Private collection.

J FEN

Itf

SMIITH

WITH COMPLIMENTS

2 WEST PA AH
9
THORPENESS, LEISTON
9

SUFFOLK IP16 4NF TEL: 01728 452 3

42 VESPAN ROAD, LONDON W12 9QQ TEL: 020 8735 0316

CELL PHONE: 07725 409 727 ]E-MAIL: [email protected]

Figure 5. Outline pattern, Austrian (Sandi), ca. 1840 approx. 10

/
4
x 7

/
b
in. (26 x 18 cm.). After an original

in the Museum fiir Volkskunde, Vienna.

Figure 6.

Crucifixion,

Bohemian, ca. 1800. 10
1
/
4
x 6
7
/
b
in. (26.5 x 17.5 cm.). Private collection.

Figure 7.

Jesus with Orb,
Silesian, ca. 1820. 10

4 x 6

5
/
e
in. (2’7.5 x 17 cm.). Private

collection.

Figure 8.

Virgin and Child,

German (Raimundsreut), ca. 1860. 9
7
/
8
x 6

/
b
in. (25 x 17.5 cm.).

Private collection.

Figure 9.

M. John,
Alsatian (possibly Colmar), ca. 1860. 91/2 x 6

7
/
8
in. (24 x 17. 5 cm.). Private

collection.

Figure 10.

SI. Bartholomew,
German (Augsburg), ca. 1750. 9

7
/
8

x 71/2in. (25
x 19

cm.). Private collection,

Figure 11. Landscape by Jonas Zeuner, The Netherlands (Amsterdam), ca. 1785. 9

7
4 x 17in. (25.9 x 43.2 cm.). The Corning Museum of

Glass (53. 3. 32).

The Manchester Glass Industry

By ROGER DODSWORTH

A Paper read to the Circle On 18 March, 1980

Manchester glass is one of the least-known

aspects of English Glass History. Being primarily

a Victorian industry it has suffered the neglect
common to most 19th century English glass.

However, the principal reason why Manchester

glass is so little known is simply that until quite
recently most writers on glass seem to have been

unaware that the town had ever possessed a glass
industry. Even when the industry was at its height
contemporaries had difficulty in connecting Man-

chester with glass. In 1851 one wrote: ‘One is so

apt to associate the manufacturing production of

Manchester with cotton and calico as to feel some

surprise to see an exhibition of beautiful glass-

ware emanating from that busy town. . . . More-
over it is not generally known that not less than

twenty-five tons of flint glass are at the present

time produced weekly in Manchester where the

establishment of Messrs. Molineaux and Webb takes

the lead in this department of industrial art.”

The Manchester Glass Industry was first put on

the map by Hugh Wakefield in his pioneering work

191h century British Glass,
published in 1961.

Before then the only writers to refer to Man-

chester had been Francis Buckley, who uncovered

evidence of glassmaking in the town from his re-

search into 18th and 19th century journals and

newspapers
2
, and Harry Powell

3
and Angus-

Butterworth
4

,both of whom had worked a lifetime

in the industry and for that reason were aware of

the part that Manchester had played. In the 1960’s

the Victoria and Albert Museum began to collect

Manchester pressed glass for the now defunct and
much-missed Circulation Department, and one or

two pieces were included in the department’s
travelling exhibition on Victorian Glass. In the

early 1970s the City Art Gallery, Manchester, also

began collecting pressed glass, and some valuable
research into the history of the industry was begun

by Charles Hajdamach of the Art Gallery staff,

which has continued in fits and starts since then,

Considerable progress has been made in the last

ten years particularly in the identification of the
pressed glass. But the glass itself only tells part

of the story and a complete picture of how the
industry developed will be obtained only by lab-

orious research into contemporary records such

as Directories, maps, photographs, newspapers and
insurance documents, none of which have been

systematically investigated yet.
I intend to divide my talk into two parts. In the

first I shall discuss the early history of glass-

making in Manchester and the cut and engraved

glass of Molineaux Webb, and in the second part

Manchester pressed glass, with special reference

to the best-known producer, John Derbyshire.

Glassmaking in the Manchester area goes back

at least as far as the early 17th century, when a

glasshouse was established at Haughton Green,

Denton, about five miles east of the city centres

Glassmaking on the site ceased probably during
the 1650s and there then ensued a long gap in

activity until the mid 18th century, when there

were one or two isolated, unsuccessful attempts to

set up glasshouses, listed by Buckley. The pace

quickens towards the end of the 18th century.
Imison and King opened a works in Newton Heath,

Manchester, in 1785 for the manufacture of all

sorts of glass wares, and in 1795 the
Manchester

Mercury
refers to the firm of Atherton and

Whalley, cut and engraved glass manufacturers.

Butterworth Bros. Ltd., the last Manchester firm

to close, were said to have been the successors to
a business started in Newton Heath as long ago as
1795.
6
Robert Charleston has discovered a ref-

erence to an engraver named Unsworth in Man-

chester around the turn of the century, and by

1821 the industry was well enough established for

glassblowers to take part in the processions which

marked the coronation of George IV. However, it
is not until about 1830 that Manchester can begin

to be called an important glassmaking centre.
At first the evidence is rather confused. For

instance, the 1833
Directories

list six glass firms,

Joshua Bower & Co., John Haddock and Co., Joshua
Henzell & Co., Molineaux Webb Ellis & Co.,

Robinson Perrin and Maginnis, and West and
Bromilow. However, according to the Parliament-

ary Commission of Enquiry into the Excise Duty,

which is probably more reliable, the manufacturers
that year were Thomas Molineaux,William Robin-

son, William Maginnis & Co., Daniel Watson & Co.

and Frederick Fareham. Whatever the answer may

be, ‘in 1833 Manchester appears rather suddenly
and unexpectedly in the Parliamentary List as one

of the more important glassmaking areas in
England.’
7

What caused the emergence of a glass industry

in Manchester at this time ? One incentive must

have been the rapid growth in the population of the

town, coupled with the absence of any existing glass
industry to take advantage of this expanding mar-
ket. Between 1801 and 1831 the population doubled

from 70, 000 to 140, 000, having trebled in the pre-

vious thirty years, and from 1831 to 1851 it
doubled again to 300, 000. Neighbouring towns such

as Bolton, Bury, Oldham and Rochdale were also

expanding fast.

The glass industry must also have been en-

couraged by the excellent communications system

which the town enjoyed. The navigable waters of
the Irwell and Mersey plus a whole network of
canals and railways gave Manchester access not

only to the rest of the country but also to the prin-

cipal ports of Liverpool, London and Hull,from

which ‘articles made at its manufactories could be

wafted to the most distant shores of both hemi-

spheres’, as a contemporary put it. The raw
materials for glass could be imported via the

same routes, though one material which Man-

chester had in abundance on its own doorstep was

coal for firing the furnaces. The industry estab-

lished itself in a district called Ancoats, about

half a mile north-east of the town centre. In 1830

Ancoats was a newly built-up area on the edge of

Manchester, adjoining open countryside. A canal

with various branches ran through it, enabling
materials to be brought right to the factory doors.

The following description was recorded in 1844

and gives some idea of how the area may have

looked. ‘Manchester is certainly a strange place.

Nothing is to be seen but houses blackened by

smoke and in the external parts of the towns half
empty dirty ditches between smoking factories of

different kinds, all built with regard to practical
utility and without any respect at all for external

beauty . . . I could not help being forcibly struck

by the peculiar dense atmosphere which hangs

over these towns in which hundreds of chimneys

are continually vomiting forth clouds of smoke.
The light even is quite different from what it is

elsewhere. What a curious red colour was pre-

sented by the evening light this evening. It is not

like a mist nor like dust nor like smoke but is a

sort of mixture of these three ingredients, con-
densed moreover by the particular chemical

exhalations of such towns.’
Today all the smoke has gone and most of the

industry. Ancoats is in fact a typical inner city

area, a combination of decaying factories and new

housing, at first tower blocks and now ‘low-rise’.
The Kirby Street site of Molineaux Webb has com-

pletely disappeared, but fortunately Jersey Street

and Poland Street, the heart of the glass quarter,

are still more or less intact, though it has not yet

been established whether any of the buildings still

standing were once glass factories.

The most important of all the Manchester fac-

tories was Molineaux, Webb & Co. The firm was

founded in 1827 and until 1831 went under the name

of Maginnis Molineaux & Co. Between 1832 and

1845 it traded as Molineaux Webb Ellis & Co., flint
glass and vial manufacturers, and from 1845 until

closure in 1931 as Molineaux Webb & Co. Both

Maginnis and Molineaux are very shadowy figures.

Maginnis appears to have left the firm about 1831

and set up a rival concern. When the Molineaux

connection ceased we do not know but it was

certainly by 1859,for nobody of that name is men-

tioned at the celebrations which marked the

retirement of Thomas Webb II. However, the name
Molineaux was retained in the firm’s title until the

end, possibly to avoid confusion with the Webb

firms in Stourbridge.

The Webbs were a glassmaking family from

Warrington. The first member of the family we
know about is a Thomas Webb, glassmaker, who

was born in 1753 and died in 1839. It was his son,

Thomas Webb
II,
who was instrumental in founding

Molineaux Webb in 1827. He was born in Warring-
ton in 1797 and died in 1873. On his retirement in

1859 a great banquet was held at the works and he

was presented with a testimonial which included

an illuminated address inscribed:

‘This vellum, as a record and memorial, with

a Silver Tea and Coffee Service and Cigar

Case were presented to Thomas Webb Esq by

the Workpeople of the Manchester
Flint

Glass

Works, on his retirement from that concern.
He was one of the first founders of those

Works thirty-three years ago and many of the
subscribers to the Testimonials were ser-
vants under and co-workers with him from

the beginning. As an earnest and sincere ex-

pression of regard, one more unaminous could

not have been rendered; all in that establish-

ment having cheerfully contributed in propor-

tion to their means. Manchester Flint Glass

Works, December 30th 1859.’
8

After 1859 the firm was carried on by Thomas’s

son, Thomas George Webb (fig. 1), with a partner

called David Wilkinson. It was under Thomas

George’s grandson, Duncan Webb II, that the factory

closed in 1931.
We should know virtually nothing about Molin-

eaux Webb’s cut and engraved glass were it not for

the existence of a magnificent factory pattern book

which was sold by Duncan Webb II’s daughter at
Sotheby’s Belgravia in 1977 and purchased by The

City Art Gallery, Manchester. The book, which has

194 pages (14″ x 10″), contains just over 2000 de-

signs in pen and ink and occasionally colour wash,

and is embellished throughout with numerous
small decorative floui-ishes. Coloured and cased

glass is illustrated besides crystal. Decoration is
principally cut or engraved, though reference is

made to etching and gilding and some patterns

may have been enamelled. Pressed glass is not

included. The book is arranged in sections accord-

ing to type of object. The largest section is

devoted to Decanters, which have over 500 designs,

followed by sugar basins and creams, caraffes and
tumblers, water jugs and goblets (figs. 2-3), and

celeries. The more obscure branches of Victorian

tableware, however, such as marmalades, mus-

tards (fig. 4), radishes and knife rests only receive

a page or two each.
The pattern book was compiled perhaps about

1870 from five separate pattern books, entitled The
Old Vase Sketch Book, The Large Book, No. 1, No. 2

and No. 3 or the New Sketch Book. Each section
contains designs from some or all of these books,

and the transition from one to another is acknow-
ledged with a note such as ‘end of No. 2 Book. New

Book commences’. The Old Vase Sketch Book is

the earliest in date and shows the heavy, broad-

fluted style of cutting that was so popular in this

country from the 1820s to the 1840s. Some of the

patterns have names such as ‘William IV’ and

‘Reform’ and they must date from the very first

years of the firm’s existence. The latest patterns

are found in No. 3 or The New Book, which cannot
date much before about 1870. The shapes of the

water jugs and goblets in particular betray a
strong classical or eastern influence, and several

are decorated with the ubiquitous fern motif, which

only became popular in the 1860s. No. 1 Book in-
cludes several pieces that Molineaux Webb ex-

hibited at the Great Exhibition, which is the only

occasion where a precise date can be given to any
of the pattern numbers. Other examples of the

firm’s Great Exhibition glass, for which it was

awarded a bronze medal, were illustrated in the

1851
Art Journal
(fig. 5).

9
Ruby-cased glass fea-

tured prominently along with ordinary cut crystal,
but the most interesting piece was an opalescent

vase decorated with a classical scene from Flax-

man showing Diomed casting his spear at Mars.

According to the
Art Journal

the scene was en-

graved, but as the vase is opalescent it is more

likely to have been transfer-printed from an en-
graved plate, a technique usually associated with

Richardson’s of Wordsley. Another interesting
style made by Molineaux Webb around the time of

the Great Exhibition was iced or crackle glass.
Two pieces of glass were sold with the pattern

book, a heavily cut amber decanter (figs. 7-8) from

the 1850s (pattern 7085) and a frosted comport

with a ruby rim and an engraved band of ornament,

c. 1865, and the pattern book may lead to the dis-

covery of others in time. Duncan Webb’s daughter

has a number of glasses which family tradition
says were made at Molineaux Webb but which,
unfortunately, cannot be traced in the pattern book.

These include a claret decanter and goblet,finely
engraved with classical grotesque ornament (fig.9),

and a fascinating small tumbler engraved in Bo-
hemian style with a woodland scene and signed

‘A. Bohm.’ August Bohm was one of the foremost

Bohemian engravers of the 19th century. His

masterpiece is undoubtedly the large vase and

cover depicting the Battle of the River Granicus

fought between Alexander The Great and King

Darius in 334 B.C., which he executed at Meisters-
dorf in 1840 and which is mentioned by Apsley

Pellatt in
Curiosities of Glassmaking.
Bohm is

said to have worked in England, and it is fascinating
to speculate that he may have been for a time in.

Manchester with Molineaux Webb. On balance,

however, it is more likely that the tumbler is a
Bohemian glass which Thomas Webb II somehow

acquired.
One Bohemian who definitely did work in Man-

chester was Wilhelm Pohl, who was born in 1839

and came from a distinguished line of glass en-

gravers. He is recorded first at Edinburgh and

then in Warrington before arriving in Manchester
in 1873, where he worked for the Prussia Street

Flint Glass Works of Andrew Ker & Co.’° His

most important piece is the Manchester Town Hall

Goblet (fig.10) which was presented to the Mayor,

Mr. Alderman Heywood, by the workmen of
Messrs. Andrew Ker & Co. on the opening of the

spectacular new Gothic Town Hall in 1877. It is

engraved with a view of The Town Hall on one side
and was apparently going to have a portrait of the

Mayor on the other,but this was not carried out.
11

The goblet has had a chequered history. Following

some correspondence in the local press in 1926,it
came to light that the goblet was no longer in The

Town Hall. In 1951 a newspaper article appeared

on Pohl’s daughter and the mystery of the missing

goblet but once again no clue was found of its

whereabouts. Finally in 1973 the Art Gallery in
Manchester received a letter out of the blue from

an Antique Dealer in Co. Durham saying that he

had a goblet engraved with Manchester Town Hall

and would the Gallery be interested in buying it,

which eventually it did. Pohl’s family in Man-
chester have other examples of his glass including

two jugs engraved with an officer on horseback and

The Devil’s Glen, Co. Wicklow, and a rummer show-

ing Woolf’s house and St. Mary’s, Sankey, near

Warrington.
These glasses by Pohl, the Molineaux Webb

decanter and comport sold with the pattern book,

and the pieces belonging to the daughter of Duncan

Webb, are almost the only known examples of cut

and engraved glass made in Manchester. Other

factories such as Percival Vickers, Burtles Tate

& Co. (fig. 6), and the Derbyshire Bros.were also

producing this type of work, but not a single

example has been identified yet.
If Manchester glass is known at all, it is the

pressed glass people have heard of. The frequent

appearance of the diamond registry mark on
pressed wares has enabled a number of pieces to

be traced to particular Manchester factories, while

one manufacturer, John Derbyshire, even employed

a trade mark, for which collectors and historians

will be eternally grateful. Where the glass itself

does not survive, the drawings that accompany the

registered designs provide invaluable information.
Pressed glass was being made in Manchester

at least as early as 1848. This is the date of a
most interesting letter written by Thomas Webb II

to the Warrington firm of Robinson & Skinner, in

which he describes how the manufacture of
pressed glass is carried on at Molineaux Webb.”

The men worked a basic sixty-six hour week made

up of eleven moves or shifts of six hours each.

They operated in teams of six called a ‘place’,

which consisted of a presser, melter and gatherer,
and three boys, the sticker-up, taker-in and

warmer-in. The pressers received 21/- to 23/- a

week before overtime, the melters 21/- to 24/-,

and the gatherers 14/- to 16/-, The melter had
the important job of taking the newly-pressed

article to the furnace mouth and manipulating it in

the heat to soften rough edges and seam marks but

without destroying the sharpness and detail of the
design. A contemporary writer, George Dodd,
13

mentions other difficulties in pressing glass. ‘The

process’,he says, ‘is said to be cheap and expedi-

tious but to require much skill. If the quantity of

glass be too large, the over-plus gives consider-

able trouble, if too little the article is spoiled. If
the die and plunger be too hot, the glass will ad-

here to them, if too cold the surface of the glass

becomes cloudy and imperfect.’

Returning to Thomas Webb’s letter, the list of

products includes tumblers, salts, sugar basins,

dishes and plates, mustards, pickles and butters.

Large dishes were the most difficult job. Only

about eighty or a hundred could be made in six

hours, whereas up to 500 half -pint tumblers could

be produced in that time. Unfortunately no Molin-
eaux Webb pressed glass can be identified until

the 1860s, when the factory began regularly to
register designs. Another firm early in the field

of pressed glass was Percival Yates and Vickers

of Jersey Street, Ancoats, founded in 1844, but once

again no examples are known before the 1860s.

John Derbyshire of Salford is undoubtedly the

best-known pressed glass manufacturer, thanks to
his JD and anchor trade mark. The series of

paperweights in animal and human forms which he

produced in the 1870s are among the most original

and attractive examples of pressed glass ever

made in this country. The earliest reference to

the glassmaking activities of the Derbyshire family
comes in 1858, when James Derbyshire, John’s
elder brother, set up a factory known as the British

Union Flint Glass Works at 248 City Road, Hulme.

Hulme was the other glassmaking district of
Manchester, situated about half a mile south of

the town centre. By 1867 James had been joined
by his two brothers, John and Thomas, and they

established another factory called The Bridgwater
Flint Glass Works in Trentham Street, Hulme.

The brothers operated both works until 1873, when
John left to start his own company at Regent Road,

Salford, where he produced cut, engraved and
etched glass as well as pressed. He is recorded

there until 1876 and it was during those four years

only that the JD and anchor trade mark was used.
After 1876 mention of John Derybshire ceases and

the Salford factory was renamed The Regent Flint
Glass Co. Meanwhile James Derbyshire and Sons

continued to run one if not both of the works in

Hulme until 1881, when the firm is listed not only

at City Road but also at Regent Road, Salford.
As only a handful of pieces from the Hulme fac-

tories have so far been found, we have to turn to

the diamond-registered designs and the accom-

panying drawings for information on the early

glass by the Derbyshires. The brothers appear to

have concentrated on ordinary tableware such as

ale glasses, goblets (fig. 15), sugar basins, dishes,

celeries, and comports, decorated either in imita-

tion of cut glass or with simplified engravers’

patterns set against a contrasting frosted back-

ground. A particularly popular design with the

Derbyshires but also with their rivals, Molineaux

Webb, was the Greek Key and both firms regis-

tered at least two versions each in 1865. Later,
Derbyshire’s attempted some more ambitious

pieces such as a dolphin comport and a Roman

vase, registered in 1872.
While he did not neglect simple pressed table-

ware at Salford, the move there in 1873 enabled

John Derbyshire to give more attention to decora-

tive pressed glass than there had been at Hulme.

The inspiration for several of the designs seems

to have come from ceramics. The greyhound
paperweight (registered September, 1874) owes an

obvious debt to 19th century Staffordshire figures,

while the figures of
Punch
and

Judy
are found in

19th century salt-glazed stoneware and also

appear in metalwork. John Derbyshire did not
register his
Punch
and

Judy
and this is puzzling.

Either he did not feel the designs needed protecting

or for some technical reasons he was prohibited

from doing so. Judging by the numbers that have
survived and the range of colours used (blue,
green, frosted and clear) John Derbyshire’s most

successful product must have been the lion paper-

weight (registered July, 1874) based on the lions
by Landseer at the foot of Nelson’s column (fig. 11).

Derbyshire also produced a slightly smaller lion

with front legs crossed (fig. 12), but why he chose

to make two, which came first and why only one

was registered, we do not know.
Another problem is raised by a full length

figure of the young
Queen Victoria

(fig. 13).

Although very similar in style to the
Britannia

paperweight which Derbyshire registered in

November, 1874, it carries neither trade mark nor
registry mark and therefore may possibly have

been made by a rival Manchester firm. That there

was close competition between the Manchester
firms is shown by the episode of the sphinxes.

In the early 1870s negotiations began concerning
the possibility of moving the obelisk known as

Cleopatra’s needle from Egypt to London. This
caught the public imagination and inspired Molin-

eaux Webb in July, 1875, to register a paperweight

in the form of a sphinx in black glass, derived

from Wedgwood basalt ware. Not to be outdone,
nine months later John Derbyshire registered his

own version, an imposing winged sphinx in frosted
glass. Unfortunately, no connection can be proved

between these glass sphinxes and the bronze

sphinxes now at the base of the Needle, as the

latter were not cast until 1882. The needle itself

was reproduced in pressed glass in 1877, a year

before it actually reached London, under the guise

of ‘a jar for pomade or other like substance’. The
design was registered by G. V. de Luca of Basing-

hall Street in the City of London, but the manu-

facturer is not known.

John Derbyshire’s hollow wares show the same

inventiveness as his figures. A piano insulator in

the form of a mammoth’s foot and a vase in the

form of a hand, both in a green/yellow glass

probably containing uranium, were among his first

designs, while in his last year at Salford he pro-

duced a successful classical-style spill vase

decorated with swags of fruit (cf.fig. 18). Perhaps

his two most elaborate designs were a tobacco jar

registered in May, 1876, and a conservatory vase

of August, 1875. The tobacco jar, which we only

know of through drawings, was decorated with

figures in panels symbolising the four continents.
Only one example of the conservatory vase is

known (fig. 16). It is of frosted glass, stands nine

inches high, and is decorated with dogs flushing
game birds amid sparsely-placed trees. The

whole piece has a slight Bohemian flavour.

With the disappearance of John Derbyshire in

1877, much of the interest goes out of Manchester
pressed glass. A few decorative pieces in

coloured opaline glass (fig. 14) were made in the

1880s by Burtles Tate and Molineaux Webb but the

emphasis seems to have been on ordinary table-

ware in imitation of cut glass. Whole services were

produced such as ‘The Duchess’ by Molineaux

Webb (registered 1882). This was illustrated in

Pottery Gazettel
4

and a large comport is now in

the City Art Gallery,Manchester.

The final fifty years of the Manchester Glass

Industry (1880-1930) have hardly been investigated
at all, and the rest of the story is soon told. The

Prussia Street Flint Glass Works of Andrew Ker
closed about 1887, and its eventual successor,

James Bridge and Co., was taken over by Butter-

worth’s in 1895. Percival Vickers (fig. 17) closed

in 1914, while Burtles Tate survived until 1924,

when it too was absorbed by Butterworth’s.

Molineaux Webb & Co. was sold by the Webb

family in 1931 and finally closed about 1936. From
about 1900 scientific glass was produced besides
pressed and cut tableware. A poignant letter sur-

vivesis , dated 5th June,1923,from the China and

Glass Department of Harrods to Molineaux Webb,
in which the sale of some pressed glass is dis-

cussed. At the top of the letter a hand has added
’31 competitors against us and our lines were

successful against the lot’. Butterworth’s was the

final Manchester firm to close, some time after
the Second World War. The factory was featured
in
Pottery Gazette
in 1938 and presented a curious

mixture of old and new. Its speciality was high-
pressure gauge glasses, but at the same time the

clay for the pots was still being prepared by

kneading with bare feet.

Today there are only street names to show that

Manchester ever had a glass industry, and even

these are in danger of disappearing. Glass Street

in Hulme, for instance, has already been struck

from the current Manchester A-Z. However, while

the site evidence may be fading, the glass itself is

slowly coming to light, re-establishing Manchester’s

place in the history of English glassmaking.

POSTSCRIPT.
Since this text went to press, the following facts

have come to light:-

The decanter shown in fig. 9 was exhibited by

Messrs. Phillips and Pearce at the 1867 Paris
Universal Exhibition. It is illustrated on p.67 of

the 1867

Art Journal

and described (p. 93) as “the

most skilful and artistic example of engraving in

the Exhibition”. It was said to be by the same

hand as a jug displayed by Mr. J.Dobson,” the

work of a skilful German engraver, located in
England.”
With regard to the tumbler engraved by A.

Bbhm (p. 66), Mrs. Mary Boydell has drawn the
author’s attention to a ruby coated vase made by
the Manchester firm Percival Yates and engraved

by Bohm with Richard Coeur de Lion and Saladin

at the Battle of Ascalon. This suggests that Bohm

did work in Manchester for a time. The vase was
exhibited by W. White of Dublin at the Irish Indus-

trial Exhibition of 1853 and described in
The Irish

Industrial Exhibition of 1853: a detailed catalogue
. .
, edited by John Sproule, Dublin, 1854,

p.399.

NOTES

1.
Illustrated Catalogue of the Industry of All Nations

(1851
Art Journal),
p. 290.

2.
F.

Buckley, ‘Old Lancashire Glasshouses’,Journal

of the Society of Glass Technology,
XIII, No. 51

(1929), pp. 229-242.

3.
H. J. Powell,

Glassmaking in England,
Cambridge

University Press (1923), pp.120, 168.

4.
L. M. Angus-Butterworth,
British Table and

Ornamental Glass,
London, Leonard Hill (1956),

pp. 83-6.

5.
For an account of this glasshouse see Ruth Hurst

Vose,
Glass,
London, Collins (1980), pp. 143-6.

6.
Pottery Gazette
(July,

1938).

7.
Buckley,
op. cit.,
p. 290.

8.
The original ‘Report of the Proceedings’ on the

occasion of the presentation of the testimonial is in

the City Art Gallery, Manchester. The illuminated
address and cigar case are owned by Duncan Webb

II’s daughter, to whom the author is much indebted

for information on the family history.

9.
Art Journal
(1851), p.290.

10.
Information from the Pohl family bible.

11.
Another glass jug in the Town Hall collection,

engraved with a view of the Town Hall, has recently

come to light. The engraving is of good quality and
likely to be by Pohl,

12.
A photocopy of this letter is in the library at

Broadfield House Glass Museum, Kingswinford,

the original being in the possession of Mr.H.W.

Woodward.

13.
George Dodd,
Days at the Factories
(1843), re-

printed by EP
Publishing Ltd. (1975).

14.
Pottery Gazette Supplement

(1883).

15.
In the possession of Duncan Webb II’s daughter.

Figure 1. Photograph of Thomas George Webb (1827-1901) who with David Wilkinson became

senior partner in the firm of Molineaux Webb on the retirement of Thomas Webb II in 1859.

; 9

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Figure 2. No. 1 Book designs from the Water Jugs and Goblets section of the Molineaux

Webb pattern-book,Great Exhibition period (c.1851). City of Manchester Art Galleries.

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Figure 3. No.3 or New Book designs from the Water Jugs and Goblets section of the Molineaux Webb
pattern-book, dating from the 1860s. City of Manchester Art Galleries.

MUSTARDS

8165

8164

8237

8242

8430

84
SG

Figure 4. No. 2 and New Book designs for mustard-pots from the Molineaux Webb

pattern-book,dating from the 1860s. City of Manchester Art Galleries.

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Figure 5. Page from the 1851
Art Journal

showing examples of Molineaux Webb’s glass at the

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Figure
6. Advertisement from the 1889
Pollery Gozelle
showing Burnes Tate’s two works in Ancoats. The firm was founded about 1860 and

closed in 1924.

Figure 7. Amber cut decanter corresponding to pattern No.7085 from the No. 2 book of the

decanters section of the pattern book. Molineaux Webb, 1850s. Ht. 12in. (30.5 cm.). City of

Manchester Art Galleries.

Figure 8. Design for amber cut decanter from the Molineaux Webb pattern-book. The design is

No.7085 and comes from the No.2 book of the decanters section. City of Manchester Art Galleries.

Figure 9. Claret decanter probably by Molineaux Webb,1860s. Ht. 9

1
/
t

in. (24.1 cm.).

Collection of the great-great-great-granddaughter of Thomas Webb I.

Figure 10. Manchester Town Hall Goblet,made at the Prussia Street Flint Glass Works of

Andrew Ker to commemorate the opening of the Town Hall in 1877, and engraved by Wilhelm
Pohl, Ht.15
1
/.
2

in. (39.4 cm.). City of Manchester Art Galleries.

Figure 11. John Derbyshire’s celebrated paperweight based on the Landseer

lions at the foot of Nelson’s Column. The design was registered in 1874.

Ht. 43/4in. (12. 1 cm.). Broadfield House Glass Museum.

Figure 12. Lion paperweight in black glass bearing the JD and anchor mark

of John Derbyshire but not registered. This version with crossed legs is
much less common than that based on the lions at the foot of Nelson’s column.

L. 61/2in. (16. 5 cm.). Private Collection.

Figure 13, Neither the frosted figure of Queen Victoria,Ht. 8

1
/
2
in. (21.6),

nor the green glass dog, L. 7
1

/
2

in. (19 cm.), are marked but they resemble

other John Derbyshire products and were probably made by him or another
Manchester factory. Broadfield House Glass Museum.

Figure 14, Two pressed glass flower holders in the form of pike. The larger

fish, L.10in. (25.4 cm.),in yellow opalescent glass was registered by
Molineaux Webb in 1885, the smaller, L. 6in. (17.8 cm.), is pale blue and

unmarked. Broadfield House Glass Museum.

Figure 15. Heavy, pressed drinking glasses, a type that was produced

in Manchester and other centres during the second half of the 19th
century. Max.Ht. 6in. (15.2 cm.). Author’s collection.

Figure 16. Conservatory Vase in frosted glass,
registered by John Derbyshire in August 1875.

Ht. 9in. (22.9 cm.). City of Manchester Art Galleries.

Figure 17. Small tazza registered by Percival Vickers in 1865. Ilt. 4in.

(10.1 cm.). Simplified patterns set against a frosted background were

much favoured by the Manchester pressed glass firms. Broadfield

House Glass Museum.

Figure 18. Preserve Jar in dark blue glass,
registered 21 March,1877 by the Regent Flint Glass

Go.,Salford. Ht. 6in. (15.2 cm.). It does not bear the

JD and anchor mark, and indeed after 1876 the name

of John Derbyshire disappears. Broadfield House
Glass Museum.

The Ricketts family and the

Phoenix Glasshouse, Bristol

by CYRIL WEEDEN

A Paper read to the Circle on 19 June, 1980.

The Phoenix glasshouse has always attracted the
attention of historians—perhaps disproportionately,
some may feel, when compared with other glass-

houses in the area. In Bristol there were, over the

years, at least sixteen glasshouses (fig. 1), some of

which made products of greater historical impor-
tance than those of the Phoenix. Indeed, despite an

output that spanned a period of over sixty years,

there is surprisingly little known about the pro-

ducts of this glasshouse, other than that it made

flint glass./ H. J. Powell refers to the fact that

flint glass of fine quality was made in Bristol and
that Henry Ricketts & Co were famous for cut

glass, but he adds: ‘The patterns were not specially
characteristic, and closely resembled the contem-

porary products of London, Stourbridge and Water-

ford.’
2
Hugh Owen refers to ‘a large goblet, elab-

orately engraved with Faith, Hope and Charity—the

arms of Bristol—several ships and other devices’,

in the possession of a Mr. Michael Castle.
3

How-

ever, the only firm evidence exists in a goblet with

an illustration of the Phoenix glasshouse engraved
on it, now held by the Bristol City Museum (fig. 2;

cf. fig. 3).
Why then has the Phoenix glasshouse received

so much credit compared with other Bristol glass-

houses ? There are perhaps a number of reasons,

not the least its name. There is something evoca-

tive in the allusion to a mythical bird perpetuating

its existence through fire, especially in the case of

a glasshouse, where heat is one of the principal

factors of production. However, there was nothing

novel in the choice of name, since it came from an

inn, on the site of which the glasshouse was built.

It was the last glasshouse to be built in Bristol,

and was one of three that continued long after all

the others had closed down. Apart from a glass-
house at Crews Hole it was the only one to be

built in Bristol in the second half of the eighteenth

century, and records of its activities through the
local press are therefore more readily available.

More important, a consignment of papers relating

to the Ricketts family and their involvement in the

glasshouse has been lodged with the Bristol Record

Office.
4
Through this source can be traced much

of the development of the Phoenix glasshouse, and

the personalities of those who ran it.

Again, Hugh Owen’s reference to the Phoenix

glasshouse has popularised it in the minds of many
people. He wrote: ‘In the year 1785 a large flint-

glass manufactory was commenced at Temple

Gate, by Messrs James and George Taylor, the
premises which were previously the “Phoenix”

Inn; and from that circumstance it was called the
Phoenix Glass Works. Messrs Ricketts and Co.,

succeeded to the business in August 1789, . . .’
5

The Taylors were experienced glassmakers,

having manufactured crown glass for at least

three generations, if not more. In 1752 they leased

a glasshouse in Red Lane, opposite Temple Gate,
6

previously believed to have been worked by Ben-

jamin Perrott, himself a crown glass manufacturer.

In 1783 the then current partnership between

Samuel, James and George Taylor was dissolved,
7

and the Red Lane glasshouse probably ceased
production.

The Perrott family seems to have owned or

leased much of the property around Temple Gate.

Humphrey, the brother of Benjamin Perrott,

worked a glasshouse in Temple Street, close to the

junction with Portwall Lane, and in 1759 a John

Standford Perrott assigned premises and land,

including the Phoenix Inn, to Daniel Taylor.
8
In

1788, Elizabeth Taylor, widow of Samuel, leased

the Phoenix Inn and property relating to it to

Jacob Wilcox Ricketts and John Roach.
9
The fol-

lowing year an agreement was reached, as follows,

. The said John Wadham, Richard Ricketts,

Jacob Wilcox Ricketts, David Evans, Richard

Symes and Thomas Morgan did . . . in the

year of our Lord One Thousand Seven

Hundred and Eighty Nine enter into Copartner-

ship together in the Trade or Business of
Flint Glass Manufacturers under the firm of

Wadham Ricketts and Company and for the
purpose of carrying on their said Trade did

purchase a certain Messuage, Tenement or

Inn known by the name of Phoenix, situate
near Temple Gate . • . which purchase was

made with moneys belonging to the said Co-
partnership but the said premises were con-

veyed unto the said Jacob Wilcox Ricketts

alone and whereas the said John Wadham,

Richard Ricketts, Jacob Wilcox Ricketts,

David Evans, Richard Symes and Thomas

Morgan did erect and build in and upon the

yard belonging to the said Phoenix Inn a Flint

Glass House . . .
1
/
0

This, of course, contradicts the statement made

by Hugh Owen, but in a sense it is not surprising.

The Taylors were skilled in making crown glass”

and glassmakers tended to keep to their speciali-

ties—indeed, during the days of the Excise Tax

they were under pressure to do so. There seems

to be no reason why James and George Taylor,

nearing the close of their careers as crown glass
makers, should suddenly turn to the manufacturing

of flint glass.

Since the agreement specifies that the premises

were conveyed to Jacob Wilcox Ricketts alone we
can assume that he was the moving force behind

the venture. Jacob Wilcox Ricketts (fig. 4) was by

all accounts a flamboyant character, and a man of

strong views. Son of a tobacconist, he had already

started his own tobacco business,
12
whilst he in

1788, at the age of 35, had with Philip George

founded the Bristol Porter Brewery, soon to be the

largest brewery in the city.
13

Later he was to

establish the Castle Bank.
14
Jacob Wilcox Rickettg

was an entrepreneur from the classic mould, and
for his glass venture he attracted an influential

group of people around him, of whom David Evans,

later to be sheriff and then mayor of Bristo1,
15

was probably the most important.
The Phoenix glasshouse was soon in business,

and from August 22nd to October 10th, 1789, the

following notice appeared in Felix Farley’s
Bristol

Journal:

‘Phoenix Flint Glass House Wadham, Ricketts

and Co. at the Phoenix Flint Glass-House,

without Temple Gate, Bristol (late the Phoenix

Inn) most respectfully inform their friends

and the Public, that they have begun to work

said Glass-house; where will be kept a com-

plete assortment of every article of flint
glass, which will be sold on the most reason-

able terms.’

It would be interesting to know why Jacob Wilcox
Ricketts chose, or was persuaded to choose, flint

glassmaking as a venture. For risk investment the

times were scarcely propitious. Since 1745 the
glass industry had been subject to an excise tax

which, in order to pay for the Government’s mili-

tary commitments, had more than doubled in the

ten years preceding the building of the Phoenix

glasshouse. Furthermore, the principal cause of

the increase, the American War of Independence,

not only affected one of the traditional and most

lucrative of Bristol markets, but also lessened the

advantage of the drawback on exported goods, the
only tax relief afforded to manufacturers. Thus,

the British flint glass trade had been in the dol-
drums for most of the 1780s, although there were

signs of revival toward the end of the decade, and

this may have been the cause of optimism.
16

Of the thirteen glasshouses at work in Bristol

at this time three made flint glass, and a new ven-
ture would have been viewed with some concern by

those already in the market. The Phoenix was,
after all, the only flint glasshouse to have been

built in Bristol for well over fifty years. Exper-

ienced glassmakers and decorators would be

needed, and the new concern would have had to

import them from other flint glass manufacturing

areas such as London, Stourbridge or Newcastle;

or poach them from local manufacturers.

One of the Bristol flint glasshouses, that at

Bedminster, seems to have been on the point of
closing down, and may well have done so by the

time the Phoenix glasshouse commenced produc-

tion. Prior knowledge of this may well have en-

couraged the Ricketts consortium to go ahead with

their venture, since this glasshouse would have

provided a source of skilled labour; but this is

speculation. A second flint glasshouse was sited

on the corner of Portwall Lane and Temple Street,

facing the Phoenix. In 1786 the partnership that

ran this glasshouse terminated their agreement,

leaving it in the hands of Richard Cannington.
17

Three years later he sold out to a new consortium
consisting of James Jones, a merchant and also
proprietor of the Crews Hole glasshouse, John

Mayo Tandey, a former employee of Vigor, Stevens

and Company, who made flint glass at Redcliff
Backs and crown glass at Thomas Street, and

William Fry, then in business as a distiller and

wine merchant.
18

Although James Jones’s experi-

ence lay in bottle making and John Mayo Tandey’s

in crown glass, the Temple Street glasshouse con-

tinued with flint glass. The third flint glasshouse,

that of Vigor, Stevens and Company, was in finan-

cial difficulties at this time, and it is unlikely that

it welcomed the revival of the Temple Street glass-

house, and even less so the entry of the Phoenix

glasshouse into the trade. Some measure of the

feeling that existed may be gauged from the notice
that appeared when John Mayo Tandey and two of

his colleagues joined the other concerns:

‘Messrs Vigor, Stevens and Company of this

city, glass-makers and copartners, do hereby

apprize their friends and the public that John

Thomas and Matthew Hill late clerks at their
Flint Glass Manufactory on Redcliff Backs and

John Mayo Tandey, late clerk at their Crown

Glass Manufactory in St. Thomas Street, have
been for some time past dismissed from their
respective employments’.
19

To which there were spirited replies from all

three on somewhat similar lines:

‘Mr John Thomas presents his most cordial

respects to Messrs Vigor, Stevens, Randolph

and Stevens, and is highly obliged to them for

their unkind advertisement in the Bristol

Gazette of the 16th Instant after so many years

of faithful service. He is now established in

the Phoenix Glass-House Temple Gate carried

on by Wadham Ricketts and Co.’
20

In 1791, the Temple Street and the Phoenix glass-
houses amalgamated, with William Fry and James

Jones joining the Phoenix partnership, and John
Mayo Tandey surrendering his interest. The

Temple Street site was leased to John Hawkins,
James Ewer and John Ambrose, woollen draper,

hatter and grocer respectively,” presumably for

purposes other than glass manufacturing, since it

is unlikely that the Phoenix glasshouse partnership

would have encouraged competition. At that time

the glass trade was once more in the doldrums,
and that presumably was the reason behind the

closure. From 1792, however, trade began to
improve, despite the increase to 20% in the general

duty imposed by America on imported glassware

in 1794.
22

As trade expanded, so the partnership con-

tracted. By 1796 Richard Symes, Thomas Morgan

and John Wadham had withdrawn, and James Jones

had died, whilst William Fry had been declared a

bankrupt.” The partnership now consisted of
Jacob Wilcox Ricketts, his brother Richard, and

David Evans. In the meantime, Vigor, Stevens and

Company were recovering from their financial
problems, which had been caused by the untimely

death of Robert Vigor in 1782, drowned while

watering his horse at a pond.
24
This, seemingly,

removed the stabilizing element, for the concern,

after many years of profitability, immediately

began to lose money to the extent of £35, 000 over

the next fourteen years.
25

Recovery came when it

was taken over in 1795 by two of the most influen-
tial businessmen in the city, George Daubeny and

John Cave. George Daubeny was the third, and

arguably the most successful, of the four members

of the family bearing the same name who, in suc-
cessive generations, took it from small shop-

keeping to a commercial distinction that ranked it

among the leading merchant families in the city of

Bristo1.
26
John Cave, equally eminent in Bristol

commercial life, was a close friend of Daubeny,

and had nominated him as candidate for Parlia-
ment. Together they had helped to found the bank-

ing firm of Ames, Cave and Company,
2 7

and this

could be the reason why they were anxious to keep

the Redcliff Backs glasshouse in production. Al-

though there is no evidence to the effect, it is con- ceivable that they were protecting their financial

interests. John Cave died in 1800 and was suc-

ceeded by his son John, who also became a Bristol

citizen of some substance.
On February 6th, 1802, the Redcliff Backs and

the Phoenix glasshouses amalgamated and under

the terms of the agreement the flint glasshouse and

the crown glasshouse in Thomas Street closed

down. The agreement reached by George Daubeny

and John Cave reads:

‘ . . . we have now removed our Manufactory

of Flint Glass to Temple Gate and by joining

ourselves in Copartnership with Ricketts &

Evans have considerably augmented our works

in the Flint Bottle Trade’.
28

A corresponding notice was published by the
Phoenix proprietors, together with the advice that

Richard Ricketts had retired from the company ‘on

the 1st June last’.
29
He was replaced by

J.
W.

Ricketts’ son Henry. The notice then went on to

state ‘that in future the firm will be Ricketts

Evans and Phoenix Glass Company’. This was in

fact the first time that the term Phoenix had

appeared in the name of the company, although the
glasshouse had always been described in that way.

The first notice confirms that the Redcliff Backs
glasshouse made flint bottles, but it is not clear

whether flint domestic glassware was manu-

factured there. The Phoenix glasshouse seems to

have made both, for the announcement when it
opened stated: ‘where will be kept a complete

assortment of every article of flint-glass’.

In 1811 the business moved into the manu-

facture of common bottles by leasing a glasshouse

in Cheese Lane, or Avon Street, as this particular

site was later termed.
30
This meant that, with the

exception of window glass, the concern could now

offer a full range of glassware, and through J. W.

Ricketts’ share in the Bristol Porter Brewery it
had a tied market in bottles. By now, of the eleven

glasshouses that were working when the Phoenix

glasshouse was built, three only were still in use;

a bottle glasshouse in Limekiln Lane, run by J.

Nicholas; the bottle glasshouse taken over by the
Phoenix consortium; and another adjacent to it in

Avon Street, owned by Joseph and Septimus Cook-
son, sons of Isaac Cookson, then in business as a

bottle maker in Newcastle. Crown glass, although
manufactured at Nailsea, was no longer made at

Bristol.
Up to this point there is little evidence on which

to base an assessment of the fortunes of the con-
cern. In 1792, when Richard Symes withdrew, he

received the sum of 1, 200 which, since the part-

ners had equal shares, places the total capital at
£9, 600, and this is substantiated when Thomas

Morgan withdrew the following year and received

21, 371. 8. 7. In January 1795, however, John

Wadham’s share was assessed at the lower figure

of £ 1, 100; and later, in September, that of William

Fry, now bankrupt, at £935. 15. 3. If it assumed

that the partners bore trading losses by readjust-
ing their share capital, then they had run into

problems. By 1798 it would seem that the position

had to an extent recovered since in that year

James Jones’s executors were paid £1, 623. 8.0.

When George Daubeny died in 1806 his executors
received £8, 834. 11.3., which, even though the

terms of the amalgamation are not known, indicated

continued success in the subsequent decade.
31

This

could well have been the case, since the fluctua-

tions follow closely the pattern of the flint glass

trade for the period.
Despite the withdrawals from the partnership

there is no evidence that there were personal
problems, certainly not within the Ricketts family.

On the contrary, the early relationship between
Jacob Wilcox Ricketts and his son must have been

very good. He was generous to Henry, giving him

a gift of £500 on his marriage in 1805, and a fur-
ther £1, 000 on his becoming a partner at the

glasshouse.
32
They were partners also in the

Bristol Porter Brewery Company. A dynasty, if

such was in J.W. Ricketts’ mind, appeared to be

well founded. The trading difficulties of the early
years had given way to a recovery which brought
the partners an average return on their invest-

ment of ten per cent a year, which they ploughed

back into the business. Following the death of

David Evans in 1816, his estate received

£18, 794,
33
which indicates a remarkable degree

of success, However, by 1820 the record profit of

£7, 200 in 1818 had plummeted to a record loss of

£7, 122, and the concern continued to lose money

for the next three years at least, and possibly
longer.
34
By now the partnership consisted of

J.W. Ricketts, his son Henry and John Cave.
The first indication that the relationship be-

tween Henry Ricketts and his father was strained
comes from a note signed ‘S. Stephens’. J. W.

Ricketts is pressing a Mr Bickley
35
for a debt and

Henry is asked to intervene.
36
He does so, not

directly, but through his brother Alfred and re-

ceives the following reply:

‘I cannot obtain a direct answer from Father,

whether he will or will not, make application
in writing for the Money—his reply was, ‘I may

well Sir, I may well. I’ll see whether I can
have my Money’—under such circumstances I

am at a loss to say how you are to act—your
own discretion will best dictate to you’.

J.
W. Ricketts was evidently a man to be treated

circumspectly and Henry Ricketts seems often to

have corresponded with him through a third party.
It is again S. Stephens who informs Henry that his

father proposed to retire from the ‘glass concern’,

and that he wished to transfer his interest to
Alfred, and to receive an annuity of £500 a year.

This was too much for Henry, who was prepared

to accept the former condition, but not the latter;

to which his father replies, ‘he thought himself

from his having been one of the formers of the

Business, and from his long continuance in it fully

entitled to the sum he had required’. These ex-

changes took place in the first fortnight of August,

1820, and a week later came the sharpest of

replies:

‘J.W.Ricketts love to his son Henry—having to

inform him, another time (than next Sunday)

would be more agreeable to see him, and Mrs
Henry to Dinner, while Mrs Winwood is under

my care—I shall endeavour to keep her as

quiet as possible—its the particular request of

(Dr Stock)’.

In October Henry Ricketts announced his intention
of relinquishing the management of the concern.
Later in the month John Cave wrote to the effect:

‘your Brother Alfred will not accept the offer. We

must go on as we are at present’. Whether Alfred

was asked to manage the concern, or to replace
J.W. Ricketts, as was suggested, is not disclosed,

but by June the following year Henry Ricketts had

agreed to continue. By September, 1821, John Cave

had had enough and offered his resignation, adding,

in his letter to Henry: ‘it is very unpleasant for
me to witness the difference still subsisting be-

tween a Father and a Son’. Much of the dispute

between Henry Ricketts and his father seems to

have turned on the fact that documents were not

available to Jacob Wilcox Ricketts for inspection,

and John Cave makes this point to Henry, adding

that his father had made: ‘many severe observa-

tions on your conduct as Manager of the Concern’.

He discloses that J. W. Ricketts had threatened to
have the company dissolved, but had changed this

to an offer of his share at £16, 000. ‘My reply

was that I would much rather sell my share at the
sum offered’. However, he suggests to Henry

Ricketts that the offer should be carefully con-
sidered, adding that: ‘if we should now think it in

our interest to accept this offer, arrangements
respecting a new Concern can soon be fixed’.
John Cave’s pressure on Henry seems to have

prompted him to write a conciliatory letter to his

father in which he offers to make the books avail-
able. He suggests they could resolve their dif-

ferences if his father would ‘enter into any or
every subject coolly’; the final word is underlined,

perhaps emphasising Henry’s assessment of his

father’s temperament. There is a clue in the

letter as to the reasons underlying Henry

Ricketts’ actions: ‘you have said there have been

those who have vilified my conduct—one a gentle-
man—the other the writer of an anonymous letter—

I have solemnly declared to you that until both

were produced I would never produce my cash

book’. He accepts, however, that the letter has
been destroyed, and therefore no longer considers

it an obstacle to their reconciliation. He refers

to his father’s wish to retire from the concern,
comments that he would rather retire himself, but

states his preference for the concern to continue
‘upon a basis to prevent a recurrence of our un-

happy division’. This long letter ends on an
emotional note, ‘Whether I am now to meet you as

a Son wishes to meet a Father, and as a Father

and Son ought to meet, in the spirit of duty, affec-

tion and solicitude, is for you alone to determine.

The time passing over us will wait for no com-
promise—we can be but shortly together let that

period be one of domestic bliss—whether I shall be

called to attend the dying pillow of a parent, or

you of a son, is not for us to know—let not how-

ever the period of the existence of our differences

wait for that hour which God alone knows may not

be permitted to be employed in a union upon earth
—that our lives henceforth may be spent in that

harmony which till within these three years they

were in the undisturbed possession, I feel as your

son, most anxious’. But, in so far as Jacob Wilcox

and Henry were concerned, the Ricketts were con-

stitutionally sound, and the fell sergeant was

therefore not so strict in his arrest.
But what was the cause of the quarrel ? Despite

the many letters there is no clear reason. There
are hints: ‘until our reconciliation is effected, I

forbear entering fully upon this subject, in the

mean while let me assure you that the whole

family of the Ushers
37
dread that a reconciliation

should be effected—it is in their interest it should

be otherwise—the ingratitude I have experienced

from that family has been such, that I will never

pass over’. This reference is tantalizingly vague

and appears again only in Henry Ricketts’ ledger.
38

In 1815 and again in 1836 he conducted a small

amount of business with a Joseph S. Usher, against

whose name, in the creditor column is written in
pencil—’bad’. It must therefore be left to specula-

tion as to why a father who could write to his son

in 1802 as follows: it gave me great pleasure to

find you was well and in perfect safety so far on

your journey—and may the Allmighty allways pro-

tect you has he have all ready done for which we
cannot be to thankfull’
39
; a man who could take his

son as a partner, both in the glasshouse and the
brewery, appoint him manager of the former and,

when his senior partner died in 1816, allow the

concern to take his son’s name—how he could then,

within the next two to three years, quarrel with him

so bitterly. A point which may have had a bearing

on the matter is that Jacob Wilcox Ricketts’
brother Richard, who had been associated with the
development of the Phoenix glasshouse, died in

1818.
40
From the evidence it could be suspected

that J. W. Ricketts’ favourite occupations were
reading balance sheets, collecting debts and making

money, but had he an emotional side that caused

him to grieve his brother’s death, and possibly

impaired his judgement ? Henry Ricketts, who had
married Richard’s daughter Elisabeth
41
, appeals

to his father: ‘the tie existing between us is not

merely that of a parent and a son it is also be-

tween the only child of a deceased brother. . . and

also our little children! such is the effect of family

discord'{
sic).

The dispute clearly affected the family, and two

of his sisters attempted to effect a reconciliation.
Mathilda was direct and to the point. She wrote to

say that she had mentioned Henry’s intention to
call on Sunday. J. W. Ricketts’ answer was equally

to the point: ‘he hoped not, any third day in the

week you know where to find him, and he did not

wish to have his mind disturbed on that day’.
Hannah, the Mrs Winwood mentioned in Jacob

Wilcox Ricketts’ earlier letter, was more cautious.
She wrote to say that she had been to see their

father, who had heard her with ‘more patience than
I expected’. She continued: ‘he conversed with

great coolness and told me not to make myself

uneasy about it . . . I said all that I could think of

to induce him to be friends and sincerely wish and

think, that I have done some little good and that we

shall be soon all good friends together for of
nothing have I greater dread than family quarrels’.
But J. W. Ricketts was obdurate and Henry, re-

ceiving no reply to his letter, was forced some six

weeks later
42
to write once more protesting that

he was still in ignorance of the cause of the

quarrel. He pleads: ‘why do I receive a treatment

which I feel undeserved of—If you treated me with

the natural affection of a parent for six and Thirty

Years, and then for the first time feel offended,

why should the succeeding three years pass over

us without a reconciliation’. The letter is punctu-

ated with variation of mood: ‘the vilest criminal

cannot receive more severe treatment’, followed

by a flash of intransigence: ‘but wherein did our
differences commence . . . I do solemnly assure

you only in an imagination of wrong done to you,

in what I have so repeatedly intreated you to

search into and you will find yourself in error’.

The year 1820 was a bad one both for the flint

glass and the glass bottle trades, the former falling

21%, and the latter 29%, below the peak year of 1818

(fig. 5). In a letter to his father, Henry Ricketts
explains in part the reasons for the massive finan-

cial loss sustained by the Phoenix glasshouse that
year. He writes: ‘the Glass Makers were at work

but every alternate week for a considerable time

throughout the year, and even during that period
instead of filling 8 to 9 pots, it was only an aver-

age of from 4 to 5 pots—the Bottle works in simi-
lar proportion and the cutting shop three days in a

week and that too with a short complement of
hands—nor does this statement apply to the last

year only, but to the year preceding—the Excise

too being so particularly strict and the mode

adopted so altered as to increase the expense of

the work by an additional number of hands em-

ployed’.
43
The losses of 1820/21 brought to an end

a remarkably profitable run by the Phoenix glass-

house. In the twelve years between Henry Ricketts’

taking over and the start of the quarrel with his

father the annual profits of the concern averaged
£3,780.
44
His management can scarcely have been

the cause of the quarrel, but from 1820 the losses

were to continue for at least a further three years
and no doubt this impeded a reconciliation.
In 1821 Henry Ricketts published a patent

entitled: ‘An Improvement in the Art or Method of

Making or Manufacturing Glass Bottles, such as

are used for Wine, Porter, Beer, or Cyder’
,
4 5
and

in so doing ensured a permanent place for himself

in the history of the glass industry. To appreciate

fully the significance of Henry Ricketts’ patent one

must compare the then current requirements of

the wine bottling, brewing and distilling industries

with the method by which bottles were made.
Drinks containing alcohol were highly taxed, and

those engaged in such trades, including Henry
Ricketts and his father, had no wish to see bottles
overfilled with a product on which they had already

paid a heavy duty. Variations in capacity, however,

were difficult to avoid with a product that relied

so heavily on the judgement and ability of indivi-
dual glassmakers. Glassmaking was a craft indus-

try in which the glassmaker, after gathering glass
on the end of a blowing iron, created a product by

his skill in blowing and shaping it with simple

tools. By the early nineteenth century the only

step toward mechanisation had been in the use of
moulds, by which means basic shapes were blown
or pressed. In bottle making the moulds were

simple in operation and the cavity in most cases

was cylindrical, or near-cylindrical, in shape.

Having gathered glass on his blowing iron the

glassmaker formed it into a cylindrical shape by
rolling it on a flat stone or cast iron surface.

Then, holding the blowing iron in a vertical posi-

tion, he lowered the glass into the aperture of the

mould and blew until it filled the cavity (fig. 6).

The mould formed the side walls of the bottle, but

the glassmaker had to judge when he had exerted

sufficient pressure to fill the cavity and form the

shoulder, which was not constrained by the mould.
He then withdrew the blown glass, and a rod
(‘pontil’), similar in shape and length to the blow-

ing iron, but solid, was attached to the base of the

bottle. The blowing iron was cracked off and by

manipulating the bottle on the rod the neck was

finished by adding a small amount of glass and
shaping it with a tool. Moulds were either one-

piece, that is near-cylindrical, with the base dia-

meter slightly less than that at the top, thus

enabling the bottle to be withdrawn, or two-piece

and hinged, in which case the sides of the cavity

could be parallel.
Ricketts innovation was the introduction of

shoulders to the mould. By this means, he claimed,
‘the circumference and diameter of bottles are

formed nearly cylindrical, and their height deter-
mined so as to contain given quantities or propor-

tions of a wine or beer gallon measure, with a

greater degree of regularity or conformity to each

other, and all the bottles so made by me after this

method present a superior neatness of appearance

and regularity of shape for convenient and safe

stowage, which cannot by other means be so well
attained’. A further claim was that by placing
rings of varying thickness at the bottom of the

mould the body of the mould would be shortened or
increased and hence various sizes of bottles pro-

duced.
The importance of this development should not

be underrated. This was the first application of

machinery to the glass bottle industry,
46

other

than the use of simple moulds; and, subsequent re-

finements apart, it became and remained an
important method of making mouth-blown bottles.

Why then did not Henry Ricketts apply the inven-

tiveness of which he appeared to be capable to other
aspects of bottle making—in particular, to the
development of a machine that would dispense with

the glass blower ? He does not appear to have tried
any further and another fifty years were to pass
before the first machine began to find its way into

the glassworks, and then it was the invention of a

Yorkshireman.
Was Henry Ricketts’ preoccupation with his

invention the cause of the dispute with his father ?

There is no evidence that this was so. In the
correspondence there is one reference only to the

invention, and that in a letter from John Cave to

Henry Ricketts. He writes: can see no objection

to the expenditure of £ 135 to take out the patent,
provided the sale could be increased to pay soon

the expense of it, I should almost doubt the prop-

riety of granting a Patent for so trifling an

improvement, yet it is in our interest to obtain

it’.
47

The successful years had encouraged the part-

ners to plough back their profits and by 1820 the

share capital stood at £64, 622. It is interesting

also to see from the accounts of the concern that
the value of the buildings between the years 1817
and 1820 increased from £5, 500 to £9, 000. At the
same time investment in utensils for flint glass-

making increased from £400 to £2, 150, and for

bottle making from £300 to £1, 400.
48
These were

increases of some magnitude and pose the question

on what the money was spent. Dr Alford suggests

that the buoyancy of the market encouraged the

partners to increase the capacity of the glass-

houses.
49
This could have been achieved in various

ways—for example, by installing larger furnaces,
employing more labour and by working additional

shifts—but the physical constraints of the glass-

houses would have imposed limitations on these

options. In 1817 the Phoenix concern consisted of

two glasshouses, a freehold property at Temple
Gate and a leasehold property in Avon Street.

During the development of the concern three
additional glasshouses had been acquired and

closed down, John Cave’s glasshouses on Redcliff

Backs and in St Thomas Street, and Cannington’s

old glasshouse in Temple Street. Furthermore, by

1817 there were probably seven other glasshouses

not in work. The magnitude of the investment

suggests that glassmaking was recommenced in

one or more of the idle glasshouses, although

there is no firm evidence that this was so. If this

were the case then the choice may well have
fallen on the Temple Street glasshouse, which had
always been used for flint glass, and on the com-

panion glasshouse to the one already leased in

Avon Street, which was a bottle glasshouse. Both

of the Avon Street glasshouses were owned by
John Hilhouse Wilcox, and the lease, signed in

1811, referred to the fact that the second glass-

house was then not working.
5

° There is, however,

a further possibility. In 1803, to help meet the
cost of the war with France, the Government had

introduced a tax on profits, and this was repealed
in 1816.
81
Profit or loss at the Phoenix glasshouse

was determined by the balance between assets and
liabilities, and it was therefore very much in the

interests of the partners that the value of the

buildings and equipment be kept as low as possible.

With the tax removed, the partners were able to
write in a more realistic figure which, subsequently,

helped to cushion the substantial losses that were

to occur from 1820 onwards.

Henry Ricketts’ bottle .patent was not the first

venture into the field of invention on the part of the
Phoenix concern. On June 5th, 1802, the following
notice appeared:

‘Having discovered an improved method of

making all kinds of Glass by which the pro-

cess is effected in a period of time very much

shorter than by the usual mode, and thus

created a saving of fuel. Any gentleman in the

trade may have my permission to adopt the

said improvements on liberal terms. Apply

to me at Ricketts Evans & Co’s Patent Glass

House, Bristol. John Donaldson .’
52

John Cave’s notes relating to the profits of the
concern from 1802 to 1807 refer to John Donaldson

as manager and partner, receiving a one-eighth

share of the profits.
53
When George Daubeny died

in 1806 the share was raised to one-sixth, but John

Donaldson died the following year, at which point

Henry Ricketts took over the management.

Unfortunately, the confidence of the partners in

the buoyancy of the market was not justified by

events. From 1807 to 1812 bottle sales exceeded

those of all previous years, but the doubling of the

excise duties and the onset of the Anglo-American

war caused sales to fall by about one-third in

1813, from which point they slowly climbed to re-

gain their previous peak, only to fall precipitously
again in 1818. Sales of flint glass, which had also

been high since the turn of the century, followed a
very similar pattern. These variations in sales
seem to have been closely linked with the exporta-

tion of glass, particularly to the West Indies and

the Americas. Economic depression in America

in 1819 and the following year, together with the
determined attempt cf the young government to

protect its emerging glass industry, made trading

very difficult for the UK glassmakers, in par-
ticular those in Bristol, with their strong tradi-

tional contacts with the western world. John Cave,
in his letter consenting to the payment for the

patent comments: ‘as to the exports to the West
Indies being small I am surprised the Planters

are able to pay for any thing during the low price

of sugars’. In sending the accounts for 1823/4 to
J.W.Ricketts, he adds, ‘the trade is at present not

worth following.’
5 4

The concern continued to lose

money up to 1823/4, which is the final year of the

series of detailed accounts, and in each of the four

financial years from 1820 there are references to

the bad debts from which the concern suffered; and
in 1820 and again in 1823, to the reduction in

prices that had to be made. For 1820/21, for

example, the note reads: ‘Bad Debts this year

£8, 275. 16. 5.’. This was about £1, 000 more than

the trading loss for that year. But they survived,
and this may have been due to the change in the
duty on flint glass in 1825, which in effect more

than halved the rate. Certainly the sales of flint

glass responded, and the upward trend accelerated.
The quarrel between J. W. Ricketts and Henry

was finally resolved by John Cave, who seems to
have played a conciliatory role throughout the
sorry affair. He emerges as the one person

capable of making a calm and rational approach to

the problem, and it was probably due to his efforts
that the concern kept going. John Cave brought the

matter to a head with a letter to each of his part-

ners in which he stated that he wished to relinquish

his interests in the concern as from 30th June,
1825 (fig.?). It was unlikely that even J.W.

Ricketts would have wished to cross swords with
John Cave, and neither he nor Henry Ricketts

would want to lose so important and influential a
partner. Previously Master of the Merchant

Venturers, John Cave was by now a member of the

Corporation and had been Sheriff in 1822/3. The
letter precipitated a decision and possibly that was

its intention. Two days following its receipt Jacob

Wilcox Ricketts informed his partners that his

association with them ‘shall be dissolved on 30th

June 1825’ (fig. 8). One detects a sigh of relief in

the letter from the attorneys, Stephens and Good-
child, to Henry Ricketts, dated 14th July, 1825: ‘we

are rejoiced that this unpleasant business is ter-

minated and shall feel pleasure in waiting on you

at any time you may appoint in order to receive
instructions’.
55
So Jacob Wilcox Ricketts severed

his connection with the glasshouse he had founded

some thirty-six years earlier. His share was
estimated to be worth 222, 291, which Henry

Ricketts and John Cave took over in equal parts,
and for which they agreed to pay £21, 500 in four

years by equal instalments.
56

It could be said that the story of the Phoenix

glasshouse ended when Jacob Wilcox Ricketts

retired, since from that point onwards the con-
cern seems to have gone into a gradual decline.

But that would be too simple a statement, since

the cause of the decline was complex and far

beyond the control of an entrepreneur, however
gifted. A number of factors contributed to the

decline of the glass industry in Bristol, a decline

from which it was never to recover. Whilst this

is not the place to detail the causes it is neces-

sary to provide a summary, if only to account for
the demise of the Phoenix glasshouse. They can
be segregated into three groups:—those due to the
vagaries of trade; those due to technological

change; those self -inflicted. The eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries were marked by wars,

and wars interfere with trade and cost money. To
pay for them the glass industry, amongst others,

was heavily taxed and, even though there was a

drawback on exports, such trade was subject to

fluctuation. Sales slumped during the American

war of independence, and again during the war

with France. From the point of view of Bristol,

with its dependence on trade with North America,

the West Indies and the Caribbean, the most
serious event was the Anglo-American war, which,

coupled with the war in Europe, led to violent

fluctuations in the sales of all glassware. It was

during the latter half of the eighteenth century that

technological change began to affect Bristol indus-

try and commerce and, during the following

century, the tempo increased. The heart of indus-

trial development was beginning to settle in the

midlands and the north of England. Coal, the basis

for the energy that was needed in increasing

quantities to power industry, was more accessible
in south Yorkshire and Lancashire, and a network

of canals began to provide effective links between

the factories and the ports. Bristol, with the Avon
Gorge between its harbour and the sea, was not so

well placed. Prevarication held up the develop-
ment of a tide-free harbour, and left Bristol a

century behind its rival Liverpool. A similar

criticism could be levelled at the direct river and

canal link with London, which came too late to
influence Bristol trade.
57

It is surprising that a man with as much

business acumen as Jacob Wilcox Ricketts should

have ventured into a trade in which he had no

experience at a time when, so far as Bristol was

concerned, the markets were contracting. That

he was successful cannot be denied, since when he
retired he drew considerably more than he had

invested, and certainly more than his partners

were eventually to receive when the business

closed down. He survived by eliminating his com-
petitors, but this cannot disguise the fact that he

made his money when the Bristol share of the

total national market was declining. He was, it can

be said, one of the last of a long line of successful
merchant venturers, whose era was coming to an

end because the circumstances that bred them, in

so far as Bristol was concerned, were coming to

an end. Jacob Wilcox Ricketts was a tobacco mer-

chant, a banker, a brewer and a glassmaker. He

fathered eight children and died, at the age of

eighty-six, on 30th August, 1839, having, in the

words of his grandson, buried thirty-nine partners.
Politically he supported the Whigs, but sought no

part in Bristol civic affairs. When he withdrew

from the glass concern he was seventy-two
years old, and it seems that he then began to sever

all his business connections. He retired from the

Castle Bank in 1826, when it was taken over by
Stuckey’s, and in August of the same year made

over the whole of his interests in the brewery in
equal shares to members of his family.
58

The glass concern was reformed with the

addition of two new partners, Henry Glascodine and
John Gunning. Both had been with the concern for

some years, the former apparently as secretary

and accountant, and the latter as glassworks man-

ager. This partnership ran unchanged until John

Cave died in 1842 at the age of seventy-seven, and

was succeeded by his son William. Because of ill
health John Gunning withdrew at the end of the

following year. He received £2, 600 as his share.
59

In 1845, Henry Ricketts’ son Richard joined the
partnership, and it is mostly from his notes that

the final years of the company can be traced.

Under an agreement drawn up in 1847 the glass-

houses were to be managed by Richard Ricketts

and Henry Glascodine, who were to ‘devote the

whole of the usual hours to the management and
conduct of the business’, for which they were to

receive £400 a year, irrespective of profits. The

same sum was to be paid to Henry Ricketts, who

was to ‘continue to manage and inspect the con-
cern’, although both Henry Ricketts and William

Cave ‘shall not be required to devote more of

their time to the business than they or either of

them shall think proper’. This agreement quotes

the share capital as £24, 000, which can be com-
pared with £34, 000 in 1834, and £64, 622 for the

peak year, 1820.
60

From 1841 to 1845 trading losses amounted to

£5, 380. The next three years were profitable to

the extent of 21, 964 but, from 1849 to 1851, losses
of £3, 945 were incurred.
61
The Phoenix glass-

house was by now a shadow of its former self and

Bristol, once the dominant glass making area in

England, was now a backwater, with only three

glasshouses in use. Even Henry Ricketts appears

to have lost interest, since in 1833 he produced no
evidence to put before the Commissioners of

Inquiry into the Excise Establishment, despite his

caustic comments some twelve years earlier. It

was left to William Powell to give evidence, and he

was a bottle maker with experience of flint glass

only through his cutting shop, which had been
closed for some years. Consistent heavy losses

led to the closure of the flint glasshouse at Temple

Gate in 1851. Richard Ricketts purchased the

bottle stock, materials and utensils for £6, 465.18.0.

and continued to run the Avon Street glasshouse
under his own name.

62
Two years later he amal-

gamated with the neighbouring glasshouse, then

run by William Powell, his son William, and

Edward Filer. The new concern was known as
Powells, Ricketts and Filer. William Powell

senior died in 1854 and Edward Filer in 1856, after

which the concern was renamed Powell and
Ricketts. Commenting on the amalgamation, A. C.
Powell wrote: ‘For a long period there had been a

fierce competition between the two firms, and

much unfriendliness, to their mutual disadvantage.

At last it was decided to unite their forces, and the

event was celebrated by a feast, the relation of

whose mighty proportions was a favourite subject

with some of the old men’.
63

Six years after the amalgamation Henry

Ricketts died, at the age of seventy-six. If his

father’s aim had been to create a dynasty then in
this he did not succeed. Given the circumstances

the inheritance was bound to fail, nor was it
helped by the long dispute. Henry, unlike his

father, took an interest in civic affairs. He was
member of the Bristol Corporation from 1832 to

1835 and an alderman at the time of his death.

Not a great deal is known of these activities,

although Latimer records an event in 1836 in

which Henry Ricketts figured prominently. An
equal number of Tories and Liberals had been
elected to the Council and this created a deadlock

in the election of Aldermen. After the election of

one Liberal, Richard Ricketts, and one Tory, Henry

Ricketts changed sides and voted with the Tories

with the eventual result that Tory Aldermen out-

numbered the Liberals by thirteen to three.
64

Following his death this notice appeared:

‘A remarkable sale of wine took place . . .

consequent upon the death of Alderman Henry

Ricketts . . . The chief competition was for

the port wine, which included samples of all

the celebrated vintages between 1793 and 1836.
Magnums of 1820 brought the unprecedented
price of £3.8.0. each. One lot of the vintage

of 1812 fetched £18. 10.0 per dozen ordinary

bottles. The entire stock of 180 dozen of port
averaged £8 a dozen, the purchasers being
chiefly Lancashire manufacturers’.
65

Irony, perhaps, that Lancashire, having been one of
the principal areas that wrested the glass trade

from Bristol, should now take Henry Ricketts’

wines as well. Was the quarrel with his father

ever resolved? In 1833, when he left the centre of

Bristol, it was to Brislington that he moved, which

was as far to the east of Bristol as was Jacob
Wilcox Ricketts’ house on the west. Towards the

end Henry Ricketts’ health failed and in his corres-

pondence with his daughter Ann, married to the

Rector of Bishops Cleeve, there are frequent ref-
erences to the pain in his back and limbs, and he is

clearly very handicapped. Ann is obviously fond of

her father and, in his own way, so too is her

husband-but then he appears to have benefitted

very well financially from the marriage. Whilst

Ann’s letters are much concerned with her father’s

ill health, the Rector of Bishops Cleeve recounts
his shooting exploits, which appear to occur fairly

frequently. There is no mention of pastoral care

for his parishioners, but perhaps he judged which
subjects his father-in-law found the more
interesting.
66

It is more difficult to get to grips with Richard

Ricketts, who remains a man within the shadows.

Any attempt to formulate his character is ham-
pered, rather than assisted, by the querulous notes

that he left amongst his father’s papers. He seems

to have less affection for his parent than does his
sister. He complains, for example, that he was

promised 2125 a year on his marriage, but that

this was never paid. However, the notes give some

idea of the problems the glass concern experienced

in its final years. He writes: ‘When I joined the

Concern July 1845 they had lost heavily for years-

they never told me so-or would my Father allow

me even to see the books with Mr Glascodine.

Their bad debts where 3 or 4, 0002 dreadfull’
(sic).

Either Henry Ricketts does not appear to have

learnt anything from the dispute with his father,

or the generation gap was a hereditary feature in

the Ricketts family. Richard Ricketts continued

with the bottle works until he died, some three
years only after his father. The valedictory to

this episode in the story of glassmaking in Bristol
lies with him: ‘Grandfather Ricketts left about

250, 000 behind him but tis nearly all gone the

Ricketts were too grand and lived in too fine
places ever to be rich’.
67

NOTES

Abbreviations:
BGAS Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological
Society.

BRO Bristol Record Office.

BRS Bristol Record Society.
FFBJ
Felix Farley’s Bristol Journal.

JSGT
Journal of the Society of Glass Technology.

MBD
Mathews’ Bristol Directory.

Bristol Mirror.

1.
The term
!flint glass’
had a particular meaning in

regard to the Excise regulations, which were then in

force. It covered clear, enamel, paste and stained
glass for domestic use, and glass phials, small

bottles used mostly for medicines and toilet waters.

2.
H. J. Powell,
Glass making in England,
Cambridge

(1923), p. 99.

3.
H. Owen,
Two centuries of ceramic art in Bristol,

Gloucester, Bellows (1873), p. 386.

4.
BRO: MS 12143. Commentary on the fortunes of the

Phoenix glasshouse and those involved with it is

mostly drawn from this source. Subsidiary ref-

erences are given where appropriate. My grateful

thanks go to the City Archivist, Miss Mary E.
Williams, and her staff, for the facility for studying

these papers on numerous occasions. I should like
to thank also the Librarian and staff of the Avon

County Reference Library, Bristol.

5.
H. Owen:
op. ci/

6.
FFBJ: 2nd December, 1758.

7.
FFBJ: 11th January, 1783.

8.
BRO: MS 12143 (I).

9.
Ibid.
(6).

10.
Ibid.
(7) (8) (9).

11.
Crow glass

was used for glazing windows.

12.
BGAS:
Transactions,

29 (1906),p.130.

13.
B. W. E. Alford, ‘The flint and bottle glass industry

in the early nineteenth century: a case study of a
Bristol firm’,
Business History, 10

(1968), p. 13.

14.
C.H. Cave,

A history of banking in Bristol,
Bristol

(1899).

15.
A. B. Beavan,

Bristol lists,
Bristol (1899). Most

references to civic careers have been taken from

this source.

16.
Statistical data relating to the glass industry have

been taken from:
Thirteenth report of the Commis-

sioners of Inquiry into the excise establishment
(1835); B. R. Mitchell & P. Deane,
Abstract of British

historical statistics, Cambridge,
University Press

(1962), p. 267; G. R. Porter,
The progress of the

nation,
London, John Murray (1847).

17.
FFBJ: 7th January, 1786.

18.

FFBJ: 19th September, 1789.

19.
FFBJ: 19th September, 1789.

20.
For a more detailed discussion of these events,

see C.Weeden, ‘The problems of consolidation in
the Bristol flint glass industry’,
Glass Technology,

22 (1981), pp. 236-8.

21.
BRO: MS 12143 (9) (10).

22.
P. Davis,
The development of the American glass

industry,
Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University

Press (1949), p. 56.

23.
BRO: MS 12143 (8) (9) (10) (11).

24.
A. C. Powell, ‘Glassmaking in Bristol’,

BGAS Trans-

actions, 47
(1926), p. 219.

25.
BRO: MS 12143 (41).

26.
I. V. Hall, ‘The Daubeny’s’,
BGAS Transactions,
84

(1965), pp. 113-140; 85 (1966), pp. 175-201.

27.
C.H. Cave,

op _cit.,

28.
BRO: MS 12143 (43).

29.
FFBJ: 13th February, 1802.

30.
BRO: MS 12143 (13).

31.
Ibid.
(7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12).

32.
Ibid.
(41).

33.
Ibid.
(40) £18,794 quoted in company accounts

(1815/16; 1816/17); £16,631 receipt on final dis-

charge dated 17th February, 1818.

34.
Ibid.

(40), detailed accounts of company, 1813 to 1824.

35.
MBD: 1820: Benjamin Bickley, Merchant, Princes

Street, Bristol; Stephens and Goodhind, Attornies,

19 Small Street, Bristol.

36.
BRO: MS 12143 (43) This section includes the

correspondence relating to the dispute between

Jacob Wilcox Ricketts and his son Henry Ricketts.

37.
MBD: 1820: Joseph
S.
Usher, Attorney, 17 Clare

Street, Bristol.

38.
BRO: MS 12143 (41).

39.
Ibid.
(43) 5 August, 1802.

40.
Ibid.

(41).

41.
A. C. Powell,
op. cit.,
p. 236.

42.
BSO: MS 12143 (43), 18th November, 1821.

43.
Ibid.

(43), undated but probably between 7th and

9th October, 1821.

44.
Ibid.
(40).

45.
HM Patent No. 4623, granted 5th December, 1821.

46.
Olive Jones has kindly drawn my attention to a

similar mechanism credited to Charles Chubsee of
Stourbridge and dated 1802; see G. Weiss (tr. J.

Seligman),
The book of glass,
London, Barrie and

Jenkins (1971), p. 323.

47.
BRO: MS 12143 (43), 6th November, 1821. Possibly

the Chubsee mould was used at the Phoenix glass-

house for making the small flint bottles. Henry

Ricketts’ patent specifically refers to the larger,
or common bottle as it was termed, made at the

Avon Street glasshouse. It is conceivable that the

‘trifling improvement’ to which John Cave refers

was the adaptation of the Chubsee mould for larger

bottles.

48.
BRO: MS 12143 (40).

49.
B. W. E. Alford,
op. cit.,
p. 16.

50.
BRO: MS 12143 (13), 1st May, 1811.

51.
43 George III c_ 122. Profits were taxed at the rate

of one shilling in the pound, increased in 1806 to
two shillings.
52.

FFBJ: 5th June, 1802.

53.
BRO: MS 12143 (40).

54.
Ibid.
(40).

55.
Ibid.
(43).

56.
Ibid.
(17) (40).

57.
For detailed examination of the relative decline of

Bristol as a trading centre see:- B. W. E. Alford,

‘The economic development of Bristol in the nine-

teenth century-an enigma’, in
Essays in Bristol and

Gloucestershire History
(ed. P. McGrath and J.

Cannon), BGAS (1976); P. T. Marcy, ‘Bristol’s roads

and communications on the eve of the industrial
revolution 1740-70’,
BGAS Transactions,
87 (1968);

W. E. Minchinton, ‘Politics and the port of Bristol in
the eighteenth century’, BRS, 23 (1963); W. E.

Minchinton, ‘The trade of Bristol in the eighteenth

century’, BRS, 20 (1957); A. F. Williams, ‘Bristol

port plans and improvement schemes of the
eighteenth century’,
BGAS Transactions.
81 (1962).

58.
BRO: MS 12143 (41).

59.
Ibid.
(20), 12th December, 1843.

60.
Ibid.
(22), 25th October, 1847.

61.
Ibid.
(41).

62.
Ibid.
(40);

BM:
12th June, 1852:-

‘Phoenix Flint Glass Works, Temple-gate,

Bristol. Sale of Glass Ware

In consequence of the dissolution of the Partner-

ship Concern of the Flint Glass Works carried

on for many years by Henry Ricketts and Co.,

the remaining portion of their manufactured

stock is now for sale at considerably reduced
prices, consisting of cut decanters, dinner

carofts, water jugs, dessert dishes, butters and

sugars, milk and cream jugs, pickle bottles,

cruets and castors, salts, finger basins, tumblers,
goblets, wine, champagne, claret, jelly, custard

and other glasses, smelling and toilet bottles,
plain, frosted and cut hanging and other lamps,

hemispheres, shades, lamp chimnies etc. etc.

and a variety of other articles of plain and cut

glass of the first quality. Also suited [tor] the
Druggists-vials, carboys, stoppered bottles,

fancy moulded bottles for drugs, oils, perfumes
etc.
The stock of plain articles for cutting consists

of decanters, water ewers, milk and cream jugs,

water carofts, wine, claret and champagne
glasses and other articles.

The Phoenix Glass Bottle Works, formerly
carried on by the above Firm, are continued in

all their branches by Richard Ricketts and Co.,
St Philip’s, Bristol.

I am indebted to Philip Whatmoor for calling my

attention to this notice.

63.
A. C. Powell,
op. cit.,
p. 245.

64.
J. Latimer,

Annals of Bristol in the nineteenth

century,
Bristol (1887), p. 211.

65.
J. Latimer,

op. cit.,
p. 369.

66.
BRO: MS 12143 (48).

67.
Ibid.
(41).

Jacobs Well

O
Crews Hole r….._

app. 1.5 miles 1..—
—

Temple Meads

The Bristol glasshouse

sites e.1790
Bedmi nster

Figure 1. Map of Bristol showing glasshouses about 1790. The Phoenix Glasshouse is marked “P”.

Figure 2. Goblet engraved with a view of the Phoenix

Glasshouse. Bristol City Museum and Art

Gallery.

Figure 3. Token of the Phoenix Glasshouse, about 1800.
Courtesy of Lady Elton.

Frew: a ja.

al /b.
p,

.••

I.
.
//.

1
.1t
v11’, NVIL(
.

11X

R hi E
.

11 S.

d•
rt ,I,

r.14..

Figure 4. Portrait of Jacob Wilcox Ricketts (after illustration in C.H. Cave, .4
History

of Banking in Bristol,
1899, the painting then said to be in the possession of

Mrs.
L. H.
Ricketts).

1•11

DEX

INDEX

180

, 0 0 0

•
11

II
I

•
II

ILI
INDEX

CLASS

PRODUCTION
789=100
II

um.

AV
M
II

IIII

1.•

III

II
n

Profit
g

PC:

•

•
1.4
Mi

er
=

Ng!
f

N
O
n

•
•

•
a

t4
MIIIIM
AIM

n
•
_

LAM
11

•

::
APT,
RE

UMW
=II

4
n

=1=1•MINIMEREN
0
n

MEM
MOO

II
1111
1,::

-41§.

UM
MENEM

=MEW
WM

EIMMft
“waRRIERIgi
t.*:
FIFA

IIIMMMVJIIIII•1MM•M•Wf

::
‘
q
.lil
TA
LIMMIW
•
11

n
‘,11M.

F
AIRIM
A
IREIV:;::

•

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A.
.
:

•

111111•/
n

MI
NM
l’at”.’
,
4:
:7.1

14,:::z.

:;,.:§::–
i.:..,
::

—:–

M.
AR

.4603.AsE,
n

ImA
WV

184
0
•

•
1850

grAi
gg
Ili ;

•
r4
gragiifigNEKIRM

:BlitU.,„
5_M
!WAREN
.

ri1186H

MM.
7

”

_
1800
MM

1810

=
.

NM
?4

1820 ‘.
∎

–
5q

“‘r
‘

5
I

1830
:”1

,r“..t:•

II
‘ MN

‘Milan

g.423
•

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111

‘ %:’

..
.

,,,,,,.

.1
•
.,:…
iNi.t.;:,

•
4922
NM=

1:1

II
•
MIA

IN
ME

•
•

6
•

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MME

I
N

B
•

Loss

•
n

•

U
•

I
•

•
M:

••

•
•
UM

•
•

Figure 5. Profit and loss accounts of the Phoenix Glasshouse, and Index of Glass Production, 1789-1845.

Figure 6. Henry Ricketts’ Patent Specification, 1821.

•

,e
4
17s;
7

„,
id
e

1 a

de,V

ce,..

4„,;
,
:e
.

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7
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1

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e?”ee

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iaftzs
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erea-f4, „44. t’exez
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ze.-.

..- #14,…-A 0-ft-se
0/ef
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.e
ez,Aee

(;
Ir
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el
aft 7
.

,–

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•
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, 44e
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.

7…,4″t;

4•1;2,7A,
•

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..ccuott;.*
•

Figure 7. John Cave’s letter of resignation, dated 18 November, 1824. Bristol

Record Office MS12143(43)

100

– •

01.-c
,
–
..o(

(“;•,••
glf

z
e_
7.

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7
2

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124.-, a
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e c:•”1-c

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2

, 4-.
-2 c

•
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dy 07″ c.44 4-…e ‘me-
44

.4.<-6 , Ase-r- z e•ae• a•••-pt• cOl.ft-4/.. 074 • c E-1- 4: fe . " 4 •!‹.‹. 7 1 ' 4 • s " Figure 8. Jacob Wilcox Ricketts' letter of resignation, dated 20 November, 1824. Bristol Record Office MS12143(43) 101 Advertisements A. Henning Ornamental goldfish bowl, engraved with naturalistic pond life. Unknown engraver. English late 19th century. 48 Walton Street, Walton-on-the Hill, Tadworth, Surrey Phone Tadworth 3337 (STD 073 781) Sheppard and Cooper Ltd 5-6 Cork Street London WI Tel: 01-734 9179 An English facet stem wine glass, stipple engraved with a horse in a landscape by David Wolff c. 1785. A glass with similar engraving is in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and has an inscription on the back which includes the name "D. Wolf". DELOMOSNE AND SON LTD FINE ANTIQUES EUROPEAN CHINA AND GLASS NEEDLEWORK PICTURES CHANDELIERS Members of The British Antique Dealers' Association has now moved from 34 Kensington Church Street, London W.8. Three fine goblets decorated in imitation of engraving by a method the patent for which was taken out by John Davenport c.1806. The sporting subjects are wildfowling, fishing and coursing and the reverse sides depict rustic cottages. The bizarre formal borders are typical of this factory. Height 6} ins. 4 CAMPDEN HILL ROAD, KENSINGTON HIGH STREET, LONDON W8 7DU 01-937 1804 CABLES: DELOMOSNE LONDON W8 MAUREEN THOMPSON to SUN HOUSE HALL STREET LONG MELFORD SUFFOLK Tel. Sudbury (0787) 78252 Where she will continue to specialise in 18th and 19th Century Glass Heavy baluster goblet. The funnel bowl solid at the base mounted on a squat inverted baluster containing an air tear. Folded foot. c.1700 Although the emphasis of my stock is on 18th Century glass, I also deal in a wide variety of 19th Century glass. including later decorative and pressed glass. I always have a wide range of items priced to appeal to the modest investor as well as the discerning specialist collector. I also deal in second-hand and out-of-print books on glass. I exhibit at major antiques fairs throughout the country but I am pleased to see callers at the above address by appointment. Details of stocks and fairs will be sent on request. John A Brooks GANTIQUE GLASS 2, KNIGHTS CRESCENT RCITHLEY, LEICESTERSHIRE. Telephone: Leicester (0533) 302625. By appointment only. Y ecrzi-ee The Knightsbridge Pavilion 112,Brompton Rd., S. W 3. 01 584 1156 18th century Drinking Glasses, 18th & 19th century Decanters & Table Glass. teremel. BY APPOINTMENT TO H.M. THE QUEEN GOLDSMITHS. SILVERSMITHS & JEWELLERS ASPREY & COMPANY LIMITED LONDON BY APPOINTMENT TO H M OUEEN EUZABETH THE QUEEN MOTHER JEWELLERS ASPREY E. COMPANY LIMITED LONDON BY APPOINTMENT TO H R H THE PRINCE OF WALES JEWELLERS. GOLDSMITHS & SILVERSMITHS ASPREY & COMPANY LIMITED LONDON A fine acorn baluster wine glass, English circa 1710. Height: 6:1 ins. ASPREY at COMPANY P.L.C., London W1 Y OAR V elegrams: 25110 Asprey G. 165-169 New Bond Street, Tel : 01-493 676) Telex: 25110 Asprey G. To the Efteemed READERS of the GLASS CIRCLE [4-] The Editors of this Review refpectfully take this Public method of informing the Nobility, Gentry and all Purchafers of the Work that there remain a few copies of the Glass Circle [1], [2] and [3] Containing among other curious Articles by Eminent Authorities- - The Glass Circle 1 THE HOARE BILLS FOR GLASS by the late W. A. Thorpe ENAMELLING AND GILDING ON GLASS by R. J. Charlefton GLASS AND BRITISH PHARMACY 1600-1900 by J. K. Crellin and J. R. Scott ENGLISH ALE GLASSES 1685-1830 by P. C. Trubridge SCENT BOTTLES by Edmund I,aunert The Glass Circle 2 A GLASSMAKER'S BANKRUPTCY SALE by R. J. Charleston THE BATHGATE BOWL by Barbara Morris THE ENGLISH ALE GLASSES, GROUP 3 The Tall Balusters and Flute-Glasses for Champagne and Ale by P. C. Trubridge THE PUGH GLASSHOUSES IN DUBLIN by Mary Boydell GLASS IN 18TH CENTURY NORWICH by Sheenah Smith WHO WAS GEORGE RAVENSCROFT? by Rosemary Rendel HOW DID GEORGE RAVENSCROFT DISCOVER LEAD CRYSTAL? by D. C. Watts The Glass Circle 3 THE APSLEY PELLATTS by J. A. H. 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 igTH CENTURY by P. C. Trubridge Available from Messrs. Unwin Brothers, The Gresham Press, Old Woking, Surrey, GU22 gLH For The Glass Circle i price £4 (4 . 2.5o to Members of the Glass Circle). For The Glass Circle 2 price £4.50 (L3 to Members of the Glass Circle). For The Glass Circle 3 price £6 (L4.50 to Members of the Glass Circle) plus current postage for 40o, 450, and 500 grams weight respectively. ISBN 0 - 946095 02 7

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