A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



Dagge, Albany VVallis, Henry Hastings, Ranald 

 MacDonald, Thomas Davenport, Asheton Cur- 

 zen, John Dolben, Thomas Potter, Thomas 

 Durell, Stephen Caesar Lemaistre, and Henry 

 Errington were constituted one distinct body 

 politic and corporate by the name and style of 

 'The Governor and Company of British Cast 

 Plate Glass Manufacturers.' The company was 

 authorized to raise a joint stock, not exceeding 

 the sum of ,^40,000," to be divided into eighty 

 ;^500 shares, the holding of no one person to 

 exceed twelve shares." The rest of the Act 

 contains details with regard to the management 

 of the company, the payment of dividends, 

 annual meetings, disposal of shares, &c. Sec- 

 tion 29 leads one to suppose that the company 

 did not expect to be very well received in 

 St. Helens. 



If any person or persons shall break into or enter 

 into any place or building belonging to the manu- 

 factory, with intent to steal, cut, break, or otherwise 

 destroy any glass or plate glass, or any tools or imple- 

 ments used in the making thereof, and shall steal, cut, 

 break or otherwise destroy the same . . . every 

 offender shall be transported for a term not exceeding 

 seven years. 



From another source we learn that the prin- 

 cipal man connected with the foundation of the 

 Company at St. Helens was Admiral Affleck," 

 who was one of the proprietors mentioned in 

 the Act. The undertaking was evidently on a 

 fairly large scale, for at the beginning of the last 

 decade of the eighteenth century it is described as 

 occupying nearly ' 30 acres of land, enclosed by a 

 wall.' At this time between 300 and 400 men 

 were constantly employed in the works. In 

 1789 a steam-engine was erected to grind and 

 polish the plates of glass, which at the time was 

 considered 'a very curious piece of mechanism.' ^' 

 Heavy taxation led to the failure of the business. 



which was bought up in 1 798 by the British Plate 

 Glass Co.'^ The latter firm has now been taken 

 over by Messrs. Pilkington Brothers, Limited. 



The repeal of the "glass duty in 1845 gave 

 the glass trade a great impetus ; and works have 

 since been established at Pocket Nook and 

 at Sutton. In 1901 the census returns show 

 that 4,426 men and 261 women were employed 

 in the manufacture of sheet and plate glass at 

 St. Helens. 



The manufacture of glass bottles and of sheet 

 glass at St. Helens is of more recent origin. 

 Messrs. Pilkington and Sons, wine and spirit 

 merchants and rectifiers, erected a ' cone ' for the 

 manufacture of crown glass in 1827. Previous 

 to Pilkington's works there existed Mackey k 

 West's crown glass works at Eccleston, and 

 Thomas West's bottle works at Thatto Heath. 

 The latter fell into disuse and was pulled down 

 many years ago, and the former passed into the 

 hands of the Pilkingtons in 1851. 



In 1 84 1 Messrs. Pilkington began to manu- 

 facture German sheet glass, being the first firm 

 to do so in this country." This firm still exists 

 under the style of Pilkington Brothers, Limited. 

 They are now the principal manufacturers of 

 plate and sheet glass in the district. Quite 

 recently they are reported to have purchased 

 the extensive works at Sutton of the London 

 and Manchester Plate Glass Company, which 

 was originally established in 1836. At the 

 present time the chief makers of glass bottles 

 are Messrs. Cannington, Shaw & Co., and 

 Messrs. Dixon & Nuttall. In 1901, 1,644 men 

 and 104 women were engaged in this trade at 

 St. Helens. 



The census returns for the whole county are 

 as follows : — In 1881 5,205 men and 779 

 women were employed in the manufacture of 

 glass. The figures for 1891 were 6,944 and 

 761, and for 1901 8,211 and 532 respectively 



THE SUGAR INDUSTRY 



The earliest reference to the Lancashire sugar 

 industry is in the Moore Rental of 1667-8. 

 In this document Sir Edward Moore, referring 

 to a plot of land in Dale Street, Liverpool, writes 

 as follows "^ : — 



Sugar-House Close. . . . This croft fronts the 

 Street for some twenty-seven yards and I call it the 

 Sugar House Close, because one Mr. Smith, a great 

 sugar-baker at London, a man, as report says, worth 

 forty thousand pounds, came from London to treat 

 with me. According to agreement he is to build all 

 the front twenty-seven yards a sutely house of good 



" Sec. 2. » Sec. 3. 



" Brockbank, Hist, of St. Helens, 20. 

 " Aikin, J Description of Manchester, 312. 

 " Brockbank, Hist, of St. Helens, 20. 



hewn stone . . . and there on the back side, to erect 

 a house for boiling and drying sugar, otherwise called 

 a sugar-baker's house. ... If this be once done, it 

 will bring a trade of at least forty thousand pounds a 

 year from the Barbadoes, which formerly this town 

 never knew. 



Whether a sugar-house really was erected in 

 Liverpool during the last quarter of the seven- 

 teenth century we have been unable to discover. 

 Indications of a Liverpool sugar industry con- 

 tained in the Index to Wills at Chester point to 

 a somewhat later date.*' 



"Ibid. 31. 



" Moore Rental (Chtthim Soc. Remains, xii),76-78. 

 Lane, and Ches. Rec. Soc. vols, xxv, xxxvii, xxiviii, 

 xliv, xlv. 



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