This article is from:
Source -
glassmaking-in-London.co.uk Industries
LONDON GLASS CUTTERS & ENGRAVERS c.1793
by Peter Lole (Article from Glass Circle News no. 78. 1999, p. 6)
http://www.glassmaking-in-london.co.uk/industriesIt is regarding 1793 and 1794 (so 40 odd years before the bowls were apparently made for the Coronation banquet), and obviously the glass industry must have changed in the next 40 years of course - e.g. see the note regarding the drop in proportion of Excise Duty paid by London as a proportion of the whole English sum 40 years after 1793. However, it's interesting regarding the number of people listed as glass-engravers as a proportion of the whole (very few) and for the fact that at that time
'London had half the Glass Engravers listed in the whole of England.''
The most suprising feature was that clearly London in the early 1790s was still by far the most important domestic Glass centre in the country. It had more than twice as many cutters as the rest of England put together, and half the Glass Engravers listed in the whole of England. It had almost a third (19 out of a total of 66) of the Glasshouses and Glass Manufacturers listed, but forty years later the proportion of Excise Duty paid in London had dropped to only 2% of the total English sum of £680,000. (See: C.R.Hajdamach: British Glass 1800-1914 Pp 413-41) But this note is really directed only to Cutting and Engraving.'
It's possible things changed drastically in the intervening 40 years and the number of glass engravers increased but it's quite surprising how few engravers there were listed.