Another Boulton & Keir vase (this time a 'candlevase') with white opaque glass:
http://www.bmagic.org.uk/objects/2002M26.1See also:
http://www.moilliet.ws/Ingenious_Keir.pdfFrom Jason Ellis's " Glassmakers of Stourbridge and Dudley 1612-2002" (page 78 & seq.):
"James Keir, FRS, b. 20th Sep 1735; Educated at Edinburgh High School and Edinburgh University; commissioned at age 22 in the 61st Regiment of foot - now the Gloucestershire Regiment; left army in 1768 having just reached rank of Captain; brief sojourn in London, then came to Wordsley in 1770; chemist; partner in Keir, Blair and Playfair's Tividale Collieries; Colonel, Staffordshire Militia; manufacturer of soap at Tipton; died 11 October 1820; bur. All Saints, West Bromwich.
[In 1771] the celebrated scientist James Keir leased Holloway End Glasshouse.. On 19 October 1771 fellow scientist Dr William Small wrote to James Watt: 'Mr Keir has turned glass maker at Stourbridge and has married a beauty... you must get Mr Keir customers, if you can, for white flint glass, tho' by and by he will make other kinds.'
On 16th December 1771 he wrote: 'Pray do not your Glasgow merchts send abundance of glass to America? If Mr Keir should be employed by them, altho at present he makes only flint glass, he will provide them with any kind they may want upon the best of terms.'
Keir managed the works and lived at Holloway End House... Keir was an enquiring man , typical of the scientist entrepreneur of the period, who used the glassworks, not only as a business but also as a laboratory in which to carry out experiments, particularly on the properties of alkalis.
Keir sent a bill to Mattthew Boulton on 22 October 1772, accompanied by a letter referring to his 'chemical operations in an old glass-house'. Chemistry was revolutionised in the Georgian period in the same way that physics had been under the Stuarts... Scientific research went hand in hand with entrepreneurship, This was the period when the Lunar Society brought together the leading intellectuals of the time. Scientists, inventors and engineers James Watt and Matthew Boulton.. Erasmus Darwin... and potter and scientist Josiah Wedgwood. James Keir became a member of the Lunar Society in 1776, the year after its formation.
keir was the leading light of the Lunar Society. Keir has been introduced to Josiah Wedgwood in 1767. facing similar problems in their process of manufacture, the two found many interest in common. In glazing his ceramics, Wedgwood frequently used a frit of ground flint glass from raw materials. He sought advice from Keir on the glazing process and annealing. In return for his advice , Wedgwood offered to help Keir with the problem of cords in flint glass. Although hardly noticeable in flint glass, imperfections were a serious problem in glass to be used for lenses. Over a period of five years Keir and Wedgwood carried out many experiments and corresponded extensively...
Keir's agreement for the glassworks expired on 1st January 1778 although subsequent records suggest he retained an interest well after this date. Since the previous year he had been wooed by Matthew Boulton to take on the management of Boulton and Watt's Soho manufactory. Boulton realised that he would have to spend more time in Cornwall where his engines were at work and saw in Keir the combination of practical, entrepreneurial and scientific skills to manage the Soho works in his absence. By the beginning of October 1778 Boulton went to Cornwall leaving Keir to manage the Soho Works. Keir was never introduced into partnership and insisted on independence to continue his chemical investigations. However, he studiously and conscientiously carried out his duties as manager . For this he was rewarded with a partnership in Watt's new busines to sell his invention of the copying press... see
]http://www.bada.org/antiques/d/a-rare-portable-copying-machine-by-james-watt-%26-company/85350 ]Keir remained a partner in the Holloway End business trading as Scott, Keir, Jones & Co. In 1784 Scott, Jones & Co. were running two clay mills, pot rooms and two glassworks in Amblecote.
Fred.