INDUSTRIES 



abroad. After many fruitless experiments it 

 was found that by reducing the proportion of 

 lime and adding a small quantity of litharge 

 or oxide of lead a brilliant and practically 

 colourless glass was obtained, which was not 

 only more fusible but brighter and clearer 

 than the old glass. This became known as 

 English flint glass, and Tilston, who made the 

 discovery, applied for and obtained a grant of 

 the whole use and benefit of his invention. 13 

 The fine qualities of this new glass struck a 

 severe blow at the Bohemian colourless glass, 

 which had itself beaten Venetian glass out of 

 the field. 14 Its superiority lay in its great 

 density, which in some cases exceeded that of 

 the diamond ; the English cut glass rivalled 

 the diamond in the production of prismatic 

 displays. In 1713 English cut glass began to 

 appear on the Continent. In 1760, on the 

 authority of M. Gerspach, a French writer, 

 England practically supplied the whole of 

 France with glass. It is strange that so few 

 specimens of this important art and so little 

 information concerning it have survived. The 

 earliest known piece of English cut glass is 

 onejbearing the monogram of Frederick Prince 

 of Wales, which must therefore be dated 

 between 1729 and 1751. The best period 

 of this industry is between 1750 and 1790, 

 and it began to decay early in the igth cen- 

 tury. Mr. Powell marks three stages of pro- 

 gress : the first, in which cutting is subservient 

 to form, lasted to about 1790 ; the second, 

 in which the claims of form and cutting are 

 equally balanced, continued till about 1810 ; 

 and the third, not yet terminated, in which 

 form has largely given way to cutting. The 

 softness and high refractive power of their 

 glass proved a snare to English cutters, who 

 to please the public strove after still greater 

 dazzling prismatic effects. For this, deeper 

 cutting and thicker material became necessary, 

 and the glass produced bristled with prismatic 

 pyramids which effectually destroyed all beauty 

 of form. 



No other records of glass-makers in London 

 outside the City walls are met with until 

 1760, when William Riccards, merchant, and 

 Richard Russell, glass-maker, both of White- 

 chapel, obtained a patent 15 for fourteen years 

 for a new method of making pots and build- 

 ing furnaces for crown glass, plate glass, and 

 all sorts of green glass. 



William Tassie, who is best known by his 



15 Cal. S.P. Dam. 1663-4, P- z66 - 



14 See quotations from Peligot and Gerspach, 

 French writers on glass, in a paper on ' Cut 

 Glass,' by Harry Powell ; Journ. Sac. oj Arts, 

 }une 1906. 



14 No. 744, i z May 1 760. 



wax medallion-portraits, invented a white 

 enamel composition which he used for repro- 

 ductions of gems. This was a vitreous paste, 

 the method of preparing which he kept secret ; 

 his place of business was from 1772 to 1777 

 in Compton Street, Soho, and from 1778 to 

 1791 at 20 Leicester Fields (Leicester Square). 

 A manufactory for the production of plate- 

 glass by blowing, the last of its kind, existed 

 in East Smithfield almost down to 1830, before 

 it gave way to the powerful competition of the 

 British Cast Plate Glass Manufacturers. 18 



The Banks collection of tradesmen's cards 

 in the Print Room of the British Museum 

 has notices of the following firms : Price, 

 Sherrard Street, St. James's, 1779-89 ; Stan- 

 field & Co., successors to Orpin, 481 Strand, 

 1785 ; Hancock, Shepherd & Rixon, i Cock- 

 spur Street, 1808. Two makers of stained 

 glass also occur : Baker's Patent Manufac- 

 tory, 25 Marsham Street, Westminster, 1792 ; 

 and William Collins, 227 Strand, near Temple 

 Bar, 1815. 



A minor glass industry was carried on by 

 small workers in Bethnal Green and Shoreditch 

 up to about forty years ago. This was the 

 manufacture of glass beads for exportation to 

 native tribes in Africa. Hartshorne, 17 writing 

 in 1897, says : ' They bought their coloured 

 glass canes from the glass-makers and melted 

 them at a jet, dropping the metal upon a 

 copper wire coated with whitening, the wire 

 being turned during the process, and when 

 cold the beads would slip off. The men were, 

 however, so careless and unpunctual that the 

 trade came to an end.' 



Mirror-making is carried on as part of the 

 cabinet-maker's trade, which involves among 

 other operations that of glass-bevelling. The 

 glass, having been made of right size and 

 shape by the cutter, is passed to the beveller, ; 

 who first presses the edge of the glass against 

 an iron grinding-mill, or wheel, upon which 

 a mixture of sand and water continually plays. 

 The next process is to submit the glass to a 

 revolving stone, upon which water trickles ; 

 this removes the roughness left by the first 

 operation. The final polish is then given 

 by a wooden wheel covered with polishing 

 material. The shape workers, who produce 

 curves and other elaborate shapes with their 

 bevelling, are highly-skilled workmen. The 

 glass then goes to the ' sider," who cleans and 

 prepares it for silvering. It is then turned 

 into a mirror by the silverer, by the applica- 

 tion of silver reduced by admixture with 



18 Porter, < Treatise on Glass,' Lardnei's Cab. 

 Cycl, 195. 



" Old Engl. Glasses (1897), lo6n. 



157 



