Chiddingfold and British glass making

 Glass makers in the area of Sussex surrounding Chiddingfofd took advantage of the wood available in the Weald, the sand under foot and the bracken growing each spring to borrow making skills from France and produced the glass needed for the great English cathedrals in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. They were not alone for there is evidence of glass making in Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Staffordshire and Essex.

The next push came in sixteenth century with the arrival of Huguenots from Lorraine and Normandy fleeing persecution. The key entrepreneur was Jean Carre from Antwerp, which was then a major glass producer nearly on a par with Venice. In the petition to protect his patent, the evidence was that English glass making had fallen into bad ways with no window glass and only rough objects being made. Although there were 'glasses', drinking vessels continued to be made of wood, horn or leather well into the eighteenth century. British glass was facing stiff competition from Venice where clearer and more finely designed pieces were being made. Carre's assistant, who took over the business when his master died, and further refugees from Lorraine succeeded in rejuvenating Wealden glass making.

S.E. Winbolt in his book on Wealden Glass offers a helpful description of the making of window glass. Glass on a blow iron would be spun in a pit into a large disc which would then be cut into diamond shaped panes around a central circle 'bull's eye' with the pontil mark in the centre. The diamond shaped panes would be held in place by leaded strips to created a window (as in the image). English glass makers also made muff glass whereby a cylinder of glass is blown and then cut and spread flat in the furnace to create a sheet.

The denuding of the forests in the reign of Elizabeth I was causing shortages of timber for shipbuilders and glass making had to take second place to iron smelting. The glass makers of Surrey and Sussex were predominantly of French dissent and their use of English wood to make glass, instead of forging iron caused anti-immigrant feeling. The result was that glass makers moved west and settled first in Hampshire before moving on to find fresh supplies of wood and new customers in Gloucestershire.

At this point a story I refer to in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World kicks in, as Sir Robert Mansell worked at finding ways of using coal to melt glass as Dud Dudley was seeking the same for smelting iron ore. When eventual trial and error resulted in success, the glass makers sought coal rather than wood and moved first to Stourbridge and then to Newcastle on Tyne and Sunderland.

The British Cast Plate Glass Company was founded in St Helens in the eighteenth century taking advantage of the availability of raw materials and the skills of immigrant makers. George Ravenscroft had made a number of inventions including the use of lead which resulted in clearer glass. Pilkington at St Helens would become the major British glass producer, alongside Chance Brothers in Birmingham and London makers including Whitefriars. At the same time fine glass was made in Stourbridge with Webb Corbett and Stuart Crystal, and Royal Brierley and Dartington. Today the studio glass movement has taken up the mantle with makers all round the country.

The story of glass making is now celebrated in both Stourbridge and Sunderland.

Further reading:

S.E. Winbolt, Wealden Glass - The Surrey-Sussex Glass Industry

I am grateful also to my glass designer maker wife, Maggie Williams, for her input,

You can read more in Vehicles to Vaccines and in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World 

Stourbridge manufacturing history

 Wool was the business of Stourbridge as it was for a great deal of the kingdom from the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries. Yet it was not all.

The power source for early manufacturing was strongly flowing water and the river Stour did not disappoint. All that then was needed were raw materials and here the local area provided clay, iron ore, sand and nearby Dudley had limestone. Potash, needed to make glass, was first made locally by burning bracken, later seaweed was imported from Scotland and Spain.

Bricks were made in many places across Britain, but the banks of the Stour had red clay which produced a very high quality of building brick and white clay for firebricks essential for making glass. It was very heavy work done mainly by women producing some 14 million bricks a year.

Stourbridge is famous for its high quality glass. This is probably linked to the arrival in the district of glass makers fleeing persecution in Lorraine. The Huguenots set up in Stourbridge and surrounding villages employing local workers who too gained skills. The product was window glass but also bottles for cider, and fine glass. The finest piece was said to be a chandelier for the sultan of Turkey as a cost of £10,000. A key development was the invention of a way to make glass using coal as the source of heat. The Heath Glass Works was the Stourbridge works that can be traced through the transitions. It was however not linked by the first canal bringing coal from Dudley, handing the advantage to others better located.

In 1897 the firm of Webb Corbett was founded when they took over the White House Glass Works which had been run by WH , B & J Richardson in nearby Wordsley which was on the canal. A century earlier Royal Brierley had established at nearby Brierley Hill.

The glass making inheritance has been taken up by designer makers. The most prominent of whom, Allister Malcolm Glass at Broadfield House Glass Museum the former home of Stuart Chrystal Glass also at Wordsley, has focused on sustainability. Glass requires 1200 degrees of heat and so is energy hungry. Gas took over from coal but is still carbon based. The sustainable answer is electricity powered by solar. This perhaps begs the question of whether makers could return to Stourbridge's original source of power: the river Stour.

Coal was key to the substantial iron trade of the town. The origin predates the use of coal when charcoal was used to smelt the ore. There is evidence of hand nail making from this iron. As smelting developed so too did the process of nail manufacture but it remained heavy and dangerous work. Chains, locks and scythes were other staple products of the town.

Skills in metal work translated into metal fabrication and light engineering. For example, the German Sunlight Industries set up in the town manufacturing mobility solutions for people with disabilities.

Further reading:

Nigel Perry, A History of Stourbridge (Chichester: Phillimore, 2001)