INDUSTRIES 



GLASS WORKS 



There is no evidence to support the theory 

 that glass was manufactured in England during 

 the Roman occupation, but the first glass made 

 of which we have any authentic information 

 was certainly manufactured at Wearmouth. 

 When Benedict Biscop's church and monastery 

 at Wearmouth was approaching completion, he 

 sent to Gaul for workers in glass, who were 

 unknown in Britain, to glaze the windows of 

 his church more than this they taught their art 

 to the English. 1 



Not only window glass, but glasses for domes- 

 tic uses were manufactured there; but by 758 

 the art had completely died out, for at that date 

 the abbot of Jarrow was sending to Mayence for 

 a man who could make vessels of glass.* 



There is a blank in the history of northern 

 glass-making for many centuries, but the glass- 

 makers from Lorraine soon found their way to 

 the Tyne, and Sir Robert Manscl, who in 1615 

 obtained a patent for making glass with coal, 

 according to his own evidence given in 1624, 

 after trying to start works in London, the Isle of 

 Purbeck, and Milford Haven, 



was enforced for his last refuge contrary to all men's 

 opinion to make triall at Newcastle upon Tyne where 

 after the expence of many thousand pounds that worke 

 for window-glasse was effected with Newcastle Cole.' 



The fact that the register of All Saints* Church 

 contains upwards of six hundred entries of mar- 

 riages and burials of Henzeys (Hennezels), Til- 

 lorys, and Tyzacks, shows the extent of the 

 French settlement of glass-makers, beginning 

 early in the seventeenth century. 4 



How soon this new Tyneside industry crossed 

 the river to the Durham side it is impossible to 

 say with certainty. Salmon, writing in 1856, 

 refers to a mixing book of plate glass made in 

 South Shields in 1650, a letter written by John 

 Cookson from his glass-works at South Shields in 

 1690, and the ancient books of the South Shields 

 plate and crown glass-works of 1728,35 being 

 then extant.' A lease, dated 22 November, 



1 Bede, Hist. Eccl. (ed. 1722), 275 ; cf. Micklcton 

 MSS. 10. 



' Epistolae Bonifacii, cxiv. 



' S.P. Dom. Jas. I, 1624, vol. 162, No. 63. 



4 ' Rise of the Art of Glass Making on the Tyne,' 

 by James Clepham, Arch, Aeftana, viii. S. Graze- 

 brook, Colle.tion for the Genealogy of the noble families 

 of Henzley, Tyllery, and Tyzack, Stourbridge, 1877. 

 (Privately printed, a copy in the Newcastle Free 

 Library). 



* If any of these are in existence, they have eluded 

 a somewhat persistent search, nor have I been able to 

 find anyone who has ever seen them. The Cess 

 Book of St. Hilda's from 1660 to 1 7 14 throws no light 

 on the subject, and so far the Durham Treasury has 

 yielded no earlier lease than one of 1737. 



1737, refers to the building of two glass-houses 

 on the south bank of the Tyne. The dean and 

 chapter lease 



all that their parcel of ground set lying and being on 

 the south side of the River of Tyne nigh South Sheles 

 aforesaid containing in breadth six and twenty yards 

 or thereabouts whereon two glass houses now in the 

 tenure or occupation of the said John Dagnia his 

 undertenants or assignc* were lately erected 



to the said John Dagnia. 8 There is no positive 

 evidence as to the site, but the expression ' from 

 the top of the Bank there on the South to the 

 low water mark of the River Tyne on the 

 North,' together with the known fact that the 

 river frontage on the east of the Mill Dam was 

 in other hands, points to the site of John Dagnia's 

 works being either where Altringham's works 

 now stand near the Mill Dam, or higher up 

 Holborn where Moore's glass-works arc situated. 

 Fortunately there is no doubt as to the site or 

 history of the celebrated crown and plate glass 

 works of Messrs. Cookson on Cookson's Quay. 

 On ii March, 1737, Isaac Cookson leased the 

 property from the administrators of the will of 

 Robert Blunt for 900, and the following year 

 John Cookson, his son, and Thomas Jeffreys, of 

 Snow Hill, London, entered into partnership, 

 the one putting in 3,750, the other 2,250, as 

 manufacturers of crown and plate glass, 



each swearing that he would not at any time make 

 known or reveal any of the sccrett or secretts relating 

 to the mixing of mctalls for the making of the said 

 crown and plate glass. 



Jeffreys undertook the management of the Lon- 

 don warehouse, and travelled for the firm, as he 

 already ' as merchandizing in Hairs travelled the 

 principall towns between South Shields and the 

 Land's End.' The London warehouse was in 

 Old Swan Lane, Upper Thames Street, the lease 

 being granted by the Worshipful Company of 

 the body of Christ of the Skinners of London, 

 for ninety-nine years at 40 ; on the renewal of 

 the lease it was raised to 1,000 a year. John 

 Cookson managed the South Shields branch. 

 The business increased rapidly; by 1746 the 

 firm consisted of John Cookson, acting partner, 

 Thomas Jeffreys, Richard Jeffreys, Sir John 

 Delange, James Dixon, and Joseph Cookson. 

 Thomas Jeffreys retired from the firm in 1748, 

 and transferred his share to Richard, who also 

 bought out Sir John Delange. But in 1776 

 John Cookson bought all his ten shares for 



* For an interesting account of the Dagnia family 

 see ' John Dagnia of South Shields,' by C. E. Adam- 

 son, M.A., Arch. Aehana, 1894. 



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