How glass came to the Black Country – and was sold to the rest of the world
The vital ingredient was under our soil all along
WE delve into an early twentieth century publication for this outline of a well-known Brierley Hill glass maker.
‘The Black Country and its Industries’ was published by Mark & Moody of Stourbridge, and featured some of our major firms of the time. Here we select just one: Stevens and Williams of Brierley Hill, which was outlined as follows ...
IN the Brierley Hill glass works of Messrs Stevens and Williams will be found well exemplified all that has contributed to make Stourbridge glass famous the world over.
For purity and lustre, variety of form, and artistic embellishment, glass stands unrivalled among industrial art products, and it might almost, in the dark ages, have been put down to necromancy that mere sand and red lead and potash, which form the principal ingredients of flint glass, are transformed into the beautiful articles one sees in Messrs Stevens and Williams’s showrooms.
It is parallel to the evolution of the bright butterfly from the chrysalis, but instead of natural development there has been the alchemy of patient industry, expert technical skill, and applied art, to secure the triumphs achieved in the manufacture of glass – especially when it is remembered how brittle is the material that has to be treated.
The works of Messrs Stevens and Williams, which are in convenient proximity to Brierley Hill railway station, and are connected with the Great Western line by a siding, are some six acres in area, and as will be seen from the accompanying illustration [reproduced here, above] comprise a series of buildings for the storage of materials, the manufacture of glass itself, and ranges of shops for engraving, cutting, etching and other kinds of decorations, together with warehouses, offices and showrooms.
The first glass houses in the district were built cone-shaped, and the first glass house of this firm was of that form; but this was superseded by the more modern shaped structures, two of which are prominent in the contour of the works.
Before speaking of what goes on within them, it may be recorded that the original business of the firm dates back to 1766, when Richard Honeybourne founded it. Later on the business was carried on in the name of Honeybourne and Batson, Messrs Silvers, Mills and Stevens subsequently took to it, and then, as years went on, the trading name became Silvers and Stevens, and lastly Stevens and Williams. This last title it has held since 1846, when Mr William Stevens and Mr Samuel Cox Williams acquired it.
The latter gentleman became the sole proprietor in 1878, and his son Mr Joseph Silvers Williams succeeded him on his death in 1889.
The reputation of the firm, abroad as well as at home, had greatly extended.
The pots used for the melting of glass are made of Stourbridge clay of exceptional quality, and it is to the discovery of this clay by some wandering refugees from the Continent, that the introduction of the glass trade into Stourbridge districts is
The story goes that Huguenot refugees noticed the fireclay when they dug holes for their tentpoles
attributed.
In Queen Elizabeth I’s reign some of the persecuted Huguenots who fled to England for shelter found their way to this neighbourhood, and the story goes, while digging holes for their tent poles, they noticed clay of similar quality to that which they knew was used in their own country for making glass-house pots.
There may have been some glass making on a small scale in England before this, but whether there was or not, this existence of fireclay in the neighbourhood seems to have settled the question of the glass tradefinding a firm settlement in the district. Hungary Hill, near the site of the old Junction Station at Stourbridge, is credited with being the locality where the Stourbridge glass trade had its beginning.
Those who have not penetrated into a glass house can hardly imagine the scene which its interior presents. A dim religious light prevails, with the strong set-off of the glare from the eye of the pots of molten metal [the workers’ term for liquid glass], and from the ends of the steel rods on which sufficient glass is withdrawn from time to time for the workman to operate on.
The tools he uses are in themselves of the simplest kind, and the tips of viscid metal on the steel rods are quickly blown and wrought into the the shape of goblets, wine decanters, or whatever class of goods the glass blower may have to produce.