Glass Message Board
Glass Discussion & Research. NO IDENTIFICATION REQUESTS here please. => British & Irish Glass => Topic started by: Georgina Drummond on January 13, 2021, 02:53:06 PM
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Hallo everyone. I am a new member. I have been studying the history of my family in and around the West Midlands for many years and have a number of family members who were involved in the glass industry from the early to mid c 19th. For instance a relative (Sarah Lloyd) married one of the brothers who founded the Richardson glass business and two of her brothers and probably her father seem to have worked for the Richardsons.
I very recently discovered the existence of a glassmaking company in Birmingham called Lloyd and Summerfield which at one time (mid c19th) was run by a Mr George Lloyd (a family name). They seem to have made glassware extremely similar to that made by Richardsons. My family lived mainly in and around Dudley but we do have Birmingham connections and I know that at least two family members did work in glass in Birmingham in the early to mid c19th. This has obviously set me wondering if the Lloyds of Lloyd and Summerfield had anything to do with my family. Unfortunately however I have not been able to find out anything about George Lloyd's family at all and I wondered if there was anyone on this forum who could point me in the direction of some information?
Thank you very much
Georgina Lloyd Drummond
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A quick search on Ancestry shows George Lloyd b1804 in Albrighton, Shropshire, running a glass works in Birmingham, which I guess is him. This is a fair way from Birmingham, I should know, I used to live in Albrighton and Birmingham!
George Lloyd married Rachel Biddle. John Biddle ran a glassworks at Birmingham Heath on the Dudley Road (wherever that was 200 years ago). Biddle partnered with Summerfield to form Biddle & Summerfield (Thomas Summerfield being his nephew). In later years it became Lloyd & Summerfield and eventually closed in the 1870s.
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Welcome to the board :)
Possibly the information you already have but in Jason Ellis's Glassmakers of Stourbridge and Dudley 1612-2002 page 350 there is a reference to a Sarah, nee Lloyd:
'135 John Thomas Haden Richardson, son of Johnathon Richardson and his wife Sarah, nee Lloyd, b. 14th Jan 1835, Wordsley, bap. 26th Apr 1835, Kingswinford.'
Just adding it in case it helps you trace a connection via the baptistry records perhaps.
There is some more information here on Johnathon Richardson again in case it helps with a future connection:
https://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,64256.msg360548.html#msg360548
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Another quick look shows that just to confuse things, Biddle's mother was a Lloyd. At the top of the tree down one wing it goes Lloyd - Biddle - Lloyd, and down another wing it goes Lloyd - Summerfield as you step down the generations, so all three surnames meet up again at the glassworks. I suspect George Lloyd joined in the 1850s when John Biddle retired or died, prior to that he was living in Warwick, and prior to that in Shropshire, so if there is a link to Sarah Lloyd it would be down another wing of the tree.
We don't have much on Lloyd & Summerfield on these boards. I was checking my Pottery Gazette snippets where it says George Lloyd was the chairman of the Glass Makers' Society for many years. The firm was known for its inventions such as the patent decanter-stopper, rarely used, and a patent for enamelling on opaque vases.
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There is a Ph. D. thesis online written in 1976 by Takao Matsumura
It's entitled
'The Flint Glass Makers in the Classic Age of The Labour Aristocracy, 1850-1880, With Special Reference to Stourbridge'
Mods - can you please remove the link if it's not appropriate to link this thesis? Thank you.
In that it mentions that in 1868 George Lloyd was the Chairman of the Midland Flint Glass Manufacturers Association (I think he became Chairman before that though but haven't searched the thesis elsewhere for a start date)
It also says that Park Glass Works in Birmingham Heath became Lloyd and Summerfield.
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I searched through the thesis and found on page 195 that George Lloyd was appointed Chairman of the association in 1858. The association was founded by 15 glass manufacturers as a means of combatting the great strike by members of the Glass Makers' Society (a trade union) during 1858/59.
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Thanks Anne :) I've read the thesis before and just didn't have time to search through again for the start date again.
m
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Thank you so much to everyone for these very useful replies. I believe my family came from Shropshire before they rocked up in the Midlands so I think there possibly is a link with the Albrighton Lloyds, though it would be quite distant. I am about to research this further. The name Biddle is new to me so I will look into that as well. Thanks again.
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I've just read the extremely useful 2017 thread on Jonathan Richardson and thought it might be helpful if I add some details about his wife from my own family tree. Sarah Richardson nee Lloyd was the daughter of a whitesmith called William Lloyd (1784-1849) who worked in the Burnt Tree factory in Dudley where fenders, fire irons etc were made. He died there in a dreadful accident in 1849 when someone left a trap door open and he fell through. Sarah was baptised at St Thomas Dudley on 16 March 1806 and married Jonathan in Trysull on 26 October 1826. I have the following children for them: Mary Ann 1829, Joseph Llewellyn 1831, Sarah 1833, John Thomas Haden 1835, Martha Jemima 1838, Eleanor Haden 1845, Edith 1845, Anne Eunice 1850. John was the only surviving son as Joseph died young in 1856 and never married.
Sarah had a large number of relatives who worked in the glass industry including her brothers Isaiah, Thomas and Llewellyn (who is lodging next to Sarah and Jonathan in 1841). Isaiah died very young leaving a family and I believe Sarah and Jonathan may have adopted one of his children.
Please let me know if anyone is interested in any further details. Thanks again
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Thank you so much for sharing your information.
I will do a link on the Johnathon/Jonathon Richardson thread linking it to this thread so that your information can be found in future.
Just for ease of searching this board in future I'm adding the names of Sarah's brothers (who worked in the glass industry) with their surname:
Isaiah Lloyd
Thomas Lloyd
Llewellyn Lloyd
Any information/names of persons in the family who worked in the glass industry would be great. Even if there is no further information at the moment elsewhere, it's always good to add them here in case research is carried out in future.
Thank you again for sharing your information.
m
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I've just reread something in the other thread that might link to what you said about Sarah's brother dying and Sarah possibly adopting one of Isaiah's children.
I mentioned in that thread that Sarah appeared to have another son with her - a John Richardson (not John Thomas Haden Richardson as the date of birth and age don't correspond)
See my comment at the top of this post:
https://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,64256.msg360348.html#msg360348
Perhaps the John Richardson I referred to in that post is the son of Isaiah?
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Thank you for this, it's extremely useful. I've put something about Jonathan's 3rd son on the other thread. The possible adopted child I was thinking about is the Eleanor Lloyd who was a witness at William Haden Richardson's second marriage in 1848. Sarah Lloyd didn't so far as I know have a sister of that name so a possible explanation would be that she was a child of Sarah's brother Isaiah born around the time of his death in 1832 and adopted by Sarah and Jonathan. This seems to be the only mention of her in the record.
Further to George Lloyd of Lloyd and Summerfield I discovered that he was the son of the Rev. Thomas Lloyd vicar of Albrighton. His wife Rachel Biddle was the granddaughter of Sampson Lloyd the banker and they all seem to come from a background of wealthy Welsh gentry. A bit too upper crust for my family I'm afraid so it seems likely there is no connection after all, but it's been a very interesting trawl!
Thanks again
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Georgina, I've found another Lloyd name - just in case it makes a link to your family somewhere along the way:
It seems from this directory (see page 26) that in 1874 there was a 'Henry John Lloyd of Parish Glassworks, trading in partnership with George Lloyd as Lloyd and Summerfield, glass manufacturer, 13th March 1874'
https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Birmingham_commercial_list_afterw_Th/Ju8NAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=george+lloyd+and+thomas+summerfield+glass&pg=PA26&printsec=frontcover
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According to Ancestry, Henry John Lloyd 1832-1914 is George Lloyd's son. It looks like he left the UK before the 1881 census and emigrated to New Zealand where he died, so I guess he was a partner for a few years and moved on after the works closed in the 1870s
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Thank you
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Hi, have you looked at the Dudley Archives? They have information including “...an extraordinary card index containing the names of thousands of individuals connected with glassmaking in the UK, from the 17th to the 19th century”. (Compiled and donated by Brian Hardyman)
Info here: https://www.dudley.gov.uk/things-to-do/museums/collections/glass/the-glass-collections/the-glass-archives/
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Thanks for this. I've made a note and will definitely pay the Glass Archive a visit when it's possible to go to Dudley again.
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The Pottery and Glass Trades Journal - February 1878, page 140 right hand column small notice titled 'Old established Glass Works, Birmingham ...'
Lloyd and Summerfield of the Park Glass Works, Spring Hill, Birmingham noted as retiring and selling off business
https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Pottery_Glass_Trades_Journal/hyUGAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=glass+and+china+suppliers+guildhall+1851&pg=PA140&printsec=frontcover
Just wanted to note a specific date of closure on this thread.