Topic: Lidded barrel RD 267990, 19 November 1872 - Boissiere & Charles Auquelle, France

[agincourt17]

An unusual (in more ways than one) moulded glass lidded (biscuit?) barrel with registry date lozenge for 19 November 1872 - Parcel 5.  Also marked DEPOSE [trans. registered] on rim of barrel opening.

(Permission for the re-use of these images on the GMB granted by Rob Young).

According to The National Archives online registration summary, this corresponds to design number 267990, registered to Boissiere and Charles Auquelle, La Verrerie du Gast (Orne), France.

I can find no other British glass design registered to the registrants.

The hand-written registry summary in Thompson (page109) shows the registrant as Boissiere & Ch. Auquelle, La Ferrerie du Gast (Orne), France, whereas Slack (page 160) gives the registrant as Boissiere & Ch. Augelle, France (the differences in the registrant’s name and address presumably being simple transcription errors).
The National Archives has an online summary for a ‘Provisional registered design number: 1085, Date: 872 Nov 19, Date of complete registration 19th November 1872, Proprietor: Boissiere and C L Anqueulle, Address: La Ferrerie du Gast, Orne, France.
The National Archives also has an online summary for: Useful Registered Design Number: 5721, Proprietor: Boissiere and Charles Anqueulle, Address: Tanville, Orne, France, Subject: A tap, Category: Valves, Taps, Cocks, Plugs, Regulating flow and pressure of Fluids, date: 1875 Oct 9.

Adolphe Clément-Désiré Boissiere had lived and worked in Newcastle, England in the 1840s (see details below) but I can find no more information about Charles Auguelle/Anguelle. Perhaps Boissiere’s English sojourn and connections was the reason for the registration of RD 267990 in Britain, but there is evidence to suggest that the RD 267990 barrel could have been manufactured at the Tanville site.

La Verrerie du Gast, 61500 Tanville, Normandy, France is now a somewhat superior guest house set in a 12-hectare parkland.
http://en.patrimoine-de-france.com/orne/tanville/usine-de-flaconnage-3.php
describes the site as a French Heritage monument with the remains of a plant and a bottling plant, and gives the additional information regarding a glass manufactory there: …“Produced in 1801 tumblers, decanters, wine glasses, Cruets and chemistry in white, blue or green glass parts, sold in Paris, Rennes, Caen and surrounding departments. Establishment of a taillerie and steam by Boissière to 1871. Cessation of activity to 1883. 2 furnaces attested in 1789. Consumed in 1801 red lead mine, saltpeter, welded from alicante, Sands, azure, broken glass and wood of the Écouves forest. Manufacture of glass in the coal in 1865. Ovens heated gas of 1867. Exploited by  Mesenge from 1671 to 1802, by Chandran from 1815 to 1848, by Boissière from 1848 to 1888. 20 to 25 workers in 1804, 14 workers in 1811 and 230 workers in 1865”…

From http://www.charlesfourier.fr/spip.php?article697
Adolphe Clément-Désiré Boissiere, was born in Sees (Orne) 23 June 1814 Died October 20, 1897 in Creil (Oise). Pharmacist and chemist and MASTER GLASSMAKER and manufacturing. 
In 1842, while living in Paris, with chemist Louis-Antoine Possos he filed a patent for the "manufacture of cyanogen and its compounds" for the origin, production of dyes and printing for wool and cotton. By reacting nitrogen from the air and the heated charcoal impregnated potash Boissiere and Possos get yellow prussiate (potassium ferrocyanide) in large quantities, also used in the hardening of steel and burning, and beneficial to agriculture and to public health due to the lack of use of animal materials. After a costly industrial test at Grenelle in 1843, given the high cost of fuel to Paris, THEY SETTLED IN 1844 IN NEWCASTLE, ENGLAND, ON BEHALF OF AN ENGLISH COMPANY, AND HUGH BRAMWELL. The experience lasts until 1847 and was finally abandoned because of the cost due to machine wear.
Boissiere returned to France and, in February 1848, he married Irma Aglaée Chedeville, DAUGHTER OF A MASTER GLASSMAKER AND OWNER GLASSWARE GAST TANVILLE ORNE. Boissiere revived manufacturing and his dynamism lead to a fivefold increase in staff employed. In 1870, the factory had between 240 and 260 workers of all ages. Boissiere was philanthropically inspired by "a new social reform in France which takes care of the moral and material welfare of its workers”.  Each worker had free accommodation and a garden. The working hours were reduced to 10 and night work removed. Salaries were increased. A steam engine was installed to  reduces the difficulty of certain tasks such as glass cutting. He organized free medical and pharmaceutical care for his workers, and in addition, a fraternal benefit society with pension fund for cases of sickness or old age. The children slept in a dormitory with iron beds, with a housekeeper to care for them. He founded and maintained at his own expense a nursery and schools for the children, with girls received the same instruction as boys in a separate class. He organised writing, professional courses, a reading room and a library for parents. Boissiere founded the Society for the Protection of apprentices and children employed in manufacturing state-approved by decree of July 4, 1868. Finally, workshops and homes rebuilt to make them safer and reduce disease.
In 1888, Boissiere transfered glassware manufacture to Creil (Oise).

Does anyone have any more information about the manufacture of glassware at the La Verrerie du Gast, Tanville, Normandy, France, please, and/or any connections with the British market?

Fred.