The Glass Society Journal_Vol 1 – 2019

•

THE JOURNAL OF •

The Glass Society
VOLUME 1 – 2019

The Journal

The Glass Society

Volume I
2019

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

The Journal of the Glass Society

ISSN 2633-3147

First published in 2019 byThe Glass Society

Since 19th September 20 I 9,The Glass Society has been registered in England as a

Charitable Incorporated Organisation. CIO number 1185397
Registered office: Red House Glass Cone, High Street, Stourbridge,West Midlands, DY8 4AZ

©Text copyright the Authors and The Glass Society 2019

The rights of the individual authors to be identified as the authors of their respective work
have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988

©Images copyright as detailed in each article ORThe Glass Society 2019

World copyright reserved

Editorial Board:
Brian Clarke, [email protected]

Susan Newell, [email protected]
David Willars, chairmanaglassassociation.org.uk
Simon Wain-Hobson, Robert Wilcock, Nigel Benson

Design, layout and image processing by Emma Nelly Morgan

Printed by Warners (Midlands) plc, www.warners.co.uk

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording

or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the respective authors and publisher.

Whilst every care has been taken in the research, compilation and production of this
publication,The Glass Society committee members do not bear any responsibility for the views

expressed, which are those of the authors in each case; neither do the authors or the publisher

accept any liability for any financial or other loss incurred by reliance placed upon

the information contained in this publication.

Front cover picture: An
important

Ravenscroft
crizzled decanter
jug, the oviform

body ‘nipt
wales’

and further decorated with eight
vertical
pincered and winged ribs,

the spreading foot
with radial

decoration the
contemporary

hinged silver
cover of

heart
shape centred
by a roundel engraved with

sets of
initials with an
escutcheon surrounded
by a wreath probably by Bonifacius
Weber (

active

1675-79). With permission of the Dudley
Museum Services Collection,

Eila Grahame

bequest.

Back Cover picture: A full set of five
Vistosi pulcini,

models S I
89-193, designed by

Alessandro Pianon and made in Murano in the 1960s:
Ian Turner collection.

Page I picture:
Two-handled
bowl, cover
and
stand, calcedonio
glass,

Venice,
1675-1725,

diameter
of
stand, 20.5cm. V&A 5223-1901.

A new Glass Society website is planned, currently, news, activities and committee emails can be
accessed through www.glassassociation.org.uk

Readers wishing to be in contact with any of the contributors can email the editor

THE GLASS SOCIETY

SOCIETY

Honorary Presidents: Charles Hajdamach and Simon Cottle

Honorary Vice-President: Dwight Lanmon

This Journal celebrates the formal establishment ofThe Glass Society, registered as

a charity in August 2019.The Glass Society promotes the study, understanding and

appreciation of historic, artistic and collectable glass in all its aspects, for the benefit
of both experts and beginners, by means of publications and convivial meetings,

lectures, outings and other events. Membership is open to everyone interested in

glass, including dealers and other professionals, at home and abroad.The possession
of a collection is not necessary although many members are keen collectors.

For many years,The Glass Association andThe Glass Circle have shared common

goals in the research, enjoyment and appreciation of glass. Based on those firm

foundations and with the future in mind, the two societies agreed in 2017 that the

interests of their members would be best served by merging into a single group.

Since then, both societies have effectively acted as one; jointly publishing their tri-
annual magazine
Glass

Matters, aligning their subscription fees and sharing their

activities.This, the first Journal ofThe Glass Society, maintains a commitment to

continue the tradition of publishing scholarly work on all aspects of glass; the Glass

Circle’s first of eleven Journals was issued in 1972 and the Glass Association’s first
often was issued in 1987.

If you have researched a special area of glass production, history, collecting or
consumption and are thinking of publishing, we would be delighted to hear from

you for potential inclusion in a future issue.

Susan Newell and David Willars

Joint Chairmen,The Glass Society

Brian Clarke

Editor

AUTHORS

Our Contributors

JILL TURNBULL
JillTurnbull has been researching Scottish glass history since 1994.After early retirement and moving to Edinburgh in

1989, she studied for a degree in the History and Design of theVisual Arts at Stoke on Trent, specialising in ceramics

and glass. Graduating with a 1st class honours degree in 1992 and then working for two years at Edinburgh College of
Art Humanities Department, she obtained a doctorate at the University of Edinburgh in 1999. Her thesis, The Scottish

Glass Industry I 610-1 750
was published by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland In 2001.
Jill lectures and has published

articles in The Glass Cone,
The Journal

of the Glass
Association

and The
Glass Circle Journal,
as well as in Scottish local history

publications. Jill’s second book, From Goblets to
Gaslights,

the Scottish glass
industry 1750-2006
was published in 2017.

IAN TURNER
Ian, a retired town planner, is a member of the Glass Society, the Northern Ceramic Society and was Chairman of the

Glass Association. He began collecting Monart Glass in the early I 980s, researched its history and then published a book

and several articles on Monart before selling most of his collection at Christie’s in 2003. Subsequently, he published
several articles on 20th century art pottery. Between 2015 and 2018 he acquired a complete set ofVistosi glass-bird

sculptures designed by Alessandro Pianon and made in Murano in the 1960s; with the company’s help, he then researched

their history. He is currently researching the Dean family of ceramic artists.

MIKE NOBLE
Michael Noble has been a glassman throughout his working life, latterly running the massive glassworks at Harlow in

England and Alloa in Scotland. On retirement he involved himself in researching how the glass industry was established

in England while also investigating his collecting interest for early English porcelain, looking at contemporary documents
stored in archives and museums throughout the length and breadth of the country. His acclaimed first book, Eighteenth

Century English Glass and
its antecedents, was published in 2016 and his second,
Bow Porcelain: a narrative,

published two

years later, related the history of this most famous of early porcelain factories.

JAMES MEASELL
A life member ofThe Glass Society and trustee of the British Glass Foundation, James Measell is historian at the Fenton

Art Glass Co. in Williamstown,WestVirginia, USA. During 1986-2005, he authored numerous books on American glass

forThe Glass Press in Marietta, Ohio, USA. His PhD thesis on the Stourbridge School of Art I 850-1905 was awarded

the Ashley Prize at the University of Birmingham in 2016. His research on various aspects of glass history has appeared

in many journals, including The
Glass
Cone, History West
Midlands,

and The
Blackcountryman magazine.
A retired university

professor, James Measell is currently an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham. He can be contacted

by email: jsmeasell©gmail.com

SUSAN NEWELL
Susan Newell, Chairman of the Glass Circle since November 2017 and now joint Chairman ofThe Glass Society, has

worked as a curator specialising in the decorative arts at various institutions, includingTyne and Wear Museums and the

Victoria and Albert Museum. She organised an exhibition of Art Nouveau glass with Victor Arwas in 1996 and in two

articles, published research on glassmaking in the North-East in the
Journal of The

Glass

Association
of 2001. She has also

worked as an auction house specialist and as an independent consultant. Susan is currently a PhD candidate (History

of Science) on an Arts and Humanities Research Council collaborative doctoral partnership between the University of

Leeds and Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

DAVID BURTON

David Burton, CBE, FCIB, FCT, enjoyed an extensive city career; director and head of SterlingTreasury at S.G.Warburg,

Chairman of LIFFE which opened in the Royal Exchange in 1982 and Chairman of Marshall’s Finance, a leading financial

broker, merging with the Prebon Group in 1998. He hosted HMThe Queen when she opened the new exchange trading
floor at Cannonbridge and was awarded a CBE for services to the city of London in 1992. David was a Liveryman of the

Worshipful Company of Glass Sellers and his interests include English bombards, blackjacks and leather bottles 1550-

I 700, Rhenish pottery 1500-1650 and Lambeth Delftware bottles 1630- 1670.
His celebrated three volume book collection, Antique Sealed Bottles 1
640 — 1900 and

the Families

that
Owned Them,

2014,

is available to members from the author. Contact by email: [email protected].

CONTENTS

Contents

Industrial relations in the Scottish glass industry:

The shift in power from masters to men

Jill Turnbull

Alessandro Pianon’sVistosi Birds

Ian Turner
7

Art, Mystery, Secrets and Machinations:
The establishment of post medieval

glassmaking in England

Mike Noble

The Adorable Miss Lawley

James Measell

Collecting for the nation:

The origins of the glass collections at the

Victoria and Albert Museum, acquired c. 1840-60

Sue
Newell

What is a sealed bottle?
The Eila Grahame Collection

David Burton

MASTERS TO MEN

Industrial relations in the

Scottish glass industry:

The shift in power from masters to men

Jill Turnbull
This essay traces changes in conditions of employ-
ment in the Scottish glass industry over a lengthy peri-

od, examining the rise of workers’ organisation which
led to a shift in power from the employers in the 18th

century to a unionised workforce in the 19th. Unlike

those trades whose members combined to create

guilds for their mutual benefit, the different trades

involved in making and decorating glass did not estab-
lish an umbrella organisation. Instead, they created

separate friendly societies and later, separate unions.
The biggest difficulty facing any Scottish entrepreneur

attempting to manufacture table glass in the late 18th cen-

tury was the recruitment of a skilled workforce. Although
bottle making had continued, no flint glass had been

produced in Scotland for almost 34 years by the time the

Verreville glassworks was established in Glasgow in 1777.

Three successful Newcastle glass manufacturers joined
the co-partnership, so it is no surprise that all the known

workmen in the early years were English, who presumably

came voluntarily. This was not the usual situation however
and it is clear, from the number of prosecutions elsewhere,
that devious means were frequently employed to recruit

men trained to make flint glass, bottles and window glass.
A blatant example took place in Leith in 1793 when

manager James Smith was taken to court’ where it was

alleged that ‘an Agent from some of the Glass Works in

Leith … in Newcastle for the purpose of hiring Hands if

any could be met with, was at same time offering them

large sums of money …’. Three men, Robert Wilson,

James Raffield and Edward Groves, who were bound to
Lord Delavel, were discovered making bottles at the ‘the

works of Messrs Ramsay Williamson & Co. in Leith’ and

warrants were issued by the Newcastle magistrates to appre-

hend them and return them to their rightful employers.
Wilson and Raffield were arrested at the glasshouse

and when given the choice by the Edinburgh magis-
trates of returning to their former employer or going

to prison, they chose the latter, ‘as being strongly rec-

ommended to them by Mr Ramsay’ – who said he

would soon be able to get them released, and would
pay their wages in the meantime, which he did.
Another glassmaker, Thomas Brotherton, who had

been hidden at Leith, returned to Newcastle of his own

volition. He described how the Ramsay Williamson’s
agent had gone to Lord Delayers glassworks and arranged
to meet the men at the local pub. He plied them with

drink and then persuaded them to sign up ‘in conse-
quence of which each of them received Ten pounds or

Ten guineas, five Guineas to defray their Expences thither,

& five pounds per annum to be allowed them for their

House and Fire-coals – together

with an advance in their weekly

Wages of Two Shillings for blow-
ing and one Shilling for gather-

ing.’ No wonder they absconded.
The difficulties faced by the

industry were set out very clearly

in 1797, when Archibald Geddes,
then manager of the Edinburgh

Glass House Company at Leith,

gave evidence in a legal dispute

with one of his absconding work-
men
(Fig. 1).

He was talking about

Fig. I The glassworks along the shore
at Leith in the early 19th century,

(private collection)

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

bottle production, but the same constraints applied to

the manufacture of table glass. His statement reads:
“The manufacture of glass is different in its nature from

most other manufactures. A large capital is required and

must be laid out in the erection of buildings and furnaces,

and this is sunk in the first place. These furnaces, when
built and set going, require the same quantity of coals and

the same expense of attendance in every respect, whether

they are worked full or not. It is therefore the first care

of every manufacturer to secure the services of as many

workmen by Contracts and Indentures for certain periods
as will insure fully the working out of all the metal his fur-
nace can prepare. From their working in the Bottle Man-
ufactory in sets of 3 or 4 hands together at each pot and

each performing only one particular part of the operation

and the absence of one consequently stopping the whole,

it therefore becomes of the utmost importance that they
all regularly attend. So strict contracts are to everyone’s

advantage, including the workmen because they also have
the highest weekly wages of any artificers in the Kingdom.”

He went on to explain how a team of bottle makers worked:

“One man gathers or takes the metal out of the pot upon
the pipe, another man blows that metal into the shape
of bottles, a third puts the rings on the mouth or, as it is
called, finishes them.” He stressed the men’s interdepen-

dence and their inability to meet their target production

if one man of the team was missing. Geddes described
to the Court how workmen could be persuaded to leave

by the offer of a ‘high premium’: “These premiums are

sometimes very considerable and the more so when a
new works are to be established, as the Proprietors find

themselves under the necessity of holding out a high
premium to procure workmen from the Manufacturers.

Sometimes in this way 40 or 50 guineas are given”.
2

The

recruitment problem continued for many years, with

frequent litigation and disputes between proprietors.
Once a manufacturer had obtained a sufficiently

skilled workforce, by whatever means, it was obviously

beneficial to train local youngsters. An advertisement

in the
Edinburgh Advertiser
in 1796 set out Archibald

Geddes’s requirements. It began: The Edinburgh Glass-
house Company want a number of stout young lads, from

14 to 16 years of age, to engage as apprentices to the dif-

ferent branches of their business. Such young men as
have a particular taste for drawing, or a mechanical turn,

may find employment very much suited to their genius’.

He was also looking for workmen in other departments,
particularly ‘stout active labourers’, offering wages

from 8s to 12s a week, depending on what they could

do.
3
At that period, the manufacturers could engage

as many apprentices as they wished, a situation which

was to change dramatically over the succeeding decades.
Conditions of employment were not easy, so it is

perhaps hardly surprising that men were prepared to
accept bribes to leave an employer, nor that they should

abscond, since they were, as were workers in other trades,

bound by law to serve out their term. It is also quite

possible that English workmen were unaware that the

Scottish legal system was different from the English one.
Whatever the working conditions and possibly dis-

agreements with managers, breaking of the contract

was not an option for the workers in Scotland any

more than it was in England. Recourse to the legal sys-

tem was not uncommon and rarely led to judgements

in favour of the employee. Surviving legal documents

demonstrate clearly that power was entirely in the
hands of the employer, but, of course, it is impossible

to know how good the worker was at his job or wheth-

er he was actually a troublemaker, as is often implied.
Not all contracts were specific about the amount

of work required, but a seven-year contract between

Archibald Geddes and John Robertson, an English bot-

tle blower, of 22 June 1784,
4

specified that he would

“gather, blow and finish fifty two dozen good and suf-
ficient merchantable quart bottles each journey when

working five journeys in a week. That is to say making
in all three hundred and twelve dozen each week” or “a
proportionate number of larger bottles”. However, he had

also reluctantly agreed to be moved to much more menial

tasks for far less money, if the manager decided he should.
For whatever reason Robertson was at one point

demoted to sweeping the yard for 6/- a week, rather

than the 20/- he earned blowing bottles. He was not a
happy man and tried to leave, so breaking his contract

and ending up in prison. A lengthy court case ensued
during which Robertson remained locked up. We can-
not know who was right — the situation for Robertson

was, as he argued ‘humiliating’ and the loss of wages

very difficult. It is, of course, impossible to decide whose
behaviour was worse, but clearly from the viewpoint of

Archibald Geddes as manager of the business, he had to
maintain control and to demonstrate that the power to

enforce the contract was not to be questioned. Whatev-
er the rights and wrongs of the situation, a contract was

legally binding and punitive enforcement was used as a

deterrent to prevent others following suit. In some of the

disputes men languished in jail for two or more years.
However, the number of similar cases does raise ques-

tions. Two apprentices, Donald McLean and Robert Ste-

vens who were bound in 1798 to work for Geddes for

seven years, ran away to Dundee in 1803 to join the navy,
a somewhat surprising choice when press gangs were very

active in order to provide crews for their warships. Just
before they went to sea, Geddes’s petition to the High

Court of Admiralty to hand them over was activated

and they too finished up in the Tolbooth in Edinburgh.’
The Newcastle glass industry provided a benchmark

for Scotland. A typical indenture in April 1793, used

MASTERS TO MEN

Fig. 2 Pot-setting at Edinburgh Crystal, 2004.The front of the
furnace is being opened up before removing the damaged pot.

Prior to 1970 the men were not provided with protective
clothing; they wore layers of second-hand clothes to protect

them from the extreme heat, (Author’s photograph)

the terms of employment at Newcastle as its guide. The

apprentice was to work “the same number of moves in a

week and make the same quantity of goods each move as
is presently made at New Castle or any other Flint Glass-
house in the Kingdom”.
6

His pay began at 3s in the first

year, rising to 8s in the seventh. At the end of seven years,
if the company had employment for him, he was bound

to continue in their service for another seven years as a
journeyman, a common condition in such agreements.

The manager also had the power to move the appren-

tice from flint glass production to the less skilled trade

of bottle making. Like all the other employees, he had
to assist “at setting or shifting of pots or heaving met-

al out of broken pots”. This hot and arduous task was
performed every time one of the crucibles cracked or

broke, on average every four weeks
(Fig.2).
While the

glasshouse owners extracted a fourteen-year commit-

ment, they could themselves terminate the agreement

at any time by giving the worker three months’ notice.
Conditions of employment for already qualified

workmen were also restrictive. When brothers Richard

and Nicol Simpson agreed to work as “Gatherers and

Blowers of Crown [window] Glass” at Leith, they signed
up for 14 years, their pay for the first two years being

16s a week, rising to £1 in years five and six. Only in
the final eighth year would they receive “the ordinary

and customary wages” of their trade. If their work was
not up to scratch money could be deducted from their

wages. It is telling that the company could give them

three months’ notice — but if the Simpsons wished to

leave at the end of the term of the indenture, they had
to give three

years’

notice, and unless they did so, their

contract could be extended by yet another three years.’

During the 19th century, working practices remained

much the same, but the balance of power between mas-

ters and men was to change dramatically. There were

periods of considerable industrial unrest, while control

of the workplace shifted from the employers to a union-

ised workforce. An article under the heading ‘The Gen-

eral Trades of Glasgow’, published in 1867, describes

how, by then, the Flint Glass Makers’ Society did not
permit “the employment of more apprentices than one

to each six journeymen, except under special circum-

stances and employers, when in want of workmen, are

obliged to apply through the district secretary instead of
engaging the men themselves”. In short, the Society is
all-powerful and the masters are constrained to submit in

many cases, to arrangements which they consider unjust,

for the sake of peace.’
8

An enormous change — and one

with huge implications for the future of the industry.

Trade Unions
It is simplistic to think of the glass making industry as

a single entity. In reality, not only were there differenc-

es between the skills of the bottle makers, window glass
blowers and those working in flint glass, there were also

huge divisions within the glasshouse between the hot

and cold workers. During interviews with the staff of

Edinburgh Crystal, recorded in 2004, it became clear

that those workers with the hot glass at the furnace

had nothing to do with those who decorated it. They

had no contact with each other, either in work or out,

and a mutual disregard — something both sides took

for granted as the norm and which they did not ques-

tion. The situation had begun to improve slightly, but

one manager described his memories of it: ‘The pas-

sageway that takes you down from … what we called
the cold end into the hot end, sometimes that was

seen as the great divide. For example, the glass maker

would never go beyond that and likewise a hand cutter

would never go beyond. It was crazy at times. Crazy’.
9

It is clear that this separation was nothing new. Sim-

ilar antipathy was commented on by an observer at the

1852 conference of flint glass makers, who wrote of the

`mutual distrust and unfriendly feeling’ between the cut-
ters and makers. A report of the head of the Children’s

Employment Commission published in 1865 stated that

`Flint Glass Makers are a set as distinct even from flint
glass cutters, though in most cases working in the same

manufactory, as if they were engaged in totally distinct

manufactures’.
1
° These strict divisions of labour were

reflected in the fragmented nature of the trade societies

and unions which developed in the 19th century, a frag-
mentation which may have been increased further by a

tendency for Scotland to set up its own organisations.

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

Friendly Societies, estab-

lished to provide sickness and

death benefits for subscrib-

ers, were the basis on which

the workers organised them-

selves. In his seminal book

The Labour Aristocracy Revis-

ited, the Victorian Flint Glass

Makers 1850-80,
Takao Mat-

sumura researched the origins

of The United Flint Glass

Makers’ Society. He shows
that there was a local friendly

society in Newcastle as early

as 1755, but it was not until
the mid-1830s that a wider

organisation was established.

In 1837 there were 646 mem-
bers in 25 branches, two of

which were in Scotland, with

47 members in Edinburgh,
and 11 in Greenock.” The
response of the glassworks

owners was robust. A meet-

ing of the Stourbridge and
Birmingham manufacturers

made it clear that they regard-
ed all ‘combinations’ as a threat

to the trade and declared

that they would not employ

any members. The Scot-

tish response is not recorded.
Despite their concerns, the

manufacturers did not set up

House not at Work.

an umbrella organisation of

their own, although they did

meet together to fix prices, something on which they
had made joint decisions since at least 1771. In that

year, a printed
Prices of Glass Goods, Sold by the differ-

ent Manufacturers in England
12
lists them individually

according to weight, or by the dozen. A further list was

agreed at a meeting of manufacturers in Birmingham

in 1819, this time at a meeting of the ‘flint glass manu-
facturers of the kingdom’, presumably including Scot-

land
(Fig.3).

The earliest evidence to have been found

of the Scottish manufacturers establishing their own

list is a hand-written document,
Prices of Flint Glass

arranged at a General Meeting of the Manufacturers of

Scotland Held at Glasgow 23rd October 1823.
Clearly

prices had to reflect not just the predictable excise charges,
but changing costs of raw materials and the competi-

tion of foreign imports, so they were regularly reviewed.

In the Ford-Ranken archive of material from the

Holyrood Flint Glass Works in Edinburgh is the record
LIVERPOOL

Messrs. James Holt and Son.
41

MANCHESTER.

Messrs. Molineaus, Webb, Ellis, and Co.
„
William Robinson.

YORSSIURS.

Messrs. John Bower,
HVIHILET
near LEEns.

Meek, Spence, and Co., Yoax.

„
Wood and Perks, WOESRRODALE
near

BARRE/MET.

Close and Clarke, ROTHERHAM.

Booth and Munn, CATCLIFF near E0-
TIIERHAN.

J
ames
Wood, THORNHILL LEES, near

Dawsnuar.

DURHAM AND NORTHUMBERLAND.

Messrs. Shortridge, Sawyer and
CO., SOUTH

Sniains.

The Northumberland Class Co.,
Nam-

CASTLE-ON.TTNE.

Joseph Price, UATESHEAD.
Souerby and
Co., Dnro.

The Wear Flint Glass Co., Susumu-inn.

The Harmon Hill F. G. Co., STOCKTON-
oN-Tass.

LONDON.

Messrs. Apaley Pellatt.
„ Christie and Co.

„ The White Friars Glass
Co.

RELAND.

Me.srs. John Kane, BELFAST.
•

Edward S. Irwin,
DUBLIN.

•

Thomas Hunt, Dirro.
George Gatehell and
CO., WATERFORE.

CORK and NEWRY F.
G. Houses, not at work.

SCOTLAND.

Msssn. Bailey
and Co., Emmet:Boo.

„
John Ford,
Dirro.

„ John Watson sad Co., Ocasolow.

„ Cochrane and
Cooper, Dtrro.

T. K. G.

T.
Johnson, Pratte,

13, Inle.ann.l.n.P.

,
.

(ABOVE) Fig.3 A list of the flint-glass manufacturers
of Britain in 1839

(BELOW) Fig.4 ‘LIST OF PRICES’.The cover of the list of

agreed prices. Courtesy of the City of Edinburgh Council
Collection, Museum of Edinburgh (CEC FRA)

AGREED 1.71
,
C.X BY

THE GLA_SSMAKERS’
11131011341r 111041111171,
PRINTED 184.5,

REVISED
AND CORRECTED 1846.

BIRMINGHAM.

Messrs. Bacchus and Green.
„
Biddle and Co.

•
Gammon and Son.

„
John Gold.

Rice Harris.

Shakcspear and Son.

Thompson and Shaw.

DUDLEY.

Messrs.
Thomas Hawkes a
–

nal Co.

„
Badger Brothers.

„
Guest, Wood, and Guest.

STOURBRIDGE.

Messrs. M. and W. Grazebrook.
•
William Hodgetto.

Littlewood and Berry.

„
W. H. R. and J. Richardson.

Raiford and Walker.
Shepherd and Webb.

„
Silvers and Stevens.

„
Stevens and Son.

Whmley and Davis.

LW:Girl/RT.

Messrs. John Davenport and Co.

BRISTOL

Messrs. Henry Ricketts and Co.

PLYMOUTH.

Messrs. Staniforth and Co.

TUTBURY.

Messrs. Jackson and Co.

WARRINGTON.

&fess
–
rs. Alderson, Pen
– in,

and Lo.

„
T.
Robinson

and Co.

–=

ST. HELENS.

Messrs. Thomas
Bell and

Co.

„
S.
Bishop and Son.

RAINHILL.

Apromiam.

LIST OF FLINT-GLASS MANUFACT

trItERS

ENGLAND, IRELAND, AND SCOTLAND.
1839. ”

1
0

339 Patty Pans

310 Pipes for Breast

341 — for drawing out 2d. per dozen

342 Preston Salts, blown over

343 —- made mouth

344 Phials, by hand, flint and green, under 4 oz. …… 400

345 —

ditto,

4 oz. up to 6

350

396 —

ditto,

6 and 8 or

290

347 –

ditto,

above S oz.

220

348 –

ditto,

sample …

200

348*Potting Pots

6
*’

160

270

160
MASTERS TO MEN

of a national meeting of glass manufacturers held in Bir-
mingham on 15 March 1836 under the chairmanship of

John Biddle. It was convened to consider revising prices

previously agreed, and, among other things, workmen’s

wages. Correspondence indicates the reluctance of the

Scottish manufacturers to be dominated by decisions
made in Birmingham. A further meeting there in Sep-

tember 1836 decided to revise prices yet again. It was

attended by Englishman Frederick Pellatt, a partner in
the Clyde Flint Glass Company of Greenock, who wrote

to William Bailey of the Holyrood Flint Glass Works on
his return: “It was suggested that the present list be raised,

PILLAWD WORK.

349 Pillar’d Sugars and Cream Jugs, under 16 oz

350

16 oz.& under 20

351

above 20 oz…….

352 Pillar’d Jugs, quarts, under 2tb.

353 —— — pints to match

354

quarts, 21b. and under 4113 …….

355

– pints to match

356

all quaets, 4th. and upwards, and

pints to match, an odd turn.

357

on leg and foot, an odd turn.

358 Pillar’d Carroffs, quarts, under 21b.

359

pints to match

360

quarts, 2tb. and under 41b.

361

pints to match

362

all quarts, 4111 and upwards, and

pints to match, an odd turn.

363 Fillard
Tumble
–

ups

Rol —
Decanters an odd turn.

365

Celery Glasses an odd turn.

366

G-iblets, Wines, Champaignes, Ales, Cus-

tards, and Jellies, an odd turn.

367 – Whiskey Measures

368

ditto,

with rings

All
work at the press an odd turn.

That five or more patterns shall constitute an odd tarn.
1 quarter of a move of all work when three-handed : one-

half off when two-handed.

That two moves and a quarter be paid for an odd turn.
That one move per week be allowed to the chair for

learning an
apprentice footsoaker or servitor for the first

three months.

‘I hat Is. hole-think be given for whatever holds 1 gallon

•
:t upwards, or is 10 inches or upwards in diameter.

That all journeymen receive half wages when the furnace

is out
of repairs, or the place is stopping for repairs,
without

working or having to pay it back.

That the
number of any new pattern be decided by

District
Committee of two members from
each house.

‘filet all sheared work is best.
That whenever the masters do
not find metal enough for

a man to snake
11 moves to week’s

work, that
the man

shall

be paid a week’s
work
without paying it back.

The masters to stand one-half of the loss, and the men

the other half, when there is any melted or cracked in the

leer.
which I objected to on the ground that as the present list

was not adhered to by the Birmingham people, it was

useless to make any new lists; however the list was revised,

and some alterations made, chiefly in heavy goods. It

appears to me that the only object the English people
have in issuing a new list is to fill their order books at the

last advance; which may be so far so well; but that is no
reason that we, who have all along maintained the last

list, should advance.’ He went on to describe their com-

promise agreement that: ‘The Birmingham Manufactur-
ers have agreed to adhere to our prices and discount in

Scotland; if we will sell at the English list in England”.’
3

Meanwhile, the workers were becoming increasingly

well organised. A year after the establishment of The Unit-
ed Flint Glass Makers’ Society in 1844, there appeared
a printed List of
Prices agreed upon by The Glassmak-

ers’ Friendly Society printed 1845, revised and corrected

1846
14
(Fig.4).

Not to be confused with the lists of selling

prices agreed by the manufacturers, this fascinating docu-

ment lists 485 items of glass in alphabetical order and pre-
cise detail, each with the number to be made per ‘move’,

on which the amount paid to the worker would be based.

They range from ‘Ales, egg-bowl, plain stem and merese’
at 55 per move, through ‘Glasses, musical, up to 1 quart’

at 36 a move, to Tillar’d Carroffs, quarts, under 21b’ at 32

(Fig.5).
On the first page is a list of agreed conditions

including ‘That all journeymen receive half wages when
the furnace is out of repair, or the place is stopping for

repairs, without working or having to pay it back’, thus
perpetuating the system of ‘play wages’ dating back to

the 17th century. Another condition was ‘That whenever

the masters do not find metal enough for a man to make

11 moves to a week’s work, that the man shall be paid a

week’s work without paying it back’ and ‘The masters
to stand one-half of the loss, and the men the other half,

when there is any melted or cracked in the lear’
(Fig.6).

A year later, there was a meeting of all the Scottish

manufacturers with representatives of the workforce, to

decide on the numbers of items to be made per move

which would apply across all their glassworks, separate-
ly from those agreed in England. They met on 24 and

25 October 1845 and subsequently published a booklet
entitled
Catalogue ofNumbers agreed upon by the Flint

Glass Manufacturers and delegates of workmen of the
Houses in Scotland.”
A supplement published in 1847

contains an interesting preface, confirming that the origi-

nators of the list were the flint glass makers, not the man-

ufacturers, and suggesting that the list had, in fact, been

LEFT (TOP) Fig. 5 Page 20 of the list of numbers of items per
move agreed by the Glassmakers’ Friendly Society (CEC FRA)

LEFT (BELOW) Fig. 6 Page I sets out general conditions

agreed by the Glassmakers’ Friendly Society, (CEC FRA)

21.

SO
15

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

GENTLEMEN,
We, the Flint Glass Makers in

the different Manufactories in Scotland, having agreed

that the following rates should become part of our cata-

logue ; we are also in the belief that you will perceive

that the interest of both parties, master and man, has

been our aim. And with the view of keeping up the
hitherto friendly feeling on this subject, we humbly sub-

mit them to your inspection, when it will be foud that

three-fourths of them are what we are now, and ics
,
teen

working to for
years,
but was omitted
when

the cata-

logue was printed ; the remainder is new patterr.s come

out since. As it is desirbable that these should be print-
ed as speedily as possible, you are requested to
give
your

yea or nay, in writino, to the party delivering this on

before the /

May

184*
We are,

GENTLEM

Your most
THE FLINT GLASS MAKERS.

ICW
—
the
blank leaf at end for Obj

Fig. 7 Flint Glass Makers ‘rates’ agreement, 1840 altered to
1847 (CEC FRA)

in existence since 1840, the printed date of May 1840,
having been crossed out and 1847 written in,
(Fig.7).

The practice of updating the rates continued at regular

intervals. A small booklet recording the agreements result-

ing from a meeting held in Glasgow in December 1855 is

in the care of the Museum of Edinburgh. It lists the names

of the delegates as well as hand-written details of the agreed

number, complete with alterations in red ink
(Figs.8,9).

Once again conditions of employment were also pub-

lished, one being ‘That a fortnight’s notice be given and
received on separation between master and man’ — a truly

significant change from the situation some fifty years ear-

lier. As well as the number of glasses per move, basic wag-

es were also agreed. They stated that ‘the lowest standard

wages in Scotland be, workmen 22/- per week on going

into the chair, 23/- per week second year, 24/- third year.

The servitors to have 16/6 first year, 17/6 second year, 24/-

third year’. A footmaker
was
to earn at least 12/- a week.

The signatories to the Catalogue were represen-

tatives from St.Rollox, A&R Cochran, and the City

Glassworks of James Couper & Son, all in Glasgow,
and the Holyrood Flint Glass Works, Donald Fraz-

er’s Edinburgh Glass Work, and the City Glassworks

of John Thomas, also in Edinburgh. Twelve men rep-
resented the workmen, two from most of the compa-

nies and three from the St.Rollox and the Holyrood
glassworks. The chairman was Robert Cochran and
Richard Heron, an employee at Couper’s, was vice-chair-

man. The catalogue was updated in October 1863 at a

meeting in Falkirk. A further ‘list of numbers’ which

included pressed work, was printed in 1867
(Fig.10).

Although this was an exclusively Scottish agreement,

it was, like other area agreements, still under the aus-
pices of the national Flint Glass Makers’ Friendly Soci-

ety. After 1858 the society held a triennial conference,

although the decision-making rested with a central com-
mittee and district votes. In 1867 the conference was held

in Edinburgh, at a cost to the society of £324, largely
made up of second-class fares and payments of 7s 6d

a day to the delegates, an expense which created con-

siderable dissatisfaction among the wider membership.
The system of payment per ‘move’ was incredibly com-

plicated as well as being rigid, and frustrating for the

manufacturers. It is made even more difficult to under-

stand because definitions of the terms ‘move’ and ‘turn’
are unclear and they were sometimes used interchange-

ably.
16
The current consensus appears to be that a ‘move’

should be taken to mean three hours, i.e. that there

were two moves to a turn of six hours. Making sense of
the system is further complicated by the acknowledge-

ment that it was based on a fiction. Matsumura writes

that the wages of flint glass makers were actually piece
rates, but ‘took the ‘fictitious’ form of time wages.’
17

The

money paid to the workman was, as can be seen in the

above list, calculated according to the number of a par-
ticular item which could be produced per ‘move’. Aps-

ley Pellat, a leading glass manufacturer, wrote in 1849,

giving a different definition of ‘move’: The mode of
reckoning the piece-work of Glass-makers is peculiar.

The ‘move’ as it is technically called is a nominal period
of six hours; and the payment is proportionate to the
number of articles supposed, by fair exertion, capable of

being made in that time by a set of ordinary workmen.'”

He went on:

in consequence of superior skill and

industry, the chairs [team of glass makers] made double
that quantity in the six hours, which is often the case,

they would be paid double the price; and in proportion

for any intermediate or lesser number, so that the men
are paid proportionally to the quantity manufactured.’

Initially it appears that, although the workmen seem

to have had the dominant role in deciding the number of

glasses to be made in a given time, they did actually work

to maximum capacity and were paid for the extra objects

they produced. However, by 1868 that had changed dra-

matically. In the Minutes of Evidence given to a gov-

ernment Commission inquiring into trades unions, the

RIGHT (TOP) Fig. 8.A list of the participants at a meeting in
1855 from the revised Catalogue of Numbers (CEC FRA)

RIGHT (BELOW) Fig.9 Revisions to the Catalogue of

Numbers (CEC FRA)

MASTERS TO MEN

JOURNEYMEN’S WAGES.

That the lowest standard wages in Scotland be, workmen,

:wmay.two shillings per week on going into the chair, twenty…

shillings per week second year, twenty-four third year.

The servitors to have sixteen and sixpence first year, seventeen

apd sixpence second year, eighteen and sixponce third year..
per week. Footmaker eleven shillings per week at the lowest,.

That
alt
journeymen

receive
half wages when the furnace is

out for repair without having to pay it back afterwards.

The number of any now pattern to be decided by communi-

cation among the houses in Scotland.

No engagement to be affected by this present agreement.

JOHN BALLANTYNE,
Chairman.

SIGNED AS UNDER.
ode,/

hc-c,-LL4404
ad

Sk.

4..ed

r
&
/Fir-

7
–

L
/2
0
–
&-e–“t.f

cr-47:-‘4

.72o

FLACIS.

Portobello.

BAILEY & Co.,

Per William Bailey, jun.

Townhead, Glasgow.

A. & R. COCHRAN,

Per R. Cochran.

Port Dundas.

GEDDES & Co.,

Per John Geddes.

Edinburgh Glass Works.

THOMAS & FRASER,
Per John Thomas.

Bolgrood Glass Works.

JOHN Ft/RD,
Per R. Barlow. S
DELES

n
21111.

William
Henderson.

William Scott.
Robert Hamilton,.

John Campbell.
William

Smar

James Browq,,
John Robson.
Thomas Benson.
Robert Wilson.

John Ballantyne. –
William Reedy.

Alexander Thompson.

Robert Hall.
„

J.
linasio, hunter, 1311 High Street, kilinburgh.

i
t°

12
– 30
36

1 pint,

–

} pint,

•

–

186.
Do.

stronger, 2 lb. each, 1 quart 28

Ne..

187.
Do.

do.

• ‘

do. pints 40

188.
Do. stronger than common, withcat rings, tinder

3 lb., quarts,

–

– – –

–

189.
Do.

do. with snake
ring,
quarts, 28

190.
Do. with snake ring, quarts,

–

– 40

191.
Do.

} pinta,

–

•

192.
Do. with foot and ring, quarts, –

–

– 24

193.
Do.

pints, – – – • 30

194.
Do. with fancy necks, 311b. each and under, quarts, 22

195.
Do.

do.

pints, 28

196.
Do. tinted, 1 lb. and upwards, quarts,

–

– 28

197.
do.

pints,

196.

Do. from 31 upwards,

–

• odd turn.

199.
Do. claret, with spout and handle, -……….- odd turn.

200.
Do. pulley body, quarts,

–

14
.–

201.
Do.

pints,

18 .-

202.
Do. toy,

72 .-

DEARS.

203.
Drams, tale, sham, common shape, all out of one

piece, cast foot, –

– —

–

204.
Do. Spanish or round bowl, plain stem, and

welted foot, .

–

-, 160

205.
Do.

do.

plain foot,

– 150

206.
Do. all she s, with knob or button, moulded or

plain,

– – – – – – 140

207.
Do,

–

Do. heavy,

04″”.”

ntl

1
0

20
0–

209. Do. creabows.steiti zsalissasslasaPT0154er

–

Slew+

DEM:WORTS.

melted, – _
not melted,

– ‘ –

–

oblong or square,

do. using
2
or 3 mbulds,

DECANTERS.

ISO. Decanters, without rings, 1 gallon,

181.
Do.

3 quarts,

182.
Do.

2 quarts,

183.
Do,

I quart,

184.
Do.

186:

Do.
9
0

69.
7x

24
40 –

30
40
floe

2 4411s

,
2
/

s. •

WATER JUGS—Quarts
..

LIQUEURS-Vth

•
•

Malted feet • •
•

WINES

ALL MELTED ‘
,
WORK TO BE PAID FOR, AND

UNMELTED PRESS ORK CRACKED TO BE

PAID FOR,
,
A

Cracked, Sulphured, and Picked out work to be decided by a
Deputation, if the men or employer require it.

ALLOWANCE TO BE MADE BY THE EMPLOYER
FOR A WORKMAN BEING OFF of a move per turn.
Servitor I of a move.
Foot Maker
l
move.

THE NUMBER OF ALL NEW PATTERNS TO BE

DECIDED BY THE EMPLOYERS AND COMMITTEE.

SLOPED OFF WORK TO BE AS THIN TOPPED.

FIVE PATTERNS TO BE AN ODD TURN IN BLOWN
WORK.

FOUR 14OULDS TO BE AN ODD TURN IN PRESS
WORK.
Fig. 10 The

numbers per

move of various
pressed items and

the conditions

applicable in the

1855 Catalogue

of Numbers,

(CEC FRA)

per ISOM.

“f-v.v.t
’45

900

150

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

MISCELLANEOUS.
PRESS WORK.

per
11100e.

MUSTARDS—Large, S ox. and above
900

Small, under8 oz.
240

Covers

..
300

WAFER BOXES-13 oz.
`240

Under 13 oz.
300

Covers
300

REFLECTORS-9 inches
100
120

„

150

ROOF LAMPS—Large
50

Small

..
100

CARRIAGE LAMPS—Toft’s patent
40

COLLIERS’ LAMPS

..
160

LIGHTNING CONDUCTORS
160

VASES-7 inches ..
200

Over ; inches
160

EGG CUPS
300

RING ICE PAILS ..
260

Plain
260

KNIFE RESTS—Large
160

Small
200

RING STANDS

..
200

NIPPLE SHELLS
240

LETTER DAMPERS-20 oz.
120

16 oz.
160

ALL GOBLETS

..
120

chairman asked: ‘Is there in the carrying on of work on
the premises any restriction upon the amount of pro-
duction by each workman?’ The reply was: ‘Very consid-
erable restriction, that is to say, a restriction to a certain

amount of produce in a given time: it is considered that
that should be strictly adhered to and not exceeded. If it

is exceeded the workman who does so exceed is liable to

a heavy penalty being imposed by the society and that
penalty I believe is inflicted.”’ So instead of the agreed

number made per move being a base line above which the

worker could earn overtime, it had become a maximum
number to be produced, even if a skilled workman could

make far more in the allotted time — which would appear

to be to the detriment of both worker and manufacturer.
A report on the English glass trade in
The Pottery

Gazette
in 1886 began by saying that ‘the present state

of the glass trade, is such as to cause the greatest anxiety
to those who have capital invested in it, and whose live-

lihood depends upon its successful working.’ Explaining

why the wages in England were three times those on the

continent, the article continued: ‘The English glass mak-
er works forty-eight hours per week (i.e. eight turns of

six hours each), and receives at the week end say £3 (in
many cases considerably more): Having stated that one

essential remedy to get the industry back on its feet was
to remove the limits imposed by the Flint Glass Makers’

Society, it continued:
“It

is infamous that a man who

can make four or even five moves in six hours, should be
restricted to three moves. Men should be paid according

to their ability, and not at the rate fixed by the society.”

There were, of course, many other contentious points

made, and there are always two sides to an argument — not
least that the men were constantly fearful of losing
their

jobs – but there is no doubt that the controlling
power

of the Society was perceived to be increasingly detrimen-
tal to the success of the glass industry over many years.

There do not appear to have been many serious dis-

putes between management and workers in Scotland,

although strikes did occur and relations were not always

harmonious. Whether acting as part of the Society or on

their own initiative is not clear, but in April 1844 the glass

makers at the Holyrood Flint Glass Works presented a

letter headed ‘Humble address of Flint Glass Makers of

Holyrood Flint Glass Works to their employer John Ford’.

The men wanted their rates to be raised ‘to correspond

with the rates of the St. Rollox Glassworks, Glasgow’. It
appears that their pay had been cut and the workers were
up in arms, asking how an employer ‘whose liberality

and generosity has hitherto been so conspicuous’ could
be the first to ‘set an example to the other proprietors of

depriving the operative of a portion of his hard earned

wages’.
2
° The paper was signed by 15 ‘men of Holyrood

Flint Glass Works’. John Ford’s response is not known.
Meanwhile, in 1844, the glass cutters had estab-

lished their own organisation, The United Flint Glass

Cutters’ Society’. In accordance with their long-stand-

e/#4,

•

Wi/t //,//q4(

cr. ahi

reee/’

gia,4 I Ai*

r
ot,.444/ee …aeerit-4-711Z

MASTERS TO MEN

ing separation from the makers, the two groups did
not join forces for another hundred years
(Fig. 1 1).

The bottle makers also had their own society. Those

working at Port Dundas in Glasgow set up their branch
of the Glass Bottle Makers’ Friendly Aid Society (Scot-

land), and were officially accepted as members of the

Friendly Society Association on 24 December 1861.
21

Their printed booklet of rules was largely related to sub-

scriptions and benefits, but it also stated that if a bot-
tle maker came from England or Ireland with a card or

certificate proving he was a member of a trade’s society,

he could be admitted as a member of the Scottish one.
In 1871 a society was set up at the Holyrood Flint

Glass Works in Edinburgh which did not differentiate
between different classes of employee. The Holyrood

Flint Glass Works Sick and Funeral Society was estab-

lished to provide for members ‘during sickness and to
help with funeral expenses’. It was open to all employ-
ees, provided they paid their dues;
22
male members had

to pay 6d entry fee and 2d a week thereafter, wom-

en paid half. The funeral allowance was £3 for a male

employee, £1.10. 0 for a woman. Three collectors were

appointed to gather in subscriptions from their partic-
ular section; the glasshouse, the cutting shop and the

warehouse and yard. The rules included some designed
to prevent fraudulent claims by workers feigning sick-
ness, being drunk while claiming sickness benefit, or

being out in the town after 9pm. The Society was offi-

cially certified in May 1871. Whether it was set up in

order to lessen the domination of the union is impos-

sible to say, but that is certainly a possibility
(Fig. 1 2).

The manufacturers had also discovered the need to
4,4

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7

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.4 4-

ABOVE Fig. I2 The title page of the Rules and Regulations
of the

Holyrood Sick and Funeral Society (CEC FRA)

BELOW Fig .1 I The cutting shop in what became
the Holyrood

Flint GlassWorks in 1834 (CEC FRA)

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

work together, at least locally. Matsumura writes at some
length about ‘The great strike and lock-out of 1858-59′,

which lasted for six months. It began in Stourbridge with

a confrontation between the local branch of the Glass

Makers’ Friendly Society and the employers and culmi-
nated in a nation-wide lock-out at the beginning of 1859.

In Edinburgh and Leith, though, it only lasted from

19 February to early March. The manufacturers in the
Stourbridge area formed the Flint Glass Manufacturers
Defence Association in November 1858, followed by the

Association of the Midlands Employers, who had called
on other manufacturers to impose the lock-out, which

most of them eventually did. The dispute, which was

chiefly about the number of apprentices to be employed,

was eventually resolved by mutual agreement and the
number was increased from one apprentice to three chairs

to one to two, giving some respite to the employers, who

were very concerned about the lack of skilled workmen.
Despite this success, no national manufacturers’ asso-

ciation was established; this was somewhat to the surprise
of Lord Elcho, who questioned the reasons for their lack

of unity in the
Tenth Report of the Royal Commission

on Trades Unions in 1868.
23
After it had become quite

clear that the union was in complete control of the work-
force, that they opposed virtually all changes in technolo-

gy, such as the introduction of the Siemens furnace, and
that skilled men were not allowed to make more than the

agreed number of objects per move, even if they want-

ed to, Lord Elcho asked the chairman of the Midlands

Manufacturers’ Association: ‘Is there any reason why the
masters should not form as formidable a combination as

the men?’ He replied that they appeared reluctant to do so.

Twenty years after the 1858/9 lockout another was

threatened, this time because of foreign competition

and poor trade in general. Wages were being cut by a

wide range of industries and the glass manufacturers

were also under pressure. William Ford of the Holy-
rood Flint Glass Works decided in March 1879 to

write to the secretaries of what was by then the Oper-
ative Glass Makers Friendly Society, giving his views

about the wage reduction and emphasising the need to

avoid “drifting into a Lockout which at present seems
most imminent and if so will no doubt end in disaster

to all connected, besides entailing distress upon inno-
cent parties such as the glasscutters and decorators,

who have already had a hard pinch for work as it is”.
24

He went on to remind the men that two years ear-

lier the Midland Employers had been urging the men

in their area to take action to reduce the cost of pro-

duction in the face of foreign competition and the bad

state of trade in general. Their plea was ignored, and
the men had decided to wait and hope that trade would

improve, despite one of the manufacturers in the Mid-
lands circulating a very comprehensive letter, setting out
the problems of foreign competition. Ford wrote that

the employers were now unanimous that action had

to be taken, explaining that they had reduced prices as

far as they could to compete with foreign imports, and

that the only choice left was for the glass makers to fall
in with the general movement of a reduction of wages.
William Ford’s description of the pressure

on the British glass industry in 1879 is graph-
ic, detailed, and worth reproducing in full. He wrote:

“My
experience ofForeign Imports is equal to any oth-

er in the trade, on an average not a week passes with-
out a traveller visiting Edinburgh and the larger cities

of Scotland with an assortment of patterns, supplying

all Wholesale Merchants, who again sell at a small prof-

it to Retailers. — Our Customers say they would pre-
fer purchasing British Ware as being a more satisfactory

article, especially as it is a higher price and bears a larger

profit in selling, but competition obliges them to deal

in the cheaper article or another will. Even Upholsterers,
Drapers and General Merchants deal largely in Foreign

goods. Patterns are freely sent abroad by Merchants, also
the Agents have instructions to purchase specimens of

whatever they find in demand, and each year testifies

they are improving in workmanship and quality of metal.
The chandelier trade in Bohemia having suffered

much owing to gas lustres not being so fashionable,
the Manufacturers have turned their attention to the

various articles admitting of flat Cutting, namely Salts,
Inks, Knife rests, Spirit Bottles etc. These you will see

offered at extremely low prices in almost every shop.
During the last 3 years stocks have accumulat-

ed both at Works and Shops. The numbers of Unem-
ployed on your roll, and the shortness of overwork is
a clear proof that my statement is correct. You cannot

accuse Employers of having neglected their business or

not using all energy and legitimate means of pushing

trade. No expense has been spared in producing new

designs, and each Firm has within the past 20 years laid

out many Hundred Pounds in issuing Illustrated Cata-

logues and Pattern Books distributing same freely to their

Customers both at home and abroad. See also the large
outlay showing at the Great International Exhibitions.

The fine Art glass such as Flower Vases and ornaments

for table decoration so extensively made in Stourbridge

District for the past 10 years is going out of fashion, their

novelty wearing off with the General Public, such being
mostly purchased for Presents, this is my own experience

and Stocks in the Retailers’ hands are large and very slow

of Sale. Silver and metal ornaments are now taking the

lead, glass being only a supplementary article to same.
This letter I have drawn out for your personal infor-

mation and as stated already with the desire of giving

you my views of the present crisis and its cause. There
is no wish on the part of Employers to stop Work and

MASTERS TO MEN

if you consider it advisable to propose Arbitration as a
means of Peace I would endorse the movement, other-

wise I am certain matters will come to a Severe Contest.
I address a copy of this letter to each district Secretary

and request that it will be read at first local meeting hop-

ing it may result in good feeling and haste in settlement.”

Whether William Ford was acting as an individual

employer, or after consultation with his counterparts

elsewhere, is unknown, and what effect his plea had, if

any, it is impossible to say, but there does not appear
to have been a repeat of the 1859 lock-out. The Holy-

rood glassworks, like others in Scotland, managed to

survive until it closed in 1904 for family reasons
(Fig.13).

Whether the antagonism between unions and man-

agement was as fierce in Scotland as it was in much of

England it is difficult to know, and it may have varied

from one glassworks to another, but it certainly exist-

ed. One battle in 1876 between James Couper Jun. of

the City Glassworks in Glasgow and one of his union
members became something of a
cause celebre.

In this

case he was in dispute not with the blowers but the cut-

ters, members of the ‘Flint Glass Cutters’ Mutual Pro-

tective Association
25

otherwise known as the ‘United

Flint Glass Cutters’. Couper claimed

that the wages earned in his glassworks

were higher than were paid elsewhere
and resolved to change the payment sys-

tem to piece work, something the cut-

ters would not accept. In 1876 he sacked

more than thirty glass cutters who refused

to agree to piece work and brought in
replacements from all over England. This

caused a great deal of ill feeling among
the sacked cutters, there was a strike at

the glassworks, and in August
The Scots-

man
reported that ‘the workers who had

come from England were escorted to and

from their work by a body of policemen’.
26

The United Glass Cutters’ had under-

standably reacted angrily to James

Couper’s treatment of their members,

and went to some lengths to induce the
new workmen to return to England by

persuasion, intimidation, and payment

of their rail fares plus £2 to £3.10.0 in
cash from their funds. The man who
handed over the money was William

Donaldson, who had worked for Couper

&
Sons for 22 years, and who had him-

self been ‘locked out’. He was treasur-
er of the local union branch at the time.
Unfortunately for James Couper Jun.,

he decided to sue one individual, Rob-

ert Macfarlane, for illegally ‘seducing’
and assisting the blackleg workers to ‘desert the pursu-

ers’ service’.
27

Macfarlane, who had worked for Couper

for about 14 years, had not himself been dismissed, but
had left after giving notice, in solidarity with the other

cutters. He was specifically accused of intimidating the

new employees, causing them to leave the works at great

cost to the owners. Couper had provided beds for the

English workers within the factory, but a report of the
court case in
Capital and Labour
(very much an employ-

ers’ publication) stated that ‘whenever the men appeared

in the streets they were followed, inveigled, and molest-

ed’.
28

It went on to say that there had been two convic-

tions for assault, the fines being paid from Union funds,

and that All the circumstances showed that a combi-
nation existed for the purpose of interfering with and

harassing the new hands, and of preventing the plain-

tiffs from carrying on their work.’ Macfarlane was found

guilty in the Sheriff Court and fined £.100 damages.

Robert Macfarlane appealed the verdict which, at a

hearing on 24 February 1879, was (reluctantly) over-

Fig. 13 William Ford owner of the Holyrood Flint
GlassWorks.(CEC FRA)

3129. 36;

3508. 24/
3509. 23/

1783

18,

3510. 17/.
2511. 20/.

p
24/.
3091. 30/

ETCAID. 3511 28/
2700 18

3512 VI.
2686. 27/.

AEG AND 30:3 36/
2514 20,

3515 30/
1

2
ARKFEN 2209 9;

GLASS WORKS, EDINBURGH

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

turned on the grounds that, while intimidation of the

workers was clearly illegal, it had not been shown that

Macfarlane, who had been prosecuted under common
law, was individually responsible, nor that he was con-

spiring with others. Evidence at the appeal was given by

both Couper’s original glass cutters and those brought

in from England and it is clear from one of the judge’s
comments that he had his doubts about their testi-
monies. Lord Gifford said that he regarded the case as

`very important’, but was anxious that because of the

way it had been pursued, it ‘considerably enhanced

the difficulty in determining what were the true posi-

tion and rights of masters and workmen respective-

ly in the trade struggle in which they were engaged’.”
There were strikes, but the problem does not appear

to have been as severe in Scotland as it was in the Mid-

lands. Whether or not relations were less antagonistic,

Fig. 14 A page of lighting globes in a Holyrood catalogue from the

second half of 19th century

No
OIL LAMP GLOBES
the unions’ intransigence took its toll and the decline of

the Scottish flint glass industry was graphically described

in end-of-year reports in
The Glasgow Herald

in 1885.

Having commented on the loss of production of the for-
mer staples which were now supplied by German and

French houses ‘at a fraction of the price’, it continued:

`All this has to be put against high wages, short hours
(33 to 48 per week) and antiquated rules as to the divi-
sion of labour on the part of the Glass Makers’ Union
here, one of the strongest, smallest and wealthiest in

Great Britain’. Fortunately, the manufacturers had man-

aged to diversify into ‘coloured goods for flowers etc.’…

and globes for gas, oil and the electric light’
30

(Fig. 14).

In the late 1890s
The Glasgow Herald

published its

report annually, always including flint glass, and they

make sad reading. The problems in 1894 were exacer-
bated by a colliers’ strike, resulting in one of the glass-

houses closing a furnace completely and doubling up

the workforce in the one that was still functioning. The

Glasgow glass manufacturers had been trying to introduce
mould-blowing, as was generally used on the continent, in
an attempt to reduce costs, but with

little success. Exports of British glass

were reducing every year and ‘lots of
glass leaving our ports supposed to
be British is really of foreign make’.

The author accuses the union of
being ‘blind if they cannot see

that Continental labour and wages

are exterminating the blown glass
trade in the United Kingdom. ..
‘

.
31

Reports first published in
The

Times
on the stranglehold of the glass

unions and the consequent closure

of glassworks in England appeared
in
The Scotsman
in the early 20th

century. The first was published

on 2 December 1901 under the

heading ‘The Crisis in British

Industry’, concentrating entirely on
the flint glass trade. The arguments

and the main points are depressingly

familiar, emphasising the expansion
in glass production abroad, adding:

`It has been estimated that nine-
tenths of the flint glass now sold

in this country comes from abroad,

while in some departments of the

trade, the foreign makers have also
captured the whole of the markets

in our British possessions, in South

America, in Russia, in Spain and in
other countries.’ The loss of exports

would have been particularly serious

MASTERS TO MEN

for the Scottish manufacturers with their small home
market. The article then set out the main grievances of

the employers: two important ones being that they could

not employ men without going through the union and,

yet again, that the number of items made per move could
often be completed in less than the six hours allowed –

the union did not allow them to make more, so they

would finish work early, although paid for the full time.

There were many more restrictive practices quoted.
Two years later, another article, also reprinted from

The Times,
described intense rivalry between the flint

glass makers and the bottle makers, who appear to have

to have had a joint strike fund. ?? Clearly there was also

disagreement among the manufacturers whose ‘Glass-
masters’ Association’ was reported as having been dis-

solved in the spring of 1902.
32
In 1905 a ‘Trades Disputes

Bill’ was passed in the House of Commons. There was

a large demonstration in Edinburgh in support of its

principles and as a protest against changes which had

subsequently been made to it. Organised by the Edin-
burgh, Leith, and District United Trades and Labour

Council, thirty-one trades took part, including the ‘dec-
orative glass workers’ and the glass blowers, described,

with the bakers, as ‘perhaps the most conspicuous by
reason of the examples of their workmanship which

they carried’. It was a big affair, with nine bands, a ral-

ly of 15,000 in Holyrood Park, and numerous speak-

ers who expressed strong support for the unions.”
A
Scotsman

report on the analysis by the Tariff Com-

mission of the problems in the glass industry in 1907

listed the advantages enjoyed by the foreign compe-

tition. It is no surprise that they were defined as: `(a)

lower wages and standard of living; (b) longer hours of

labour, including Sunday labour; (c) greater capacity of

output, and, therefore greater cheapness of production

…; (d) more modern equipment in many cases, which is

attributed to the greater security for capital; (e) better

and cheaper transport facilities, due in part to Govern-
ment action; (f) less restrictive trade union and factory

regulations in foreign countries.'” The comment about

more modern equipment is significant and reflected the

unwillingness of the Flint Glass Makers’ Society to agree

to the introduction of new machinery, confirmed in evi-

dence to the Commission on Trades Unions in 1867-8.
Although the
Scotsman

article accurately reflected the

tenor of the Tariff Commissioners’ Report, the commis-

sioners themselves did listen to the Unions as well as the

glassworks owners. While acknowledging their restrictive
practices, the report also commented that ‘other employ-

ers speak of the more reasonable attitude of the unions’.

It went on to mention a work-sharing system described

by a Yorkshire manufacturer, whose employees operated

a scheme whereby ‘although there are 2,000 men out of

work, they are not the same 2,000 all through the year,
they take on so many weeks’ work each. They ask the men

who are out of work to share the work and the bread. That
is the only way we can keep the skilled hands together’.
35

Clearly, although that firm was struggling, there was also

considerable cooperation between management and men.

The unions continued to be a force in the glassworks.

An article published in
The Scotsman

on 11 August

1915 claimed that an agreement between the employ-

ers and the National Flint Glass Workers’ Association

had been reached, granting a pay rise of two shillings a

week.” It also reported that new machinery and meth-
ods had been introduced ‘in order to capture the great

Austrian and German trade in fine glass wares’ result-
ing in greatly increased output. The principle towns

affected include Stourbridge, Manchester, Glasgow

and Edinburgh. However, the Edinburgh and Leith

Flint Glass Company did not honour the agreement,
resulting in 32 men going out on strike for an increase

in their wages, which, although agreed nationally, had
been refused in Edinburgh. The men had a further

grievance, claiming the employers ‘had induced a num-
ber of Italians to come to Edinburgh from Paris to fill

their places’, six of them in al1.
37
In 1948 the makers

and decorators finally came together when the National

Flint Glass Workers Friendly Society amalgamated with

the National Union of Glass Cutters and Decorators.
In the late 20th century workers at Edinburgh Crys-

tal could chose to join either the National Union of Flint

Glass Workers or the Transport and General Workers

Union, although only the former was recognised by the

company. The piecework rates were still fixed by a pricing

committee involving men, management and union. Until

about 1990 the rates for cutters continued to be based on
the number of units cut per move, and, amazingly, were

still calculated using the defunct farthing! The system was

then changed to calculations based on the time allowed

to cut individual pieces described by one of the men: ‘so

much money per minute … time for doing a glass, maybe

two minutes… up to … a big punch bowl, you get an hour

to cut one of them. You would get so much per minute’.”

In contrast to the earlier entrenched difficulties

between management and unions, the company oper-

ations manager who dealt with the unions from 1991-

2004 perceived them very differently. He wrote: ‘I had

nothing other than respect for them. They had the task of

supporting their members and did so to the best of their

ability. There were situations where remuneration rates

required renegotiating and incentive schemes introduced,

however these were done through proper consultation.

When the workforce was reduced, the Union leaders

and members helped us manage the process with the
utmost dignity and I had the highest respect for that’.
39

The overall situation in the 20th century was

little different in essence from that in the 19th

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

in that it was a roller coaster of recession, recov-
ery, wars and their aftermath, changes in fashion
and market demand, plus numerous disruptive take-

overs, and as ever, increasing foreign competition.
There is no easy answer to why a long-established

industry declines and dies. There is no doubt that the

shift of power from the masters to the men had a profound
effect on the glass industry in the 19th century, but much

of the unions’ intransigence was prompted by fear of job
losses and a lack of understanding of the wider issues.

Glass making was a very traditional industry and the men
feared and resisted change. Scotland held its own, produc-

ing fine glass for many markets, and there appear to have

been better relations between masters and men there than

in
much
of England, but in the end their fate was the same.

ABBREVIATIONS
AC:

Admiralty Court Records in the National

Archives of Scotland.

Corning: Corning Museum of Glass, Corning NewYork

CEC:

City of Edinburgh Council, Museum of Edinburgh,

which houses the Ford- Ranken Collection

FRA:

denotes material in the Ford-Ranken archive, housed

in the Museum of Edinburgh.The archive is currently
being re-catalogued, so no further reference is given

(CEC FRA): Photographs courtesy of the Museum of
Edinburgh Ford-Ranken archive

Mitchell: The Mitchell Library, Glasgow

NRS:

National Archives of Scotland

NMS:

National Museums Scotland

NRO:

Northumberland Record Office

ENDNOTES
I. National Archives UK, NRO 1765/17/1

2.
NRS CS27 I /62269 Answers from Archibald Geddes to the

Bill of Suspension and Liberation for Robert Reoch, 9 Decem-

ber 1797.

3.
Edinburgh Advertiser, 10 May 1796. Capital letters have been

removed.

4.
NRS CS271/45950 John Robertson v Archibald Geddes, Man-

ager, Edinburgh Glasshouse Co.
5.
NRS AC 10/ 1292 Petition for Archibald Geddes v Donald

McLean and Robert Stevens 15 October 1803

6.
NRS AC10/1009 Admiralty Court Summary Warrant, Petition

for Archibald Geddes 1796.

7.
NRS RD2/227/521 Agreement between Archibald Geddes,

Manager for the Edinburgh Glass House Co. and Richard and

Nicol Simpson to work as Gatherers and Blowers of Crown

glass’at their works at Leith starting I Jan 1795.

8.
Glasgow Herald,
21 December 1867

9.
NMS Oral history project interview 2004.

10.
Matsumura 108.

II. Matsumura 120, note 32.

12. Birmingham City Museums and Art Galleries.
13.

Museum of Edinburgh (henceforth CEC) FRA.

14.
Corning Museum of Glass, Rakow Library BB ID 55144

15.
CEC FRA

16.
Pellatt refers to a ‘move’ of six hours, while a report in the

Pottery Gazette (I
Jan 1881) refers to ‘eight turns of six hours

each’The more the author has looked into the definition, the
more confusing it has appeared to be. One certainty is that the

men worked six hours on and six hours off throughout the

five days of their working week.The crucibles were refilled on a

Friday evening, the glass melted over the weekend and blowing

resumed on Monday. If all went according to plan.

17.
Matsumura, 48.

18.
Pellatt, 90

19.
Tenth Report,
23.

20.
CEC FRA II April 1844

21.
NRS FS4/131 Glass Bottlemakers Friendly Aid Society

N 293 Lanark

22.
NRS FS4/27 Holyrood Flint Glass Works Friendly Society,

No. 9 Edinburgh

23.
Tenth Report, 25

24.
FR2/22, CEC FRA

25.
MitchellTD389/25 Record
in

Appeal
Robert
Macfarlane

against James
Couper & Sons

Flint
Glass Manufacturers,

Kyle
Street,
Glasgow.

26.
Scotsman, 24 August I 876, 5.

27.
Scotsman,
24 Feb. 1879, 3.

28.
Capital and Labour,
7 August 1878, 473.

29.
Scotsman, 24 Feb. 1879, 3.

30.
Glasgow
Herald, 26 Dec. 1885

31.
Glasgow
Herald, 27 Dec. 1894

32.
Scotsman, 16 Jan. 1903, 8.

33.
Scotsman,
15 May 1904, 9.

34.
Scotsman, I July 1907, 8.

35.
Report, 59

36.
Scotsman, 11 Aug 1915, 10

37.
Scotsman, I Sept. 19 15, 7

38.
NMS oral history project, 2004.

39.Tony Hoskins
pers. com.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Matsumura,Takao The LabourAristocracy Revisited, The

Victorian Flint
Glass.

Makers 1
850-80
Manchester University Press, 1983.

Pellatt, Apsley Curiosities of Glass
Making, London

1849.

Report ofThe
Tariff
Commission,Vol. 6 ‘The Glass Industry’,

London 1907.

Tenth Report of the Commissioners
Appointed to Inquire in

the

Organization and Rules ofTrades Unions and other Associations:
together with Minutes of Evidence. House of Commons

Parliamentary Papers, 1867-68.

Turnbull, Jill The
Scottish Glass Industry I 6 I 0-1750

Society

of Antiquaries of Scotland, 2001.

Turnbull, Jill ‘The Rise and Fall of Dundee’s Glass Works’

Scottish
Local
History, Issue 61, Summer 2004, 32-38.

PIANON’S BIRDS

Alessandro Pianon’s

Vistosi Birds

an Turner

written in August 20 18

Twentieth century Italian art glass has never been a pop-
ular collecting field in the UK. There are a few exam-

ples in the Victoria
&

Albert Museum and the British

Museum in London and in the former Broadfield House

Glass Museum collection, shortly to be re-housed in the
new
White House Cone museum of glass
at Wordsley.

Collectors in the UK have tended to specialise in

glass made in British factories, such as Stevens & Wil-

liams, Thomas Webb, Whitefriars and Monart (my own

collecting field), along with those in Scandinavia and

France, particularly Orrefors, Kosta Boda and Lalique.
I was guilty of this narrow focus, until while chair-

man of the Glass Association, I was invited to view

a collection of pottery and glass acquired by the late

Joyce Conway. At her cottage in Wiltshire she had
amassed a collection of pottery figures by Lenci and

glass sculptures by Cenedese and Vistosi; these demon-

strated the extraordinary virtuosity of mid-century Ital-

ian design. Included in her collection were five Vistosi
birds —
pulcini

(chicks) — in stylised shapes perched

on wire legs. At that time no one else that I knew was

collecting such unusual pieces and I was enchant-
ed. I had never before seen glass that made me smile.
In the past three years a combination of circum-

stances has serendipitously enabled me to acquire a
complete set of Vistosi birds. Three came up for auc-

tion almost simultaneously in the UK, and two were
bought subsequently from dealers in Buenos Aires and

Virginia. My collection is illustrated in
Fig. 1.
It gives

me great pleasure – as much, I am sure, as the other

set gave to my friend Joyce. Having acquired all five
birds, I decided to research their history and try to relate

their production to what was happening in Italy when
they were made and then through the following years.
But first, I shall describe Pianon’s Vistosi
pulcini
in detail.

All five birds are made of coloured glass and met-

al. One is a cube, another a tube, a third is a wedge

and two are sort-of round. Each has been hand blown

and three of them are decorated with slices of mul-
ticoloured glass canes
(murrine)
which have been

picked up from the marver before each bird’s body was

shaped in a mould. The trailed threads on the blue

wedge have been applied after shaping, as has the glass
grit

(granzeoli)

on the surface of the orange bird. The

beaks and tails have then been pinched or shaped on

all five before the birds were cut away from the blow-

ing iron, leaving irregular openings on the underside

of the bodies; these holes are sometimes almost com-

pletely covered by clear glass, the seats for the leg sock-

ets. All have eyes made from complex circular floret

canes placed on opposite sides of the bodies; these have
been applied later, possibly with the use of a blow torch.

The two brass sockets for the legs are set in clear glass

seats, gobs of glass, and were applied following the mak-

ing of the body. I struggled to understand how this was

done until I showed one of them to glassmaker Rich-

ard Golding at his Station Glass studio.’ He suggested

that each small gob of glass had been picked up from

a furnace pot using a hollow cylindrical brass rod as a
miniature `punty iron’, which was then attached sepa-
rately to the underside of the bird when the glass was

still molten. When cold, the rods were shortened leaving

the metal sockets proud of their clear glass seats. Richard

thought it possible that the undersides of the birds had

also been softened using a blow torch before the seats
had been attached, thus ensuring a better connection.
The legs on all of the birds are identical. They are

made from patinated copper wire, soldered together to

form splayed feet. They are detachable from their sockets.
Each bird is different and there is some variation in

the coloured threads and inclusions used. I have now

had an opportunity to examine several examples of

the same bird and these variations are self-evident (see

below). The eyes use murrine canes of different colours

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

Fig. 2a

Fig. 2b

Fig. 2c

and the brass sockets for the copper legs are placed in
the glass seats, either forward or almost completely

over the openings that remained from cracking off

the bird from the blowing iron. As a result, each bird

stands slightly differently and in some cases the copper
legs have been slightly bent to keep the birds upright.
The features which I have just described can be

seen in the separate photographs of my cube
pulcino

in
(Figs.2a-e).
The side views in
(Figs.2a and b)

show

the eyes and
(Figs.2c,d and e)
show the back and the

underside, in the latter case with the legs removed. The

olive green body has five rows of blue and red square

murrine
wrapped around the lower part and extending

under the body: the fifth row is only partial because

it has been cut away round the blowing hole. The leg
sockets are set well in front of the hole, which is clearly
visible in

(Fig.2e).
The rear view in
(Fig.2c)

shows the

original paper labels, a rectangular one with the Vis-
tosi logo and a circular one reading ‘MADE IN ITA-

LY MURANO’, in
(Fig.2d)

these are shown enlarged.

To emphasise the differences between examples of

the same bird I have included
(Fig.2f),

another cube

pulcino
in which four rows of
murrine
are arranged hor-

izontally across the central part of the body. Also note
the different coloured eyes. Each bird is really unique.

(Figs.3,4,5 and
6) show side views of each of

the other four birds, showing their details more
clearly than in the composite photograph,
(Fig.1).

I know that these birds were difficult to make, and

this has been confirmed from several sources. Most

of the glass
maestri
who made them are now long

retired or no longer with us, but the complexity of

Fig. 2d

Fig. 2e

Fig. 2f

PIANON’S BIRDS

Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Fig. 6

Fig. 5

WUIDART 6 CO LTD

SHOWROOMS 5/16 RI/THRONE PLACE LONDON W MUSeum 7581
GLASSWARE FROM

WUIDART

napplir-
3ES. MD IS aSZ -A!. 1\T I MT -EL. 31E.

Bird

CO.. LTD., LONDON, W.I
24

S 190 Bird

S 191
Bird

SR 12
Elephant
S 192

Bird

SR 13 Bird
Page three

S 1113 Bird

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

their manufacture is legendary amongst older Murano

glassworkers.
2
As a consequence, they were expensive.

The Vistosi agent in London at this time was J Wuidart
& Co Ltd, and that company’s 1964 price lists and

sales brochure have survived.
Fig.

7 shows the brochure

cover design and
Fig.8
on page three illustrates the

bird and animal sculptures on offer. Wuidart was a

glass wholesaler, but its price
list, illustrated in
Figs.9
and 9a,

helpfully shows the wholesale
price of each bird in today’s prices would have been

close to £250. An Edinburgh businessman who
remembers them on display in Elders department

store has described them as “hideously expensive”.
5

These birds are rare. I know of two other com-

plete sets in private hands in the UK, but I have not

found any examples in British museum inventories

Fig. 7

price for each bird as 75/-

(£3.75) and the suggested

retail price of 150/- (£7.50) “…
calculated to show a 70% mark
up on Wholesale Price (41%

gross return) and also allows for
purchase tax at present rates.”
3

These days, it is difficult

to compare 1964 prices with

today’s values, as commod-

ities have changed so much,
but the average UK weekly

wage in 1964 was £18.2s.6d

(£18.13).
4
The average week-

ly wage in August 2017 was

£507.00, so the pro rata retail

Fig. 8

PIANON’S BIRDS

Fig. 9a
J.
NUIDART & COMPANY LIMITED

PLANSTON WORKS, =MIDGE LANE,
L.nrmsime,
LONDON, N.20

(Telephone =side
0233)

Showrooms;
15/16

Rathbono Place, London, W.1. (MUSeum
7581)

LOOSE LONDON STOCK
JANUARY, 1964

WHOLESALE PRICE LIST
Fig. 9b

Catalogue
Pepe
No.
ARTICLE
Whole-

side

Loose

Stock

NCO
Wholesale Canon

Bulk Price
Sup-

Rested
Retail

Selling
Price

s. d.

BOWLS & DISHES

PU
3092/3/150

Stool

59/-

BU
3903/140

Cryntal

53/-

DB
136

Light Blue

5/6

Violet

Green

Stool

ES
1412/160

Dusk

14/-

Stool

Fuga
11/95

Dusk

3/3

Steel

Fuga
12/115

Clear

6/6

NF
116

Crystal

33/6

NS
1746/203

Crystal

59/-

Stool

NS
1749/195

Crystal

77/-

Dusk

NS
1913

Dusk

15/6

NU
3913/120

Crystal

30/6

v
/160

52/6

” /200

95/-

P
3838

90/-

SR 1 Boxed

Dark Bluer

7/6

Light Blue

Cryotal

Emerald Green

Moos Green

SR
2

Boxed

Load crystal
16/-

SR
3
Boxed

Light Blue

8/3

Emerald Green

Moss Green

Smoke

SR 11 Boxed

Smoke Green
40/-

Smoke

SR
36
Boxed

Smoke Green 30/-

SR
37
Boxed

Ruby

15/6

Steel

11/6

BIRDS & ANIMALS

S
189

Bird

75/-

S
190

Bird

75/-

S
191

Bird

75/-

S
192

Bird

75/

–
BIRDS & ANIMALS (Cont’d)

S
193

Bird

75/ –

SR
12

Elephant

21/ –

SR
13

Bird

10/ –

CANDLESTICKS
NF
122

Green

4/-

Ruby

6/-

Indigo

4/-

PU
3602

Crystal

5/-

PU
3945/55

5/6

” /70

11/6

SR
4

Boxed
Light Blue

7/3

Emerald Green

Smoko

SR
8
(Set of

Night Lights)

21/6

Harlequin

SR
9
(Set of
2)

Ruby

16/-

SR
31

Smoke Green

14/-

CONDIMENT SETS

CZ
15
(Twin 0 & V)

9/-

IP
81
Salt & Pepper Braes

27/6

Chrome

510/40 Popper Mill

DECANTERS

DB
55

Square

28/6

DB
124

Round

25/-

NA
1623

Cut Crystal

go/-

Ls
1683/1/20
Crystal

43/-

“ /40

74/-

LU
2063/16

Cut Crystal

68/-

HA
2493

77/-

HA
2495

130/-

HA
2497

78/-

HA
2498

97/-

PA
2998

103/ –

DU
3310

Crystal Shakier

65/-

DU
3510

Crystal Decanter
60/ –

DU
3574/17

Cryatal Decanter

58/
–

2
2

2
2
2
2

3
3

3
3
3
2A
2A
2A
2A
2A
2A
2A

2B
2B
2B
2B
2B
2B

4
4
4

4
4
BAR SET

E6073/8 Tall Champagne, Crystal

56073/11 Cocktail,

Crystal

E6073/13 Tumbler,

Crystal

E6073/35 Old Fashioned, Crystal

BEER MUGS
FS1660 23 oz 7 each Crystal, Dusk
and Steel

W1291 12 oz 2 each per Gift Carton,
Crystal or Steal

DB123 12 oz Crystal or Steel
DB123 16 oz Crystal or Steel
FHX47 12 oz Gold

FHX168 12 oz Steel

ES1287 15 oz Dusk or Steel

BIRDS AND ANIMALS

S189 Bird, 16″, Green

S190 Bird, 7″, Blue

S191 Bird, 8″, Green

S192 Bird, 106″, Blue

S193 Bird, 9″, Orange

SR12 Elephant, Stee
SR13 Bird,

Stee

SR42 Duck,
2y,

Stee

SR42 Duck, 41″. Stee

SR43 Fish,

Stee

SR44 Mouse,

Stee

SR45 Owl,

Stee

SR46 Bird,

Stee

SR47 Horse.

Stee

SR48 Fish,

Stee

SR49 Cat,

Stee

SR50 Rabbit,

Stee

SR51 Polar Bear, Matt Crystal

SR52 Bird,

Whi e/Black Mottled

SR53 Seal.

Whi e/Black Mottled

BOWLS AND DISHES
PU3092/3 6″ Dish, Cased Steel
Lead Crystal

BU3903

4″ Dish, Lead Crystal

BU3903

51″ Dish, Lead Crystal

DB136

5″ Dish, L Blue, Green,

Steel or Violet

ES1412

66″ Dish, Dusk or Steel

FUGA/11

31″ Dish, Dusk or Steel

FUGA/12 41″ Dish, Crystal
8/9 24 at 7/6 9 0 0

13/6

6/3 24 at 5/3 6 6 0

9/6

6/9 24 at 5/9 6 18 0

10/6

7/3 24 at 6/3 7 10 0

11/3

15/- 21 at 13/- 13 13 0

23/6

4/9 48 at 4/- 9 12 0

7/3

4/- 24 at 3/6 4 4 0

6/3

5/- 24 at 4/3 5 2 0

7/9

6/6 24 at 5/9

6 18 0

10/6

6/6 24 at 5/9

6 18 0

10/6

12/6 24 at 11/- 13 4 0

20/-

75/- 4 at 70/- 14 0 0 160/-

75/- 4 at 70/- 14 0 0 150/-

75/- 4 at 70/- 14 0 0 150/-
75/- 4 at 70/- 14 0 0 150/-

22/- 6 at 20/- 6 0 0

40/-

11/- 6 at 10/-

3 0 0

20/-

10/6

6 at 9/3

2 15 6

18/6

12/9 6 at 11/6

3 9 0

23/-

10/6

6 at 9/3

2 15 6

18/6

12/3 6 at 11/-

3 6 0

22/-

12/3

6 at 11/-

3 6 0

22/-

10/9

6 at 9/9

2 18 6

19/6

19/9 6 at 18/- 5 8 0

36/-

17/9 6 at 16/- 4 16 0

32/-

12/9

6 at 11/6

3 9 0

23/-

18/9 6 at 17/- 5 2 0

34/-

25/6 4 at 23/- 4 12 0

46/-

28/-
4 at 25/6 5 2 0

51 /-

28/- 4 at 25/6 5 2 0

51/-

59/- 4 at 54/- 10 16 0 106/-

31/- 4 at 27/- 5 8 0

48/-

53/- 4 at 48/- 9 12 0

95/-

6/- 12 at 5/8 3 6 0

10/-

15/3

6 at 13/6

4 1 0

24/3

3/9 24 at 3/3 3 18 0

6/-

7/3 12 at 6/6

3 18 0

11/9

and even the Corning Glass Museum in upstate New

York, which has the world’s largest and most com-

prehensive glass collection, has only three out of

the set of five and there are none on display at the

moment.
6

An internet search identified the Museum

of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas, as the only museum

in the world with a complete set; these were bequests
from local collectors. There is another complete set

in America, held in the private Olnick Spanu Collec-

tion of Murano Glass; this was exhibited in several

American museums in the first years of this centu-
ry, accompanied by a superbly illustrated catalogue.’

What then, is their history?

We know from several publications, all using the
same Italian sources, that they were made in Mura-

no, in the glassworks established by the Visto-

si family in 1945. Lesley Jackson has given an
excellent summary of the company’s history in

her book
20th Century Factory Glass’

published

in 2000, but more details have now come to light.

For the first ten years of its existence, under the

direction of Guglielmo Vistosi and his brother

Oreste, the company made lamps and light fittings,
but after Guglielmo’s early and unexpected death
in 1952 his two sons Luciano and Gino played a

much greater role in the management of the com-

pany. By the mid-1950s they and their uncle had

come to the conclusion that new designs were
essential for the company to survive and prosper.
In 1956 Alessandro Pianon, a young Venetian archi-

tect, born in 1931,a friend and contemporary of Lucia-

no Vistosi, was commissioned to revise the company’s

designs. According to Rosa Barovier Mentasti, he had
a very clear vision of the direction that the company

should take, inspired by the belief that production

should be design-led and aimed at satisfying a much

more sophisticated market than hitherto.
9
He designed

a new catalogue and logo and the new product range

was launched in 1960. A rather flood-damaged copy of
this catalogue,” published by the company’s American

agent Koch and Lowy Inc. is in the Rakow Archive at

Corning and it includes a large number of lamps
(lam-

pade)
and art glass to be placed ‘on top of the furniture’

(soprammobili),
items designed by Oreste, Luciano and

Gino Vistosi, Alessandro Pianon and Giorgio Gentili.
Amongst Pianon’s designs were lamps in plain
`lat-

timo’
(milky-like) glass and art glass vases and bot-

tles, some in brilliant colours and others in subdued

colourways with
murrine
arranged in groups or in

rassegna damns

In a-etro
di

Nturano

Una serie di c pulcini x. in retro di
diversi colori e grandezze, con zanipe

in metal°. (Vistosi, Venezia).

foto Marchi-Damn.

Fig. 12

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

Fig. 10

Fig. I I

PIANON’S BIRDS

irregular lines, similar to the patterns we have already

seen in three of the birds.
(Fig.10)
is an example of

a vase designed by Pianon, design S175, which uses

linear
murrine;”

Fulvio Bianconi, a graphic design-

er, was later responsible for a range of tall cylindrical

vases with groups of similar
murrine,

one of which is

illustrated in Rosa Barovier Mentasti’s book. Of the

iconic lamp designs attributed to Pianon, one is the

tomato-red pendant light illustrated in
(Fig.11),
13
later

widely copied in glass and acrylic by many other makers.

Pianon’s
pulcini
were launched in 1962 and were

illustrated and reviewed in the April 1962 edition

of
Domus’,

Gio Ponti’s influential design magazine

— seen in
(Fig.12).
They were sold through Vistosi’s

agents in top department stores in Europe and North

and South America and appeared in the company’s

1964 catalogue as models S189-193 (the same num-
bers as in the Wuidart catalogue), all designed by Ales-

sandro Pianon and with the following descriptions:

Model Description

Year

S189

Bird in green glass with

1962

murrine.
Elongated.

S190

Bird in blue glass with

1962

red spiral. Triangular

S191

Bird in olive green with

murrine.
1962

Cube form.

S192

Bird in dark grey glass with

1962

murrine.

S193

Bird in orange glass. Ball-shape. 1962

Their later history, however, is inexplicably

vague. They were in production for several years,
and in the late 1960s the company brought out

cheaper versions in different plain colours with-

out
murrine
or any surface decoration; these ver-

sions do not appear to have been documented.
Rosa Barovier Mentasti has written” that after

1961, Pianon reduced his design studio’s work for

Vistosi and began a regular collaboration with the
firm of `Lumenform’, whose designs were geared

towards a more commercial range of lamps which

were made by several Murano glassworks. ‘Lumen-

form’ itself was soon taken over by Aureliano

Toso, a much larger glassworks and one of Visto-

si’s competitors. Pianon was replaced as Vistosi’s
chief designer in 1962, and the 1964 catalogue

was the work of Peter Pelzel, who continued work-
ing for Vistosi for the remainder of the 1960s.
Indeed, after 1962 Alessandro Pianon seems to

have disappeared. He is almost unknown in Italy.

There is no known biography of him and, although

he trained as an architect, I have not been able to

identify on the Italian architectural database any
Fig. 13

Fig. 14

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

buildings designed by him. The only photograph

of him,
(Fig.13),
is an image in the 1960 Koch and

Lowy Inc. trade catalogue in the Rakow Archive.’
6

He was born in Venice in 1931 and so was in his
late 20s when the photo was taken, quite young to

be the company’s chief designer. He died in 1984.
The Vistosi company, after the retirement of the

founding family members, went through a very diffi-
cult period in the 1980s. It was taken over by Pietro

Toso of the Barovier & Toso company, then by Fontana

Arte of Milan, followed by Mauro Albarelli, who closed

the glasshouse for a time. Since 1989 it has been part

of the Moretti family-owned Vetrofond group of com-
panies. Its Murano factory has closed permanently, and

the present company, a wholly owned subsidiary of the

Vetrofond group, has a new factory and showroom on

the mainland at Mogliano near Treviso where it designs

and makes glass lighting for the very top of the contract
lighting market. Its chandeliers and globes are to be

found throughout the world in luxury hotels and new

prestigious public buildings, palaces, expensive shops

and top-end restaurants. There are examples here in

the UK in the Bulgari store in London’s West End and

the Hari (formerly Belgraves) Hotel in Belgravia. The
company is very active in Europe, North and South

America, the Middle East and Asia, where it has estab-
lished new markets in the emerging economies. Art

glass production, however, ceased four to five years ago.
Vetreria Vistosi srl, the present company, has been

very helpful in the compilation of this article, but its

written archive does not appear to have survived the
earlier changes of ownership. In 2000 the compa-

ny published an illustrated book” to commemorate

its half century and this included many of its icon-

ic art glass and lighting designs by named designers.

Amongst these are Ettore Sottsass, Sergio Asti, Peter
Pelzel, Luciano and Gino Vistosi, Fulvio Bianconi,

Liisi Meronen Beckmann, Vico Magistretti and the
great Angelo Mangiarotti, whose Giogali chandeliers,

illustrated in
Fig.14,
designed in 1967and still in pro-

duction, grace many grand interiors. But Alessandro

Pianon’s name is not on this list, even though he was
the person who sixty years ago set out the two design
principles: firstly, use top flight designers and sec-

ondly, aim for sophisticated markets. These princi-
ples still guide the present company and have enabled

it to survive when so much of the Venetian glass

industry, like that in the UK, has all but disappeared.
I find this omission inexplicable and the compa-

ny’s present management is equally perplexed. It is

almost as though, like purged members of the Polit-
buro in the former Soviet bloc, he has been writ-

ten out of the company’s history. Time will tell

whether Alessandro Pianon’s genius will receive
the recognition it deserves. This article might help.

I wish to record my personal thanks to Paolo

Comacchio, formerly the Commercial Director for
North Europe, the Middle East and South Ameri-

ca at Vetreria Vistosi srl, for his enthusiastic assis-
tance and friendship. He has contributed insights

into the current state of the Venetian glass industry

in addition to his searches for archival evidence and

interviews with retired Murano glassmakers with-
out which this article would have been incomplete.

My thanks are also extended to Nancy Magrath

at the Rakow Research Library in Corning NY,• Sara

Blumberg of Glass Past; Nancy Olnick and Gior-

gio Spanu; Edo Ophir of the Ophir Gallery Inc;
Lesley Jackson for her earlier research and encour-

agement; and lastly but not least to Nigel Ben-
son who has allowed me to reproduce and quote
from the 1964 Wuidart catalogue in his possession.
Ifanyone knows what happened to Alessandro Pianon,

please let me know by email: [email protected].

ENDNOTES

I.
Richard Golding, formerly at Station Glass, Shenton Station,

Leicestershire, CV 12 6DJ.

2.
Interviews conducted in the summer of 2016 in Murano by

Paolo Comacchio.

3.
Introduction to the Wuidart Price List, April 1964

4.
Office for National Statistics website, November 2017

5.
As told to Scottish antiques dealer James Strang.

6.
Corning Museum of Glass, accession numbers 85.3.17-19,

and 2010.3.132 (this is a duplicate of 83.3.17).

7.
Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu, “Murano: Glass from the

Olnick Spanu Collection”, 2003, Museum Edition Catalogue,
Millennium Pictures Inc. New York
8.
Lesley Jackson,”20th
Century Factory Glass”,

Mitchell Beaz-

ley, published 2000, pp 220-1: ISBN 1 85732 267 3.

9.
Rosa Barovier Mentasti,”Vetro Veneziano,
I 890-1990″,

p I 32,

published 1992, Arsenale,Venice, Italy.

10.
Koch & Lowy Inc trade catalog vols. I and 2, 1960, Rakow

Research Library record nos. 5440 I and 121981, Clearwater
LG0383, Corning, USA.

I I .This vase is illustrated in ‘Domus’, Milan, April 1964.

12. Rosa Barovier Mentasti op cit. plate I 18.

I 3.This attribution has not been confirmed.

14.
Marc Heiremans “Art Glass
from Murano,1920-1970″,

p296, Arnoldsche, Stuttgart, published 1993,
translated by

Andrea Ulrich-von Oertzen.
15.
Rosa Barovier Mentasti op cit. p I 34.

16.
Koch & Lowy Inc. op cit. p 4 and the Olnick Spanu Collec-

tion, op cit. p 302
17.”Vistosi:Arte e
Magia del Vetro attraverso i
secoli”, published

privately in 2000 byVetreriaVistosi srl, via G.Galilei, 9/ I I –

3 1021, Mogliano Veneto —Treviso, Italy.

SECRETS & MACHINATIONS

Art, Mystery, Secrets and
Machinations:

The establishment of post medieval

glassmaking in England

Mike \oble

Never has there been a more aptly written phrase than that
relating to the early glassmaker describing his occupation

as the ART, MYSTERY and SECRET of glassmaking

Imagine, if you will, England in the sixteenth cen-

tury, a lone glassmaker and his family in remote wood-

lands far from the nearest town or village, working in
all weathers to manufacture glass either for windows or

vessels. His skill had been handed down from genera-

tion to generation, but he still had to source and con-

struct a furnace from whatever suitable stone he could
find, repairing it often, and chopping down sufficient

wood from the surrounding lands to raise its tempera-
ture and keep it going. The ashes produced may have

been used, after thorough cleansing, as a raw material in

the mix, acting as a flux to help the melting of the sand,

which most likely had been obtained locally. Finally a
source of clay was required to manufacture the melt-

ing pots which, if not carefully produced, could easily
break in the hot flames of the furnace. So many things

to do, so many things to go wrong, and he had to make

a living out of it to support himself and his family.
Following the pathways across patchy woodland

and scrubland in Bishop’s Wood near Eccleshall, Staf-

Fig. I Bishop’sWood reconstructed late
sixteenth century furnace
fordshire, one comes across an old furnace of the late

sixteenth century. Now reconstructed and with List-

ed Grade II status, this still gives the observer a feel

for what a glass-working location was like in the Eliz-
abethan era,
(Fig.1).
It was discovered in the 1930s,

along with several other glass-houses in the area, at

locations called Glasshouse Farm and Glasshouse Croft;

place names often coupled with glassmaking activi-

ties, glasshouse lane being probably the most common.

This particular furnace was most certainly estab-

lished by one of the émigré glassmakers coming over

from the Continent in the latter half of the sixteenth

century. They were here partly at the behest of the

Elizabethan government who wanted an indigenous

glass industry rather than allowing money to flow

out of England for imported glass, and partly because
these glassmakers were the unfortunate Hugue-

nots who were severely persecuted in their home-

land, with many secrets of glassmaking not known

to the few glassmakers in this country at the time.
In fact the middle of the sixteenth century was at a

particular nadir for English glassmaking. Glassmakers

were extremely sparse and scattered around the coun-

try, although Staffordshire is one of the areas where

glass is known to have been made from medieval times.

Two recorded glassmakers in this part of the coun-
try were
`Sim’oe le Glasemon’
and

`Ric’o le Glasmon’

who appeared in the Staffordshire Lay Subsidy Rolls

of 1332-3 under Bromley Abbatis [Abbots Bromley])
Staffordshire had become a centre for glassmaking

at the time due to a number of factors. The local hard
red sandstone was ideal for building furnaces, there

was fuel from the many wooded areas, sand was readily

available, and potash, the ash produced from burning

vegetation, could be obtained from wood or brack-
en. One other material of particular importance was
the local clay used for making pots, the suitability of

which was of paramount importance in melting glass.
Another important glassmaking centre was the

Weald on the Surrey/Sussex border, and in fact a
‘John

Glazewryth of Staffordshire’
was engaged to make glass

here by the widow of John Schurterre, a glassmaker

in Chiddingfold, after his death in 1380. Well over

4
.
*

th,

3b. .Pa
l

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

forty glasshouse sites have
been located in this area,

established again because

of the local natural resourc-
es, with the names of many

glassmakers being recorded
in the parish records during

the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. At least one of

these, John Alemayne, sup-
plied glass to both St Ste-

vens Chapel in Westminster
and St George’s Chapel in

Windsor in 1351, and in

fact Chiddingfold Church
contains a window with

fragments of
‘Ancient Glass’

made by some of these ear-
ly glassmakers,
(Fig.2).

Glassmaking in England,

however, did not appear to

flourish, and its inadequa-
cy was highlighted in 1542

when the Glaziers Compa-
ny complained to the gov-
ernment about the high

price of Flemish, Burgun-

dian and Norman window

glass. The wording of the

text seems to suggest that
only these types of glass

were then available, English glass not even worthy of

a mention. One glassmaker near Chiddingfold actu-

ally stated that he could not make window glass, but

only
‘small things like urinals, bottles and other small

wares,’
and even these would have been somewhat

inferior products to their Continental neighbours.’

Twenty years later, in 1562, the situation appears to
have altered very little. While building Trinity Col-

lege, Cambridge, William Blithe of Thaxted obtained

a contract
‘ for glassing the windows of the new chapel

with Burgundy glass.’
He agreed that the glazing would

be done by Easter
‘provided passedge by sea be had.’

Although customers were looking abroad for their

requirements, glass imports were still relatively small
compared to other commodities. A list prepared for

the Privy Council in 1565 gives the valuation of glass

imports as £1,662, ranked well down in the table.
Lynen Cloth’
topped the list with £86,250, Wyn-

es’
came next with £48,634, and
‘Canvas’

third with

£32,124.
5
Window glass accounted for about half of the

glass imports, followed by looking glass plates and then

other products such as bottles, spectacles, hour glasses

and table wares, not least of which was the
`cristallo glass’
LEFT Fig. 2 ‘Ancient Glass’at Chiddingfold Church

BELOW Fig.3 Venetian cristallo glass, 1550 — 1560.

V&A 5554-1859

manufactured in Venice, or more specifically Mura-
no, a small island a short distance from Venice itself.
This cristallo glass was the finest glass being pro-

duced at the time, an example being shown in
Fig.3,

the secret of its manufacture being closely guarded by

the Venetian Council of Ten. There was, however, some
unrest by the Murano glassworkers around the middle

of the sixteenth century when they could not be kept in
employment for the whole year, forcing some of them to
leave and set up their own glasshouses in foreign parts.

Eight of these disaffected glass-men were in England in
c.1550, probably at the behest of the Government of

Edward VI. The Venetian Council had already issued
a proclamation threatening them with imprisonment

or worse if they were captured, but on receiving a peti-

tion from the English government, they replied
‘that to

gratify the most Serene King ofEngland they may con-
tinue working in England until the expiration of the

term of their contract. On the expiration of that term of

about 18 months, they must immediately return hith-
er, under the penalties in the proclamation aforesaid’ .
6

It was not only cristall glass that was in great demand

but also window glass. There was such a shortage of

SECRETS & MACHINATIONS

this that in 1552 a London merchant, Henry Smyth,
requested permission to bring foreigners or ‘strang-

ers’ into England to make
‘Brode glass of like fashion

and goodness to that which is commonly called Nor-

mandy Glass.’
His justification was not only that his

glass
‘shall not only be a great comoditie to our said

Realme’
but also that the English workmen would

‘in

time learn and be able to make the said glass them-

selves.’
7

Nothing further is heard of the enterprise and

one can only presume that it failed, possibly as a result

of the accession of the Catholic Queen Mary to the

throne in 1553, which would certainly have deterred

any of these Calvinist glassmakers from Normandy.

A further attempt was made in 1565 under the

Government of Elizabeth I when a certain Corne-
lius de Lannoy attempted a similar enterprise because,

it was stated,
‘he is now forced to send to Antwerp

and into Hassia for new provisions of glasses, his old
being spent’.
This was apparently not taken forward

because, it was further stated,
‘all our glass makers can

not fashion him one glass tho’ he stood by them to

teach them’,
and that

‘the potters cannot work him

one pot’
which could withstand the heat of the fur-

nace.’ This derisive comment sadly reflects the lack
of technical skills available in England at the time.

This lamentable state of manufacturing happened to

coincide with the tremendous religious and econom-
ic unrest developing in Europe, directed particularly

towards the protestant French Calvinists or Huguenots.

Many of these were artisans skilled not only in glass-
making but in many different crafts, and as Catholic
mob violence broke out against them, considerable

numbers left their homes in search of a more peace-

ful and productive life. It was from this migration
that the beginnings of the English glass industry were

founded, the furnace in Bishop’s Wood, referred to

earlier, being a tangible illustration of this migration.

The first of these glasshouses was established by John

Carre, a Huguenot from Arras in Flanders who, togeth-
er with a Frenchman called Peter Briet, petitioned Wil-
liam Cecil in August 1567
‘Desiring permission to erect

glass works, similar to those of Venice’.’
This he did at

the old monastery of the Crutched Friars near the Tow-

er of London. In a letter written by Carre to Lord Cecil

around 1567 he stated that
‘I have erected two glass

houses at Fernefol, Sussex, for Normandy and Lorraine

glass, by Her Majesty’s licence, and one in London,
by leave of the lord mayor and aldermen, for crystal

glass; also brought over workmen,
at
my own great

cost, and to the benefit of the kingdom, on sending for
soda from Spain, that of London not being good’.
10

The two glasshouses mentioned in `Fernefol’ were

situated in Fernfold Wood near the village of Alfold in

Sussex. The manufacture of Normandy and Lorraine
glass were given over to two families with particular

expertise in these types of window glasses. Lorraine

glass production was handed to members of a well-
known glassmaking family originating in that part of

France, Thomas and Balthazar de Hamezel, later known

by the name Henzel. Similarly Normandy glass was giv-

en to two brothers by the name of Pierre and Jean de

Bongard, anglicised to Peter and John Bungar. Carre
himself was to concentrate predominantly on the Lon-

don operation where he employed a number of Italian

glassmakers sometime shortly before his death in 1572.
It was a Jacob Verzelini who was to assume the

leadership at Crutched Friars after Carre’s demise, his

name appearing in the Huguenot records of 1576,

stating that he was from
‘the dominion of the Doge

of Venice’
and that

‘James Vesselyn, a fugitive, born

in Venice and carried on the craft of glass-making, in
Crutchet-friars, London, and held lands in Kent.’ ”

In December 1575 he applied for a patent to make

Venetian style drinking glasses, this being granted for
a period of twenty one years, stating that he
`bath to

his great costs and charges erected and set up within

our city of London one furnace and set on work div-

ers and sundrie persons for the making of drinking

Glasses such as be accustomablie made in the town
of Morano.’
One demand written into the patent was

that the patentees must
`teach and bring up in the

said Art and knowledge of making the said drinking

Glasses our natural Subjects born within our Realms
of England and Ireland.’
12
This was an attempt to be

less reliant on the foreigners, who were fiercely protec-
tive of their ‘Art, Mystery and Secret’ of making glass.
This monopoly as might be expected was not at

all popular, particularly with the merchants. John

Strype in his Survey of London commented that
‘One

James Verselyn, a stranger, a Venetian, about the year

1580, or before, was the first to set up a glass house

in London, for making Venice Glasses. For which the
Queen granted him a privilege under her Great Seal.
But the glass-sellers in London were much aggrieved

at this, and spewed the Lords of the Privy-Council,
that it was the overthrow of fifty households, using

only the trade of selling of glasses; besides the hin-
derance of the merchant-adventurers bringing glasses

into this realm beyond the seas, the loss of Her Maj-
esty’s custom, and the consuming of 400,000 billets

every year, in burning the same in one glass-house;

and the enhancing of the prices of glasses, prejudicial
to all the Queen’s subjects; there being a prohibition

in the same patent, that none should sell such glass-
es, but the said Verselyn only.’
This was taken almost

verbatim from a petition by the glass-sellers in 1582

who complained of their ‘griefs sustained by reason
of privileges granted to private persons’, although this

3
1

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

was apparently ignored and the patent ran its course.”
There was, however, a challenge to Verzelini’s

monopoly in the late 1570’s when a glasshouse was

built at Beckley near Rye. A Venetian called Sebastian

Orlandini and a Frenchman, Godfrey Delahay, found
a loophole in the patent by manufacturing beads of

various types including a tube shaped bead called a
bugle, together with enamels in the Venetian style. It

would appear that Orlandini then moved to London
around 1580 with John Smithe as his new partner and
erected a glasshouse just to the east of London at Rat-

cliff. A complaint was subsequently made by Verze-
lini to the Privy Council stating that they had
‘lately

sett up a furnace at the gonpouder mille by Ratcliffe,

intending to make glasses.’
This resulted in an order

to
’cause the said furnace to be presently defaced in

their owne presence before they do depart from the

place.’
Whether this action was fully justified seems

to have been in contention because in March 1581

an investigation was undertaken, concluding that

the monopoly had not been broken and that both
parties should come to some sort of compromise.”
A further, albeit abortive, attempt to establish a

manufactory for making glasses not covered by Ver-

zelini’s patent was also made by two of the Queen’s
footmen, Messrs. Miller and Scott, when they applied

for a licence in 1590. This was to manufacture
‘urinals,

bottles, bowls, carps, to drink in and such like, except

such as is already granted to a stranger dwelling in the

Cruched fryers in London which he bath by the patent

for terme of years for the making of all manner of coun-

terfeit Venice drinking glasses and except all manner of

glass to be made for glasses used for windows and such
like.’

Although they claimed that they were
‘well

able to

exercise that trade and with as much skill in any other’

the application was seemingly made without any previ-

ous knowledge of glassmaking and purely for financial
gain.” Apparently nothing came of this application,

nor did a similar one submitted by another footman,

George Stone, who applied for the
‘grant of the licence

which the Queen gave to Captain Thomas Woodhouse
for making glass in Ireland lately deceased’
in 1596.

Verzelini was to die a relatively rich and well respect-

ed man, his will, written in 1604, running to many
pages. When it was witnessed on the 31st May 1604 by

the Parson of St Olaves, John Simpson, he was record-

ed as living in his house in Crutched Friars, and was at

the time
‘then
in his house parlour next to his garden.’

Apart from bequeathing much of his estate to his wife

Elizabeth and their two sons, which included consid-
erable properties in Kent, he also left
‘to every of my

tenants dwelling in Downe aforesaid or elsewhere with-

in the County of Kent so much cloth of eight shillings
at ten shillings a yard as will make every one of them a

coat to be by them worn at my funeral.’
Additionally

he gave five pounds each to be distributed amongst the
poor at Downe, in the Parish of St Olaves, the
‘poor

orphans’
of Christ’s Hospital near West Smithfield, the

poor and diseased people harboured and cherished ‘
at

St Thomas Hospital, Southwark, and three pounds
for the poor at St Bartholomew’s in West Smithfield.
17

A number of drinking glasses have been attribut-

ed to Verzelini’s enterprise, all decorated with scratch

engraving and containing a date between 1577 and

1590. The engraving, made by scratching the surface

of the glass with a diamond point, has been tentatively

RIGHT Fig.4 Drinking

glass, 1577

FAR RIGHT Fig.5
Drinking glass by

Verzelini, 1580

RIGHT Fig. 8 Drinking glass

byVerzelini, 1586

FAR RIGHT Fig.9 Drinking

glass byVerzelini, 1586
SECRETS & MACHINATIONS

LEFT Fig. 6 Drinking glass by

Verzelini, 1581

FAR LEFT Fig.7 Drinking glass,
1583

linked to an engraver called Anthony de Lysle. He was
referred to in the Huguenot Society records as
‘Antho-

ny de Lisley, graver in puter and glasse’
and the only

person to be mentioned in this connection. Robert

Charleston compiled a list of these glasses which are

(i) a goblet dated 1577 in the Corning Museum of
Glass,
(Fig.4);

(ii) a goblet dated 1578 in the Fitzwil-

liam Museum, Cambridge; (iii) a bowl-topped goblet

dated 1578 in the Musee de Cluny, Paris; (iv) a bowl-
topped goblet dated 1580 in the Victoria & Albert
Museum

(Fig.5); (v)
a goblet dated 1581 in the Vic-

toria
&

Albert Museum
(Fig.6);

(vi) a goblet dated

1583 in the Corning Museum of Glass
(Fig.
7) ; (vii)

a goblet dated 1584 in the Birmingham City Muse-

um; (viii) a goblet dated 1586 in the Victoria
&
Albert

Museum
(Fig.8);

(ix) a goblet dated 1586 in the Brit-

ish Museum which also has opaque white threads

(Fig.9);
(x) a goblet of gilt decoration dated 1590 in

the Wine Museum of San Francisco; (xi) an undecorat-

ed bowl-topped goblet in the Royal Library, Windsor.

FAR LEFT Fig. 10

Sir Jeremy Bowes

LEFT Fig. I I

Drinking glass,
I 602, patented by

Bowes

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

In February 1591/2 Sir Jerome Bowes, whose por-

trait is shown in
Fig.10,
in recognition of his services

to the Crown, was granted a patent to
‘set up and put

in use the said art & feate of making of drinking glasses
or other glasses whatsoever like unto such as be most
used made or wrought in the said town ofMorano. And

also to make erect and set up in any place as aforesaid

any furnace or furnaces whatsoever concerning the said

art or feat of making drinking glasses aforesaid.’
These

were to be sold
‘in grosse or by retaile… as good cheape

or rather better cheape then the drincking Glasses com-

monly brought from the Citry ofMorano’
and included

severe penalties to anyone found making or importing
drinking glasses in contravention to the monopoly.”
Bowes himself had been a diplomat for many years,

serving as Queen Elizabeth’s Ambassador to Rus-

sia under the reign of Ivan the Terrible. His abilities
in this position, under such a difficult regime, were
obviously deserving enough to be rewarded in such
a manner, even though Bowes would have had no

involvement in glassmaking and little, if any, experi-

ence in business matters. The patent was to run for a
period of twelve years, starting after the expiry of Ver-
zelini’s old one, and also had a clause inserted whereby

an annual payment of one hundred marks was to be
made to the Exchequer from the revenue it generated.
This, however, did not go down at all well with

Verzelini’s sons, who expected to continue in the
family business of making drinking glasses. Bow-

es in fact claimed that he had been
‘much Jetted and

hindered by the said Versalins’,
his solution being

to appoint a William Turner and two other
‘gen-

tlemen’,
William Robson and Thomas Lane, to

establish and run the new enterprise, in effect relin-

quishing his patent rights to these three, but receiv-

ing in return an annual fee of five hundred pounds.
In compliance with this agreement, Turner, Robson

and Lane actually erected a new furnace in the old Black-

friars monastery, and seem to have utilized glassworkers

from the Crutched Friars glasshouse. A later reference
of 1608 states that the inhabitants of the Blackfriars

included a
‘capital messuage held by Sir Jerome Bow-

es and Ralph Bowes and their undertenants, and the

glasshouses within the said messuage held by rent of
eighty one pounds and two dozen drinking glasses per

anum,’
the following year referring to a
‘vault used for

SECRETS & MACHINATIONS

Fig. 12 Southwark, Matheus Merian’s map of 1638

a glasshouse’
in Blackfriars.’

9
A glass bearing the date

1602
(Fig.11)

was almost certainly made at this site.

This new arrangement did not, however, run

smoothly, probably because Bowes was not receiv-
ing his money. Further agreements had to be drawn
up, and it was actually stated that one of Bowes’s

men
‘drew his sword and threatened to be the said

William Turner’s death’
if he did not comply with it.

These disputes, often in the Court of Chan-

cery, carried on for some time, until Turner decid-

ed to move to Yorkshire where he was involved in an

alum works. This left William Robson and Thomas

Lane to run the business, and it was the former who

would subsequently drive the enterprise forward. As
a young man in his twenties Robson had already

claimed to have
‘spent much labor and trouble this

seven years in and about the said patent and bath

come at great charge and expense of money in travel-

ling to the Court and to other places about the with-
standings and putting down of the said Vesalins.’
20

Apart from the disputes between Bowes and Turner,

the monopoly also came under pressure from a num-
ber of merchants who were trying to import glasses in

defiance of the patent. On one occasion, in the spring

of 1607, an Edward Fawkener tried to bring into the
country
‘ten chests with lock and keys of one hun-

dred ninety and nine fair drinking glasses of christall

of forty dozen of trencher plates of christall glass and

of twenty double bottles of like christall glass.’
The

price of the Venetian glass, at £240 wholesale, was

lower than that of Robson’s and obviously worth the

risk. In retaliation
‘William Robson, about the thirti-

eth day of May in the year aforesaid upon the river of

Thames and in the Port of London did violently and
without any lawful right or title whatsoever seize and
forcibly take the said goods.’
This action of course went

to litigation, Robson apparently winning the case.
21

The following year another serious challenge was

made by Edward Salter who obtained a patent from
James I to make

‘all or any manner of Glass, Glasses

or Glass Works’
not covered by Bowe’s patent which

concerned only the making of drinking glasses. To this
end he built a furnace in Winchester House, Southwark,

and brought over a number of Muranese glassworkers
to establish the business, resulting once again in another

Chancery Law Suite. This time it appears that Robson

was not so fortunate because he actually had to take over
Salter’s interest by paying him a yearly sum of money for

the privilege, although, in effect, this did give Robson

the sole rights for making cristallo glass in England.
22

It was not only this high quality cristallo glass that

glassmakers were producing, however, window glass
being at least as important a commodity, and Win-

chester House seems to have played a significant role
here. It was stated, in 1612, that
‘very lately, by a

wind-furnace, greene glasse, for windowes, is made as

well with pit-coale at Winchester House in Southwarke
as it is done in other places with much wast & con-

suming of infinite store of billets and other wood-fu-

el.’
23

This change of fuel from wood-firing furnaces,

such as the one illustrated above in Bishop’s Wood, to

coal firing furnaces, was to have a major impact on the

development of glassmaking throughout the coun-
try. Winchester House can be seen as No. 36 on in

Matheus Merian’s map of 1638, No. 35 being St. Mary
Overy’s Church, later Southwark Cathedral
(Fig.12).

Going back to 1587, there were reportedly fourteen

or fifteen glasshouses scattered around England, estab-

lished after Carre’s initial Wealden glasshouses, by the

influx of many Huguenot families escaping the perse-

cution that was rife in France and the Low Countries

towards the end of the sixteenth century. Many arrived

through ports such as Southampton and Rye, establish-

ing their trade around these locations before moving on

to other parts of the country, where fuel in the form of

wood and brushwood was plentiful and other essential
requirements such as sand and clay available locally.
The Henzey’s, Tysack’s and Tyttery’s were perhaps

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

Fig. 13 Excavated glass from Buckholt I

the most prominent of these families, although many
other names were recorded in such places as the Wal-

loon Church of Southampton. They were manufac-
turing not only window glass but also a variety of

vessels and drinking glasses, albeit of a lesser quali-
ty than those made in London from Cristallo glass.

For example glass excavated from one site near Buck-
holt, not too far distant from Southampton, showed

a variety of drinking glasses, vessels and window
glass, a selection being shown here
(Figs.13, 14, 15).

As the industry expanded, with more families

arriving from the continent and their descendants

also entering the trade, these woods were becoming

exhausted. A consequence of this was a migration of

the glassmakers both to the west of the country and

into the Midlands, with at least two furnaces being

established as far north as the Yorkshire Moors. This

devastation of the woods was also becoming a seri-

BELOW (LEFT) Fig. 14 Excavated glass from Buckholt 2

BELOW (RIGHT) Fig. 15 Excavated glass from Buckholt 3
ous

concern for the Government. Furnaces for both

iron smelting and glass making were taking away good

quality wood used not only for building houses but

also for the construction of ships which were vital for
the defence of the Nation. One report actually stat-

ed that
‘Where such plenty of wood is, there are no

doubt many iron works and glasshouses already erect-

ed which do faster consume it, than it can grow’
24

Finding an alternative fuel was becoming of vital

importance, but it was not until 1610 that a patent was
to be granted to Sir William Slingsby by James I for the
use of sea coal or pit coal to replace wood and charcoal.

This was for use in
‘the boiling of beer and ale, dyes of

all sorts, alum, sea salt, salt peter, spring salt, copperas,

soap and sugar, & for the melting of ores of all kinds &

mineral earths of all sorts, and for the melting of glass,
ordinance, bell metal, lattyn, copper, brass, tin, lead &

other metals’.
The reason for granting the licence was

because, as the patent stated,
‘it is to be feared there

may in time grow great scarcity and want of fuel and

timber as well for the maintenance ofhis Majesty’s Navy
as for divers other necessary and important uses.’ ”
Although the patent was commendable, it was not

particularly successful on technical grounds, Slingsby

later saying
‘our busyness haythe had as yet butt slow

progression’.
26
It was improvements in furnace design,

probably at Winchester House, that were to enable glass-

making to encompass coal as a fuel. A patent, specifical-

ly for melting glass with coal, was given to Sir Edward

Zouch and his associates, a fellow courtier Bevis Thel-

well together with the King’s glazier Thomas Mefflyn
and Thomas Percival, a gentleman who seems to have

been instrumental in developing the method, in 1611.

This was granted ‘
to melt & make all manner of glasses

with sea-coal, pit-coal, fucash or any other fuel whatso-
ever, not being wood nor under of wood throughout all

this my Realm of England and Wales and the Domin-

ions thereof
and included a provision for Bowes
acord-

ing to the true intent & meaning of the said letters’ .
27

It was one thing to obtain a patent, but quite another

to enforce it, particularly outside the capital where the

hard working glassmakers objected to their livelihoods

being affected in such a way. Zouche himself probably

did not have either the wherewithal or even enthusiasm

for imposing his patent rights in these often remote

locations, and indeed the patent itself was being chal-

lenged as being unlawful by both the itinerant glassmak-

ers and the previous patent holders including Robson,

who then controlled both Bowes and Salter’s patents.
An attempt to finally resolve the issue was made

in 1614 when the King issued a ‘Special Licence’ to

Sir Edward Zouch, Bevis Thelwall, Thomas Percivall

and Robert Kellaway to make both drinking glass-
es and broad glass in England and Wales for a peri-

SECRETS & MACHINATIONS

Fig. 16 Portrait of Sir Robert Mansell

od of 21 years, paying the exchequer an annual fee

of £1000. It was also stated that at least £5000 had
been spent on developing the process, and that all the

previous licenses were to be revoked, forbidding any

further glass to be made using wood, prohibiting the

importation of foreign glass, and not allowing glass

sellers to enter into any contracts with foreign glass

makers.” An annuity was granted to recompense the
previous patent holders, although glassmakers in the

country were not treated in such a reasonable man-

ner. For example in November 1614 it was recorded
by the Privy Council that
‘one Paule Tisick, a mak-

er and worker of glasse, bath sett up furnasses in the

countie of Stafforde contrary to a graunt made to Sir

Edward Zouch knight and others’
and was ordered to

be brought before the Council `to
give order that there

bee noe further proceedinge in that glasse worke until

hee hath aunsweared his contempt here before us.’
Sim-

ilarly a warrant for the arrest of Toby, Edward, Joseph,

Daniel, Peregrin and Edward Henzey, together with

Thomas and Timothe Tisack, was issued for
‘setting up

of glasse furnaces and woreking of glasse in Sussex.’
29

This continued opposition prompted a third pat-

ent to be granted in January 1615 to underline the

position of the Government, with virtually the same

conditions as the previous one but which included a
number of new partners, not least of which was Sir

Robert Mansell
(Fig. 16).

He was of a totally differ-

ent disposition to that of Zouche, being an Admiral

of his Majesty’s Navy, and was to take over the sole
right to manufacture glass in England within a mat-

ter of months, a position of which he was perfect-

ly capable of enforcing. In fact by about 1618 the

wood burning furnaces had all but disappeared.
3
°

Interestingly the coal in Newcastle was actu-

ally trialled by Mansell’s wife while he was

away at sea. (Also see
‘The Rise of the Coal

Industry’
by J. U. Nef published in 1932).

Supressing the wood burning glass-hous-

es was not the only problem facing Mansell. He
had also to fulfil his obligation to actually sup-

ply the country with glass, including window glass

and table wares, both of which were in short supply.
A glasshouse at Lambeth had already been construct-

ed around 1612 for the manufacture of window glass,

but this was not commercially viable to operate, partic-

ularly as it used expensive coal shipped down from Scot-

land. This was thought to be the only coal suitable at the
time, having a low sulphur content and being relatively

free of noxious gases. A comment made at the time was
that
‘broad glass

[window glass]
spendeth both more

coales and asse
[ash],
quantitie for quantitie, then drink-

ing glass clothe’,
the selling price of window glass being

relatively cheap compared to those of drinking glasses.
31

To this end he made several attempts to find a suit-

able coal in a number of locations around the country.

The first, at Kimmeridge on the Isle of Purbeck was
on land owned by Sir William Cavell who had been
utilizing a local coal for the manufacture of Alum but

whose business had failed. The glass trials also proved
unsuccessful, due primarily to the poor quality of

the `Kimmeridge Coal,’ or more precisely oil shale.

This emitted so many obnoxious fumes it was aptly

described in one account as emitting too much smoke
and
‘in burning yeelds such an offensive Savour and

extraordinarie Blacknesse that the People labouring

about those Fires are more like Furies than Men.’
32

A second attempt was made in his native Wales, the

site chosen being at Milford Haven, a coal producing

region but sadly with insufficient sea travel available for

a commercial activity such as this. The third trial was

in the manor ofWollaton near Nottingham, owned by

Sir Percival Willoughby, a site which seemed to show
much more potential. Two furnaces were in operation

by the end of 1615, one for vessels and one for window

glass, although, because of expensive shipping costs,
this was also thought to be unviable. Finally, and with

unexpected success, a suitable coal was found at New-

castle, where glasshouses were first erected in 1618

or 1619, thus establishing Newcastle’s glass industry

ISAILimitivb

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V

all.08. ,

•
w•Ilegg 1
,

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17
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‘. 4k01

*1.1″

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

which lasted for three hundred years or thereabouts.
In order to supply the market with sufficient drink-

ing glasses, Mansell built a new furnace in Broad Street,

London, at the old and defunct Austin Friary. He may
even have hired William Robson to run the operation,

Robson being named a ‘servant’ of Mansell’s in 1620

when supplying window glass to a merchant, Mr. Dynes.
By 1618, however, James Howell, an Oxford grad-

uate and the son of a Welsh clergyman, was in charge

of the Broad Street glass works, albeit only for a short

period of time. In a letter dated 1st March 1618 How-

ell wrote to his father that
‘The main of my employ-

ment is from that gallant knight Sir Robert Mansell,
who, with my Lord of Pembroke, and divers others of

the Prime Lords of the Court, have got the sole pat-

ent of making all sorts of glass with pit-coal, only to
save those huge proportions of wood which were con-

sumed formerly in the glass furnaces: and this business
being of that nature, that the workmen are to be had
from Italy, and the chief materials from Spain, France,
and other foreign countries’.

He goes on to say that

one of Mansell’s old sea captains, Francis Bacon, had
succeeded him, lamenting that had he continued he

would
‘in a very short time have melted away to noth-

ing amongst these hot Venetians’.
Howell went on to

say that Mansell
hath melted vast sums of money in

the glass-business, a business indeed more proper to

a merchant than a courtier. I heard the King say, that

he wonder’d Robin Mansel, being a seaman, whereby
he bath so much honour, should fall from water to

tamper with fire, which are two contrary elements’ .
33

Tamper with fire he did though, sometimes to

fend off others who were protagonists against the
patent such as Sir William Clavell, who had not

forgiven Mansell for abandoning Kimmeridge,
and Sir George Hay, who had originally obtained

a monopoly on 24th December 1610 for making
glass in Scotland using either wood or coal as fuel,
and was making incursions into Mansell’s patent.
Merchants were also trying to import glass, some-

Fig. 17 Stained

glass in the

chapel of Easton
Lodge, 1621

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010 ,
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–
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SECRETS & MACHINATIONS

times on the pretence of its shortage, and other times
because of its quality. So much so, particularly regard-

ing window glass, that a commission was appointed

in 1620 to resolve the matter. One of those testi-

fying at the enquiry was Inigo Jones, then the Sur-

veyor of the Works to the King. His conclusion was
that
‘generally the cases are mingled with his best

and worst sort together, and all for the most part,

unless it be towards the edge of the tables, are very
thin.’
34

One of the outcomes of this commission was

to ban all imports of glass unless there were special

reasons for doing so. An example of imported glass

can be seen in Little Easton Church, Essex, which

contains a window thought to have been painted by

Batista Sutton of London and installed in the pri-

vate chapel of Easton Lodge around 1621
(Fig.17).

His most serious threat, however, was not connect-

ed with his own patent, but with the threat to the

patent system itself. It started in February 1621 when

the House of Commons had condemned a number of
patents for corruption, such as those for
‘Inns, Ostryes,

and Ale-houses’
and in a later case where
‘the Paten-

tees Abuse was, by mixing, gold and silver Thread with

Lead’.
The mood of the House was such that comments

like
‘These Blood-suckers of the Kingdom, and Vipers

of the Commonwealth, which have misled the King’

and
‘the Plague of Corruption did exceedingly poison

the Country’
were recorded, with feelings running so

high that a proposal was made for a Bill to be drawn

`to have all the Patents called in, and suppressed.’ ”

Each of the patents was examined on an individual

basis by the ‘Committee of Grievances’, the glass pat-

ent being no exception. Mansell, as it happened, had
been recalled back to duty with the Navy and had set

sail with the fleet when this was occurring, leaving his

very able wife to defend his position. After some for-
midable arguments, both for and against the patent,

the Committee of Grievances quite rightly decided to

leave a final decision until Mansell’s return. A num-

ber of glassmakers had, however, begun to take advan-

tage of this state of disorder, and the Privy Council

records that
‘divers persons presuming as it seemeth

to be freed from those prohibitions and restraints,
for that the said patent hath been lately questioned

in Parliament, doe not only erect new glasse workes
within the kingdome, but doe also bring in glass

from forraine partes’.
On one occasion, for example,

it was recorded that
‘Sir William Clavell and Byg-

oe and their assignees did bring great quantities of

green glasses from Purbeck aforesaid unto the City
of London and there sold the same’,
Bygoe being the

glassmaker running the Kimmeridge glasshouse.
36

When Mansell finally returned in the late sum-

mer of 1621, he then had to spend some considerable
time and effort in making his own representations

to the Committee, regaining his own patent rights,

and seeing off these latest attempts to under-

mine the patent. It was not until May 1624 that a
bill called the ‘Statute of Monopolies’ was finally

passed in both Houses, completely overhauling the

patent system and making the bulk of them null

and void. There was however provision for excep-
tions, one of these being Mansell’s glass patent.

Although he had now secured his patent rights,

these were still being challenged by the likes of Clavell

and Hay, and it was not until 1626 that Mansell could

say that he had full control of English glass produc-
tion, extending this further in 1627 when he bought

the Scottish patent from Sir George Hay. Glass-
houses at the time were still established around the
country in areas conducive to glassmaking, but coal

was now, of course, the major factor in their loca-

tion, rather than the older, traditional wooded areas.
Mansell himself would not have been direct-

ly involved in producing the glass, rather he would
have licenced the operation in return for a fee. This

can clearly be seen in an agreement of 1626 when

Mansell
‘did demise and grant unto Thomas Rob-

inson and John Dalby all that glass furnace or glass-

house with warehouses lying and being in Ratcliffe’
together with ‘the
several green drinking glasshouses or

glass furnaces at Newnham in the County of Glouces-
ter, Amblecote in the County of Stafford, Hidemill

in the County of Lancaster, Ruabon in the County
of Flint, and Handsworth in the County of Notting-

ham, and to all other glass furnaces in the Kingdom
of England and Dominion of Wales then erected and
then after to be erected wherein green drinking glasses

then were or of late had been made’ .
37
This
agreement

obviously gave Robinson and Dalby the sole manu-

facturing rights of ‘green’ drinking glasses in England

and Wales, and in return for the licence Mansell would

receive the sum of two thousand three hundred and

fifty pounds, paid in instalments. A similar agreement

of 1632 with his old adversary William Robson put

another fifteen hundred pounds into Mansell’s coffers.
Although the attacks on Mansell’s monopoly were

to continue for many years to come, the tenacious
character of the man, supported by his wife, was to

carry him through. In fact in 1634 he was grant-
ed yet another patent for
‘melting and making all

manner of drinking-glasses, broad glasses, window

glasses, looking-glasses, spectacle-glasses, bugles,

beads, otherwise known by the name of couterias

or byniadoes, bottles, vials, and vessels whatsoev-

er now made with sea-coal, pit-coal, or any other

kind or sort of fuel whatsoever, not being timber or
wood within his Majesty’s kingdom of England and

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

the dominion of Wales, and town of Berwick.’
38

Even with all these patents and licencing agree-

ments, the Mansells probably made very little money

out of the business, and by all accounts invested a great

deal of their own personal wealth. After the advent of
the English Civil War, the whole shape and character

of the glass industry was to change forever. Mansell
died in 1652, and the last reference to the glasshouse

in Broad Street actually came from an entry by Samuel
Pepys, in his diary for the 24th September 1660 where

he says ‘I
went to

a
dancing meeting in Broad Street,

at the house that was formerly the Glass-house.’
39

A more detailed account of the development of

early English glassmaking and the rise of the Stour-

bridge glass industry can be found in
‘Eighteenth

Century English Glass and its antecedents’.
Pub-

lished in Great Britain in 2016 by Michael Noble.
Contact couchant.publisherobtinternet.corn

PICTURE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Figs. 3, 5, 6, 8, I I are ©Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Figs. 4, 7 are © Corning Museum of Glass

The following are reproduced with acknowledgements to:

The British Museum, Fig.9. English Heritage, Fig. 10.

Penrice Castle, Fig. 16
Figs. I, 2, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17 are from the author.

ENDNOTES

1.
‘Staffordshire Historical Collections’, vol. 10, part I (1889),

pp. 87-102, available from British History Online

2.
G 105/2/4, 1370,G105/2/5, 18th April 1378, GI05/1/117,

23rdApril 1380, all refer, Surrey History Centre.

3.
Godfrey E.S., The Development
of English Glassmaking,

1975,

p. 12, citing S.P. 12/42, No. 43 [in French]

4.
Knowles, J.A., The Source of Coloured Glass

used in Medieval

England,
Glass, April 1926, p.201

5.
Lansdowne MS 8, NO. 17, €75, British Library Manuscripts

6.
Calendar of State Papers Venice,Vol. 5, pp. 318-325, No. 669,

13th June 1550.

7.
C 66/846, Patent Roll, 6 EdwVI, Pt. 5, 26th April I 552,The

National Archives, Kew

8.
SP 12/37 €5,The National Archive, Kew; Calendar State

Papers Domestic,Vol. 37, pp. 255-257, 7th Aug. 1565

9.
SP 12/43 f. 103, August [9] 1567, (in French),The Nation-

al Archive, Kew; Calendar State Papers Domestic,Vol. 43, pp.

296-298, No. 42,

10.
SP 15/ 13 f. I 79 [in French]; Calendar State Papers Domes-

tic ,Vol. 13, pp. 33-34, No. 89, July 1567 Addenda, pp. 33-34

I I . Letters of Denization, 1893, p.246.

12.
C 66/1135, Patent Roll, 17 Eliz. Pt. 13, mm 3-5, 15th

December I575,The National Archives, Kew

13.
John Strype, A Survey of

London,
1754, vol. 11, p. 327, and

Lansdowne MS. 48, No. 78, British Library Manuscripts
14.

Acts of the Privy Council of England,Vol. 12, pp. 336, 337,

1580/8 I , and Vol. 13, pp. 4, 5, 28th March 1581

15.
Lansdowne MS. 59, no. 77. British Library Manuscripts

16.
Calendar of Cecil Papers,Vol. 6, pp. 43-58, February 1596;

Vol. 14, pp. 31-49, Addenda
17.
G20/2/12,Will and LastTestament of Jacob Verzelini made

29 May 1604, Surrey Historical Centre, also PROB 11/109/37

will of JamesVersellin 20th January I 607 The National

Archives, Kew
18.
C 66/1394, Patent Roll, 34 Eliz. Pt. 15, 5th February

159 I /2,The National Archives, Kew

19.
LM/349/45, 4th May 1608, LM/349/63, 19th June I 609,

Loseley Manuscripts, Surrey Historical Centre

20.
E 112/95/569.b, 1607, ‘The joint and several answers

ofWilliam Turner William Robson and Thomas Lane’, The

National Archives, Kew

21.
E 112/96/628, Fawkener v. Robson, Robson and Beane,The

National Archives, Kew

22.
C 66/1751, Patent Roll, 6 Jac. I, Pt. I, mm. 1-9, 15th Feb.

1608,

23.
Simon Sturtevant, Metallica, London, George Eld, 1612

24.
North MS A.2, Fol 145, Bodlean Library,’Notes concerning

Sir Edward Zouche his patent for making of glasse with sea coles.’

25.
C 66/1850, Patent Rolls, 8 Jac. 1 , Pt. 12, No. 20, 28th July

1610,The National Archives, Kew

26.
SP 14/61 f.202,The National Archives, Kew; Calendar State

Papers Domestic,Vol. 61, pp. 5- 13, No. I 13, 26th February

1610/11

27.
C 66/1926, Patent Rolls, 9 Jac. I, Pt. 29, No. 19, 25th March

I 61 I ,The National Archives, Kew

28.
C 66/1993, Patent Rolls, 1 I Jac. 1 , Pt. 16, No. 4, 4th March

I614,The National Archives, Kew

29.
Acts of the Privy Council of England Vol. 33, pp. 634, 635,

18th November 1614.;Vol. 33, p. 643, 30th November 1614
0. C 66/2019, Patent Rolls, 12 Jac.1, Pt. 3 No. 9, 19th January

I 6 I 5,The National Archives, Kew

31.
Nef, J. U.,The Rise of the Coal Industry, 1932,Vo1.1, p. 219,

also quoting H.M.C. Report on the MSS. Of Lord Middleton,
pp. 500-1.

32.
Coker, J., A Survey of Dorsetshire, 1732, p.46

33.
Epistolae Ho-Elianae, 1737, pp. 18-20

34.
SP 14/113 f. 1 02,The National Archives, Kew ; C.S.P.D.Vol.

113, No. 53, p. 127-135, 29th March 1620

35.
Journal of the House of Commons,Vol. I , 27th February

1621; 5th March 1621; 2nd March 162 I ; 5th March 1621, pp.

529-539

36.
Acts of the Privy Council of England, Vol. 38, p. 17, 16th July

1621

37.
H1/25, Indenture between Sir Robert Mansell and William

Robson, 3 I st December I 632, Salters’ Company Archives.

38.
Price W.H.,The English Patents of Monopoly, 1913, Appen-

dix Z, p. 229

39.
Diary and correspondence of Samuel Pepys, reprint, p. I 17,

24th September 1660

MISS LAWLEY AND NORTHWOOD

TheAdorable Miss Lawley

James “easel)
In
The Crystal Years,
there is an account of the etch-

ing process at the J. & J. Northwood glass decorating
firm in Wordsley, and author R. S. Williams-Thomas

describes the woman who was ‘in charge of operations

… the adorable Miss Lawley … so sweet, and with a head

of tight silver-gold curls above her velvet neck band and

lace collar.” The diary of Samuel Cox Williams records
that Miss Margaret Lawley
(Fig.1)
‘supervised’ the glass

etching processes when the J. & J. Northwood enter-

prise worked closely with the Stevens & Williams glass

manufactory and that she was the mother of a child
named John Northwood who was born in 1870.
2
This

latter fact goes without mention in sources that discuss
the glassmaking careers of various Northwood men.
Who was Margaret Lawley? What can be known

about her and those related to her as well as others in
the large Northwood family? Public records of births,

marriages, and deaths provide insights that are supple-

mented by other sources, such as the Office for National

Statistics (ONS) decennial census rolls.’ These histor-

ical records reveal much information about Margaret

Lawley and various members of the Northwood families.
Margaret Lawley was born on 5 October 1844. Her

parents, Timothy Lawley and Isabella Lawley, had been
born and reared in Ireland. They came to England

during the 1830s to settle in the St. Mary’s district of

Birmingham, and their sons John and Timothy were
born there in 1838 and 1839, respectively. The birth-

place of Margaret Lawley was officially registered as

Wordsley on 19 October 1844 by her father Timothy
Lawley, although the subsequent 1851 Census lists her
place of birth as Great Bridge, Staffordshire. The birth

registry for Margaret Lawley gives Timothy Lawley’s

occupation in 1844 as `boneburner.’ The 1851 Cen-
sus records the entire Lawley household then residing

in Wordsley Green. Timothy Lawley’s occupation is

given as Ag Lab’ [agricultural labourer]. Along with

Timothy Lawley’s wife Isabella, the Lawley family con-
sisted of John Lawley, 13; Timothy Lawley, 11; Mar-

garet Lawley, 6; Ellen Lawley, 4; and Daniel Lawley, 1.
In the late 1850s, John Northwood (1836-1902) and

his brother Joseph Northwood (1840-1915) decided to

start a glass decorating business, using traditional glass
engraving methods as well as recently developed pro-
Fig. I Portrait of Margaret Lawley by John Northwood, c.1869

cesses for etching glassware with decorative motifs. The

Northwood brothers were joined by two other young
men, Thomas Guest and Henry Gething Richardson,

the son of glassmaker Benjamin Richardson. This fledg-
ling organisation occupied buildings in Barnett Lane,

Wordsley, and began operations. The arrangement last-

ed about a year until Thomas Guest decided to start a

separate glass decorating firm with his brothers Edward

Guest and Richard Guest. John Northwood and Joseph
Northwood continued their fledgling enterprise under

the name J. & J. Northwood.’ The paths of John North-

wood and Margaret Lawley would cross in the 1860s.
The 1861 Census lists John Northwood’s occupation

as ‘glass ornamenter and engraver.’ He was then living

in The Tack, Enville Street, Wordsley, with his wife Eliz-

abeth and their son Harry, who was born on 30 June

1860. A niece, Fanny Collins, was also a member of the
Northwood household. Marriage records indicate that

John Northwood, glass ornamenter, 23, and Elizabeth
Duggans, 23, were married by pastor William Bevan

in the Snow Hill Congregational Church at Wolver-
hampton on 5 February 1860.
5
The daughter of butch-

er Samuel Duggans, Elizabeth Duggans had resided in

Cross Street, Wolverhampton, prior to the marriage.

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

According to the 1861 Census, Margaret Lawley, 17,

was living in Wordsley Green. Her father, Timothy Law-
ley, had passed away in 1860. Margaret’s young broth-

er Daniel Lawley had died of fever at age 5 on 12 July

1856, and the death certificate gives his deceased father’s

occupation as ‘Flint Glass Teazer.’
6
In the 1861 Cen-

sus, Margaret Lawley’s occupation is listed as ‘servant,’

although she resided in the home she shared with her

widowed mother Isabella. The other Lawley household
members recorded in the 1861 Census were Margaret’s
brothers, John Lawley, 23 (occupation: glass maker) and

Timothy Lawley, 21 (occupation: glass cutter). In 1861,
Ellen Lawley, 14, was then employed as a servant in the
Birmingham household of gun manufacturer Arthur

Adams and his wife Emma and their five young children.

Various records enable one to discover many details

pertaining to Margaret Lawley’s siblings in subsequent

decades. The 1871 Census has John Lawley (occupation:

glass maker) and his wife Elizabeth Rebecca Lawley and
their son John Samuel Lawley, 3, in Birmingham; sister

Ellen Lawley, 24 (occupation: warehouse woman), was
also in the household. In 1877, Ellen Lawley married

Benjamin Fenn, a glass engraver at J. & J. Northwood,

and the 1881 Census lists her and husband Benjamin
Fenn living in Dunbar Street, Wordsley. The 1881 Cen-

sus has John Lawley (occupation: glass maker) in Bir-

mingham with his wife Elizabeth Rebecca Lawley along

with son John Samuel Lawley, 13, and daughter Ellen
Isabella Lawley, 8. The 1881 Census has bachelor Timo-
thy Lawley (occupation: glass cutter) in Sheffield residing

as a boarder in 35 Furnival Street, and this same infor-

mation is found in the 1891 Census. However, the 1901

Census lists Timothy Lawley as a widower residing in

Sheffield, and death records indicate that he passed away
in Sheffield in 1903. The 1891 Census has Margaret Law-
ley’s nephew John Samuel Lawley, 23 (occupation: glass

blower) residing in Birmingham with his wife Fannie.
Sometime in the 1860s, Margaret Lawley was hired as

an employee at the J. & J. Northwood glass decorating

firm, and, as noted earlier in
this article, she later became

supervisor of the glass etch-
ing operations. The 1871

Census reveals that Mar-

garet Lawley (occupation:

glass ornamenter) was
residing with her mother

Isabella Lawley in Barnett
Lane, Wordsley, close to the

Fig. 2 This letterhead was used
by the J. & J. Northwood firm

in the 1870s
J. & J. Northwood firm. The 1871 Census also records

residence information in 11 Dawley Brook, Kingswin-

ford, for John Northwood and his family: wife Elizabeth;

sons Harry, 10, and Frederick, 5; and daughters Amy,

9, Eva, 2, and Ina, 1 (there were two other Northwood

daughters: Ada Northwood died in infancy in 1865, and

Minnie Northwood died in 1866 at age 3). John North-

wood’s occupation is given as ‘Master Glass ornamenter
employing 8 men, 17 girls.’ One of the 17 girls then in

the employ of J. & J. Northwood was Margaret Lawley.
The female workers were important to the success

of the J. & J. Northwood enterprise, as detailed in the

following account of the ‘cheaper labour’ provided by

`young women who came from the adjoining village of
Wordsley’ and nearby areas: ‘They were taught how to

work and use the various etching machines, and most
important, were trained to use the etching stiletto. It
looked an easy matter when watching their use of this
tool—drawing smoothly and quickly a pattern on the

waxed surface of the glass—doing this work for nine
hours per day, when many dozens of articles passed

through one girl’s hands, but it was to most people

very difficult to learn.’? This same source describes the
general circumstances in which these young women
found themselves: ‘The Works of J. and J. Northwood

(Fig.2)
were pleasantly situated on the outskirts of the

village and the workpeople could see through their win-
dows, fields and gardens around them, as at that time

there were only a few houses in the neighbourhood. It

was ideally an English craftsman home, congenial to
the artistic spirit of the everyday work done there.’
8

The birth registration and the census rolls for 1871

and 1881 provide details about Margaret Lawley and the

child born to her on 7 May 1870. The official birth reg-

istry, as completed by Margaret Lawley on 24 May 1870,
states that the boy, named John Northwood, was born
to ‘Margaret Northwood formerly Lawley.’ Her place

of residence is given as Chaddesley Corbett, a village in
the Worcestershire countryside between Bromsgrove and

MISS LAWLEY AND NORTHWOOD

Kidderminster. The father of the child is listed as John
Northwood (profession: glass ornamenter) on the birth
registry. In the 1871 Census, 11-month-old John North-

wood, living with Isabella Lawley and Margaret Lawley
in Barnett Lane, Wordsley, is listed as ‘Grand Son,’ thus
designating his relation to Isabella Lawley. His name is

recorded in the 1871 Census as ‘John Lawley North-

wood.’ The second forename lawley’ reflects the tradi-

tion of using a mother’s maiden name for a middle name

after a child’s given name; however, there is no record of

a marriage for John Northwood and Margaret Lawley.
The elder John Northwood continued to maintain

a family with his wife Elizabeth in Kingswinford. The

1881 Census records John Northwood (occupation:
glass designer and engraver) in Elm Tree House, King-

swinford. The family residing there consisted of wife

Elizabeth; sons Harry (occupation: glass engraver),
9

Frederick and Carl; and daughters Amy, Eva, Ina, Win-

ifred, Ethel and Mabel.’° During 1878, another son had
been born to Elizabeth and John Northwood. This child,

born in Kingswinford on 11 June 1878 and named

John Northwood, died just a week thereafter on 18

June 1878, and the death certificate gives the cause
of death as ‘premature birth.’ Both the birth certifi-
cate and the death certificate were registered by Eliz-

abeth Northwood on 19 June 1878. The Northwood

family tomb at Holy Trinity Church in Wordsley has

an inscription that mentions two Northwood chil-
dren, Ada and John, who ‘died in infancy’ although

the respective years of their deaths are not given.

As recorded in the 1881 Census, Isabella Lawley,

her daughter Margaret Lawley (occupation: glass etch-

er) and the younger John Northwood were living in

Dunbar Street, Wordsley. The 1881 Census listing for
the younger John Northwood, age 11, does not con-

tain the second forename of lawley,’ but the nota-

tion ‘Son of M. L.’ [Margaret Lawley] was entered

by the census enumerator. Isabella Lawley died on 1

February 1886, and the death certificate lists her resi-

dence as Dunbar Street, Wordsley. The death of Isabel-
la Lawley was registered by her son-in-law Benjamin

Fenn, who was then living in Rectory Street, King-
swinford, with his wife, Ellen Lawley Fenn.
(Fig.3)

In April 1882, the elder John Northwood parted

ways with his brother Joseph and left the J. & J. North-

wood enterprise to join the Stevens & Williams glass
manufacturing establishment at Brierley Hill. This
organisation was then celebrating the commencement

of a cutting shop operation that employed more than 50
glass cutters. The firm provided funds to host a dinner

for the glass cutters that John Northwood also attended

on 22 April 1882. The diary of Samuel Cox Williams

records that John Northwood was welcomed as ‘artist,

manager &c.’ at Stevens & Williams and that some cus-
Fig. 3 This indicia, used by the J. & J. Northwood firm, is

sometimes seen on drawings for glass designs

tomers of the firm ‘wrote to congratulate us’ regarding
his employ.” Later in the 1880s, Joseph Northwood

became disassociated from the J. & J. Northwood firm

and established himself as a merchant selling china and

glass in Wolverhampton. According to the 1881 Cen-

sus, Joseph Northwood (occupation: glass ornament-
er) was living with his wife Rebecca, daughters Laura

and Eleanor, and son Charles (occupation: glass etch-

er) in Lawnswood, Kingswinford. In the 1891 Census,

Joseph Northwood (occupation: china dealer) and his
family were residing in Birch Street in Wolverhampton.

In the 1891 Census, Margaret Lawley (occupation:

glass decorator) was listed as residing in Dunbar Street,

Wordsley, and this entry does not note any other resi-
dents in the household. The 1891 Census also records

a residence for the elder John Northwood at Wall

Heath, Kingswinford, in the High Street near to the

Prince Albert Inn.’
2
Kelly’s

Directory of Staffordshire

for 1892 contains this listing: ‘Northwood, John, The

Laurels, Wall Heath.’ These Northwood family mem-
bers also resided there: wife Elizabeth; daughters Ina

(occupation: milliner), Winifred, Ethel (occupation:
pupil teacher) and Mabel; and son Carl (occupation:

drapers assistant). Carl Northwood emigrated to the

United States later in 1891 to join his brother Harry
Northwood in Martins Ferry, Ohio, where the North-

wood Glass Co. was in business. In 1891, Frederick

Northwood (occupation: draper) was living in Brierley
Hill with his wife Louisa and their daughters Elsie and

Maria. During 1897-1902, Frederick Northwood was

the licence holder of the Seven Stars pub in the High

Street, Wall Heath (in March 1900, he was fined £3 17s

6d for assaulting his brother-in-law John Bradley; see
the full account in the
County Express,
3 March 1900).

At this point, it should be noted that John

Northwood had two households: the first, located

in the High Street at Wall Heath, was known as The

Laurels, and the second, known as Honeybourne

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

Fig.4 Honeybourne House,
photographed in May 2019;

the extension to the house
was built shortly after 1900

House
(Fig.4),
was situated in North Street adjacent

to the Stevens & Williams glass manufactory
(Fig.5).’

David Williams-Thomas relates that Honeybourne

House was ‘improved for John Northwood’s use’ a few

years after he had joined the Stevens & Williams firm
in 1882, and Williams-Thomas also references the
memoirs of Reginald Silvers Williams-Thomas (1914-

1990) to note that ‘Miss Lawley lived with “old John” at
Honeybourne, and [she] was a charming old lady with
ringlets of white hair and a black frock up to her neck.'”
The 1891 Census does not record the whereabouts

of the younger John Northwood, who would then have
been nearly 21 years of age. Marriage records indicate

that he was residing in Wordsley when he married Ellen

Eliza Guest in the fall of 1893. The daughter of John

Guest and his wife Margaret, Ellen Eliza Guest was

born in Amblecote in 1869 (The ONS Census Office

rolls for 1871 and 1881 give John Guest’s occupation as

`engine fitter in glass works’). The marriage of the young-

er John Northwood and Ellen Eliza Guest took place

on 5 October 1893 at Holy Trinity Church, Amble-
cote. In 1898, when the elder John Northwood pre-
pared a last will and testament, he mentioned ‘my son

John Northwood the younger’ and indicated that this
son’s place of residence was ‘North Street Brierley Hill.”‘

The 1901 Census records The Laurels residence for

the elder John Northwood (occupation: glass manu-

facturer) in 34 High Street, Wall Heath, Kingswinford,

with these members of the household: wife Elizabeth;
daughter Ethel Northwood; daughter Ina Northwood

Attwood and her husband Charles Attwood; and grand-
daughter Ina C. Attwood. The 1901 Census lists the

younger John Northwood (occupation: foreman in glass
works) and his wife Ellen in North Street, Brierley Hill,

with their three daughters (Muriel, Hilda Margaret,

and Ellen) and servant Annie Elizabeth Wilfred. There
is no record of Margaret Lawley in the 1901 Census.

The elder John Northwood passed away on Thursday

13 February 1902, and the official death registry

document gives the place of his death as Wall Heath,
Kingswinford, as attested to by ‘F. [Frederick] Northwood

son’ on 14 February 1902. The last will and testament
of John Northwood had been prepared in 1898, and
this document designated the executors of his estate:

eldest son Harry Northwood, who had emigrated

to the United States in 1881 and became a famous

Fig.5 The main entrance to Honeybourne House, photographed
in May 2019

MISS LAWLEY AND NORTHWOOD

glassmaker, and son-in-law, David Campbell, who

was a designer of carpet. The elder John Northwood’s

will bequeathed all of his ‘Real and personal Estate’ to
his wife Elizabeth. The will mentions monetary sums

for daughters Amy, Eva, Ina, Winifred and Mabel as

well as son Frederick. The only reference in the will
to ‘my son John Northwood the younger’ does not

mention money and contains this phrase: ‘whom I have

otherwise provided for in my lifetime.’ In a lengthy
account of the funeral of John Northwood
(County

Express,
22 February 1902), numerous mourners are

listed, but the surname Lawley is not among them.

Within a short time after the elder John Northwood’s

death, the Wall Heath residence known as The Laurels

was offered `to let.’ Described in Public Notices in the

Advertiser
(15, 22 and 29 March 1902) as ‘lately in the

occupation of John Northwood, Esq., deceased’ and

`commodious and desirable,’ The Laurels was ‘composed
of Tiled Entrance Hall, handsome Dining, Drawing,

Breakfast, Sitting and Housekeeper’s Rooms, six large Bed
Rooms, with Bath Room, Lavatory, etc., Kitchen, Scullery,

and all the most convenient Offices: well fruited Garden,

with Lawn and Drive, lined by valuable Shrubs, Stabling

for Two Horses, Coach-house, with commodious Yard.”
6

Most of the children of the elder John Northwood

and Elizabeth Northwood were married by this time
in 1902 and had their own homes, and widow Eliza-

beth Northwood continued to reside at The Laurels

whilst efforts were underway to rent the premises. A
few months later, perhaps because of difficulty in secur-

ing a tenant for The Laurels, the executors of the elder

John Northwood’s estate decided to sell The Laurels at
auction. Public Notices appeared in the
Advertiser
(14,

21 and 28 June 1902), and the sale was scheduled for

30 June 1902 at the Cross Hotel in Kingswinford. The

results of this sale are not known, but Elizabeth North-

wood remained in residence at The Laurels for another
year, when the premises were again offered for sale at
auction
(Advertiser,

13 and 20 June 1903). The Lau-

rels was sold for £750 on 23 June 1903, but the identity

of the purchaser was not disclosed in a brief newspa-
per account of the auction
(Advertiser,
27 June 1903).

In mid-1903, Elizabeth Northwood relocated

from The Laurels to a smaller residence in Kingswin-

ford, where she lived until her death.
Kelly’s Direc-

tory of Staffordshire
for 1904 contains this listing:

`Northwood, Mrs. John, Market Street, Kingswin-
ford.’ Elizabeth Northwood passed away at her resi-

dence on 7 January 1908. A brief notice of her death
noted that ‘since the death of Mr. Northwood, six years

ago, she had been in failing health, and was latterly a
chronic invalid’
(County Express,

11 January 1908).

Shortly after the death of the elder John Northwood

in 1902, the younger John Northwood became art direc-
Fig. 6 When Queen Elizabeth visited Honeybourne House

in the I 950s, John Northwood spoke with her about Royal

Brierley crystal

tor
at the Stevens & Williams firm in Brierley Hill. He

and his family occupied Honeybourne House for many

years, although it is not clear whether their occupancy

commenced soon after his marriage to Ellen Eliza Guest
in 1893 or after the death of the elder John Northwood

in 1902. In any case, Honeybourne House was extend-

ed in size to better accommodate his family. As record-

ed in the 1911 Census, the younger John Northwood

resided at Honeybourne House in North Street, Brier-

ley Hill, with his family: wife Ellen; daughters Muriel,

16; Hilda Margaret, 14; Ellen, 12, and Lilian Irene, 6;
and sons John Harry, 8, and Arthur Leslie, 3 (anoth-

er son, Kenneth Northwood, was born in December

1911). Margaret Lawley, 63, is listed in the 1911 Census
as a ‘visitor’ in this household. In the Census protocol
over many years, the term ‘visitor’ designated any per-

son (other than a boarder or a servant) who had stayed

overnight in the residence at the time when the census

forms were completed by the head of the household. In
this instance, of course, it is clear that Margaret Lawley

resided with her son John Northwood and his family.

Perhaps she had done so since the marriage of the young-
er John Northwood and Ellen Eliza Guest in 1893 or

since the death of the elder John Northwood in 1902.

At age 86, Margaret Lawley passed away on 14 July

1931, and the death registry certificate provides evidence
regarding her place of residence and her relationship with

the family of her son, the younger John Northwood.

The certificate gives the place of her death as ‘2 North

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

Street, Brierley Hill,’ and the person reporting the death

was ‘Ellen E. Northwood, daughter-in-law … 2 North
Street, Brierley Hill.’ The certificate also describes Mar-

garet Lawley as ‘Spinster (of no occupation), Daughter
of Timothy Lawley, Ironworks furnaceman (deceased).’

Margaret Lawley did not leave a last will and testament.

The younger John Northwood is credited with con-

tinuing the ‘cameo tradition”? at Stevens & Williams, and
he enjoyed a lengthy career in the glass industry until his

death at age 90 in 1960. He was an active and esteemed
member of the Society of Glass Technology, and he par-

ticipated in quarterly meetings and wrote several articles

for that organisation’s learned journal
(Fig.6).

North-

wood was also instrumental in establishing a noteworthy
collection of Stourbridge glass that was exhibited during
the Festival of Britain in 1951. In 1958, he authored the

detailed biography of his father, the elder John North-

wood, that is referenced in notes accompanying this article.

PICTURE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Fig. I is
courtesy
ofJohn Northwood III

Figs.2 and
3 are courtesy of the Collection ofThe
Rakow

Research Library, The Corning
Museum of
Glass, Corning, NY.

Figs.4 and 5
are courtesy of the author

ENDNOTES
I. R. S.Williams-Thomas,
The Crystal

Years:A
Tribute
to

the
Skills

and Artistry of
Stevens &
Williams Royal

Brierley
Crystal
(Brierley

Hill: Stevens & Williams, Limited, 1983), pp. 40-41.

2. As noted in David Williams-Thomas,’Introduction’ to The

Dynasty Builder:The Hidden
Diaries of

Samuel Cox Williams,

Founder
of Stevens
and Williams
(Bath: Brown Dog Books,

2016), pp. 35 and 119.
3.The subscription website
ukcensusonline.com
is an exceptional-

ly valuable research tool, since one can research births, marriag-

es and deaths as well as the Census rolls I 841-1911.

4. Charles R. Hajdamach,
British Glass 1800-19 I

4 (Suffolk:

Antique Collectors Club, 1991), pp. 179-192 and Jason Ellis,

Glassmakers of Stourbridge and Dudley 16 12-2002
(Harrow-

gate: privately published, 2002), pp. 334-335.

5.A minute book containing handwritten entries of the church’s

marriage and baptismal records 1849-1864 can be consulted at

the Wolverhampton City Archives (catalogue DX-125/ I /1).
6. Sometimes spelled ‘teaser in sources that describe glassmak-

ing, this term refers to labourers who were responsible for var-

ious jobs in glass manufacturing plants, particularly regulating

and maintaining the melting furnaces. In addition, their duties
might include mixing raw materials for glass batches, shoveling

batch into the melting furnaces, and skimming impurities called

‘glass gall’ from the melting furnaces so that glassmaking could
commence properly at the scheduled time for the start of a

turn. For further information, including the ‘barbarous hours’ of
work for teazers, see John Northwood II,
John Northwood:

His

Contribution
to the
Stourbridge Flint

Glass

Industry 1850-1902
(Stourbridge: Mark and Moody, 1958), pp. 97-98.

7.
Northwood
II, John Northwood,

p. 6 I .

8.
Northwood
II,John Northwood,

p. 29.

9.
Several months after the census was taken in April 188 I ,

Harry Northwood emigrated to the United States as a

steerage passenger on the S. S.
England,

arriving in NewYork

City on I November 1881. He journeyed to Wheeling,West

Virginia, where he joined his cousin Thomas Dugan (who had
changed his Duggans surname) and found employ as a glass

etcher at the glass manufactory of Hobbs, Brockunier and Co.
10.The six Northwood daughters were married in later years:

Amy Northwood Glaze (married Albert Glaze in 1886); Eva
Northwood Campbell (married David Campbell in 1896); Ina

Northwood Attwood (married Charles Attwood in I 898);

Winifred Northwood Meredith (married Will Meredith in
1897); Ethel Northwood Guy (married Leonard Guy in 1903);

and Mabel Northwood Bradley (married John Bradley in 1897).

I 1.Williams-Thomas,
Dynasty Builder,

pp. 119 and 470-471.

12.
In early 1937, the licence for the Prince Albert pub was

transferred to The Laurels, and the former Northwood res-

idence became a pub.The original Prince Albert building is

no longer standing, but the Prince Albert pub is in business in

2019 in the former structure known as The Laurels.

13.
For an illustration of the 1901 location of Honeybourne

House adjacent to the Stevens & Williams glass factory, see

The Godfrey Edition, Old Ordnance Survey Maps, Stafford-

shire Sheet 71.06, for ‘Brierley Hill (West) & Brettell Lane

1901, second edition 1903’ (Leadgate, Consett Alan Godfrey
Maps, 2006) for the directions in John Boynton’s comments

(‘the house is right above the “r” in street in North Street on
the map’!). Following the closure of Royal Brierley Crystal (the

successor to Stevens & Williams) and the demolition of some
buildings, this area of Brierley Hill has been redeveloped and

numerous housing units constructed.The postcode for the
private residence Honeybourne House on Bague Walk, Brier-

ley Hill, is DY5 3AT.

14.Williams-Thomas,
Dynasty Builder,

p. I 19. In personal corre-

spondence to this writer in 1989-1990, Kenneth Northwood,
son of the younger John Northwood, reiterated the fact that

the elder John Northwood maintained two households. John

Northwood Ill, the grandson of the younger John Northwood
and son of Arthur Leslie Northwood, relates that his family
referred to Margaret Lawley as ‘Grannie Lawley.’ David Wil-

liams-Thomas thinks that Margaret Lawley may be pictured

(back row center, wearing black blouse) in a group of employ-

ees c. 1900 (see p. 136 of
The
Dynasty Builder).

15.
Hadjamach,
British Glass
I 800-1914, p. 438.

16.
Other references suggest that Northwood’s Wall Heath

residence was ‘The Cedars’
(Advertiser,
15 February 1902, and

County
Express, 22 February I 902), but The Laurels’ is surely

the correct local name.This building in Wall Heath, Kingswin-
ford, is now the home of the Prince Albert pub.
17.
Charles Hajdamach,

20th
Century
British Glass

(Wood-

bridge, Suffolk:Antique Collectors Club, 2009), p. 73.

TVS 7.1

,
WiEr31
Or
PRACTICAL 4ZOLOGI..1.1
n
111V}.7.27.-(1. Pit.CLIMIC

COLLECTING FOR THE NATION

Collecting for the nation:

The origins of the glass collections

at theVictoria and Albert

Museum, acquired c. 1840-60

Susan Newell

This article is based on a paper read by Susan New-
ell at the joint Annual General Meeting of the Glass
Circle and the Glass Association held at the Vic-
toria and Albert Museum, 13th October 2018.

Introduction

The subject of this article is the growth of the earliest
glass collections in two government-funded institutions

where the collections were later merged. The institutions
in question are the earliest iterations of the Victoria and

Albert Museum (V&A) and the first national museum
dedicated to science, the Museum of Practical Geology

(MPG). While my narrative aims to contribute to the his-

tory of institutional collecting in the field of glass, I also

hope to shed light on wider issues connected with art and

science education, manufacturing, class and collecting
fashions in mid-nineteenth-century Britain. In the case of
both museums the authorities responsible for acquisitions

professed to have educational intentions, but despite the

high-minded seriousness of their aims, I will show that

these were affected by collecting fashions prevalent in

society at the time. As the subject of glass collecting at

the geological museum has not been published before

and represents new research, the emphasis will be on the

items in this collection rather than those belonging to the

better known collections of the early V&A which have

a more extensive historiography, discussed on page 48.
1

The foundations of the magnificent glass collection

at the V&A were laid during the mid-nineteenth cen-

tury. Glass items were included in a group of decorative

and fine art items originally acquired for teaching pur-
poses in an
ad hoc

‘museum’ attached to the Govern-

ment School of Design at Somerset House founded in

1837.
2

The collection was formalised as the Museum of

Ornamental Art and moved with the School in 1852 to
Marlborough House, home of the new Department of

Practical Art under Henry Cole (1808-1882). The prof-

itable success of the Great Exhibition in 1851 allowed
the government to buy land for a new cultural quarter

in South Kensington, a semi-rural area of London at the
time. At Marlborough House, the museum was known as

the Museum of Manufactures and when the buildings in

South Kensington were ready, the Department moved to
the museum’s present site, which opened to the public in

1857 and was known as the South Kensington Museum,
(SKM). The School’s early collection formed at Somerset
House and Marlborough House was at the core of the vast
collections at this museum, known as the V&A today.
It is the glass acquired during the earliest decades

c.1840-1860 that is the subject of this paper. It may

surprise some readers to learn that, similar to the ear-

ly V&A, the MPG was a national body in central Lon-

don where glass was actively being collected during this

period. Largely forgotten today as the building does not

survive and its geological collections are now part of the

Natural History Museum, the MPG was the home of
the new Geological Survey of Britain founded in 1835

Fig. I ‘The New Museum of Practical Geology, Jermyn-Street’,
wood engraving, Illustrated London News, I May 185 I , p.422.

Architect, James Pennethorne, designed c. 1842-48, opened 1851

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

under the direction of Henry De la Beche (1796-1855),

an experienced geological surveyor and a member of the

elite Geological Society. Originally called the Museum

of Economic Geology and sited in makeshift premises
in Craig’s Court near Charing Cross, the MPG moved

to a handsome purpose-built building in Jermyn Street
in 1851 where De la Beche set out to form a comprehen-

sive collection of British geological specimens, mostly

supplied by himself and his growing team of surveyors.

A view of the Jermyn Street building can be seen in
Fig. 1.

In the mid-nineteenth century when curators had great
autonomy in deciding the character of new institutions,

De la Beche considered substantial groups of ceramics,
metalwork and glass, presented alongside their constit-
uent raw materials, to be an essential component of his

museum’s displays.
3
In 1901, the entire decorative arts

collection of the MPG was transferred to the V&A, as
the South Kensington Museum had been re-named

in 1899, effecting a merger of the two groups of items

collected in parallel during the early period c.1840-60.

Due to the partial nature of the surviving records and/or
objects from the period under examination, this article

will not attempt a quantitative survey of these early col-
lections, but will offer instead an overview of the types of

glass items collected by both institutions, drawing atten-

tion to the areas where they overlap or appear to differ.

A historiography of early glass collecting by
the institutions that became the Victoria and

Albert Museum
In
terms of the glass collections at the museum today, this

early phase of the V&A’s collecting history has only latter-
ly been considered of interest. Nearly two decades before
the ‘collecting turn’ of museum studies in the 1990s, Bar-

bara Morris (a curator in the Circulation Department of

the museum), considered the early collecting of the Muse-

um of Ornamental Art in her ground-breaking study of

Victorian glass published in 1978.
4
However, her princi-

pal concern in this volume was contemporary production

across the whole period rather than collecting practices
per se. A seminal article by Clive Wainwright, Keeper

of Furniture, (published posthumously in two parts in

2002), investigated the growth of the museum’s collec-

tions from its earliest days as an adjunct to the School of

Design.’ He draws on the correspondence of the School’s

Director, Charles Heath Wilson (1809-1892), with gov-
ernment officials for evidence of the rationale behind
the acquisitions: the School’s official aim was to pro-

vide approved models for artisans to imitate, thereby
effecting the improvement of design standards in British

manufacturing. In line with the prevailing opinion of

the day, ‘best design’ was considered to be Continental –
predominantly French in terms of contemporary work,

and mostly German and Italian in relation to historical
items. The glass acquired during the 1840s governed by

these policies will be a point of departure for my narrative.

Robin Hildyard, Deputy Curator of the Ceramics

and Glass Department at the V&A, published an essay

in 1999 on the growth of the museum’s early collections
of seventeenth and eighteenth-century glass in
Glass

Collectors and their Collections in Museums in Great
Britain.
6
This important contribution to the history of

British glass collecting was the result of a Glass Circle

Symposium held at the British Museum in 1997. With
the exception of the British Museum (the recipient in

1868 of Felix Slade’s vast collection), Hildyard’s research
showed that collecting patterns at the V&A echoed those

of other major museums covered in the volume; they

were founded on major gifts of private collections accu-
mulated principally during the first half of the twentieth

century.’ The museum’s own collecting of glass during
its founding decades and the MPG’s contribution to

its collections were not addressed by Hildyard in his

essay, so I will take the opportunity to fill that gap here.

Glass collecting at the geological museum
Records of the first five years of the geological museum’s
existence are extremely thin, however a daybook of 1839

reveals that boxes, hampers, cases, casks, baskets, parcels,

jars and bundles regularly arrived at the museum’s door.’

These would have mostly contained rock and miner-
al specimens and the first record of glass at the muse-

um occurred in 1842, see page 50. Unlike the extensive

ceramics collections published in a catalogue that ran
to four editions issued between 1855 -1893, there was

no equivalent publication for the museum’s glass which

appears never to have been listed. It is therefore difficult

to be certain when an individual piece was acquired.’

Exceptions to this occur only rarely when for example,
items can be linked to the text of two general guide-

books to the collection published in 1843 and 1857, or

when the present writer has discovered identifiable items

in the museum’s accounts or other archival sources.rn
My research into primary sources at the British Geo-

logical Survey (BGS) would suggest that glass was rarely
acquired after about 1860.” This theory is supported by

various factors. I believe the impetus for the collecting
of decorative art as ‘applied geology’ was driven by De
la Beche himself, who died in 1855. His trusted curator

Trenham Reeks (1823-1879), appears to have contin-
ued accepting gifts for the museum on rare occasions in

the 1860s, however increasing overcrowding of the dis-

plays also militated against this strand of collecting. A

change in the museum’s focus to become more narrow-

ly ‘geological’ also reflects the increasing specialisation
and separation of the sciences and the arts during the

final quarter of the nineteenth century. Another factor
against the active acquisition of objects during this pefi-

Antiques et Itindernes
COLLECTING FOR THE NATION

od was the growth of the SKM which was increasingly
identified as the national centre for the decorative arts.
The Accession Registers of 1901 in the V&A are our

main source of knowledge about the glass formerly at the

MPG. The decorative art items transferred there from

the `Jermyn Street Museum’ (as the MPG was common-

ly known by then), were listed and given a number end-

ing in 1901 to denote the year of their entry into the

collection. While the majority of the 5000+ items were

ceramics, the Registers record items of glass, metal-ware,
enamels and jewellery scattered throughout the relevant

volumes.
12

However, research in the Registers quickly

shows that the surviving MPG items in the V&A afford
only a partial view of the geological museum’s collection

which originally included raw materials, utilitarian and
scientific objects, specially commissioned samples show-

ing stages of production, glassmaking tools and models,
almost none of which survive today.” I will draw mainly

on a combination of surviving objects and related archi-

val evidence to evoke the geological museum’s collections.

The character of the glass collection at
the

Museum of Practical Geology

The glass collections of the MPG appear to be extreme-
ly diverse although re-contextualising them within their

geological frame provides unity of a kind. I believe that

De la Beche was probably influenced in his eclectic
collecting by the only publication relating to ceramics

and glass available in the 1840s, namely the catalogue
of the ceramics museum established by the Director of

the French national porcelain manufactory at Sevres,

Alexandre Brongniart (1770-1847).
14
As well as being

in charge of Sevres, arguably the most prestigious dec-
orative arts institution anywhere at the time, Brongni-

art was also a celebrated geologist, known personally
to De la Beche.” The museum he established at Sevres

demonstrated his aim to present a comprehensive dis-

play of historical and contemporary ceramics and glass.

Steeped in the Enlightenment tradition of the
encyclope-

distes,
his catalogue reflected this aim and the objects

were organised by production technique and decora-
tion, irrespective of age and geographical origin as can
be seen in this plate illustrating part of the glass collec-

tion at Sevres,
(Fig.2).

De la Beche, while collecting on

a smaller scale, accumulated wide-ranging collections

of ceramics and glass, which extended far beyond the
interests of elite collectors of the time and could be
termed ‘scientific’ in the same way as the French col-

lection. The glass collection of the MPG had no uni-

fying factors and cannot be defined by designer, genre,

glassworks, nor indeed any particular place or period.
In his inaugural address at the opening of the new

Jermyn Street museum building De la Beche stressed

the seriousness of his pedagogical intentions: displays

were not, ‘mere assemblages of specimens striking either
for their brilliancy, colour, or form’, but were presented

for the purposes of instruction about the applications

of geology.’
6

A parallel can be found at the Museum of

Ornamental Art where the focus was initially on incul-
cating better design standards for artisans and manu-
facturers, as discussed on page 48. This situates both

institutions in the sphere of progressivist Victorian

thinking that has been explored by numerous authors in

relation to the Great Exhibition.” The Exhibition itself
plays a part in my narrative and will be discussed shortly

as the curators of both museums made purchases there.

Fig. 2 Plate LV,Verreries

Incrustees, Doublees,
Peintes et Dorees :Antiques

et Modernes’,Alexandre

Brongniart and Denis-

Desire Riocreux,Description

methodique du musee

de la manufacture royale de
porcelaine de
Sevres

(Paris: A.Leleux, 1845)

-19

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

Contemporary sources as evidence

Thanks to the efforts of De la Beche and his overlap-

ping networks of friends (often fellow Geological Society

members), landowners, manufacturers, private collectors,

and those with an occupational interest in practical geol-

ogy such as surveyors, the collections of the embryonic
geological museum began to grow. 1843 was the first

year when the museum had regular opening hours and

was open to the public, even though the collection had
been accessed by a small circle of people prior to this
date. A record of the first donation of glass items can be

found in the previous year as shall be discussed below.

Thomas Sopwith, a North-East mining

surveyor and friend of De la Beche, published
a small general guidebook to coincide with the

museum’s opening.’
8
Sopwith references glass in

the collection in various ways, initially as follows:

One important feature will be formed by a vitreous col-

lection, for which many valuable specimens have already
been received. It is intended to exhibit the materials of

which glass is composed, specimens of its manufacture in
ancient as well as modern times, as applied to useful and

ornamental purposes, and of the effects produced by var-

ious mineral substances in colouring glass, with the result
in stained-glass windows, one of the many departments

in which attractive beauty is added to geological interest

in viewing the contents of the museum. Among the spec-

imens of this series already in the cases are: An ancient
Egyptian necklace presented by the Rev. Henry Lloyd.”

This extract underlines the ‘useful and ornamental’

thrust of the collection. It also suggests that De la Beche
relied on donations. He was well-connected socially as

mentioned above, and had managed to garner govern-

ment support for his new Geological Survey and muse-

um. However, funding was (as ever) thin, and donations

were important, especially in this early phase of the
museum’s existence. In the extract above Sopwith high-

lights stained glass in line with the revival of interest in
this at the time. A number of British nineteenth-cen-
tury panels survive from the MPG’s original collection,

one of which is illustrated here,
(Fig.3).
This is an excel-

lent specimen in terms of demonstrating technological

innovation, as the plate glass has been rolled to produce

designs in relief, and then painted in grisaille with yellow

stain, a method of production presumably still cheaper

than stained glass made by traditional methods. Unfor-
tunately the identity of the manufacturer is not recorded.

Sopwith’s reference to Rev. Lloyd’s Egyptian necklace

can be linked to the earliest surviving daybook refer-

ences to glass acquisitions of 1842: ‘Ancient Egyptian

Necklace taken from an Egyptian Mummy illustrative

of the Ancient Manufacture of Glass Presented by the
ABOVE Fig. 3 Panel, rolled plate, painted in grisaille and yellow

stain, h. 47.6cm, c. 1840. V&A 4438- 190 I

BELOW Fig. 4 Selection from a group of 107 beads, ancient

Egyptian and Roman, transparent and opaque coloured glass,

stone, onyx, rock crystal and amber. V&A 5633- 190 I

tilS

s-coNE

OVAL EXC HANG
S’ LEA-ID Ham
–

ovA r—t-t GE! ivr.ss-r-
q

t: PRINCE AT.REKT,4.

(fliT OE I/ ER Mos”1′ GRACIOUS MA.JIr. SY

M
QUEE

241
N

r J

O
IC1

–
‘0

R. I ,

AN L.A.R.”1-

mpecCX1.1I.
L4 NI) 1
–

1* THE

,
7TII
–
N

–

EA_ R

H ER

ralaer

Lw SSI,(CF

COLLECTING FOR THE NATION

Rev Henry Lloyd, Carew Pembrokeshire’.
2
° The neck-

lace illustrated
(Fig.4),
known to have been in the MPG’S

collection, may be the one in question. This, togeth-

er with other Egyptian items, demonstrates the impor-

tance of the early antiquarian strain of collecting at the

museum, itself a reflection of elite collecting at the time.
As might be expected in a geological museum, glass

exhibits were linked in various ways to rocks and minerals

in the display. In addition to the samples of raw materials
used in manufacturing glass, Sopwith tells us that materials

used for polishing -grindstones, pumice and emery powder

– were exhibited next to objects demonstrating their use. We
learn that cut glass featured in a display containing ‘scythes,
knives, cut glass, marble and copper plates.’
21
De la Beche

also enrolled the celebrated mineral dealer James Tennant

in his project as Tennant had presented eight ‘Glass models

of diamonds’ to the museum, presumably also cut in imita-

tion of precious stones. These were a precursor to the glass

models of gemstones later shown at the Great Exhibition.
22

Apsley Pellatt will be familiar to many Glass Society

members as co-owner of the Falcon Glasshouse of Holland

Street in Lambeth, where he had sumptuous showrooms

for retailing glass and ceramics.
23
He is recorded as an early

donor of glass to the geological museum and is addition-

ally interesting as a manufacturer with links to the School

of Design. He was a member of their governing Council
and also made donations to their Museum of Ornamen-

tal Art.
24
Sopwith highlights his innovative contributions

to glassmaking: ‘Specimens of incrusted glass inscriptions,

one of which is broken to show the mode of formation,

were made and presented by Mr Pellatt, who prepared in
this manner one of the inscriptions deposited under the

foundation stone of the Royal Exchange.’ Pellatt’s com-
memorative slabs and the fact that one of them, illustrated

(Fig. 5),
was broken revealing the jagged edges of the glass

layers sandwiching the printed inscription preserved with-

in its centre, would have made these objects ideal for inclu-

sion in the museum. Sopwith also describes the ornamental
adaptation of this technique by Pellatt known as sulphi-

des today. A fine large example depicting King George

III from the MPG’s collection, V&A 5352-1901, can

be seen displayed in the Glass Gallery at the V&A today.
In addition to examples of his own company’s prod-

ucts, the archives reveal Pellatt donated glass items of

antiquarian interest, including a specimen described as

`A Druidical bead, ancient glass’, possibly acquired from
one of the numerous curiosity shops in the capita1.
25
In

December 1843 and January and February of 1844, Pel-

latt was paid for further unspecified items of ‘ancient glass’,

so he may have taken responsibility for sourcing these
types of items for De la Beche. On 15th February of the

same year, we find the first mention of the museum pur-

chasing Pellatt’s own glass products, with an entry in the
records for ‘4 tazzas’, and in April, a purchase of unspec-
Fig. 5 Slab with an inscription relating to the Royal Exchange, signed

‘Apsley Pellat I ncrustator’, dated I 842,w. 26cm. V&A 4523- I 90 I

ified glass and Wedgwood pottery from his showroom

in Holland Street, by the site of Tate Modern today.
26

Pellatt was one of a number of glass manufacturers who

contributed to the displays, (as discussed below). Archival
evidence indicates that retailers also presented items to the

early geological museum. In 1844 `Messrs.Phillips’ present-

ed ‘three glass vases’ and it is tempting to think that the fine

French vase V&A 4441-1901 which has an MPG prove-

nance and bears the retailer’s paper label for `Donn. Phillips,

359 Oxford Street’ is one of these.
27
In the following year,

Claudet and Houghton, makers of stained glass, present-
ed ‘a small pine frame filled with various pieces of glass’.
28

The relationship between the museum and glassmakers/

retailers was symbiotic rather than altruistic, as while the

museum gained ‘free’ exhibits, donations were acknowl-

edged on labels in the cases and the presence of these items

in a national museum would arguably have been viewed
by visitors as an eloquent endorsement for their products.

Thanks to Sopwith, we have a rough idea of some of the

earliest glass acquisitions in the collection and in addition
to the antiquarian specimens, we learn that innovation was

an important criterion for the inclusion of contemporary

items. Further opportunities for this museum, and the

Museum of Ornamental Art at Somerset House to access the
latest products would soon present themselves in the form

of large-scale exhibitions. Glass that can be traced to these
major events will be considered in the following sections.

Purchases made in Paris in
1844 for the

Government School of Design and the

Museum of Practical Geology

Some of the earliest glass acquisitions recorded for the

School’s museum were luxury items purchased by its
Director, Charles Wilson on a buying trip to Paris. My
research suggests that he was acting on behalf of both

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

FAR LEFT Fig. 6 ‘Cristallerie de St.
Louis, Moselle’, Jules Burat,
Exposition

de I’Industrie Francaise Annee 1844,
Description
Methodique,

II (Paris:

Editions Challamel, 1 844),facing p.19

LEFT Fig. 6a ‘Cristallerie de St Louis’,

page detail showing the opaline glass

vase pictured below

BELOW Fig. 7 Vase, opaline glass,

moulded in relief with convolvulus,

enameled and gilded, St. Louis, c.
1840, exhibited at
L’Exposition de

I’Industrie Francaise,
1844.

V&A 4442-1901

the School and the MPG, as the items he acquired

appear to have been divided between the two museums.

Up to that date, the majority of the School’s collection
used in teaching appears to have been paintings and

casts of sculpture and metalwork acquired for the stu-

dents to copy. Wilson was sent to the French national
trade exhibition, the
Exposition des produits de

dustrie
of 1844 in Paris to purchase suitable contem-

porary objects to supplement this materia1.
29
He was

able to buy from approved retailers, some of whom had

stands at the exhibition. Among the items he bought
during this trip were two contemporary stained glass

panels, one enamelled at Sevres,
The Virgin and Child

by the artist Antoine Beranger, V&A 58-1844 (the most

expensive items Wilson bought in Paris, costing the equiv-

alent of £100), and a German example, V&A 59-1844,

inspired by an early painted altarpiece in Munich.
3
°

Soon after Wilson returned, the archives of the

geological museum reveal that De la Beche received ‘3
cases from Paris containing specimens of Glass, China,

Bronze’.” In trying to identify items that might link to

Wilson’s purchases, a publication by art critic Jules Burat

reviewing the
Exposition
came to my attention.

32
A group

of St Louis glass items is illustrated, including a trumpet-

shaped vase moulded with trailing convolvulus recognised

by the present author as an unmarked item in the V&A’s

store,
(Figs.6, 6a detail, and
7) .
This was presumably

acquired as a contemporary example of the colouring,
moulding and enamelling of glass. There are further

items in the MPG’s collection that are good candidates

for having been purchased by Wilson during this trip

from the stand of another exhibitor. This was the
Escalier

de Cristal,
one of the most prestigious retailers of the day,

owned by Lahoche and Company during this period that

included members of the French royal family and other
notables among its customers. The items in question are

two fine examples of Bohemian or Bohemian-style cased
and cut glass and a large opaline vase enamelled in the

COLLECTING FOR THE NATION

decorating workshop of the Sevres Porcelain Manufactory,
all bearing the mark of the
Escalier de Cristal.
One of

the Bohemian-style items, a large goblet is illustrated

in
Fig.8.”
Both of the Bohemian-style items may have

been made at the Voneche glassworks in Belgium and

decorated by craftsmen from Bohemia or of Bohemian

descent, probably in Paris at the retailer’s workshops.
34

Another possible candidate for a purchase at the

exhibition was a pressed glass vase bearing the mark of

Launay-Hautin,
(Fig.9).
This company acted as agent for

various glasshouses in the Paris region. Like St. Louis, it
received a medal at the exhibition, and perhaps guided by

this official mark of approval, Wilson acquired this piece

at the exhibition.
35
Fancy pressed glass was still a novel-

ty at this period and the mass production of this type of

object would later become important for the British glass
industry. As an example of technical innovation, this piece

would have been seen as appropriate exhibit at the MPG.
The 1844 French exhibition was the source of an inter-

esting group of items for both London museums. The

contemporary stained glass panels were bought for arti-

sans at the School of Design to learn from the way their

Continental counterparts drew design inspiration from

historical models. The French items destined for the MPG

Fig. 8 Goblet, glass flashed in red, cut and engraved, Bohemia or

France, h.28.5.cm, signed ‘gray. par C. Hille’, with retailer’s mark

‘Lahoche L’Escalier de Cristal Palais Royal’. V&A 4464-1901
provided an injection of elite foreign wares for the geo-

logical museum’s collection which are distinctive as they
represent the height of fashionable and expensive taste.

Their presence could be justified as showing the use of
raw materials to produce a range of decorative effects and

different techniques, but their display in a national muse-

um in London could be also be seen as an endorsement,

encouraging British manufacturers to emulate Continen-
tal wares. In addition, the items are large and eye-catching

and it is possible they were bought with Jermyn Street in
mind as the prestigious new geological museum build-

ing was already on the drawing board at this date.
36

The
Great Exhibition, 185 I

There were many different companies or individu-
als exhibiting glass at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in
Hyde Park, London. Among these were a few Ameri-

can and Bohemian glassmakers, but the majority were

British, not least Osler of Birmingham who exhibit-

ed the glass fountain which became the focal point of
many published views of the interior. De la Beche vis-

ited the Exhibition with Reeks, having secured a float

of £500 from his paymasters at the Department of

Woods, Forests and Land Revenues, an extraordinary

Fig. 9 Vase, press-moulded glass, France, h. 2 I .5cm.

Illustrated in the catalogue of Launay, Hautin et Cie, 1840.
V&A 4422-1901

.,/ I

e
ti

Yr:, r,

te =• kit fr7e

17 or

‘

ir~
r

rattrL

Id.

•

..
2,5

/
1,
i•
/( .

‘1

/2.

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

Fig. 10 Ewer, Designed and engraved by J. G. Green, blank

supplied byVV.H.B. Richardson of Stourbridge. Purchased by
Museum of Practical Geology at the Great Exhibition, 1851

@ £25. V&A 4453-1901

sum in terms of the museum’s usual modest allow-
ance for purchases.
37
The new Jermyn Street premises

would open to the public two weeks after the Exhibition
opened, and it would seem that he was allowed funds

to acquire some eye-catching additions to his displays.
In the event we know that De la Beche spent £579

in total at the Exhibition, of which less than £60 went

on glass.
38
The majority of this sum, £25, was for an

engraved ewer of Greek shape seen in
Fig.10.

This was

bought from the stand of the glass decorator J. G. Green,

and the payment can be identified in the museum’s

accounts,
(Fig.11).
Known as the ‘Neptune jug’, after its

classical engraving on an appropriately watery classical

theme, this had been praised by the jurors for the ‘gener-

al excellence of the forms’ and ‘large adherence to those
principles which have been considered as best regulating

the true use of this beautiful material’. Their report con-

tinued: ‘In his blown glass jugs, water-bottles and wine
glasses, some of the purest forms derived from Greek
utensils have been selected and adapted to the material

and to present use.’ Green is thought to have been sup-
plied with blanks by W. H. B.

Richardson of Stourbridge
and a group of his work is
reproduced here
(Fig.12),

from the illustrated cata-

logue of the Exhibition.
39

While De la Beche could

justify his selection in terms
of showing the technique of

manufacturing and decorat-

ing glass, his choice of this
piece with its pure Greek

form and classical decora-
tion speaks to notions of taste for Greek art continu-

ing in elite circles into mid-nineteenth-century Britain.
While the ewer accounts for most of the money

spent on glass, other glass items can be found in the
accounts, although they do not appear to have sur-

vived today. A ‘Model of a Glass Furnace’ was bought
from King and Co. for £1.10s,
see
Fig.11;
‘Illustrations

of Venetian Glass Manufacture and artificial Avantu-
rine’
[sic]
were bought from S.Scheiffele for
£22

8s 1d,

and Savary and Mosbach were paid £6 for ‘Illustra-
tions of Glass…. employed in making Artificial Pearls’.

The sum allocated to the MPG for purchases at the

Great Exhibition pales into insignificance next to the

£5000 allowed the Museum of Ornamental Art. Pur-
chases there were decided by a committee consisting of
,

1
I
a

1
;41;

; At ? AIN

Fig. 11 British Geological Survey, Cash Account Book MPG 1850-
53 GSM I /3,’Account for Specimens purchased at the Great

Exhibition of 185 I , for the Collections of the Museum Grant
taken from Estimates 1852-3′, 27 November 1851 and February

1852 (detail)

two Superintendents, namely Henry Cole and the art-

ist and teacher at the School of Design, Richard Red-

grave (1804-88), with the architect/designers Augustus

Welby Pugin and Owen Jones. The committee spent

£312 on eight items of ceramics but no glass purchas-
es appear to have been made.” This lack of interest in

`homegrown’ glass can perhaps be accounted for by the

growing influence of art critic, John Ruskin. His writings,

with their message of ‘truth to materials’, were influen-

tial in the rejection by some of the heavily ornamented

Fig. 12 J. G. Green’s

engraved wares’,

Illustrated Catalogue of

London’s
Crystal
Palace

Exposition, [London: 185 1]

COLLECTING FOR THE NATION

style favoured by manufacturers. Hildyard in his over-

view of the V&A’s collecting summed this up neatly, ‘so

long as the taste of the Establishment idolised the Ital-

ian Renaissance, it was Venetian and
facon de Venise

that remained the ideal of beauty in glass.’
41

The major

glass purchases made by Museum subsequently in the

1850s will be examined in the next section, and these

tie in with the taste for early continental items and par-

ticularly the type of Venetian glass extolled by Ruskin.

Collecting in the 1850s, the taste for early

Continental glass
In the mid-nineteenth century collecting in gener-
al was becoming increasingly popular, filtering down
the social scale to the middle classes, encouraged by a

growing number of curiosity shops, auction sales and
independent dealers. Glass was not a field that collec-

tors tended to pursue in isolation before c.1860, but

when it featured in mixed collections, fifteenth to sev-
enteenth-century Venetian or Venetian-style, or Ger-

man glass was favoured, as well as early stained glass.
Regarding the last group, a few wealthy antiquaries

such as Horace Walpole had collected stained glass in
the eighteenth century, but as the former Keeper at the

V&A Paul Williamson has described, the early nine-

teenth century was a boom time for stained glass collect-

ing as huge quantities became available, removed from

churches and chapels throughout Northern Europe

following the French Revolution.
42
England became

the main market for medieval and Renaissance stained

glass and by the time the museum was founded there

was a well-established tradition of collecting. Many of

the early panels already in private hands re-appeared
on the market during the second half of the century.

By the time the Museum of Ornamental Art moved

to Marlborough House in 1852, the ideas guiding col-

lecting there had developed. In the words of Anthony

Burton, ‘there was a widespread consensus that contem-
porary designers and manufacturers would naturally

turn to the art of the past, from which they had much

to learn’.
43
To this end, Henry Cole set about founding

a historical series of objects for the museum (now called

the Museum of Manufactures), to complement the draw-

ings, paintings and casts and the contemporary items

acquired at the exhibitions. This point also marked the
beginning of the period when the administration of the

Museum of Manufactures and the Geological Survey and
its Museum of Practical Geology were linked under a new

Department of Science and Art under the joint direction

of Lyon Playfair (1818-1898), Professor of Chemistry

at the MPG’s new School of Mines, and Henry Cole.
The first joint report of the Department issued in

1854 contains an Appendix listing the glass acquired by
the Museum of Manufactures during the year 1853.
44

This demonstrates the change in the museum’s policy
to focus on historical, particularly Venetian (which at

the time embraced all
facon de Venise)

items. There

were fifty items, numbered G.17-66, which had all
been purchased: the majority (thirty-six) were termed

`Venetian’ or ‘Old Venetian’, while the only German

item, an ‘Old German Drinking Glass (Dated 1671)’

was one of the more expensive individual items at

£2.12s. 6d.
45
With the exception of the dated German

glass the descriptions are not detailed enough for us to

link them to individual items, but thirty Venetian or
facon de Venise
items acquired in 1853 survive in the

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

Fig.13 Ewer, mould-blown,Venice, seventeenth-
century, h. 24cm. Purchased from W. Chaffers

jnr. £2.5s. V&A 241-1853

collection today. An example from this group and the

dated German beaker are illustrated in
Figs.13 and 14.

In 1855 the extensive collection of Ralph Bernal

(1783-1854) came on the market in an extraordinary
sale at Christies that lasted 32 days.” The Treasury
authorised the Museum of Manufactures to spend up

to the enormous sum of £12,000, and Cole and Red-

grave were tasked with acquiring items ‘calculated to

encourage good taste and general improvement in man-

ufactures’.
47
The museum’s purchases included a number

of important glass items such as a magnificent stained
glass window depicting Guillaume de Croy and his

wife, Marie Madelaine de Hamal, attributed to Nicolaas

Rombouts of the South Netherlands (Brabant), c.1520,

V&A 2210:1,2-1855,
(Fig.15)
and an early Innsbruck

engraved goblet and cover in green glass
(Fig.16).

These

items tie in well with the collecting trends of the time.

Collecting for new Museum of Practical
Geology (MPG) in Jermyn Street

The relatively limited range of items purchased by the
Museum of Manufactures in the 1850s contrasts with

the broad range of glass acquired by the MPG. It can

easily be imagined that the lion’s share of limited funds

available to the latter institution went on geological

items. Important pieces where they exist were donations,
Fig. 14 Glass beaker,’humpen’, enamelled with a miner

and his wife, inscribed toast and date 1671, made in

Bavaria, Hesse or Baden-Wurttemberg. ‘G. 40. Old

German Drinking glass (dated 1671). Purchased of

Mr. J.W. Brown, at £2 12s. 6d’, 1853. V&A 95-1853

not purchases, with the exception of those associated

with the exhibitions described previously. Innovative
contemporary products were still very much to the fore
as was antiquarian glass and items probably acquired

through overseas networks related to the colonial remit

of the Geological Survey. In the late 1840s when the

shell of the new Jermyn Street building was standing, the

accounts books bear witness to a flurry of purchases of

small value from curiosity dealers, but unfortunately the
items are almost never identifiable as the accounts state
merely ‘glass’ or ‘antique glass’. By the opening in 1851,

the
Illustrated London News
reported on the museum’s

glass displays: ‘we find the history of glass series com-
mencing with Roman glass, proceeding with very fine

examples of Venetian and early German, and continu-

ing onward to the best examples of modern glass….
,48

The first general guidebook to the MPG at Jermyn

Street by Robert Hunt allows us further insights into
the organisation and content of the displays. The main

series of cases were situated in the ‘Great Room’ accessed
by a broad staircase, while the basement (entrance) floor

housed heavy objects such as raw materials and statuary

and also gave access to the Laboratory and large Lecture

Theatre. Ceramics and glass were situated in the ‘Great

Room’ in bays near the staircase. No contemporary illus-
tration of the glass displays is known, although a rare

FAR LEFT Fig.15

Guillaume de

Croy and his
wife, perhaps Nicolaas

Rombouts, d. 1531. South
Netherlands (Brabant), c. 1520,

h.223 x w. 1 09.5cm. Purchased

from Bernal Collection sale.

V&A 2210:1,2-1855

LEFT Fig. 16 Green goblet and
cover, diamond-engraved with
double eagles, probably Innsbruck,

c. 1570-1600, h.23cm. Purchased

from Bernal Collection sale.

V&A 1836-1855

BELOW Fig 17. J.P. Emslie,
The

Museum
of Practical
Geology,

watercolour, signed and dated 1875.

COLLECTING FOR THE NATION

interior view by J. P. Emslie
(Fig.17),
shows the

ceramics cases situated in the corresponding bay

on the other side of the staircase. As mentioned
previously, De la Beche used geological interest

in materials to justify collecting glass. By way

of introduction to the subject, museum visitors

would first encounter samples of raw materials:

`American and Lynn sand, carbonates of soda
and potash, peroxide of manganese, arsenious

acid, red lead, chalk, and anthracite’ .
49
These

were followed by a model of a glasshouse, glass-
makers’ moulds and tools, and a series of items

showing the stages of bottle and wine glass pro-
duction. The different techniques of making,

colouring and decorating glass were described
and illustrated by appropriate objects, in line

with the museum at Sevres described previously.

Hunt makes the point that the building embod-

ied lessons of its own; the ‘roughened plate’

glass panes in the roof, and the plate glass of the

display cases should be seen as further import-
ant examples of British glassmaking.” Unfortu-
nately he does not describe individual items as

the text focuses on describing the chemical and

manufacturing processes. Items demonstrating

innovative processes appear to have been pri-

oritised in the displays, while numerous exam-
ples of European glass items were admitted to

illustrate non-British techniques and decora-
tion, as well as for the purposes of comparison.

ABOVE Fig. 18 Two-handled bowl, cover and stand,

calcedonio
glass,

Venice, 1675-1725, diameter of stand, 20.5cm. V&A 5223-1901

RIGHT Fig. 19 Vessel and cover, glass
‘a
reticello’,Venice,Venice

and Murano Glass & Mosaic Co. Ltd., late nineteenth-century,
h. 34.5cm. V&A 5222-190 I

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

The following groups illustrate the range
of the MPG’s collections.
•
Glass of antiquarian interest:

As well as items from ancient Briton, this includ-

ed Roman glass fragments, cinerary urns and mosaic
tesserae. Roman glass was regularly being unearthed

during the massive infrastructure works (railway cut-
tings, roads and the Thames embankment) taking

place in London and countrywide during this period.

Ancient glass from the Near East, ‘Babylonia’, `Chal-

dea’, Assyria’ and Egypt also featured in the displays.
•
Venetian and facon de Venise glass,

fifteenth to nineteenth centuries:

This was included in displays of frosted, filigree, mille-

fiori, beads,
calcedonio,
enamelled and ‘threaded’ glass.

Some of the finest examples in the V&A today came
from the MPG’s collection, and there is generally scarce
information about their provenance. The
calcedonio

glass, an example of which is illustrated in
Fig.18,
would

have been of particular interest in a geological muse-
um as well as echoing a fascination with the imitation

of hard stones in Antiquity, reprised by elite collectors

from the Early Modern period onwards.” Beads, prob-
ably made in Venice for the slave trade, were described

as Aggry beads’ in Hunt’s catalogue.
52
These can be

identified as V&A 4551, 4552, 4553-1901. One item,
the vessel and cover in filigree glass ‘a reticello’, V&A

5222-1901, was until recently thought to date from

the Renaissance period, but analysis has now con-

firmed it as late-nineteenth century. Its recent attri-

bution to the Venice and Murano Glass company fits

with the MPG’s collecting brief of acquiring examples

demonstrating innovative technical prowess, in this
case the innovative recreation of a Renaissance dec-

orative technique by contemporary makers,
(Fig.19).

•
Opaque and coloured glass:

This was acquired as demonstrating the use of metallic
oxides in changing the colour and translucency of the
glass metal. Opaque pieces resembling expensive porce-
lain were a special area of glass production that became
popular again in the nineteenth century. Venetian,

English and German examples featured in the displays,
including a plate from the celebrated series commissioned
by the antiquarian Horace Walpole, enamelled by the

Miotti workshop with views of the city, V&A 5272-1901.

•
Chinese glass from the seventeenth

to nineteenth centuries:

This includes snuff bottles, opaque items and a cased and

carved vase. Some of this was acquired from dealers
(see

note
45); however, other items may have been supplied by

Sir James Bowring (1792-1872), appointed 4th Governor
of Hong Kong 10 January 1854, linking the presence of

Chinese items to British policies of colonial expansion.”
•
‘New’ glass:

There are many examples of ornamental glass

that were contemporary during the 1840-

60 period under scrutiny here. These include:

Bohemian or Bohemian-style pieces in the late Bieder-

meier style: e.g. the tazza V&A 4414-1901, and those items

acquired at the 1844 Paris exhibition discussed earlier.
Italian micromosaic: this ancient technique

became popular again in the nineteenth century and

the portrait of the Tsar by Barberi of Rome
(Fig.20),

is a rare large documented example. More typical

small items using this technique were jewellery, but-

tons, or furniture ornaments and these also featured

COLLECTING FOR THE NATION

ABOVE Fig. 20 Michelangelo Barberi,
Tsar Nicolas I of Russia,

micromosaic , dated 1828, h.28cm x w.23cms. Exhibited Paris

Exhibition 1855, presented by the artist to the Museum of

Practical Geology. V&A 4633- I 901

in the museum’s collection, e.g. V&A 4641-1901.
French millefiori: The millefiori technique was re-in-

vented in France to great acclaim in the early nineteenth
century. Examples by the French glass manufactories of

St. Louis, Baccarat and Clichy were all represented in the
MPG as well as a small circular tray of millefiori canes

of the type used in the manufacture of these items and
more routinely in paperweights, V&A 4476-1901. As

a deconstructed item, acquired to explain how finished

objects were made, it is a rare survivor of many such
items in the original collection of the geological museum.

British glass: there are various unmarked items in the

collection deriving from the MPG, including modest

utilitarian pieces. These are a valuable record of the kind

of glass which did not feature in elite collections, but

survived in the geological collection in line with their
comprehensive collecting remit. There are three items

made by the Stangate glassworks of A. J. F. Christy in

Lambeth.
54
A group of items was acquired. One of these,

the ‘Well Spring’ carafe, V&A 4503-1901, was designed

by Redgrave in the late 1840s for Summerly’s Arts Man-

ufactures. This was in fact a venture set up by Henry Cole

under his pseudonym of Felix Summerly; Cole is known

to have promoted ‘improved’ designs for domestic prod-

ucts through this company for a brief period.” A depar-

ture from the heavily cut and coloured glass criticised by
Ruskin, the glass is clear with enamelled decoration in a

design appropriate to its function. We know further glass
was acquired from the Birmingham glass manufacturer,

Rice Harris and Son, as a payment of £13. 19s. 6d. was
made to ‘Glass for Vitreous Series’ in 1850.56 Unfor-

tunately this is typical in not being identifiable in the

V&A today, possibly because the items have not survived.

Conclusion
In the mid-nineteenth century the visual splendour of the

Great Exhibition at the ‘Crystal Palace’ helped to make

glass seem topical and exciting. The subject also seemed

to permeate the new Jermyn Street Museum of Practical

Geology at many levels, from the phials and bottles used

in the chemistry laboratory to the glass roof, display cas-
es and wide range of historical and contemporary exhib-

its. The interest in glass is additionally underlined by

its selection as the subject of the first lecture at the new

School of Mines established at the MPG in 1852. This

inaugurated the museum’s lecture series designed ‘to com-
municate scientific instruction to artizans’
(sic),
and was

delivered by Professor Playfair to a packed house of over
five hundred men.” The occasion was commemorated

by the
Illustrated London News

in a woodcut
(Fig.21),

that shows the MPG’s grand Lecture Theatre with
Playfair surrounded by teaching diagrams and models.
Before the close of the Great Exhibition, Apsley Pel-

latt wrote to Sir Henry De la Beche at the newly-opened

geological museum: ‘I shall be happy with my Brother’s

consent to let you have any specimens you like to select
from the Great Exhibition when it closes & feel hon-

oured by the opportunity of occupying some portion of

space in your instructive National Institution.'” Pellatt
had published a prospectus to his stand at the Exhibition

where 26 items (raw materials, groups of sample speci-
mens illustrating colours and decorative techniques, mod-
els and tools) are listed and explained.
59

De la Beche’s

response has not survived, but given the wide range of
exhibits relating to the processes of glassmaking recorded

by Hunt in his guidebook discussed on pages 56-58, it

seems likely that Pellatt’s offer was accepted. This group
of items would have given a substantial boost to the muse-
um’s displays relating to the manufacture of glass and

complemented the historical and contemporary exhibits.
By 1860, the collections of the Museum of Practi-

cal Geology afforded visitors a rounded view of glass-

making past and present through its displays, as well

as allowing them to appreciate the possibilities of the
material for a wide range of scientific, ornamental and

architectural purposes. This comprehensive overview of
the subject differed from the glass exhibits at the South

Kensington Museum, where Henry Cole and his col-
leagues privileged the provision of expensive high quality

items, selected to provide exemplary models for indus-
trial production. Ostensibly, collectors were not their

target audience, but the historical Continental pieces

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

IILSLUM or
raaortrws. Grot.00r.

—

v..
Li,. PLA I FAIR’S .artiL.

acquired by them laid the foundations of a collection
prized by connoisseurs from that time onwards. In this

the SKM was in step with broader developing interest in

Renaissance, particularly Venetian, glass for as Suzanne

Higgott has stated, ‘The inclusion of Venetian Renais-
sance glass in sales and exhibitions from the mid-1850s

onwards alerted a wider public to the great technical and

aesthetic achievements of the Venetian glass-makers.'”
A little-known catalogue of the glass collections at

South Kensington Museum was published in 1878, twen-
ty years after the period that has been the focus of this

paper. This reveals that interest in glass had expanded

considerably beyond the stained glass and early Vene-

tian and German items favoured during the museum’s

earliest iterations.
61

The museum had acquired items of

antiquarian interest, with groups from Egypt, Thcenicia,
the Roman Empire and China, as well as a donation of

English glass from the Anglo-Saxon period. A summary

analysis of the contents of the catalogue shows that the
emphasis remained on European glass of the Renaissance

and later period: over forty pages each (of the total of

175), were devoted to ‘Glass of Venice and other Italian
States’ and interestingly, to ‘Glass of Spain’, while the

next most important group was ‘Glass of Germany, Hol-

land and the Low Countries’, amounting to nineteen

pages. That nineteenth-century glass was not considered
ABOVE Fig. 21 ‘Museum of Practical Geology — Dr Lyon Playfair’s

Lecture’,
Illustrated London
News, 2 I February 1852, p. I 6 I

significant in the same way is indicated by its location
in an Appendix, and by the minor amount of space it
occupies (less than15% of the total). This group however,

included important items acquired at the international

exhibitions, as well as a small number of other pieces.
62

Once the collections of the MPG were transferred

to the V&A in 1901, their identity as a group faded. As

with the ceramics, the practical, utilitarian items from

the geological museum were sent to the V&Ns branch

museum in Bethnal Green, while fine historical items

were incorporated into the existing displays. Howev-

er, the publication of Albert Hartshorne’s
Old English

Glasses
in 1897 ushered in a new fashion for British sev-

enteenth- and eighteenth-century glass.
63
The growing

dominance of these connoisseurial interests meant that

the contribution of the geological museum to the glass

collections of the V&A was largely forgotten.This study

of the early collecting modes of the respective museums

has hopefully shed some light on the rationale that guided

their curators in their pursuit of glass. At the same time,

I hope to have restored the Museum of Practical Geology
to its rightful place as the source of an important tranche

of the spectacular glass collection at the V&A today.

COLLECTING FOR THE NATION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author would like to thank staff at theV&A for their assistance
in accessing the museum’s collections and archives

PICTURE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Albert Museum, London.
Figs. I , I 1,17
are reproduced
with
the

permission of the British

Geological Survey

Photographs without acknowledgements were taken by the author.

ENDNOTES
1.1n addition to those publications dealing specifically with glass dis-
cussed presently, see e.g.,Anthony Burton,
Vision and Accident
The

Story of
the
V&A (London:V&A Publications, 1999), and Julius Bryant

(ed), Art
and Design for all, the Victoria and Albert Museum
(London:

V&A
Publications, 2012).

2.
Clive Wainwright,’The making of the South Kensington Museum

I:the Government Schools of Design and the founding collection

I 837-51′ ed. by Charlotte
Gere,Journal
ofthe
History of Collections,

14, 1 (2002), 3-23.

3.
For a more detailed account of the founding of the MPG and the

growth of its ceramics collections, see Susan Newell,”The Jermyn
Street Collection’: an introduction to early ceramics collecting at

the Museum of Practical Geology, c. 1835-55+’,
English Ceramic
Cir-

cle
Trans.,
28 (20 17), 127-144.

4.
Barbara Morris,
Victorian Table Glass and Ornaments

(London:

Barrie and Jenkins, 1978), p.131. The Circulation Department was

responsible for loan exhibitions of the V&A’s collections to the

regions until its closure in 1977.

5.Wainright,The making of the South Kensington Museum’, see

also ‘Collecting modem manufactures: 185 I and the Great Exhibi-

tion’ Journal of the History of Collections, II’, 14,1 (2002), 25-44.

6.
Robin Hildyard,’The Glass Collections at the Victoria and

Albert Museum’, in
Glass Collectors and their Collections in
Muse-

ums
in Great Britain,

ed. by David Watts (London:The Glass Cir-

cle, 1999), pp.9-16.

7.
Glass Collectors and their Collections

ed. by Watts (1999).

8.
British Geological Survey (BGS) Archives, GSM/MG/C/6, 1839.

9.The accounts of the MPG are included in the archives of the Brit-
ish Geological Survey (formerly the Geological Survey). After the

demolition of Jermyn Street Museum in 1933, its collections went

to a new Geological Museum in Exhibition Road, South Kensington.

The BGS and its archives moved to Keyworth, Nottinghamshire in
1985, when the Geological Museum closed and geology became
part of the remit of the Natural History Museum, London.

I 0.The guidebooks were,Thomas Sopwith,
Account of the Muse-

um of Economic Geology and Mining Records Office
(London:

John Murray 1843), and Robert Hunt,
A Descriptive Guide to the

Museum of Practical Geology…
(London: HMSO, 1857).

I 1.This research, while as thorough as possible, was limited by pres-

sures of time and distance.

12.Accession Registers for nos. 1662-1901 to 5691-1901, Ceram-

ics and Glass Department,Victoria and Albert Museum. There are
4,029 individual register entries covering objects of all types. Pairs

or groups of similar items are often entered together under indi-

vidual numbers making a quantitative survey impracticable.

I 3. Discussion of the disposal of certain aspects of the

collection during the mid-twentieth century lies outside

the scope of this article.

I 4.Alexandre Brongniart and Desiree Riocreux, Description

methodique du musee de la manufacture royale de porcelaine
de

Sevres, 2 vols (Paris:A. Leleux, 1845).

15.
For a detailed account of the connection between De la

Beche and Brongniart (a distinguished geologist colleague of

Cuvier at the
Museum de l’Histoire Naturelle

in Paris, as well as

Director at Sevres), see Susan Newell,’Alexandre Brongniart,

Museological Muse? Reflections on Brongniart’s Influence on

the Formation of the Ceramics Collection at London’s Museum
of Practical Geology, c. I 850′,
French Porcelain Society Journal,
7

(2017), 133-159.

16.
Henry De la Beche,’Inaugural Discourse’, November 185 I ,

Records
of

the
School ofMines and Science Applied to the Arts: Inau-

gural and Introductory Lectures to the Courses
for Session
185 I –

1852
(London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, I 852),

pp 1-22, p. 2.

17.
See e.g., Louise Purbrick (ed.), The

Great Exhibition of 1851

(Manchester and NewYork: Manchester University Press, 2001).

18.
Sopwith, Account of
the Museum
of

Economic Geology (1842).

19.
Sopwith,
Account ofthe Museum of Economic Geology,

pp. 32-33.

20.
BGS, GSM/MG/C/6, 9 July 1842.

21.
Sopwith,
Account
of the

Museum of Economic Geology (1842),

pp. 33-34.

22.These models cannot be traced today. For models of diamonds
displayed at the Great Exhibition by Pellatt & Co., see Watts, A
His-

tory of Glassmaking in London
(2014), p. 165.

23.
J. A. H. Rose,The Apsley Pellatts’,

The Glass Circle Journal,
3

(1979), 4-15, and Watts, A
History of Glassmaking in London

(2014), pp. 161-170.

24.
For Pellatt’s role at the School and its Museum, see

Minutes

of the Council of the Government School of Design from May 1844
to April 1846,11
(London: Clowes and Sons, 1847) and III for

May 1846 to October 1847, (1849). Pellatt was not alone at the

School in supporting the early geological museum, its Director, C.

H.Wilson is recorded as donating items including ‘Ancient Vene-

tian glass’ and a ‘Lachrymatory from Pompeii’ in 1844. See BGS
GSM/MG/C/6, 28 June, 1844.

25.Watts, A
History of Glassmaking in London
(20 14), pp. 161-170.

26.
BGS, GSM/MG/C/6, 15 February 1844.

27.
Generations of the Phillips family were ceramics and glass deal-

ers in London at various addresses, and are described by Hildyard

as ‘super-dealers’ by the mid-nineteenth century. See Robin Hild-

yard,’London Chinamen’,
English
Ceramic

Circle Trans.,
18, 3 (2004),

447-524, (pp. 453, 488).

28.
BGS, GSM/MG/C/6, 23 January 1845.

29.Wainwright,’The Making of the South Kensington Museum I’,
p. 12. The author also describes a small group of decorative art

objects bought by a member of School’s Council in Paris, Henry

6
1

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

Bellenden Ker in 1843, including a contemporary French painted

glass panel,V&A 3570-1844.

30.
For a detailed account of the Beranger panel, see Susan

Newell,’A French Stained Glass Panel in the Victoria and Albert

Museum’,
Glass Matters,
1, I (January 2018), 30-32.

31.
BGS, Daybook, 26 July 1844.

32.
Jules Burat,
Exposition de I’industrie francaise de
l’Annee 1844

(Paris: Challamel, 1844).
33.The two other vases with
Escalier
de Cristal retailer’s marks

are V&A 4622-1901 and 4457-1901.

34.
JacquesToussaint,
Bicentenaire de la cristallerie

de
Voneche,

exhibition catalogue, Chateau du Val-Saint-Lambert, Aug.-Nov.

2002 (Namur : Societe Archeologique de Namur Service de la

Culture de Ia Province de Namur, 2002), p.75.

35.
Burat,
Exposition de l’industrie francaise de l’Annee

1844, p. v,

and p. ix.

36.
GeoffreyTyack,

Sir James Pennethorne and
the

Making ofVicto-

non London
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp.

178- I 82.The architect James Pennethorne started work on the

designs in 1842.

37.
BGS, Entry Book In and Out Letters, 1850-1855, GSM 1/6, p.110.

38.
BGS, Cash Account Book I 850-53 GSM 1/3:Account for

Specimens purchased at the Great Exhibition of 1851′.

39.
Bryant, (ed). Art
and

Design
forAll,
(2012), no. 70, p. 134.

40.Wainwright,’The Making of the South Kensington
Museum’ II, p. 29.

41.
Hildyard,’The Glass Collections at the Victoria and

Albert Museum’, p.9.

42.
Paul Williamson, Medieval
and Renaissance Stained Glass in the

Victoria and Albert
Museum (London:V&A Publications, 2003), p. 10.

43.Anthony Burton,’Collecting to Inspire: Early Museum Acquisi-

tions, Displays and Design Reform’, ed. by Bryant, Art
and Design

forAll,
(2012), pp. 53-54.

44.’Appendix G: A List of Additions to the Museum of Art

during theYear 1853: Division II. Glass’, in First Report of the

Department of Science
and Art
(London: George E. Eyre and Wil-

liam Spottiswoode, 1854), pp. 226-8.

45.
Eighteen of the Venetian glasses were bought ‘at the sale

of the Conte di Milano’s collection’, while the others appear

to have been bought from dealers listed as ‘Mr Chaffers’,’Mr
Heigham’,’Mrs. Moore’,’Messrs. Jacobs’ and ‘Mr Bryant’. It is not

always clear if the payments were made for individual items or

groups of items. The other glasses were ‘ThreeYel low Chi-
nese Vases’, also bought from William Chaffers, for £2 2s., four
unspecified items and six new items from George Bacchus and

Sons of Birmingham, including two described as “Venetian”.

46.
Henry G. Bohn,

A Guide
to the
Knowledge of
Pottery,
Porcelain,

and other
Objects ofVertu Comprising an Illustrated

Catalogue
of the

Bernal Collection ofWorks
ofArt… (London: H. G. Bohn, 1857).

47.’Minute on Bernal Collection, 21 July 1855′,
Board Minutes

with summary relative to Acquisition ofArt Objects for benefit of the

Schools ofArt 1852-1870.
48:Museum of Practical Geology’,
Illustrated London

News, 24

May, 1851, pp. 445-6.
49.

Hunt, A descriptive

guide …, (1857),
pp. 90-104, p.90.

50.
Hunt,A descriptive guide …, (1857), pp. 90-104, p.92.

51.
For the production of calcedonio in fifteenth- sixteenth-cen-

tury Venice, see Suzanne Higgott, The
Wallace

Collection Cata-

logue
of Glass and Limoges Painted Enamels

(London:Trustees of

the Wallace Collection, 201 1), pp. 46-48.
52.
Hunt,A
descriptive guide …, (1857),

pp. 90- 104, p.95.

53.
Precis of
the Minutes ofThe Science &Art DepartmentArranged

in Chronological Order From 16 February 1852 to I July, 1
863

(London: George E. Eyre and William Spottiswoode, 1864). De
la Beche’s recommendation that ‘Chinese Specimens to be col-

lected by Sir J. Bowring, to extent of 1001., for Museum of Practi-

cal Geology’, proposed and approved 20th Mar 1854.

54.
See Watts,

A
History
of Glassmaking in London
(2014), p. 258.

The owner of the Stangate Glass Works is also found with the
spelling ‘Christie’.Two of these are an opaque white vase with

printed decoration,V&A 4499-1901, and a black vase with a

Greek-style motif, both imitating ceramics,V&A 4501-1901.

55.
For further details of Summerly’s Art Manufacture and this

carafe, see Bryant, Art
and
Design forAll, (2012), p. 1 12.

56.
BGS Cash Account Book MPG 1850-53, GSM 1/3,

17 August 1750.

57.
Illustrated London
News, 21 February 1852, p. 161. The lec-

ture was on 9 February
58.Apsley Pellatt to Sir H. De Ia Beche, 2 I June 1852, National

Museum ofWales, Geological Archive, NMW.84.20G.D.I178.

59.Apsley Pellatt,
Explanatory Catalogue of Models and
Specimens

illustrative ofthe Manufacture of Flint Glass Contributed to the Great

Exhibition ofAll Nations, 185 I
byApsley Pellatt & Co. (London:

Apsley Pellatt and Co., 1851), bound in Prospectuses
of Exhibitors,

Volume XV Manufactures
Collected
under the

Authority
of

the Royal

Commissioners,
National Art Library,Victoria and Albert Museum.

60. Higgott,’Introduction’, in The
Wallace
Collection

Catalogue
of

Glass
(2011), pp. 12-35, p. 21. For the fashion forVenetian glass

collecting during the second half of the nineteenth century, see

also Rosella Mamoli Zorzi,
—
Foresti” in Venice in the Second Half

of the 19th Century:Their Passion for Paintings, Brocades, and
Glass’ in Study Days on Venetian Glass:The Birth of the Great
Museum:The Glassworks Collections Between the Renaissance

and the Revival, ed. by Rosa Barovier Mentasti and CristinaToni-
ni, Atti dell’Istituto Veneto
di
Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 174 (2015-

2016), 1-44.
6 I .Alexander Nesbitt, A
Descriptive
Catalogue of

the Glass
Vessels

in the South Kensington
Museum (London: George E. Eyre and

William Spottiswoode, 1878).
62. Nesbitt, A Descriptive Catalogue (I 878), there were 13
English nineteenth-century pieces, described pp. 168-170.

63.Albert Hartshorne,
Old English
Glasses: an account of glass

drinking
vessels
in England from
early times to the end of the eigh-

teenth century (Edward Arnold, 1897). See also Robin Hildyard,

‘Glass collecting in Britain:the taste for the earliest English lead
glass’,
Burlington Magazine136,
no.1094 (May 1994), pp. 303-7,

and W.A.Thorpe:The Henry Brown Collection of English Glass
I:The Preference for Balusters’, Apollo, 8 (1928), pp. 14 I -148.

SEALED BOTTLES

What is a sealed bottle?
The Eila Grahame Collection

David Burton
The title of my book published in Decem-

ber 2015 is
Antique Sealed Bottles (1640 — 1900)

and the families who owned them.
Not, as one

might have expected,
Antique Sealed Wine Bot-

tles (1640 — 1900).
This may seem a little surpris-

ing. After all, did not sealed bottles hold wine?

The bottles did hold wine but not exclusively, and

subsequent research has confirmed the sealed bottle
as a receptacle for oil, vinegar, liquor including rum,

dry wares, wine, beer, mead, cider or ale, having been
used as a form of decanter to carry wine or ale from

the tavern or cask to the table, to be used at table as a
bottle of wine or a decanter would be used today. The

tavern keeper’s initials or sign of the tavern on the

seal would have identified the owner and the bottles

would have been taken back regularly to be refilled.

The mark or seal denotes the owner’s name, house,

crest, initials, tavern, coat of arms, date, or indeed

any form of personal identification such as a mer-

chant’s mark. The sealed bottles listed and discussed
in the book were manufactured primarily in England.

The landed gentry, gentlemen, merchants, artisans
and other well-to-do families living in this country as

well as the settlers living abroad, mainly in the former
British colonies during the seventeenth to the nine-
teenth century, were the original owners of the bottles.

What is it about an empty, utilitarian sealed bot-

tle that gets collectors, auction houses and museums

excited? The seal impressed on the side of the bot-
tle, formerly known as a mark, medallion, stamp or

prunt, is the most important element in the collect-

ing of sealed bottles. There are very few collecting

fields where the original owner of an ancient object

can be positively identified, and it is this aspect of

social history that interests the majority of collectors.

It is the question
“How much is the bottle worth?”

that is always being asked.
“Can you tell me anything

about the bottle, its age, whose bottle it was, where

the family lived, and is there any interesting informa-

tion about the family—any gossip?” It
is the engraving

of the seal that provides the basis for the genealogical

research necessary to be able to identify the original
owner. It is the seal that adds value to a bottle, not

always in monetary terms perhaps — although there

can be a vast difference in price between a bottle that
is sealed and one that is unsealed of the same form,

condition and period. The form of an early glass bot-

tle interests many collectors, but equally there are
others who want much more than this from a col-

lection. An empty sealed bottle is not just another

piece of glass, however rare that glass might be. Each
bottle has a story to tell; it has a place in history, in

the social fabric of its period, and it is the aim of my

book to encourage an awareness of that history, to get

behind the seal and find out who actually ordered the

bottles, opened them, and disposed of the contents.
The second important aspect of what is of inter-

est to collectors is the form, quality and condition of
the bottle. While utilitarian in usage, the bottles are

free-blown and each has its own personality, its own

character, which creates more or less interest from

the collector. A ‘wonky’ bottle seen on display is a

wonderful expression of this individuality, and if it is
sealed and the original owner can be identified, then
it becomes so much more interesting — and valuable.
This ability to identify the original owner is unique

but to be in a position to look back in time, to find

out about the family, the house, or the tavern, it is
most important that the site-find location is recorded

when a bottle or detached seal is recovered, often
through archaeological excavation or the digging of

some long-forgotten rubbish dump. Many of the more
recent discoveries made over the last forty or more

years cannot be positively identified, particularly those
bottles sealed with initials only. Quite often, the finder

of the bottle or fragment is reluctant to reveal the

source of the find, even in confidence, and there are
instances known where the site-find location has been
purposely changed, perhaps because the find was made

illegally, without the permission of the landowner.

Of course, concerns of a monetary nature can be
overcome, but what is certainly more worrying are

those discoveries removed illegally from archaeological

sites. Once the potential for successful research is
lost, it is lost forever. Let no one lose sight of the fact
that a sealed bottle with a good provenance is valued

much more highly by the collector than a sealed bottle

where the original family has not been identified.

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

“Thence to Mr. Rawlinson’s
(Daniel Rawlinson was

licensee of the Mitre Tavern in Fenchurch Street in the

City of London),
and saw some of my New bottles, made

with my Crest upon them, filled with wine, about five

or six dozen.”So
recorded Samuel Pepys on 23 October

1663, information that today, over three hundred and
fifty years later, means more to collectors of antique
glass than Samuel Pepys could ever have envisaged.

Unfortunately, no bottles have yet been discovered that
can be traced to the diarist, but the entry provides one

of the earliest references to sealed bottles and their use.

The practice of sealing a bottle to denote its owner

was not new in the seventeenth century. Although glass
as a metal has been known since about 3,000 BC, it

was the Roman Empire embracing an area stretching
from North Africa and the Atlantic to the Caspian Sea

that developed the art of glassblowing, which eventu-
ally led to the development of the mould-blown bottle

in about the 1st century BC. This important discovery
meant that the glassmaker could now produce a broad-

er range of products of different shapes and sizes. The

period of Roman glass lasted until about 450 AD, by

which time the Roman Empire was in terminal decline

and the rise of Islam imminent. Most of the glass pro-

duced during this period was of a pale green, almost
natural colour, reflecting the presence of ferrous oxide

in the silica, otherwise known as sand, which resulted in

the production of a cheaper glass. The more expensive

glass was of a dark or aqua colour and is much rarer so

would probably not have been used in the manufacture
of bottles, although many examples of bowls or dishes
are to be found. Roman glass was made by the Alex-

andrians and Syrians in Gaul, the Rhineland and Italy,

and possibly even in England. There is a good exam-
ple in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London of a
bottle found at Amiens in France, which is indistinct-

ly marked on the base FRONTIN 0. Frontinus, who

worked in the 3rd/4th centuries AD and who probably
made the bottle at Boulogne or Amiens, was originally

from Syria. A similar example with an everted rim and

strap handle is recorded in the author’s collection, bear-
ing a moulded inscription on the base, again slightly
unclear but identified as YOHAIAYOh. A number of

these early moulded bottles incorporate the name of the

manufacturer on the base with most examples having

a simple, square design for ease of transport through-

out the vast Roman Empire, similar to the Dutch

case gin bottles shipped to the East and West Indies

in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

A step back in history
On Wednesday 21 June 1933, a Loan Exhibition of

English Drinking Vessels, Books and Documents was
opened by H.R.H. Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone,
at Vintner’s Hall in the City of London. The exhibition

ran for two weeks until 6 July 1933 and was organised by

Francis Berry who penned the foreword to the catalogue

and arranged the glass, silver, horn, treen, leather and

other objets d’art, and Andre L. Simon, who arranged
the books and documents. The catalogue is now a col-

lector’s item. Many of the sealed bottles featured in the
Loan Exhibition were from the Berry Bros. & Co col-

lection, now Berry Bros. & Rudd, leading wine mer-

chants of St. James, and when I was researching for my
book, this encouraged me to visit BBR in the late 1990s

to catalogue, measure and photograph the collection.

The business was established by the widow Bourne

in 1698 at 3 St. James’s Street, London, and is Britain’s

oldest wine and spirit merchant, having traded from the

same shop for over 300 years. In 1765 Berry’s supplied
the fashionable coffee houses at the
‘Sign of the Coffee

Mill’,
later to become private clubs such as Boodle’s

and White’s. I recall walking across the portal feeling as
though I were taking a step back in history. I met Simon

Berry, the then chairman, and was shown around the
ground floor where some of the bottles were on display
in ancient cabinets, and then taken down a rickety wood-

en staircase to the cellars. I went carefully down about
four or five steps and happened to glance left to a space
about 12 inches high between the floor of the ground

floor reception room I had just left and the ceiling of
the cellar I was about to enter. It was full of old bottles

of all shapes and sizes, pushed into a small, elongated
space that seemed to be bursting with history. I stopped
and tentatively removed one of the bottles, an early Shaft

& Globe (see later in this article for the description)

dated c.1655-1660, and held it up to examine the seal
engraving: R / R M (pyramidal format) surrounding an

antelope, possibly guardant, within a slightly crimped

border.
“Do you know how much this bottle is worth?”

I asked of Simon.
“No,”
came the response.

“It’s
a
very

early London tavern bottle from an Antelope tavern, I
said, so probably in excess of£10,000.”I
was amazed at

the discovery so early in my visit, and (I think) Simon

was equally amazed at the value because the next time

I visited, all the bottles had been removed from ‘stor-
age’, cleaned and washed, and were now housed in new
cabinets in the directors’ dining room. I subsequently

discovered once I had removed the dust and cobwebs,
that many of the bottles were sealed, feeling, perhaps,

that I should have worn some older clothes for the visit!
I have had similar experiences in the cellars of many

of our museums where particular bottles could not
be found or were stored in drawers or cubicles and

had long been forgotten. When I first had an oppor-

tunity to examine the sealed bottles in the Eila Gra-
hame collection in 2018, it was in a storage area at

Himley Hall, an early seventeenth century country

SEALED BOTTLES

house in Staffordshire. This was not an ideal situ-

ation as the lighting was poor and it was impossible
to take good photographs of the individual bottles

and seal engravings. However, it soon became appar-

ent that this relatively small collection held a number

of important early bottles with an interesting history.

The sealed glass bottle
The development of the sealed glass bottle began in free-
blown form sometime after 1630 and followed closely

the outline of the stoneware bottles and flagons, pop-
ularly known as bellarmines, used to import Rhenish

wine in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Lam-
beth Delftware bottles of the mid-seventeenth century

also followed the bellarmine shape, but this fragile tin-

glazed pottery was unsuited for regular use at table and

was quickly confined to the dustbin of history, although
collectors of these rare and very expensive bottles would

probably object to the use of the word dustbin. The

development of the glass bottle evolved through many

stages until 1821 when Henry Ricketts of Bristol pat-

ented a process that produced a bottle of standard shape

and size, not unlike those in use today. It was from

about this time that the popularity of the sealed bottle

gradually declined and has never reappeared in any sig-

nificant quantity, although some businesses even today

incorporate an embossed seal bearing a company logo

or crest, used as a marketing tool for their products.
Between 1640 and c.1720, the gradual evolutionary

change in shape of the long-necked, unstable sealed

bottle arose from the need to avoid damage to the long

neck and string rim. This produced a much heavier

onion-shaped bottle, often of quite thick glass and with

a short ‘stubby’ neck that was difficult to grasp. In the

first quarter of the eighteenth century, imports of wine

were often encouraged or adversely affected as a result
of war, but the practice of binning wine in an effort to
improve quality and longevity prospered. In the early

eighteenth century, the onion-shaped bottle was often

binned upside-down, evidenced by wear marks around

the body of the bottle, passing across or just above

the seal. The onion shape was superseded by the bul-
bous-sided bladder and straight-sided, mallet-shaped

bottles, so designed to pack tightly together when being

shipped to the American colonies, the shape develop-

ing to become the cylindrical-shaped bottle of today.

The various development periods relating to the

shape of the sealed bottle are quite distinctive, and

although there is a degree of overlap as one would

expect, particularly in the first half of the eighteenth

century which was one of the most exciting periods

for English glass bottle design, this does enable bot-

tles to be dated reasonably accurately, even when

only a fragment of the original bottle has survived.
The main bottle categories are:

–

1.
Shaft and Globe:

1630

—1675

2.
Shaft and Globe/Onion

1670
—1690

transitional:

3.
Onion:

1680
—1730

(a small number are dated to the late 1740s)

4.
Onion/Bladder transitional:

1710 — 1730

5.
Onion/Mallet transitional:

1710 — 1730

6.
Bladder:

1715 —1740

(examples dated between

1754 and 1764 are also recorded)

7.
Bladder/Mallet transitional:

1725 —1735

8.
Mallet:

1715 —1750

9.
Mallet/Cylinder transitional:

1730 —1765

10.
Rectangular Octagonal

1730 —1790

Cylinder:

(1730-1740 was the

main period for this form)

11.
Equal-sided Octagonal Cylinder: 1740 — 1785

(1740-1750 was the

main period for this form)

12.
Cylinder:

1745
—1900+

13.
Squat Cylinder:

1755
—1830

14.
Nailsea style:

1730
— 1820

15.
Alloa glass:

1800
— 1835

16.
Stipple-engraved Alloa glass:

1830
—1880

The seal engravings
The engraved seal is the most important factor in
helping to identify the original owner of a sealed

bottle. Without the addition of a seal, it would be

impossible to research the family and social history

associated with these important early bottles. Research

and collecting habits would concentrate on the form

and style of the bottle from an aesthetic standpoint,

the ability to identify the original owner long having
been lost in the mists of time. The information

contained within the seal engraving can retrieve that
lost history and this was recognised by E. T. Leeds

Location of glasshouse:

London district, including Southwark:

Topsham, near Exeter:
Oddam, near Bath, Somerset:

Bristol district:
Gloucester:

Newnham, near Gloucester:
Swansea,Wales:

Stourbridge, Worcester:
Nottingham:

Custom More, near Nottingham:
Newcastle upon Tyne:

King’s Lynn:
Yarmouth:

Silks
–
tone, near BarnsleyYorkshire:

Total:
Number producing

bottle glass

5
3

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

writing in 1941
(17th and 18th Century Wine Bottles

of Oxford Taverns,
Oxoniensia Volume VI, pp.44-55)

who stressed the importance of the seal, which, when
combined with the form of the bottle, was fundamental

in the identification of the early Oxford taverns and

tavern keepers, even those bottles that were undated.

Where were the bottles made and
who ordered them?

It was on 15 May 1696 that John Houghton’s
Let-

ter No. 198
provided a list of glasshouses operating

in England and Wales producing bottle, flint, plate,
crown, window and other glassware. This letter was

one of a series written between 1681 and 1703 and

published in his book
Letters for the Improvement of

Husbandry and Trade.
Houghton gives the total num-

ber of glasshouses involved in the manufacture of glass

as eighty-eight, of which sixty-one produced flint,

green and ordinary glass, twenty-seven produced crys-

tal glass only, and thirty-seven produced bottle glass.

It is no surprise to note that the four main cen-

tres of glass bottle manufacture as recorded by

Houghton were London, Bristol, Stourbridge
and Newcastle upon Tyne. Although his list is
not definitive, it is the only account of late seven-

teenth-century bottle glass manufacture in England.

London

It
is recommended that anyone interested in Lon-

don’s glasshouses should get hold of a copy of

John Baker’s late seventeenth-century glasshouse

at Vauxhall,
a joint-venture publication by the

Museum of London Archaeology Service (Mono-

graph 28) and English Heritage, published in 2005.
This Thameside glasshouse at Vauxhall is the first of

London’s seventeenth-century glasshouses to be exca-

vated. The glasshouse opened between 1663 and 1681
but had ceased manufacture by 1704 and was demol-

ished by 1706. The archaeological excavations were

directed by the Museum of London’s Department of

Greater London Archaeology: Southwark and Lam-

beth, and took place between May and December 1989

(site code: VBN89). A minimum total of sixty-four
glass vessels were discovered at the site, and what is
particularly interesting about these results is the near

but not absolute certainty that sealed bottles were pro-

duced at the glassworks, and possibly in some quantity.

Fragmentary items found at the site included Venetian

or fawn de Venise vessels, Roemers, vials, jars, bea-
kers, goblets and flasks, as well as bottles and detached

(i.e. broken) seals. It is probable that some of these
artefacts were brought to the glasshouse as cullet for

use in the furnace, which is almost certainly the case

with the Venetian or facon de Venise and Roemer ves-
sels. The most interesting finds are those associated

with Shaft and Globe bottles of the period 1655-1670,

which coincides with the approximate dating of the
early sealed bottles in the Grahame collection. There is

always the possibility that these fragments were intro-

duced to the site as cullet for use in the manufactur-
ing process and were not produced at the glassworks.
Demand for glass products in London in the late

seventeenth century was significant; these were excit-
ing times and London was at the centre of change,

providing a wide range of services to its well-to-do

inhabitants and visitors. Glass of all shapes, sizes and

quality was being produced, including sealed bottles

ordered by the gentry, tavern keepers and the profes-

sional classes, the ‘movers and shakers’ of society. In

1658, William Russell, the 5th Earl of Bedford, ordered

12 dozen glass bottles at 4s 6d (22
1

/2 pence) per doz-

en for delivery to Woburn Abbey. It is not recorded

whether these bottles were sealed or unsealed but on
the 5th March 1671/72, the earl purchased
“12 doz

of Glass bottles wt my Lords Coat on yem at 5s p
doz”.
In 1672, a further 18 dozen sealed bottles at 5s

6d (271/2 pence) per dozen were ordered and between

1671 and 1691, the household purchased an aston-

ishing 13,500 bottles at an annual rate of about 700
bottles per year (Wills, p 61). Not all these bottles

would have been sealed, but this record provides a
useful guide to the level of demand for bottles, sealed

and unsealed, in the major centres of business, educa-
tion and social activity in the late seventeenth century.
Demand for bottles, both sealed and unsealed was in

its infancy but rising. The restoration of the monarchy

with the accession of Charles II had introduced a feeling
of stability and confidence which encouraged society

Fig. I BH5293 unsealed bottle
SEALED BOTTLES

to reflect on a life without internal strife or religious
persecution. But this feeling of euphoria proved

short-lived. The Black Death hit London in 1665

with an epidemic of bubonic plague which created a
mass exodus from the city. City tavern keepers were
not immune; Daniel Rawlinson at the Mitre tavern

in Fenchurch Street was one who did not survive the

plague. A second disaster followed in 1666 with the

Great Fire of London which destroyed many of the
old city taverns, inns, ale-houses, coffee houses and

ordinaries. London would never be the same again.
The main list of dated and undated sealed bottles of

the 1670s and 1680s confirms a significant increase in

the number of bottles ordered by the gentry, individuals

and tavern keepers associated with London. John Baker

would have been one among a number who supplied a
large part of this demand after the devastating impact

of 1665 and 1666 had moved into history. Life, indeed,
must have felt good. Baker would have had to com-

pete with other London bottle manufacturers at Good-

man’s Yard in the Minories, (c.1651-1691+), Stony

Street, Southwark (1677/78-1703+), the Falcon (or

Cockpit) glasshouse, Southwark (1688+, also in busi-
ness in 1715 and 1762), Whitechapel (1678+), Swal-

low Street, Piccadilly (c. 1679+), Cock Lane, Ratcliffe

(1680+), Cut Throat Lane (what a wonderful name),
Ratcliffe, (known in 1696), Savoy (1673-1679) and

Wapping (from 1684)
(Old London Glasshouses,
Buck-

ley (1915), pp.12 — 13, 15 — 22, 25 — 28, 32 and 37).

Inns and taverns, ale-houses and ordinaries

`There is nothing which has yet been contrived by
man, by which so much happiness is produced as by
a good tavern or inn.’
(Dr. Samuel Johnson 1776)

What were they really like?
By the early 1660s the relationship between an inn, cof-
fee house, tavern, ale-house and what became known
as an ordinary was changing, albeit slowly. The tavern

and inn catered for different clientele and bear little

relation to their modern counterpart, the tavern pro-

viding the service expected by the more casual visitor

who wanted a glass of wine or a meal, perhaps a private
room to entertain his friends or arrange a game of cards

or backgammon. The taverns and inns did not provide

public rooms for their visitors’ use; one did not arrange

to meet ‘at the pub’ so to speak but to meet in the con-

fines of a private room. The visitor to the tavern would
not have been staying overnight but would have expect-

ed a high-quality service from the tavern keeper. This

is similar in many respects to the private clubs, high

quality public houses and wine bars of today, where one

can entertain or be entertained in a private room and
enjoy a two or three-course meal with friends or busi-
ness associates in reasonable comfort and surroundings.

Until 1750, London Bridge was the only crossing

over the River Thames into the City. Travellers by coach

were accommodated at the many inns along Borough

High Street which lies to the south of London Bridge on
the site of a Roman road that runs through Southwark,

one of the oldest of London’s many boroughs. It pro-

vides much in the way of social interest for the collector

and researcher of sealed bottles with its many medieval

alleyways running from the High Street between nar-
row buildings, each alleyway headed with the name of

an inn or tavern. This important historical area was the

final stopping place for the traveller, with the inns pro-

viding a welcome resting place before crossing London
Bridge into the City of London proper. The George

Inn in George Inn Yard, now owned by the Nation-
al Trust, is London’s only surviving coaching inn and

retains its original gallery. A walk along Borough High

Street today is a walk through history with the numer-
ous passages, alleys, yards or signs denoting the sites of

the inns and taverns of the seventeenth and eighteenth

centuries. Another important inn was in Talbot Yard
just off the High Street, home to the famous Tabard Inn,

renamed the Talbot Inn when it was rebuilt, having also
been destroyed in the 1670s. This was the inn where the

pilgrims met at the start of Chaucer’s
Canterbury Tales.

Once travellers from Southwark had passed safe-

ly across the Bridge-foot and entered Fish Street Hill,

formerly Bridge Street, there were numerous inns
and taverns to visit in the vicinity of Gracechurch

Street, Leadenhall Street and west towards Cheapside.

The Eila Grahame collection
Of the twelve bot-
tles in the Grahame

collection, eleven

are sealed and one
unsealed, this an ear-

ly Shaft and Globe
bottle dated c.1665
Fig. 1
(Accession No.

BH5293). Six exam-
ples date from the sev-

enteenth century, five

of which carry a seal.

There are four Shaft

and Globe bottles

dated c.1655-1665
and an early Onion

bottle dated 1688.

The earliest exam-
ple dated c.1655-

1660 carries the seal
PAINE
(circling the

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

upper seal quartile) surmounting
a Talbot dog,
the

initials
H A
positioned inside the curl of the tail. The

bottle has probably been immersed in water for most

of its existence, causing the surface degradation, and
there are two chips to the bottom edge of the seal
Figs.2

&
3 (Accession No. BH5278). A second example of

the same seal in a fragmentary condition is held in the

Museum of London collection (Accession No. A15275),
this example missing its neck, a common occurrence

at the time. The complete example has a label on the

base of the bottle
‘Paternoster Square’
which will sig-

nify the site-find location. The incomplete fragment

in the museum collection was found on the site of 44

Coleman Street, London Wall. The dog, sometimes
qualified as to breed, was a common tavern sign in the

seventeenth century, the Black Dog and Talbot being
the most popular. The bottle can almost certainly be

attributed to the Dog Tavern in Creede Lane in Ludgate

Within (c.1636-1666) where a farthing trade token was
issued with
HENRY PAINE LVDGATE = H A P, AT

THE DOGG TAVERN =
A dog. Another token was

issued at the tavern with
AT THE DOGG TAVERN =

A dog,
WITHIN LVDGATE = G P,
the initials possibly

representing another member of the Paine family. The

tavern was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, rebuilt

in about 1668 by William Williams of St. Clement
Danes, a glazier, and was recorded as still being in exis-
tence in 1691. The bottle must therefore pre-date 1666

but the shape of the body would suggest the late 1650s.
The following table classifies the dated and undat-

ed seals from the seventeenth century as at 31 Octo-

ber 2012 (Source:
Antique Sealed Bottles 1640 — 1900

and the families who owned them,
Burton, p.94).
Category:

Dated section:

Undated section:

Tavern
42 (37.84%)

220 (44.09%)

Initials
40 (36.04%)

232 (46.49%)

Name:
22 (19.82%)

32 (6.41%)

House:
6 (5.40%)

Merchant’s Mark:
I (0.90%)

13 (2.61%)

Indecipherable:
2 (0.40%)

Total:
III

499

Although sealed bottles from the seventeenth cen-

tury are rare, tavern keepers were among the most
common users. Most of the population were illiterate,
but the sign of the tavern was easy to understand as a

means of identity, hanging outside a building or fea-

tured on a trade token or sealed bottle. The listings

of undated sealed bottles is more comprehensive and
provides a secure basis on which to assess what bot-

tles were being ordered and by whom. There were four
hundred and ninety-nine undated examples recorded
as at October 2012, which includes two hundred and

twenty taverns (three of which are not certain), two
hundred and thirty-two with the initials of an indi-

vidual and thirty-two with the name of an individual,
thirteen with the mark of a merchant and two exam-
ples that are indecipherable and cannot be classified.

Unlike the seventeenth-century dated sections, there
are no examples with the sole name of a house or estate,

which is surprising, particularly in Wales where the
name of the house was often given priority as it was

more easily recognisable than the name of the family.
The most striking difference between the dated

and undated sections of the seventeenth century is the

much lower percentage of undated examples with the
name of an individual (6.41%) compared with the dat-

ed sections (19.82%), which may reflect a more afflu-

ent background associated with those individuals who

could afford a date and a name. This is supported by
the number of bottles sealed

with initials only with 46.49%

undated and 36.04% dated.
There may be a name asso-

ciated with a Shaft and Globe

bottle dated c.1660-1665, this

sealed
E R / GILFOR / D

above a
stag courant,
dated

c.1660-1665. There are chips

around the lip, part of the

string rim is missing and there
are two chips to the right and

left edge of the seal, the damage
reflecting regular usage
Figs.4

&
5 (Accession No. BH5279).

LEFT Fig. 2

BH5278 sealed bottle

BELOW Fig. 3

BH5278 seal

SEALED BOTTLES

ABOVE Fig.5
BH5279 seal

LEFT Fig.4

BH5279

sealed bottle
in time of plague. The Cross ‘in

the Wool Stable’ (Westminster),

The Cross ‘in Grayes Inn Lane’
Holborn, the Croffe neere Char-

ing Croffe (1636) and many
others across London may pro-

vide a source for further research

(London Signs,
Bryant Lilly-

white, 1972, p.1300). However,
the image of the seal shows four

dominant and four weak points

to the cross and this style would
not have been incorporated if the

cross did represent a tavern, suggesting instead a fam-
ily crest, possibly a member of the Cross [e] family of

which there are numerous branches across the country.
A second Shaft and Globe bottle associated with a

London tavern is sealed :
D : S : THE PALSGRAVES

HEAD
encircling a
head,
within a large beaded border.

The motif was thought to represent a Gilford family
crest but this is recorded as an angel, couped at the
breast, so the likelihood is that this probably relates to

an individual, E R, from Gilford, i.e. Guildford, Sur-
rey. Fairbairn records a member of the Roe family with

the crest of ‘on a mount, a stag courant’, similar to

the wonderful engraving of the stag here, but fails to

mention a date or county. There were also numerous

taverns with this name in London and elsewhere across

the country and three trade tokens are recorded that

feature the name Gifford, not Gilford, but none can

be associated with a stag. Recent research produces

many examples where Gilford is the spelling for the

town and there are at least ten trade tokens from Guild-

ford incorporating this spelling so a possible association

with the town cannot be ruled out. Again, a site-find
location would have been useful but this informa-

tion is lacking in all the examples in the collection.
The earliest of the dated examples is sealed
E S
flank-

ing an
eight-pointed cross / 1688
with scrolling, four

minor points of the cross possibly in the form of
a quin-

dent.
There are chips to the lower left and right edge

of the seal, air bubbles in the glass and internal wine
residue
Figs.6 & 7
(Accession No. BH5275). A quin-

dent is a trident with five prongs, not three. The cross

may suggest an association with a tavern, the initials E

S representing the tavern keeper. The cross as a tavern

nified ‘do not enter’ when placed on houses infected
LEFT Fig.6

BH5275 seal

BELOW Fig. 7

BH5275 sealed
bottle

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

Dated c.1660-1665, the typical pale olive-green glass
has a dull patina evidencing signs of burial. The long

neck with the remains of a string rim indicates the bot-

tle has been broken and repaired, leaving a large piece

missing to the left of the seal
Figs.8 &
9 (Accession No.

BH5295). The bottle can be associated with a Palsgrave

Head tavern with the initials D S representing the tav-
ern keeper. There was a Palsgrave Head tavern at Temple

Bar (1641-1690s) and also in Exchange Alley, Cornhill
FAR LEFT Fig. 8

BH5295 sealed

bottle

LEFT Fig. 9

(c.1670s-1680s). A halfpenny trade token was issued at
the tavern in Temple Bar with
THE PALSGRAV HEAD

TAVERN =
Bust of the Palsgrave Fredrick,
WITHOVT

TEMPLE BARR = HER HALFE PENNY D S,
which

appears to support this attribution
(London Traders,

Tavern, and Coffee-House Tokens,
Jacob H. Burn, Sec-

ond Edition, 1855, p.225). D S was a widow and may
be the ‘ID’ on the trade token with the initials S / C D,

her husband C having died. Palsgrave Place, near Tem-

ple Bar on the south side of The Strand, was the site

of this notorious tavern. The Palsgrave Frederick, lat-
er King of Bohemia, was engaged to be married in the

Banqueting Hall at Whitehall on 27 December 1612 to

FAR RIGHT Fig. 10

BH5287 Sealed bottle

RIGHT Fig. I 1
BH5287 seal

SEALED BOTTLES

the Princess Elizabeth, only daughter of James
I,

and the

tavern may have been so named to mark this occasion.

See C / D and a man’s head, with PALS GRAVE HEAD
encircling the seal, and S / C D (pyramidal format) with

THE PAVLSGRAVE HED TAVERN encircling the

seal, for probable tavern connection
(Antique Sealed

Bottles (1640 — 1900) and the families who owned

them,
David Burton 2015, Vol. Two, p.930 and 1008).

The simple initials
T B
(single matrices) on the early

Shaft and Globe bottle dated c.1660-1665 was the most

common style of engraving in the seventeenth century.

The glasshouse would maintain a selection of single ini-

tials which could be chosen by the original owner and

impressed separately as is the case here. It was the cheap-
est form of marking one’s bottles to denote ownership.

The bottle has suffered water burial for centuries and

the thickness of the glass makes it difficult to determine

any damage
Figs.10 &11
(Accession No. BH5287).

There are six sealed bottles from the eighteenth century,

all dated within a few years of each other between 1717

and 1735, but one is the most visually impressive bottle
in the collection. It is by no means the earliest, but it is by

far the largest yet discovered from over 5,000 examples
recorded (Burton 2015). When
I
visited Himley Hall in

Staffordshire to view the Eila Grahame collection which

was placed in storage via the Arts Council in late 2017,
I was literally blown away by the presence of this huge,

seemingly early bottle. The circumference is a staggering

116.84cm (46 inches or 3ft 10in). It would have been a
major physical task to lift the bottle and pour the wine

when full and it makes one wonder if the glasses were
of the same relative size! It is sealed simply
W / Marsh

/ 1719
but the style of the lip and string rim confirms

the date of manufacture as much later, probably c.1800-

1810. (See Jn°. / Popkin. / TalyGarn / • 1800 • (Burton,
p.819) and Ricd / Webb. / Whitstone / 1806 (Burton,

p.831) for a similar lip and string rim style). It is blown

in the style of a bulbous ‘carboy’ Onion with a height of

455mm and diameter 390mm, and there is same internal

staining which confirms the bottle has been put to good
use during its lifetime and survived the journey,
Figs.12

& 13
(Accession No. BH5258). As a comparison in terms

of the size of this bottle, the largest sealed bottles recorded

in
Antique Sealed Bottles 1640 — 1900 and the families

who owned them,
are sealed F / Arthur / 1794 at 381mm,

and R • / Crig / Merriott / 1803 with two known exam-
ples measuring 374mm and 379mm. All the large bottles

recorded are dated to the late eighteenth or early nine-

teenth century but this bottle is unique in terms of its size

The question to be addressed of course is who W[illiam]
Marsh was, the significance of the year 1719, a centenary
perhaps, and why it was blown to such a size. It may have

been blown to advertise the skill of the glassblower, a sig-

nificant feat at the time, who may have made the piece for

his own satisfaction. William Marsh was a common name

between 1650 and 1850 but without a site-find con-

nection it has not been possible to identify the original

owner (Pedigree Resource File: database, Family Search).

The larger capacity bottles described in the book as ‘car-
boy’ Cylinder bottles embrace the period 1770 — 1810

and it would have been helpful to learn what Eila Gra-
hame was told when the bottle came into her collection.

LEFT Fig. 12 BH5258 sealed bottle
BELOW Fig. 13 BH5258 seal

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

Fig. 14 BH5297 bottle front

Fig. 15 BH5297 bottle side

Fig. 16 BH5297 seal

What is particularly interesting in the bladder-shaped

bottle sealed
Iohn / Richards / Iunior / 1727
is the

aqua or clear glass used by the glassworks, an extremely
rare metal for a sealed bottle of this period and diffi-

cult to photograph. It is not that aqua or clear glass was

particularly rare at this time, far from it; the mould-

blown cruciform decanters of c.1725 to 1730 were quite

common and there is a clear glass bottle decanter with

stopper dated c.1740 in the collection of the Fitzwil-
liam Museum, Cambridge. The diameter is 135mm x

80mm with the seal attached to the widest part of the
body. It has suffered some damage with most of the

lip above the string rim missing, leaving a jagged edge,
but the rest of the bottle appears to be in good condi-

tion
Figs.14, 15 & 16
(Accession No. BH5297). There

is a Devonshire connection, supported by a detached

seal dated 1717 found at the Ketisbury Rectory near

Barnstaple, north Devonshire, where John Snr. (1670-

1717) was rector. He was buried on 3 January 1717

and his son John was installed as rector on 9 February

1717. The bottle dated 1717 may have been commis-
sioned to celebrate his installation and this example
to celebrate the tenth anniversary. He died in 1773.

History:
The seven bottles described above were

in the Eila Grahame collection and are now part of
the Dudley Museum Services collection held in Him-

ley Hall and may in due course be displayed at the

White House Cone museum of glass (WHCmog).

Crests and Coats of Arms

The only example of a coat of arms are the bottles sealed
with the
Edgar arms: per chevron, in chief, two fleurs-

de-lis, in base, five lozenges of the first, each charged

with an escallop,
with elaborate mantling and within a

beaded border. They are bladder-shaped bottles dated
c.1725-1730 and there are three examples stored in a

Tantalus, a wooden cabinet for holding three decant-
ers, or bottles as in this case. The seal is positioned on

the narrow side of the bottle and one of the examples is
in mint condition, never having been used. There are

examples of sealed bottles in other collections associ-

ated with the same family, three onion-shaped bottles

dated c.1710-1715, one of which is of half-size capacity.

The coat of arms on the full-size Onion bottle is incor-

porated within an oval-shaped shield with elaborate
mantling, whereas the half-size example is represented
by the more traditional plain shield with no mantling.

This suggests two separate orders for sealed bottles were
placed with the glasshouse, although one cannot rule

out that the smaller bottle(s) may have been ordered for
use by the ladies of the household. There is a label with

the three bladder-shaped bottles housed in a Tantalus,

`Spirit Case given to the Edgar family, staunch support-

ers of the Stuarts in
[17]
45
[rebellion] .
Secretary to

Cardinal George Stuart in Rome. Bottles bear the arms
of the Edgars. The spirit case was attached to a carrier,

hence the shape’.
The bottles can be attributed to the

Edgar family of The Red House, near Ipswich, Suffolk.

The Red House was a magnificent seventeenth-century

mansion worthy of the wealthiest of families, built in

1658 by Thomas Edgar for his son, his fifth and eldest
surviving son, most of whom died in infancy. This

was Devereux Edgar, born 20 October 1651 in Tower
Parish, Ipswich, died 30 December 1743 (IGI). The
last of the Edgar line was the Reverend Mileson Gery

Edgar who was living at the house until his death in

1853. When his wife died in 1890, the house and estate

deteriorated until it was sold at a Christie’s auction in

April 1937, after which the house was demolished. The
bottles can probably be attributed to Devereux Edgar.

SEALED BOTTLES

Fig. 17 BH5237 Tantalus with three bottles

Fig. 18 BH5237 bottle I

Fig. 20 BH5237 bottle 2

Fig. 22 BH5237 bottle 3

Fig. 19 BH5237 bottle I seal

Fig. 21 BH5237 bottle 2 seal

Fig. 23 BH5237 bottle 3 seal

ABOVE Fig. 25

BH5280 seal

LEFT Fig. 24

BH5280 sealed bottle

THE JOURNAL OF THE GLASS SOCIETY

Reference:
Antique

Glass Bottles, Their His-

tory and Evolution (1500-

1850),
W. Van den Bossche

2001, p.75, P1.17.
Antique

Sealed Bottles 1640-1900
and the families who

owned them,
David Bur-

ton 2015, p.1413. One
example sold at a Sotheby’s

auction in 1977, hammer

price unknown. A second

example sold at a Bon-
hams, Ipswich auction,

October 2004, hammer
price £520. UK dealer pri-

vate sale, November 2004,

£1,700. UK private collec-
tion (1 example – Onion).

History:
These three

bladder-shaped bottles

Figs. 17-23 (Accession
No. BH5237), were in
the Eila Grahame collection and are now part of the

Dudley Museum Services collection held in Himley

Hall and may in due course be displayed at WHCmog.

A mallet-shaped bottle dated c.1730-1735 bears

the
crest of a salmon ?haurient,
surmounted by
two

fronds of ?seaweed.
The description of a salmon may

be misinterpreted as the seal engraving is weak and
poorly executed with a strand of surplus glass compli-

cating the detail. Close examination of the seal appears

to show three spikes or spines to the dorsal, which might

suggest a three-spiked stickleback. The space below
the salmon may incorporate a date, possibly 173 [?]

although this cannot be determined with any certainty.

The salmon as a London sign was known in the sev-
enteenth century, confirming that salmon were once

caught in the River Thames. As a tavern sign in London

and probably elsewhere, it was often suffixed with Ball,

Bell, Bowl, Compass, Pearl and Ring, i.e. the Salm-

on & Bell, the Salmon and Compasses, etc. The lack

of clarity in the engraving makes this impossible to

identify but the likelihood is that this is a family crest
rather than a tavern bottle and it would be rare for

this to be dated, especially in the 1730s. There are no
initials with the crest and very few examples of sealed

bottles from taverns associated with the 1730s. There

are references to various Salmon families featuring the

salmon within their Coat of Arms but none with the

salmon as the Crest. Eila Grahame described the bot-
tle as
“An almost straight sided bottle with very high

kick with seal impressed with a fish c1670 (this has
been ascribed to Glasgow (salmon in the Glasgow coat
of arms)); it most probably comes from a tavern such

as the pike or trout, both of which are to be found

in the vicinity of Oxford (see Ruggles-Brise).”
The

Glasgow coat of arms includes the salmon but the arms

were not awarded until 1866 so there is no connection.
Reference:
The General Armory Burke’s Peerage,

1884. London Signs,
Bryant Lillywhite, 1972, p.477.

History: The bottle was in the Eila Grahame collection

Figs.24 & 25 (Accession No.BH5280), and is now part
of the Dudley Museum Services collection held in Him-

ley Hall and may in due course be displayed at WHCmog.

My thanks go to the Dudley Museum Service for

allowing me access to all of the bottles, sealed and

unsealed, held in their collection at Himley Hall, par-

ticularly those of the Eila Grahame Collection, and then

providing photos and additional information. This was

helped by the Museum volunteers who had the task of

setting out the individual items for my appraisal and

responding subsequently to the many questions raised

in the preparation of this article. I make a specific ref-
erence to Bill Millar, a volunteer who photographed

and edited all the images included here. Photographing
these artefacts is never an easy task as the smooth and

sometimes degraded surface of the glass can reflect light
from any source. The Museum should feel pleased with

the final result. I also pay special thanks to Lorraine

Olphert of Wellington, New Zealand, for her metic-
ulous work proofreading the article to its final stage.

The collection was bequeathed to Dudley Muse-

um Service by Eila Grahame with Art Fund support.

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