A rare Victorian opaque black glass combined inkstand, pen tray & taper tray bearing the registry date lozenge for 13 March 1875 – Parcel 5, which corresponds to registered design number 289894, the registrant being Thomas Lane & Son of Birmingham, Warwickshire. It measures approximately 11cms long x 10.75cms wide x 5.5 high and weighs 380 grams.
(Permission for the re-use of these images on the GMB granted by Kevin Collins).
Roy shows a ‘2 bottle’ variant of the same design in clear glass at reply #11 of
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,21284.10.htmlThomas Lane & Son had previously registered a design (number 288295, registered on 7 January 1875 – Parcel
for a glass ‘four bottle inkstand, water dish and pen tray’. Does anyone have a photos of such an inkstand to show, please?
In 1865, Thomas Lane started a glass works in Hampton Street, Birmingham. He had been involved in the glass industry as a glass mixer since at least 1837. Thomas was assisted in the business by his two sons, Josiah (born 1837), and younger son, William, and in 1869 Josiah formally joined his father as a partner in the Company. In 1875, Thomas Lane retired, the partnership was dissolved, and the company was carried on by Josiah Lane. Thomas Lane died in 1877, and by 1881 Josiah and his family had moved to the pleasant suburbs of Handsworth. Josiah's son, Josiah Jnr., was now manager of the glass works.
Josiah Lane then provides an interesting link to the Dudley glass trade, because in 1888 Josiah decided to start up another works at Eve Hill in Dudley and immediately brought his son into the new business – Josiah Lane and Son. The move was possibly due to the fact that the Hampton Street factory was in a dilapidated condition, but more likely because coal was cheaper to buy in Dudley. It would appear that the glassworks were already in existence when Josiah Jnr. settled in Dudley, but nothing is known of its early history. The glassworks under the control of the Lane family stood close to what is now the roundabout at St. James's Church, Eve Hill. The business became a limited company in 1897. Some of the decoration on plain glass was carried out at the Birmingham works which had been kept open. By 1905 the firm employed 65 people. The main production concentrated on lamp glasses and globes, fancy lamp shades, confectionery glass and stationer’s equipment. A company advertisement placed in 1912 (see Hajdamach, British Glass 1800-1914, page 76), indicates a wide range of colour and decoration on lampshades, including satin finish, opalescent patterns, and cutting. By 1920 the works only operated a one pot furnace as business had declined and three years later it was running at a loss. Josiah Jnr., by then a Dudley Councillor and J.P. in the town, informed his work force that the audited accounts for 1922 and 1923 showed an average loss of £25 per week. Somehow though Josiah kept the works going until it finally closed in December 1932, three months after his death. In the years that followed the factory remained unattended for quite some time, but was eventually used as a builder's yard by a Mr Darby in the late 1950s, and also housed a small engineering company and a motor repair yard for a short while. But time eventually took its toll on the building and Dudley council had the site cleared and made safe in the 1990s. So the final vestige of the Lane Glass Dynasty was extinguished, and, being the last glass works in Dudley, so ended a centuries old tradition of glass making in the town.
Fred.
Topic: Thomas Lane & Son inkstand combination, RD 289894 of 13 March 1875. (Read 4542 times)
