INDUSTRIES 



manufacturers were Isaac Cookson & Co., crown 

 and plate, at Cookson 's Quay ; Cookson, Cuthbert 

 & Co (bottle), in East Holborn ; and Shortridge, 

 Sawyer & Co., flint glass-works. '^ 



A great deal of glass was also manufactured in 

 Sunderland and its neighbourhood. In 1 751 

 the numbers of ships employed in carrrying 



not only ceils and salt but glass and other merchan- 

 dize to diverse parts of the kingdom as well as abroad 

 makes it a fine nursery of seamen." 



In 1772 there were three green bottle-houses 

 and one flint glass-house there. Thomas Wilson, 

 who died in 1776, and was buried in Bishop- 

 wearmouth Church, was a glass manufacturer 

 at Ayre Quay. 



In 1818, 1,543 cwt. 2 qrs. 241b. of bottles, 

 1,296 cwt. I qr. 19 lb. of crown glass, and 

 463 cwt. o qrs. 13 lb. of flint glass were ex- 

 ported from this port. 



In 1827 the trade was flourishing ; two glass- 

 works at Deptford, one at Southwick, and three 

 in Sunderand proper were not only supplying 

 local needs but exporting largely. The Ayre 

 Quay Bottle Works, the oldest on the river, were 

 then managed by John Candlish ; Philip Laing 

 and Sir James Laing were partners in the 

 firm. Pemberton's Bottle Works were also at 

 Ayre Quay, but were closed many years ago. 

 There were also two large establishments at 

 Deptford, the Wear Flint Glass Works in the 

 hands of Mr. Booth, and Featherstonhaugh's or 

 the Wear Glass Bottle Works. Later the bottle- 

 works engulfed the flint glass-works. In Sunder- 

 land proper, Fenwick & Co. had crown glass and 

 glass bottle-works in Low Street, and Hilkiah 

 Hall bottle-works at Bridge End." Ten years 

 later Dibdin visiting Sunderland was much struck 

 by the development of the industry. 



My daughter was delighted with what she saw. An 

 order had come down that morning for a thousand 

 dozen of gin glasses. The ordinary wine or beer bottle 

 is the prevailing article of commerce, but decanters, 

 tumblers, and wine glasses, vases with their accompani- 

 ments, are manufactured in a style of surprising beauty 

 and in endless variety."" 



'^ J. Salmon, op. cit. 22, 23. 

 '* EnglancTs Gazetteer, 1 7 5 1 . 

 '^ White and Parson, op. cit. i, 343, 360, cxxxii. 

 '" Dibdin, Tour in the Northern Counties of England, 

 i. 3'4- 



At one time the glass cutters were quite a 

 feature of the Sunderland glass trade. Sailors in 

 search of local novelties to take away as presents 

 were their chief patrons. Glasses with Sunder- 

 land Bridge cut on them, decorated with the 

 initials or names of the buyers, found a ready 

 sale ; these goods were not only manufactured in 

 the works, but the trade was carried on as a 

 domestic industry. 



Early in the nineteenth century Thomas BuHer 

 and Robert Pile, Low Street, Robert Greener 

 in High Street, and Robert Haddock, Low Quay, 

 were experts in the art. 



In 1877, except the Ayre Quay Bottle Co., 

 all these glass-works which fifty years before had 

 been giving remunerative employment to many 

 men were closed.^' Occasionally in going over 

 the shipyards a site is pointed out as being the 

 locality of the old glass-works, but few traces still 

 remain. This is not, however, so astonishing as 

 the total collapse of the celebrated works of James 

 Hartley & Co., for, comparatively speaking, they 

 are a modern firm. They were begun about 

 1842, and gained a world-wide reputation on 

 account of the invention by James Hartley of a 

 new kind of plate glass called rolled plate, some- 

 thing like unpolished plate glass, but not so heavy, 

 and of the greatest utility for roofing and other 

 purposes, where translucency only is required ; 

 in 1863 Mr. Hartley stated that one-third of the 

 English-made sheet glass used in England was 

 made in these works, and some idea of their output 

 may be gained from the fact that their account 

 with the North Eastern Railway Company for 

 the month of March 1865 was ^^692 15J. \d. 

 These works covered an enormous area on the 

 Hylton Road, where Hartley's Buildings now 

 stand, and at one time employed 700 men, 

 but the works were closed and dismantled in 



18 



The Stockton Glafs Works at one time did a 

 very flourishing busncis, but they are on the 

 Yorkshire side of the river. 



Glass, at onetime one of the leading industries 

 of Durham, is now represented by the Ellison 

 Glass Works at Gateshead, Moores at South 

 Shields, three firms in Sunderland, and one in the 

 neighbourhood of Gateshead. 



" Taylor Potts, op. cit. 162, 163. 

 " From a bill in possession of Mr. Williamson, 

 Hylton Road, Sunderland. 



3" 



