Topic: pressed tumblers & goblets

[Paul S.]

here is the next installment - though unfortunately, an absence of goblets in this one  …………..

one ………………   Reg. 62918 dated 12th October 1849     -  Thomas Gammon

two ………………   Reg. 62923 dated 13th October 1849     -  Richardson

three  …………..  Reg. 64172 dated 19th November 1849  -  Badger Bros.

four  ……………   Reg. 69516  dated 23rd May 1850          -  George Sherwood

All U.K. BoT Registrations up until January 1884 are included in what is known as the 'lozenge' period - the familiar diamond mark found on much mid C19 pressed glass  -  such pieces, in theory, should carry some evidence of the diamond Registration Mark.      Unfortunately, there are occasions when not all details within the diamond are legible  -  for such instances, hopefully these images might help.

If anyone is able to put some flesh on the bones of the above Rd. Nos., that would be marvellous.    thanks.

[agincourt17]

Notes  on Thomas Gammon's RD 62918, registered 12 October 1849 - Parcel 6:

Oddly, I don't have a photo of the Thomas Gammon tumbler (which is press-moulded glass), though it is shown in plate 302 on page 335 of Hajdamach's 'British Glass 1800-1914'. Alongside the tumbler is shown a lidded pickle jar from the same design.
See photos below of a pickle jar (which definitely has the registry date lozenge), a pedestal sugar bowl and round-sided rummer/goblet (also with lozenges), and an unmarked rummer/goblet (which appears to be the tumbler with an applied stem and foot - all from RD 62918.

https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/1835_Directory_of_Birmingham#GLASS_FLINT_MANUFACTURERS
1835 Directory of Birmingham : Gammon Wm. and Son, Great Brook St. [I presume that Thomas Gammon was William Gammon's son].
https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/William_Gammon_and_Co
William Gammon and Co of Great Brook Street, Belmont, Birmingham ;1880-1920; One of the principal Birmingham glass works.
www.great-glass.co.uk/glass notes/mane-g.htm
Gammon, Thomas Birmingham, England (1849 - 1852) The Belmont Glass Works. Very early manufacturer of pressed domestic glassware (5 designs registered, 1849 to 1852)

https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/info/50064/birminghams_archaeology/964/a_pumping_station_glassworks_and_pottery_kiln_at_ashted_circus/1
Belmont Glassworks and Belmont Row Glassworks:
Although glassmaking in the West Midlands is mainly associated with the Stourbridge area, it was an important Birmingham industry as well. 18 glassworks were established in Birmingham in 18th and 19th centuries, mostly alongside canals, which were ideally suited to carry the bulky fuels and raw materials required by this industry and its bulky and fragile products.
In 1803 the Belmont site, alongside the Digbeth Branch Canal, was owned by a china and earthenware manufacturer, and by 1806 cut glass was being made there. Pottery making ceased by 1807 but glassmaking continued. Three glass cones are shown on a site map of about 1855, by which time the works occupied both sides of the canal. One of the glassworks' boundary walls is still visible.
Excavations revealed part of one of the cones and remains of other glassworks buildings marked on the 1855 map, together with a circular brick structure which was probably an earlier glass cone, that had gone out of use before 1855.

[agincourt17]

Notes on RD 62923, registered on 13th October 1849 - Parcel 2 by W.H.B. & J. Richardson:

Photo (alongside two Thomas Gammon pieces) on plate 302, page 335 of Hajdamach's "British Glass 1800-1914".

Hajdamach simply decribes it as 'Tumbler, press moulded and registered by Benjamin [sic] Richardson in 1949".
The design representation is on page 260 of Gulliver, described as "Design for a cut glass tumbler", though TNA
https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r?_q=glass+design+62923
describes it merely as "Tumbler"

[agincourt17]

Notes on tumbler RD 64172, registered on 19th November 1849  - Parcel 6  by Badger Bros. & Co., Dudley, Worcestershire:

Apart from the design representation, I know of no actual example of a piece from this design.

They traded as Badger Brothers & Co., cut glass manufacturers, and a design for a wine glass from the Badger glasshouses in shown at the bottom right of plate 53 on page 72 of Hajdamach, so I'm not sure if the RD 64172 would be blown and cut  or press-moulded, though Hajdamach (page 335 of"British Glass 1800-1914" says that "Richardson's in Wordsley and the Badger Brothers in Dudley pioneered the new skills [ of press-moulding glass] in the Stourbridge District.

In 1820, Isaac and Thomas Badger, The two oldest sons of Isaac Badger Senior, a prominent Dudley builder, occupied the Phoenix Glassworks which stood at east end of Hall Street in Dudley, at the back of shops nearly opposite King Street. A narrow passage at the rear is still known as Phoenix Passage. The Phoenix Glassworks had been built by Phillip Penn some time between 1772 and 1780, and in 1810 had a fourteen pot furnace which Benjamin Richardson described as "The largest furnace that I ever saw". 
The Badger brothers were already coal masters, bankers, slum landlords, and significant manufacturers of nails, chains, vices, malt mills etc.  . It appears that their youngest brother, Septimus, became a partner in 1839. The Badgers (father and sons) were prominent in the political life of Dudley and held strong anti-Chartist view. They occupied the key posts of magistrates and Town Commissioners and were two of a small Tory clique that ruled the town for many years with the tacit approval of Lord Dudley . (How times have changed - NOT!).
The firm disappears  about 1860, possibly due to the effects of having to close down the works in 1859 when all the factories took this action in an effort to modify the rules of the Glassmakers'  Union. The cone was still standing in 1903, being used as a furniture works and warehouse by Charles Hale, and features in an advertisement with an aerial view of the premises.

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r?_q=glass+design+badger
lists three early resign registrations for glass (including RD 64172) with another tumbler, RD 70377, registered in 1850.

There an interesting link to glass making in the Black Country
https://blackcountrymuse.com/apps/forums/topics/show/8882159-black-country-glassmaking-
in which appears "Glass Making in Dudley was also producing large quantities for the market of the time. In 1845, there were listed, four large manufacturers in the Town. A firm more noted for the early Coal trade than for Glass, T.S.and I Badger, operated from a factory in Hall Street, Dudley. I presume this would have been Flint Glass, and as there is no mention of finished product like cut glass onsite, it must have been contracted out. "

Fred.

[agincourt17]

Notes on tumbler RD 69516, registered on 23 May 1850 - Parcel 4 by George Sherwood and Company, Eccleston Flint Glass Works, near St Helens, Lancashire:

http://www.great-glass.co.uk/glass%20notes/mans-s.htm
Sherwood, George , St Helens, England (c 1850). The Eccleston Flint Glass Works. Pressed drinking-glasses (4 designs registered in 1850).

Eccleston is approximately 1.7 miles WNW of the centre of St. Helens, but I have no information as to the exact location of the Glass Works.

I don't have a photo of the tumbler as per the design representation but I do have photos of a press-moulded tumbler marked with the appropriate registry date lozenge but with the addition of a hot-applied handle (thus making it  a tankard or what the Victorians would probably called a 'can').

Fred.

[Paul S.]

well, what can I say Fred  -  your absence from the GMB would leave a hole unfillable by anyone else.          Sincere thanks for your efforts in adding so much to the rather simple Representations images.

from my little knowledge of C19 utility glass pieces, I understand that adding handles to tumblers etc., was a not too uncommon practice. and yes, you're correct in using the word 'cans' for pieces so modified.

[neilh]

One thing to bear in mind with these early pressed registrations from the Midlands is that Rice Harris, situated at Five Ways in Birmingham, running 5 furnaces, was the largest pressed glass producer. Statistically all unidentified pieces of pressed glass in the 1840s are slightly more likely to come from this works than anywhere else. The Pottery Gazette calls it "the largest house in the trade at that time, and I think the largest ever known either before or after".

The Gazette has a list of members of the society of glass blowers in 1846, the biggest numbers that I can put to a glassworks are:
Rice Harris 68
Richardsons 49
Falcon Glass Works 32
Molineaux Webb 29
Percival Vickers 26

Also of possible help is the 1839 list of flint glass makers for the Midlands:

BIRMINGHAM:
Bacchus and Green
Biddle and Co
Gammon and Son
John Gold
Rice Harris
Shakespear and Son
Thompson and Shaw

DUDLEY:
Thomas Hawkes and Co
Badger Brothers
Guest, Wood, and Guest

STOURBRIDGE:
M and W Grazebrook
William Hodgetts
Littlewood and Berry
WHB and J Richardson
Rufford and Walker
Shepherd and Webb
Silvers and Stevens
Stevens and Son
Wheeley and Davis

[Paul S.]

a few more …..

one …………………….  Reg. 70377 dated 17.07.1850  -  Badger Bros.

two …………………….  Reg  70622 dated 24.07.1850  -  George J. Green

three ...……......…   Reg. 95056 dated 14.02.1854  -  Benjamin Richardson

four  ………...……..   Reg. 96004 dated 03.06.1854  -  Benjamin Richardson

it's a great loss to posterity and our interest that we're unable to link pieces to some famous names from that early 1840s period - for example, presumably Chance were making their own designs (in B'ham), but do we know who might have made pieces for Crosse & Blackwell (in London)  -  at least I assume they weren't making their own glass.            A couple of early Registrations for C. & B. (27232 and 33765) were for 'Preserve & Pickle Bottles - presumably made by one of the houses on Neil's list.

Can't see the Richardson wine glass with rope twist stem in Hajdamach's 'Richardson Dynasty' chapter - anyone know if there's an image elsewhere of this design?

Don't you just adore those athletic looking limbs - nice bloke I understand.

[agincourt17]

Notes about tumbler RD 70622, registered on24 July 1850 - Parcel 7 by George J. Green, Birmingham:

TNA's registration details summary reveals that the registrant's full name was George Joseph Green with an address at Broad Street, Birmingham. They also shows that Green registered another design for glass, ' a 'set of glass ware', RD 74749, on 21 July 1851, and that his address was 295 Broad Street, Birmingham.

It appears that 295 Broad Street, Birmingham, was the site of the Etna or Ζtna Glassworks, and there has been a longish thread on the GMB
https://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,62885.msg353024.html#msg353024
regarding the glassworks and some of its proprietors.

To 'summarise' it relevant to this thread:
Morgan Rollason & Co. were the proprietors of the Ζtna [sic.] Glassworks in at least 1837. By early 1839, Golds's patent Cut Glass Company were trading as glass- makers and glass cutters  at Charlotte Street [?Birmingham or ?London} and the Ζtna Glassworks, Birmingham] as a partnership between John Gold[who, in 1834, had taken out a patent for a machine to cut broad flutes in glass], William Parker, Edward Parker, Nathan Kimberley, Samuel Shakespear, Theodore Moilliet, J. Hawker Gedford and James Geddes. This partnership was dissolved in March 1839,and John Gold who continued as sole proprietor of the glassworks.  the Ζtna / Etna Glassworks then passed Joseph Green & Sons by 1842.

The firm of Joseph Green & Sons was a partnership between John Green (father) and his two sons, George Joseph and James. )  They traded at the Etna Glass Works; Birmingham, and at Upper Thames-street, London, as Glass Manufacturers and China Warehousemen. under the style or firm of Joseph Green and Sons, until the partnership was been dissolved, by mutual consent, as from the 31st day of December 1842.
George J. Green seems to have carried on as the sole proprietor of the Etna Glassworks  until 1857, when he was declared bankrupt on 15 May 1857. His address was given as No. 3, York-road, Edgbaston, Birmingham,  previously of the Harborne-road, in Birmingham.
There seems to be a gap in formation until Alfred Arculus took over the Etna Glassworks in 1860 and continued there until at least 1914.

http://www.great-glass.co.uk/glass%20notes/mana-b.htm
Arculus & Co, Birmingham, England (1864 - 1941): Etna Works. Formerly R W Winfield (Brassfounders). Alfred Arculus, Joseph Warry (accounts clerks) bought the company out & re-named it (1875). Lighting glass, cut, cased & coloured tableware, paperweights (including reproduction antiques) (3 designs registered from 1866 to 1880). Bought out 1922 by T J Hands & Co. Taken over by John Walsh Walsh in 1931. Production ceased 1941, when factory destroyed by German landmine.

https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/index.php?threads/broad-st.30581/page-32
indicates that the Ζtna Glassworks in Broad Street was shown as such on the 1890 OS map (see threads #635, 636 & 638). Look along the extreme left hand margin, towards the bottom, to the left of 'Market Hall'.
https://www.british-history.ac.uk/mapsheet.aspx?compid=55193&sheetid=10098&ox=325&oy=2031&zm=1&czm=1&x=5&y=25

The whole area has since been heavily redeveloped and the site of 295 Broad Street is now completely altered.

Fred.

[Paul S.]

sincere thanks Fred, as always.          Your reference to a "set of glass ware', RD 74749, on 21 July 1851"  -  if I have pix of this Reg. is it something you would like to see, or have we had the images here previously?