Thomas Cavato, a Dutchman. In 1574 Jacob Verzellini, a fugitive Venetian, residing in Antwerp, obtained a patent for making drinking-glasses in London “such as are made in Murano.” He established works in Crutched Friars, and to him is probably due the introduction of the use of soda-ash, made from seaweed and seaside plants, in place of the crude potash made from fern and wood ashes. His manufactory was burnt down in 1575, but was rebuilt. He afterwards moved his works to Winchester House, Broad Street. There is a small goblet (Pl. I., fig. 8) in the British Museum which is attributed to Verzellini. It is Venetian in character, of a brownish tint, with two white enamel rings round the body. It is decorated with diamond or steel-point etching, and bears on one side the date 1586, and on the opposite side the words “In God is al mi trust.” Verzellini died in 1606 and was buried at Down in Kent. In 1592 the Broad Street works had been taken over by Jerome Bowes. They afterwards passed into the hands of Sir R. Mansel, and in 1618 James Howell, author of Epistolae Ho-elianae, was acting as steward. The works continued in operation until 1641. During excavations in Broad Street in 1874 many fragments of glass were found; amongst them were part of a wine-glass, a square scent-bottle and a wine-glass stem containing a spiral thread of white enamel.
A greater and more lasting influence on English glass-making came from France and the Low Countries. In 1567 James Carré of Antwerp stated that he had erected two glass-houses at “Fernefol” (Fernfold Wood in Sussex) for Normandy and Lorraine glass for windows, and had brought over workmen. From this period began the records in England of the great glass-making families of Hennezel, de Thietry, du Thisac and du Houx from Lorraine, and of de Bongar and de Cacqueray from Normandy. About this time glass-works were established at Ewhurst and Alford in Surrey, Loxwood, Kirdford, Wisborough and Petworth in Sussex, and Sevenoaks and Penshurst in Kent. Beginning in Sussex, Surrey and Kent, where wood for fuel was plentiful, the foreign glass-workers and their descendants migrated from place to place, always driven by the fuel-hunger of their furnaces. They gradually made their way into Hampshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Staffordshire, Northumberland, Scotland and Ireland. They can be traced by cullet heaps and broken-down furnaces, and by their names, often mutilated, recorded in parish registers.
In 1610 a patent was granted to Sir W. Slingsby for burning coal in furnaces, and coal appears to have been used in the Broad Street works. In 1615 all patents for glass-making were revoked and a new patent issued for making glass with coal as fuel, in the names of Mansel, Zouch, Thelwall, Kellaway and Percival. To the last is credited the first introduction of covered crucibles to protect the molten glass from the products of burning coal.
Simultaneously with the issue of this patent the use of wood for melting glass was prohibited, and it was made illegal to import glass from abroad. About 1617 Sir R. Mansel, vice-admiral and treasurer of the navy, acquired the sole rights of making glass in England. These rights he retained for over thirty years.
During the protectorate all patent rights virtually lapsed, and mirrors and drinking-glasses were once more imported from Venice. In 1663 the duke of Buckingham, although unable to obtain a renewal of the monopoly of glass-making, secured the prohibition of the importation of glass for mirrors, coach plates, spectacles, tubes and lenses, and contributed to the revival of the glass industry in all its branches. Evelyn notes in his Diary a visit in 1673 to the Italian glass-house at Greenwich, “where glass was blown of finer metal than that of Murano,” and a visit in 1677 to the duke of Buckingham’s glass-works, where they made huge “vases of mettal as cleare, ponderous and thick as chrystal; also looking-glasses far larger and better than any that came from Venice.”
Some light is thrown on the condition of the industry at the end of the 17th century by the Houghton letters on the improvement of trade and commerce, which appeared in 1696. A few of these letters deal with the glass trade, and in one a list is given of the glass-works then in operation. There were 88 glass factories in England which are thus classified:
| Bottles Looking-glass plates Crown and plate-glass Window glass Flint and ordinary glass |
39 2 5 15 27 |
| — | |
| 88 |
It is probable that the flint-glass of that date was very different from the flint-glass of to-day. The term flint-glass is now understood to mean a glass composed of the silicates of potash and lead. It is the most brilliant and the most colourless of all glasses, and was undoubtedly first perfected in England. Hartshorne has attributed its discovery to a London merchant named Tilson, who in 1663 obtained a patent for making “crystal glass.” E. W. Hulme, however, who has carefully investigated the subject, is of opinion that flint-glass in its present form was introduced about 1730. The use of oxide of lead in glass-making was no new thing; it had been used, mainly as a flux, both by Romans and Venetians. The invention, if it may be regarded as one, consisted in eliminating lime from the glass mixture, substituting refined potash for soda, and using a very large proportion of lead oxide. It is probable that flint-glass was not invented, but gradually evolved, that potash-lead glasses were in use during the latter part of the 17th century, but that the mixture was not perfected until the middle of the following century.
The 18th century saw a great development in all branches of glass-making. Collectors of glass are chiefly concerned with the drinking-glasses which were produced in great profusion and adapted for every description of beverage. The most noted are the glasses with stout cylindrical legs (Plate I. fig. 9), containing spiral threads of air, or of white or coloured enamel. To this type of glass belong many of the Jacobite glasses which commemorate the old or the young Pretender.
In 1746 the industry was in a sufficiently prosperous condition to tempt the government to impose an excise duty. The report of the commission of excise, dealing with glass, published in 1835 is curious and interesting reading. So burdensome was the duty and so vexatious were the restrictions that it is a matter for wonder that the industry survived. In this respect England was more fortunate than Ireland. Before 1825, when the excise duty was introduced into Ireland, there were flourishing glass-works in Belfast, Cork, Dublin and Waterford. By 1850 the Irish glass industry had been practically destroyed. Injurious as the excise duty undoubtedly was to the glass trade generally, and especially to the flint-glass industry, it is possible that it may have helped to develop the art of decorative glass-cutting. The duty on flint-glass was imposed on the molten glass in the crucibles and on the unfinished goods. The manufacturer had, therefore, a strong inducement to enhance by every means in his power the selling value of his glass after it had escaped the exciseman’s clutches. He therefore employed the best available art and skill in improving the craft of glass-cutting. It is the development of this craft in connexion with the perfecting of flint-glass that makes the 18th century the most important period in the history of English glass-making. Glass-cutting was a craft imported from Germany, but the English material so greatly surpassed Bohemian glass in brilliance that the Bohemian cut-glass was eclipsed. Glass-cutting was carried on at works in Birmingham, Bristol, Belfast, Cork, Dublin, Glasgow, London, Newcastle, Stourbridge, Whittington and Waterford. The most important centres of the craft were London, Bristol, Birmingham and Waterford (see Plate I., fig. 10, for oval cut-glass Waterford bowl). The finest specimens of cut-glass belong to the period between 1780 and 1810. Owing to the sacrifice of form to prismatic brilliance, cut-glass gradually lost its artistic value. Towards the middle of the 19th century it became the fashion to regard all cut-glass as barbarous, and services of even the best period were neglected and dispersed. At the present time scarcely anything is known about the origin of the few specimens of 18th-century English cut-glass
