No. 41 Spring 1996
Registered as a Charity No. 326602
Chairman:
John Delafaille
Hon. Secretary:
Dil Hier
Editor:
Dr Patricia Baker
Address for Glass Cone correspondence-
2 Usbourne Mews, Carroun Road,
London SW8 1LR
Address for membership enquiries, e
Broadfields House Glass Museum,
Compton Drive, Kingswinford,
West Midlands DY6 9NS
Tel: 01384 273011
ISSN 0265 9654
Printed by Jones & Palmer Ltd, Birmingham;
The Magazine of the
Glass Association
Cover Illustration:
Detail from one of six constellation
panels in clear glass from the liner
Mauretania
made by London Sand
Blast Decorative Glass Works Ltd. of
London around 1938-9; see below,
for Alyson Pollard’s request for
information. (By kind permission of
Liverpool Museum.)
Name the Designer:
Alyson Pollard, curator of
Metalwork & Glass, Liverpool
Museum writes:
“I wonder if any members of the
Glass Association can help in
tracking down the designer of some
very beautiful glass panels from the
second
Mauretania?
(see front cover
of this issue — Ed.) The panels are
from the Cabin Class restaurant of
the great liner and were made by
the London Sand Blast Decorative
Glass Works Ltd., of Seager Place,
Burdett Road, London E3, and fitted
in place in time for the liner’s maiden
voyage on 17 June 1939.
“The panels can be divided into
two groups. One group of twelve
are mirrored and peach-tinted,
depicting symbols representing
various planets. These formed a
large clock face on the wall of the
restaurant. The other group of six
panels were made in clear glass
and depict the constellations. These
were positioned over the dumb-
waiters.
“It may be that the panels were
designed by the talented workforce
of the London Sand Blast Decorative
Glass Works Ltd., or they could
have been designed by an artist
working on contract for the firm.”
Any info’
ufation about the London
company — and especially any clue
leading to the identification of the
panels’ designer — will be very
welcome (the recent Glass Circle
newsletter item is known). Contact
the Decorative Art Department,
Liverpool Museum, William Brown
Street, Liverpool, L3 8EN.
Must See . . .
There will be at least two good
reasons for being in the north this
spring and summer: a new semi-
permanent display at Perth Museum
& Art Gallery, and an exhibition of
late 19th-early 20th century glass at
Sunderland.
The “Beakers, Bowls and a
Thousand Flowers” exhibition at
Perth opening on 8 March will be a
proud record of glass-making past
and present in the region. Items on
show will range from the famous
Monart and Vasart glass of Ysart
made earlier this century through to
industrial glass production, from
glass walking sticks to airport landing
lights. Examples of Perthshire
Paperweights and Caithness glass,
Stuart Crystal Crieff engraving will
be included alongside glass from
three contemporary workshops
(John Deacons, Collins Crystal and
SW 82 Glass & Design).
The Sunderland Museum & Art
Gallery will host what promises to
be a spectacular display. “The Art
of Glass” exhibition opening 17 July
until 27 October 1996 will
concentrate on European and
American glass of the Art Nouveau
and Art Deco periods (1880-1940),
with outstanding examples of the
work of Tiffany, Lalique and Galle’.
Of particular interest will be the
Lalique dinner service given to King
George VI and Queen Flizabeth in
1938 by the city of Paris, which has
been seldom displayed to the public.
Uranium Glass
There has been a great response to
the queries about Uranium glass
extracted from Jem Stedman’s letter
and featured on the editorial page of
the last issue. So much so that more
than half of the pages in this
Glass
Cone
could have been devoted to
this topic. It is hoped that the
contributors — including Jem
Stedman who started the ball rolling
— will appreciate that similar
information has occasionally been
given by more than one respond-
ent. So to avoid unnecessary
repetition and to meet the ever-
present limitations on column
space, the major points have been
extracted from the letters (see back
page). “Major”, that is, as far as the
editor with her imperfect
knowledge of matters scientific can
judge.
Tom Percival of Cheshire, a
descendant of Thomas Webb, has
an 1887 recipe for Molyneux &
Webb “Cairngorum” glass
produced in Manchester which
included uranium oxide, the amount
of which was substantially
augmented to achieve a satisfactory
“right” colour. “But what sort of
colour was it?” he asks. “In 1888
Baden Webb was looking for a
substitute to make ‘C Emerald’
without the use of oxide of uranium
on the grounds of cheapness and I
think the ‘C’ stands for Cairngorum.
Molyneux & Webb certainly did
make Emerald coloured glass but
you don’t see it very often.”
While articles on the designs
and production problems, the
factories and makers of uranium
glass will be more than welcome for
future issues of the Cone, all further
communications to the editor
concerning the health and safety
aspects for collectors will be sent on
to Jem Stedman.
A Reminder for the spring issue
Feature articles and notices
up to
1,000 words in length (a typed line
on A4 page usually contains just
under 10 words), preferably with
one or more black and white prints
or colour transparencies, are
welcome. The text should be typed
or written clearly. All contributions
over 750 words and accompanying
photographs will be acknowledged
by post, as soon as possible after
receipt; illustrations will of course
be returned when received from
the printers after publication.
Deadlines for copy are detailed in
the box below.
The opinions expressed in the
Glass Cone
are those of the
writers. The editor’s aim is to
provide a range of interests and
ideas, not necessarily ones
which mirror her own. Her
decision is final.
COPY DATES
Autumn 1996
16 July
Spring 1997
18 February
Lustre, design
231927
registered by
Henry Greener,
12 August 1869.
(Sunderland
Museum)
A Greener Cache
In the early 1970s a cache of
documents was discovered during
demolition work in Millfield,
Sunderland. The disused buildings
where it was found had formed part of
the Wear Flint Glassworks built by
Henry Greener in 1871. Recently the
documents were given to Sunderland
Museum and Art Gallery by Mr
Harold Gill, the retired Executive
Production Manager of the glass
company James A. Jobling & Co., then
owners of the site.
1
A plan included in the Gill gift is
inscribed “Plan of Glassworks
proposed to be built in Back West-
bury Street next to Messrs’ Oswald’s
Engine Works. To be built of brick
and covered in slates and properly
drained” dated 20th January 1871 and
signed by Henry Greener.
2
By the
time Greener built his new
glassworks he had nearly forty years’
experience in the industry. His career
had begun aged 12 at Joseph Price’s
glassworks in Gateshead. He later
moved to Sowerby’s before taking
over with James Angus the Wear Flint
Glassworks in Trimdon Street in
Sunderland in 1858, continuing alone
after Angus’s death in 1869.
3
The plan provides valuable
information about the layout of the
works. It shows the five cones and
names each individual area from the
Mouldmaker’s shop, Pot arches,
Sandhouses, etc. down to Mr
Greener’s private office and W. C. But
perhaps of more general interest to
glass historians is a small notebook
found with the plan. Written by an
unknown hand, it contains notes and
over forty glass recipes under the
headings: Flints, American Flints,
Opals, Alabaster Colours, Ruby,
Anther, Demicristal Glass and Casing
Flint.
Throughout the text the writer of
the book addresses his reader (who
was in all probability Greener
himself) as one master glassman to
another, adopting a practical and
informal tone suggesting a long
acquaintance. He appears to have
acquired his skills over many years’
experience worldwide. It may be that
he was a glass “trouble-shooter” who
was in this instance prevailed upon for
a wide range of advice.
4
One remark
in the test allows us to narrow down
the manuscript’s date: “The best
demicristal in France is made at
Vallerysthal & Meysenthal in the parts
annexed to Germany.” The annex-
ation of Alsace-Lorraine was ratified
by the Treaty of Versailles in
February 1871 after the French defeat
in the Franco-Prussian War. The
casual tone of the reference might
suggest this was a recent event,
reinforcing the theory that Greener
acquired the information to give his
new works a flying start. The latest
possible date must be June 1878
when Greener added his own
comments against recipes in the text.
In the “Flints” section the writer
compares the quality of raw materials
available in the United States,
Belgium, France and England and
occasionally specifies how they are
used at particular works (Monot,
Maestricht, Meysenthal, Lyons,
Vallerystal, Baccarat, Powell’s and
Chance’s). As a rule he considers
French materials superior to English:
he judges the Parisian dealer
Cauchoix as the best source for
potash and Poulenc Wittman & Co.
the best for uranium and colouring
agents. He also advises buying
directly from them to avoid paying the
mark-up of English importers. A
comparison of Australian and
American ingredients confirms that
his knowledge is indeed global:
The whitest and best Metal I have made in the
United States. The Sand there is with the exception
of Australian Sand the best in the world and the
Lead is purer & freer from stranger metals than any
we have in Europe.
In his “General Remarks”, the
writer enthuses about the Lorraine
glasshouses, saying that it is possible
to halve coal consumption by
adopting their methods, and he even
offers to send sketches of an
improved type of furnace used there.
The merits of different moulds are
also discussed:
Carbonmoulds … have the advantage over the wooden
ones, of being incombustible & at the same time giving
as good a surface in one of these moulds we get 250 cut
decanters in six hours—well there is a preparation
which we put on the Iron moulds by which we can get as
good an article as in the others —we mix a small
quantity of Red Lead, very finely powdered Charcoal, &
make it into a paste with common Petrole oil. Keep that
onthe place after having anointed the mould with it &
every now and then renew it with a brush. Work the
mould just as a wooden one i.e. have a boy on his knees
with a tub of clean water and after every article dip it and
work it wet.
It is not known to what extent
Greener acted on the recommendations
of his consultant. Notes in Greener’s
hand prove that he tried a few recipes
(Casing Flint for Ruby, Opal Celadon and
Alabaster Chrysopras) although there is
nothing to suggest any went into
production. In 1877 we do know that
Greener was obliged to mortgage the
Mr and Mrs
Henry Greener,
presumably not
long before his
death in 1882
aged 63.
(Sunderland
Museum)
Pedestal dish,
anthemion
design 322393
registered by
Henry Greener,
8 June 1878.
(Sunderland
Museum)
works for £9,000. At that time only four
patents had been registered since the
move in 1871 but a further 14 were
recorded by the time of Greener’s
death in 1882.
5
After the expense of
establishing the works it is perhaps not
surprising that more use was not made
of the notebook’s contents, as the cost
of introducing new designs and
colours would have been consid-
erable. It would fall to the more
successful rival firm of Sowerby’s to
make fashionable opaque shades in
their vitro-porcelain range patented
in 1876.
Unfortunately Greener’s moves to
expand and develop his business
were not enough to protect it. In 1885,
only three years after his death aged
63, the company was taken over by its
chief creditor James A. Jobling, and a
new era of the works’ history began.
A critical, if partial, judgement on
Greener’s building of the new works
was made by his daughter Mrs Mary
Hannah Sadler, writing to her sister in
1924.
6
While lamenting the family’s
reduced circumstances, she cannot
resist adding a bitter reflection on the
glassworks’ subsequent revival
under Jobling:
And we should all have been in a better position
than we are today if our poor father had not rushed
in and built those huge Glass Works at Millfield for
other people to make a fortune out of.
Susan Newell,
Sunderland Museum and
Art Gallery
References
1 Sunderland Museum and Art Gallery Accession
Register 16-1995.
2 Documents in the gift make it possible to revise
information given in Appendix of
Glassmaldng
on Wearside
for the address and date of the
glassworks. The building of the works can be
dated to between January and November 1871.
(They first appear in the Rate Books in 1873.)
Locally the postal address for the works seems
to have varied: on the plan of January 1871,
prior to the construction of Back Alfred Street, it
is given as Back Westbury Street. On the
Borough Surveyor’s map of 1872 its location is
clearly shown on the newly built Back Alfred
Street and this seems to have been the most
commonly used address from that time
onwards.
3
Sunderland Echo
12 June 1882.
4 We would be interested to hear any ideas
readers might have regarding the writer’s
identity.
5
English Pressed Glass 1830-1900
by
Raymond Slack
6
The Identification of English Pressed Glass
1842-1908
by Jenny Thompson.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Mr Harold Gill.
Thanks also to my colleague, Martin
Routledge, for interpreting the maps
and plans of Sunderland.
Tumbled on a Mark
Two tumblers
with shallow
cutting
(Jem Stedman).
Engraved mark
on the base.
In a local antiques and collectors
market, I came across a pair of
tumblers whose price did not even
begin to reflect the fineness of their
quality. Needless to say, they were
purchased, wrapped, and in my bag
before you could say “trade price”.
At home, I unwrapped my
tumblers and while cleaning them, I
noticed something very faint under
the base of one glass — so faint that I
could have easily ignored it as being
a surface blemish of some sort.
Fortunately, guided by the superb
quality of these glasses, I examined
the base more carefully, in different
lights, and discovered that not only
was this tumbler marked but also that
the mark was elaborate and like no
mark I had ever seen before. A sketch
of the mark is shown here, drawn as
best I can; it is almost a “secret” mark,
faintly etched but not matt, and it is
difficult to view distinctly. In fact, both
tumblers are marked, but on only one
is the mark visible to the extent that it
can be sketched, and even then, not
all the details (such as the warriors’
feet) are clearly visible or
reproducible.
These tumblers, which are just
over 10 cm tall, are ornately yet
tastefully decorated with shallow
cutting. Indeed, the decoration could
be described as being a fusion of
cutting and engraving — all of it
polished. Essentially, there are three
bands of formal cut decoration, each
band being of a different pattern, with
the upper and widest band taking the
form of panels with foliage. The
cutting also extends to beneath the
base, patterning the flat polished
“footrim” which surrounds a wide
polished indentation. The mark is
within this indentation, as presumably
was the pontil mark before it was
polished out.
It is not easy to date these
tumblers, but in my judgement, they
probably date to the period
1880-1910. They are in a clear white
metal of good quality — seemingly
lead glass.
These tumblers are a real mystery
and my research has not revealed
any useful information — for example,
a search of flags and national coats of
arms has proved fruitless.
It would be very interesting to
know where these tumblers were
made and exactly when and for
whom. Is the mark a manufacturer’s
mark or is it the mark of the
individual/organisation/state for
whom the glasses were made?
Hopefully, a fellow Glass Association
members holds the key to unlock this
baffling mystery, and perhaps there
are other pieces from what was
presumably a whole (and very fine)
service, out there among collectors.
Jem Stedman,
East Sussex
Glass as a National Heritage
Three exciting projects to make the
public aware of the importance of
glass-making in the United Kingdom
are the subjects of regional
applications for National Lottery funds.
Work has already begun on
Merseyside to restore the Victorian
glass cone furnace, just a short walk
from the main shopping centre of St
Helens. When completed, this will
form the centrepiece of a major £7.5
million development and provide a
new home for the glass collections of
the local authority and of Pilkington
plc, showing the history of glass,
especially detailing the involvement
of the people in St Helens during the
last 200 years, not forgetting the
important technical achievements of
the Pilkington works. Significant
funding for this “Hotties” Science and
Arts Centre has already been
secured and a windfall from the
lottery could mean a grand opening
in 1998.
Eighteenth century Himley Hall
and park, former home to the family of
the earls of Dudley, has already
received almost £2 million from
Dudley Metropolitan Borough
Council; the commitment of the
council to glass history is well-known
to everyone who has visited
Broaclfleld House. Plans include the
restoration and repair of Himley Hall
to house glass collections and to
promote the regional hand-cut crystal
tradition, but also the provision of
more exhibition space and
conference facilities which will surely
attract outside prestige events
seeking such high-quality venues.
The third project is already well
under way. It forms an important part
of the planned £150 million devel-
opment of St Peter’s Riverside in
Sunderland. The Glass Centre, with
four main display rooms and two
exhibition galleries, will be linked
directly to production shops of
existing glass factories such as
Hartley Wood, the last remaining
British manufacturer of stained glass,
and to contemporary glass-making
studios. The close proximity with the
University of Sunderland should mean
that student-work from the glass
course will receive the attention it
deserves. Funding has already been
promised by the Tyne & Wear
Development Council and European
Regional Development Fund, and
almost £6 million has been allocated
from the National Lottery by the Arts
Council. The grand opening of the
Glass Centre, designed by Conifer
Associates, London, is scheduled in
the summer of 1997.
Orplid Glass 1940
In 1939, Fritz Lampl, poet, artist, and
glassblower, closed up his shop on
the fashionable Stubenring in Vienna,
said goodbye to his assistant, and fled
with his family to London. Such was
the climate of mistrust and suspicion
engendered by Nazism that Lampl felt
he could not even let his female
assistant know he was leaving. She
was later to make available to the
Vienna Museum of Arts & Crafts a
number of examples of the glass
vases, figures, and animals, which
Lampl’s firm, under the name of
Bimini, had made, and which he
simply abandoned in the shop;
details are in
Bimini —Wiener
Glaskunst des Art Deco
by Dr
Waltraud Neuwirth, 1992.
Lampl set up a studio in London,
under the new name Orplid –
apparently for copyright reasons.
Characteristically, he chose his trade
names from the German literature
which he loved; Bimini from the name
of a legendary island in a Heinrich
Heine poem, Orplid from a work by
the nineteenth century writer Moerike.
With the change of name came a
change of range. Orplid did not
produce the surreal glass objects for
which Bimini had been so renowned
in the late Twenties and Thirties. The
times — and British wartime
government regulations — were
1955
against such exuberance. Objects
from the Orplid range tend to have a
more classical shape, sometimes
reminiscent of Venetian glass, though
a wine glass might have a swan stem
base and a perfume bottle a cupid or a
bride inside it. Orplid production also
included pressed and blown glass
brooches, earrings, necklaces,
hatpins and buttons, some from
original designs, some from moulds
linked to the British Museum. These
items, some of which were coloured
or even gilded, were much in demand
as costume jewellery.
When his studio in Soho was
bombed in 1940, Lampl set up all
over again, this time in the basement
of his rented house in Hampstead.
This workshop soon became a focus
for artistic refugees from Hitler,
friends from the salons of the
Twenties. Some occupied themselves
with simple tasks like pressing the
glass into moulds in the making of
glass buttons, while others, like Lucie
Rie, the world-famous ceramist, made
An Orplid wine
glass with swan
stem.
Orplid glass
jewellery
including part of
a bracelet.
other contributions based on their
own expertise.
Through the Forties and early
Fifties Lampl achieved success and a
certain degree of fame. Orplid was
shown at the Festival of Britain and
formed part of the “Design from
Britain” exhibition (Council of
Industrial Design) that toured the USA
in 1953.
A scrapbook of press cuttings that
Lampl compiled (now in the V & A
Museum) shows that Orplid received
frequent and favourable mention in
magazines of the time. An article
headed “Modern Master” in
Harper’s
Bazaar
February 1952 described him
as “. . a Viennese artist of many
diverse parts . ” adding that “his
designs in glass . . . are now
acknowledged masterpieces”. It
featured a photograph of one of the
glasses with a swan-stem base.
John
Bull
February 1950 included a long
and informative article about him,
“Wizard in Glass”, and the
News
Chronicle
called him “Poet in Glass”.
He even appeared as the star of a
children’s book, The
Mystery of the
Pink Elephants,
thinly disguised as
Johann the glassblower, and creator
of the eponymous glass elephants.
After 1952, however, Orplid Glass
ran into problems. Although able to sell
abroad with the opening up of post-war
markets, competition, both at home
and abroad, increased — especially
from cheap Czechoslavakian
mass-produced glass jewellery.
Lampl’s health, always delicate, was
undermined by unwise decisions taken
by his business partner. Worn out, he
died of a heart attack in 1955, at the age
of sixty-three. He was soon to be
followed by his wife Hilde, and with
them died Orplid as a going concem.
I have a family connection to
Orplid through my father, the late
Joseph Berger, an architect. He was
Lampl’s brother-in-law, and designed
glasses and display furniture for him,
as well as the logos of both Bimini and
Orplid. Examples of Orplid’s output
are in the Glass gallery at the V & A
Museum. In recent months, a display
has been mounted bringing together
some of the pieces Lucie Rie
designed for Orplid, some pressed
glass brooches, as well as some of the
glass figurines, which were part of the
output of Bimini before the War.
Raymond Berger,
Devon
How old is Little Bo Peep?
The front cover of the
Glass Cone
no. 34/35 (Autumn 1992)
featured a Sowerby Little Bo Peep vase with a silver mount
hallmarked to 1883. Hazel Pierson of Aylesbury,
Buckinghamshire has found exactly the same Sowerby
design with similar silver mounting by the same
silversmith, Jehoida A Rhodes & Barber, hallmarked in
Sheffield, 1879 so pre-dating the other by four years.
jobs for the Boys (and Girls) Part 2
The Birmingham Glass Trade in 1913
In
Glass Cone
No. 36 I dealt with
information on glass blowing as
contained in a pamphlet published by
the Birmingham Education Authority
in 1913 for use in the Juvenile
Employment Exchange. This article
covers part of the second half of the
pamphlet which deals with the
various methods of decorating glass.
FLINT GLASS CUTTING AND
POLISHING
The first section, under what we
would today call ‘Job Description’,
describes the methods of marking out
and cutting. ‘Roughing out’ was done
on an iron disc fed with sand and
water, called the ‘mill’; smoothing
wheels were made of Craigleith stone
and Welsh slate. Polishing was done
progressively using wood and cork
wheels coated with pumice powder,
rottenstone and, finally, putty powder.
Fine work was polished with fibre
brushes, 6″/7″ diameter running at
2,000 rpm, and putty powder.
Boys entering the cutting shop
started their training by ‘feeding up’,
that is applying the polishing medium
to wheels and brushes. After a time
they progressed to ‘flatting’ or
‘puntying’, the grinding out of pontil
marks on tumblers and glasses using
small stone wheels. By the age of 19
they should have progressed through
smoothing and polishing and then be
ready to do ‘roughing out’, but the
pamphlet warns that, “It frequently
happens that a boy will show no
ability at roughing and is then put
back to smoothing and polishing”.
Girls were employed as ‘wipers out’,
washing off the dried putty powder
from the glass after polishing.
In some workshops the cutters
were responsible for all stages from
marking out to polishing but the
pamphlet author comments that “in
one or two shops each operation is
done by separate men”. This, an early
example of the production line
principle, leads the author to
recommend that “care should be
taken, when placing a boy, to see that
he will have opportunities of learning
all the processes.”
Boys entering the trade had no
status and to get an apprenticeship as
a cutter was difficult. The trade union,
the United Flint Glass Cutters’ Mutual
Assistance and Protective Society,
allowed no more than one apprentice
to each five men employed and no
boy could be bound after the age of
fifteen unless he had worked at the
trade beforehand. (An unlikely
prospect in view of the restrictive
practice.) The starting wage was 6
shillings per week (30p) with 1 shilling
(5p) annual increments. When
deemed able they were put on piece
work but were only paid half what they
earned by that method until they were
21. For qualified adult cutters the
average wage, in Birmingham, was 33
shillings (£1.65) with only two or three
most skilled men able to earn £2.
Today’s Health and Safety
Executive would have fits over the
section dealing with health. Lead
poisoning was recognised as a
serious hazard in cutting shops. The
putty powder was made of about 70%
lead oxide and 30% tin oxide and had
over time permeated the work place
in a fine haze. The leaflet tells us,
“Girls and boys are more liable to
attack than adults because they are
more careless in observing the
necessary precautions.” Symptoms
were a persistent headache, simple
colic and anaemia. By this time,
however, conditions were already
beginning to improve and the leaflet
says that “the regulations enforcing
the fitting of exhaust fans . . . has made
a very great improvement in the
general health of the workers”.
The advice on how to minimise the
risk stresses the importance of
cleanliness; habitual temperance (a
universal problem in the glass industry);
washing hands, face and teeth before
eating; not eating sweets at work; not
biting fingernails and to avoid breathing
the dust. (There is no mention of masks.)
Overalls should be wom and washed,
not shaken, at least once a week and the
regular use of an aperient such as
Epsom Salts was recommended.
The section on PROSPECTS is
worth quoting in its entirety since it
tells us quite a lot about the state of the
industry at that time.
“Employment has been very good
for the last six years. The trade is apt to
suffer very seriously from changes of
fashion which may result in periods of
depression lasting for several years. It
is also very much dependent on the
general prosperity of other trades in
this country, and any adverse
conditions that may effect
(sic)
a
foreign country in this way will at once
reduce the demand for Cut Glass.
“Most of the manufacturers are
anxious that alterations should be made
in the Society’s rules with regard to the
number of boys employed in
proportion to men. They claim that,
having regard to the shortage of labour,
the training or apprenticing of more
boys would be to the mutual benefit of
all concerned. The Society is at present
giving this matter its consideration.”
John Brooks,
Leicester
Is Uranium Glass a Health Hazard?
Barrie Skelcher
of Suffolk reminds us
that: uranium has been used to colour
glass from about 1840; it became
popular before the end of the century
and continued to be used up to WW2.
Thereafter its use rapidly declined. It is
normally associated with yellows and
greens but is also common in ivory,
amber and Burmese. We also have
examples of it being used in turquoise,
white, blue and pink. It would appear
from the examples we have studied
that the concentrations vary up to about
3% U by wt. This occurs in the Stevens
and Williams “Dark Amber” some of
which was produced after WW2. I have
also seen a recipe for up to 7.3% but
not yet found any examples.
He continues:
“Is it dangerous and is there a health
hazard?” “No” and “yes and no”! Let
me explain. There are four scenarios
that could involve risks from the
radiation-radioactivity in uranium glass.
1. The decay of the uranium gives
rise to other radioactive
“daughter” products which
include radon gas. While radon is
naturally occurring, there is
considerable evidence that it does
cause lung cancer. However, the
amount of radon escaping from the
glass is minuscule; this is because
the glass encapsulates it until it
decays. The risk from radon
exposure is therefore likely to be
so low that we can forget it.
2. Uranium, and its daughters, emit
alpha, beta and gamma types of
radiation. The alpha and beta can
be hazardous if ingested, e.g.
drinking from a uranium glass,
tumbler or goblet. However, glass
is highly resistant to leaching and
consequently the uptake in a
normal drink should be very small
and personally I would consider it
quite acceptable. (Ref. Landa &
Councell
Health Physics
Vol. 63 (3)
September 1992.)
3.
[Another] consideration is from the
radiation dose received by the skin
(e.g. handling glass) from the beta
radioactivity. I would consider that
generally the hazard is very small
and acceptable but would
recommend caution where the item
will be in contact with the skin for
prolonged periods, such as in the
case of a necklace of uranium glass.
4.
The gamma radiation from
uranium is not stopped by the glass
or wood in cupboards or display
places and will travel significant
distances, say several metres.
However, the dose likely to be
received is unlikely to produce any
measurable health risk.
‘It is true that current opinion ‘holds
that any level of ionising radiation
poses a risk’ and that the so-called safe
levels used for occupational exposure
have been reduced over the past
years. But there is a minority of
interested scientists who argue that
very low levels of radiation, in
scenarios 1, 2 and 4 above, has a net
beneficial effect. There is evidence to
support both these points of view,
“Briefly this uncertainty arises as
follows. The basic data for assessing
risk from radiation exposure comes
from studies involving radiation that has
been received in high doses or at high
dose rates, e.g. the survivors of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and radiation
exposure for medical purposes. There
is little scientific evidence to say that the
data applies for low doses at low dose
rates. Furthermore, studies of people
living in areas of higher natural
background radiation usually show
them to be healthier and having a lower
cancer rate than average. Even the
workers in the nuclear industries (I
used to be one) are healthier and have
lower cancer rates than that expected
for the general population. Perhaps the
only reasonable conclusion we can
draw is that if low dose rate radiation
does have any effect at all, it is so small
that it can not be distinguished from all
the other factors which affect our health.
“According to Professor Shoets of
Southwest Missouri State University,
there is good reason to believe that
thorium, which is also a naturally
occurring radioactive element (in
many ways not unlike uranium), and
which is found in some sands, is
present in some glasses.”
David Watts
of Barnet notes that
research has been done on the
impact on workers in uranium mines:
“The only research of relevance
was on the chronic effect of inhaling
dust in uranium mines on the miners
at doses which were very low but
from our point of view still very much
higher than that received from
uranium glass. In addition, the effect
of dust in the lungs is, for obvious
reasons, considerably greater and
exposure is over a significant part of
the working life. At that time about 10
years’ exposure had no statistically
significant effect in increasing the
incidence of lung cancer in non-
smokers but there was a statistically
significant effect with smokers.
“So far as glass collectors are
concerned, where the uranium is
trapped inside lump of glass,
particularly lead glass which self-
absorbs much of the radiation, the
health risk is negligible in normal
circumstances. I always tell people
that if you have a number of pieces
the safest protection is the inverse
square law — i.e. that the magnitude
of the dose decreases as the
mathematical square of the distance
you are from it. So place your pieces
as conveniently far away as possible
and in such a position that you are not
close to them when you are sedentary
for long periods — away from your
typewriter, computer or television, for
example.”
John Westmoreland
of Carnforth,
Lancashire points out that the National
Radiological Protection Board at
Chilton, Didcot, Oxfordshire,
OX11 ORQ would probably be the
best source of advice for public
institutions and exhibition organisers
concerned about the general public
responsibilities. He adds:
. . colour is no sure guide. I have
now seen uranium glass which is
yellow, amber, green, turquoise,
blue, pink and red! And pretty well all
these colours can be achieved by
non-uranium pigments.”
He is in agreement with David
Watts that minimal handling and
distance are easy precautions, noting
that the reading from one of his
uranium glasses dropped rapidly as
he and the counter moved away from
the object. He stresses that the major
source of radiation for the average
person is natural radioactivity, and
also mentions the natural radioactive
isotope in potassium.
Dr PJD Snow
of Manchester was
prompted to carry out an experiment,
measuring the radiation of uranium
glass displayed on open shelves at
various heights in one room (13′ x 12′ x
8’6″) against that from non-uranium
glass in a similar sized room. (He
thanks Ms Pamela Nuttall, Director of
Medical Physics at the Christie
Hospital for the dosemeters and
calculation/ interpretation of the
results.) He explains:
“The uranium glass included fifty-
two pieces of Sowerby Queensware
and nine pieces of Webb’s Burmese,
. . . [and] sixty-one pieces of
Davidson’s Primrose Pearline, which
I believe to contain uranium although
I am not aware of any documentary
proof of this. It certainly fluoresces
strongly in ultra-violet light in the
same way as Sowerby’s Queensware.
Also included were a further twenty-
four pieces by various other
manufacturers, all typically yellow in
colour and fluorescing strongly in
ultra-violet light, making a total of a
hundred and forty-six pieces in all.
“Two dosemeters measuring
penetrating radiation (i.e. X and
Gamma rays) were used, one facing
display shelves containing most of the
uranium glass (one hundred and eight
pieces) and the other facing between
the two units thus exposed to radiation
from both sides. A third dosemeter
was placed in the control room.
“After five weeks the dosemeters
were returned to the laboratory for
processing. The results indicated a
level of 0.05 millisieverts for both
dosemeters in the room containing
uranium glass over and above the level
in the control room. Taken over a full
year, therefore, the level would be 0,5
millisieverts. This figure has to be seen
against a normal background radiation
level varying in different parts of the
country from 1.8 to 4.5 millisieverts per
year and round about 2.5 millisieverts in
the Manchester area. The increase
caused by the presence of uranium
glass can thus be seen to be negligible.
Further reassurance may be provided
by the fact that the recommended
safety level for personnel working with
radiological and radiotherapeutic
equipment is 20 millisieverts per year.”