Topic: Stourbridge Glass Co, Glasshouse Street, Ancoats, Manchester

[agincourt17]

As an aside, I note with interest the reference to:

They are mentioned in the Staffordshire Advertiser 8th May 1852 as being
agents for the Stourbridge Glass Co which was in Glasshouse Street,
Manchester.

Glasshouse Street, [Ancoats], Manchester (postcode M4 5HD) still exists just off Oldham Road, though now occupied by several industrial units. It is, however, only a short distance from Kirby Street, the site of the Molineaux and Webb Glass Works, and not far from Jersey Street, the site of the Percival, Vickers & Co. Glass Works.

A quick online search at TNA has failed to reveal any glass design registrations for the Stourbridge Glass Co.

I can't find any reference to the Stourbridge Glass Co. on Neil's Manchester Glass site. Does anyone have information about them, please, especially any actual links that they may have had with Stourbridge glass manufacturing ?

Fred.

[Anne]

Fred, I hope you don't mind but I have split this off as I think it may be an interesting research topic in its own right.

Like you I've not been able to find anything about the Stourbridge Glass Co. in Glasshouse Street online, so I approached it from an old maps perspective and found that on the Manchester 1845 map there is a Flint Glass Works shown on that site.   I have checked the maps between 1845 and 1938 and it is only the first one which shows the glassworks by type.  The later maps show other buildings have surrounded it, and from Grace's I know that one of them on Glasshouse Street was a cotton finishing mill, so I suspect that may have been the later and bigger building across the road from the glassworks.  See composite image attached. (Maps reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland.)

Looking at the map the entrance may have been from the Oldham Road, and the 1855 Slater's Directory gives that Percival Yates & Vickers  (flint) were at 64 Jersey Street, Ancoats (as mentioned on Neil's site) and at Oldham Road... so is the glasshouse on Glasshouse Street actually this other PYV works or is one of the other lesser known Manchester ones? I think we may need Neil's input to answer this one...

[flying free]

It would be good to find a copy of the Staffordshire Advertiser and find out what it really says

Oh, look at the list of exhibitors for the Great Exhibition 1851? - would that help? 
Maybe they saw Molineaux WEBB and assumed it was a Stourbridge glass company so put that in the article?

[agincourt17]

Burtles & Tate were also  based just across the Oldham Road, in Poland Street, Ancoats, but they seem not to have started business until circa 1858. 

Fred.

[flying free]

Fred, I've just amended my post above but in case you didn't see it

I think finding the ad would be good.

The way they have written 'which was in Glasshouse Street Manchester' makes me a little suspicious that might not have been in the advert.
Otherwise wouldn't they have just written
'Stourbridge Glass Co, Glasshouse Street Manchester'

Glasshouse Street is a tiny cut through street as far as I can see.
m

[flying free]

A good map here on this Eng Heri document page 12
Should show the glassworks that ~Anne is pointing out on her maps I think?
https://content.historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/ancoats/ancoats.pdf/

[flying free]

aha Stourbridge Flint Glass Works established 1831 off Oldham Street (presumably in Glasshouse Street )
https://content.historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/ancoats/ancoats.pdf/
page 29

And I just have to add an observation here, that I am always so shocked at the proximity of the various mills and works to the housing.  I mean I come from a textile town in Lancashire and used to own a terraced house there as did my grandma up the road, (gps worked in the mills) but when I look at the old photos of the potteries and the mill towns including ours where there were tens of mill chimneys, it's unbelievable how they all built right on top of each other and right next door to terraced housing where there workers lived - every square inch filled with buildings. 

And Thomas Webb mentioned here as being in Manchester?
http://www.great-glass.co.uk/glass%20notes/manw-z.htm

'Webb & Sons, Thomas
Wordsley, Stourbridge, England (1840 - 1990)
First at The White House Glass Works (sold to W H, B & J Richardson in 1842), then at The Platts House (1840 - 1855), then finally The Dennis Glass Works (1855 onward), later known as the Stourbridge Glass Works (also at The Oldham Road Flint Glass Works, Varley Street, Manchester). ...'

[flying free]

see reply above and also this from Pigots 1837 I think
http://digital.nls.uk/directories/browse/pageturner.cfm?id=85595344&mode=transcription
Williams John (flint) Stourbridge glass works, 112 Oldham road
It falls under Glass Manufacturers and Merchants

However the Historic England document has Stourbridge Flint Glass Works as opening in 1831 off Oldham Street

[agincourt17]

From Neil's Manchester Glass site at
https://sites.google.com/site/molwebbhistory/Home/people/william-maginnis-c1776-1840s

A notice in a Manchester newspaper dated 3rd December 1836....

John Williams begs leave most respectfully to inform his friends and the public that in addition to his usual establishment, the Stourbridge Glass Works, Oldham Road, he has recently taken possession of the concern lately conducted by Mr. William Maginnis, Elizabeth Street, in the same neighbourhood, where at either house, all kinds of plain, cut and ornamental glass work is executed in the very first style, and orders will be attended to with the greatest punctuality.

Fred.

[agincourt17]

Re. The Oldham Road Flint Glass Works, Varley Street, Manchester:
Varley Street still exists (postcode M40 8EE), almost 1 mile due west of Glasshouse Street (and south of Oldham Road).

From Neil's Manchester Glass site at
https://sites.google.com/site/molwebbhistory/Home/people/descendants-of-wiiliam-webb
it would appear that, in 186, the Oldham Road Flint Glass Works was the site of the Ker, Webb & Co glass works (the partners being Andrew Ker and Thomas Webb). Thomas Webb was the son of William Webb of Warrington (1795-1865), and I am pretty sure that Neil has already told me that he was completely unrelated to the 'Stourbridge' Thomas Webb ( of the White House Glass Works and then the Dennis Glass Works, and who died in 1869). This business split into two separate concerns in 1875, one continued by Andrew Ker and the other by Thomas Webb.

3 Apr 1875
Dissolution - I beg to give notice, that the partnership heretofore subsisting between myself and Mr. ANDREW KER, trading as "Ker, Webb & Co." flint glass manufacturers, has been dissolved. The business will in future be carried on at the New Works, in Varley Street, Oldham Road, in the name of Thomas Webb and Sons, and will be conducted under my management as before.
THOMAS WEBB
Oldham Road Flint Glass Works, Varley Street, April 2 1875.

From 1875, Thomas formed a new venture with his son, Thomas George Webb (the same name as the man running Molineaux & Webb at this time). The works at Varley Street, off Oldham Road, were of a decent size but little of note was produced. Although this business is recorded as lasting until 1893, it ran into financial trouble at an early stage.

The glass works building and surrounding land was purchased by the Catholic Church in 1889. The site was redeveloped as a Norbertine priory and opened as the Corpus Christi Basilica in 1907.

Varley Street has been almost entirely redeveloped, but the former Corpus Christ Basilica, built between 1905 and 1906, still stands. See: http://manchesterhistory.net/manchester/churches/corpus.html

It would seem likely, therefore, that the information about Thomas Webb at
http://www.great-glass.co.uk/glass%20notes/manw-z.htm
has been somewhat confused by the difference in the various' Thomas Webbs' sprinkled throughout the Victorian glass manufacturing trade.

Fred.