Topic: Angus & Greener on Trimdon Street, Sunderland

[madweasel]

Hello everyone

I am part of the archaeological team (Pre-Construct Archaeology Ltd) that in 2019 exposed the remains of Angus & Greener's glass works on Trimdon Street. Attached is a contemporary view and a plan of what we found. The excavation revealed some interesting details about this short-lived glass works.

A while ago I got permission from admin to share information about the site and also to ask the group for some help to identify fragments of glass found in the course of this excavation.

Over the coming four days I will be posting a number of images of the fragments here and I do hope that you will be able to help me identify the patterns. Some are. for me, recognisable patents but some I cannot identify. There are also some fragments which I doubt are Angus and Greener (A&G) but might relate to French/Walton (before A&G's tenure) or Neville (after Greener).

For a start I would like to confirm the earliest ownership of this glass woks. First of all, Nicholas French, whose name is associated with Trimdon Street, who appears to have established the works.

In 1851, in the local press in June and July, it was reported that he was to take over a Sunderland flint glass manufactory 'that had been lying dormant for some time'. No mention of Trimdon Street. Does anyone know which site this might be?

In 1853, however, the Durham Chronicle for Friday 8 April reported that he was about to set up a new, extensive and elegant flint glass manufactory at the 'foot of Trimdon Street'. In August of the same year, French's name is mentioned in association with the auction, the address being 'Ballast Hill Glass Works'. Could this be the 1851 glass works?

Also, in 1857, Thomas Walton is reported as being the manager of this works, called the Sunderland Flint Glass Works. Is the relationship between French and Walton known?

I will leave those questions if that is OK to encourage interest and to start a discussion about this most interesting site. Tomorrow I will post about where the glass was found on the site. There are four main groups, the first one coming from beneath the working floor of the works, and so earlier than the final state of the glass works. Whether this is French or A&G, I do not know. Do we know what French's products from Trimdon Street looked like? Hopefully, with your help, we may be able to answer some questions.

all the very best

John Shepherd
Pre-Construct Archeology

[Anne]

Hi John, thank you for your most interesting post about the excavation work you are doing.

Could I ask that as you post your updates that you do them as replies to this topic (rather than a new topic for each one) so as to keep all the information together to make it easy to see and read through. Many thanks, and I look forward to hearing about your finds.

[neilh]

Hi John,

Manchester glass collectors have been through this process to some extent with the spoils from the dig at the Percival Vickers works in Manchester nearly 20 years ago, I presume you have read the report of that excavation, it is on the net in short and long form if you search around. In the case of Percival Vickers, some pieces were obvious matches for registered items. Other bits were unknown or too small to identify.

We learnt three main things from the report:

- colour ranges
- glassware produced in areas not suggested by the surviving registrations/pattern books. For example there was a fragment from the late 19th century generic cranberry creamers which infest eBay every week, which were not shown in catalogues
- density ranges for the glassware

If you look in Barrie Skelcher's book on Vaseline glass - the later one - you will see a density profile for Angus & Greener over time, 46 pieces tested. My thoughts, having tested a few pieces from this glassworks myself, are in agreement with that book. Pieces have a degree of lead content up to around mid 1860s - specific gravity 2.6g/cc to 2.8g/cc - after which there is little or no lead in the glass, and values are in the range 2.4g/cc - 2.55g/cc in later eras. These figures are only for plain or frosted tableware. Each glasshouse tended to do its own thing with lead mixture and with several owners on the site it may be a bit complex. But if you have the equipment to analyse the composition of the glass, you should be able to split it pre and post mid 1860s I would have thought, on the lead content. You can read through the Percival Vickers report to see what figures they got from their glass fragments.

I'm sure we're all looking forward to seeing the fragments...

[madweasel]

Hi Neilh

Thanks for this reply. Yes, the Percival Vickers site is an important comparison. I have 50 samples with Oxford Lab from the A&G site at the moment and we are doing ICPS on them to compare directly with the P&V results. I am working with Chloe Duckworth in Newcastle on those, so watch this space!!! The close dating of the A&G glass works is important in this regard, as it gives a very tight window for the use of whatever compositions they did use. It will be very good addendum to the P&V work in Manchester.

I continue to call this site the A&G works, but I am sure that you are aware that one of the primary research questions is to see if we can identify any French/Walton or Neville products.

The samples selected are a range of registered vessels as well as unknown registered types in a variety of glass metals, colourless and coloured, including uranium.

I will post some fo the vessel fragments shortly, with a description of their context, and hope for some good feedback.

[madweasel]

So the first group of glass I would like to present are some coloured fragments found at the north end of the site (our site code is TSS19). This is layer [205] which was the make-up for a brick floor [204].

We think that the brick floor is the mixing room noted on an OS plan of 1859 (image attached). Layer [205] beneath this floor is important, therefore, as it obviously pre-dates the laying fo the brick floor - it is part of its construction. But how many years before 1859? Considering that A&G are recorded as acquiring the glass works in 1858-9 (their first joint patent was 1859, I believe), then this glass may either originate from the earliest of A&G's regimes or perhaps from French/Watson from 1853 to 1858/9.

Of course, we must be careful about using the 1859 OS date - as the survey could have been done a few years before, in which case we would be firmly into French or French/Watson tenure.

PS - I keep referring to 'French/Watson', rather than just 'Watson' as the latter is described as 'manager', not owner. Was he an owner though?

[madweasel]

These are the first four fragments. The number in <> brackets is our on-site accession number, unique to that fragment. If you could refer to that number if you have any observations, comments or parallels I would be most grateful.

Their context means that these need not be products whatsoever of the glass works, but could include domestic debris. Your help with identifications might help here - a couple of these look like imports to me.

[neilh]

42 - this looks like part of a lacy plate. These were some of the earliest pressed glass items produced in this country, the first ones dating to c1835, new designs in the general style were added up to around 1860. It is my belief that any pressed glass works that opened prior to 1860 would want a few of these in their catalogue. Percival Vickers, opened in 1844, had three lacy plate designs still on offer in their 1881 catalogue. Molineaux Webb had many more than that in their 1870 catalogue. Some of these plates may have been in production for decades, 50 years or more, which makes them tricky to assign to a phase of the works except by composition. As far as I am aware, pressed glass started in the northeast circa 1847, so we could say the mould dates to 1847-60 approx, with the actual example any time until perhaps c1880s.  The colour is very unusual, as are the circles near the edge. I do not recognise it. You haven't extrapolated the size - I'm guessing 5 inches diameter maybe?

[madweasel]

Diameter 4 1/4, I'd say, to the edge of the lip. The lettering on the base ring, not visible in the image, is ]TTOM. Oblique attached to the next post.

[madweasel]

Oblique view of <42> showing lettering on base ring.

[madweasel]

More fragments from [205]. The scent bottle was the only intact vessel. Again, this context may contain ordinary domestic waste as well as material associated with the early years of the glass works, so this does not have to be a product.