Glass Industry in Wales?

[little alison]

Having been researching my family for about two years and their involvement in glass production in Scotland, Lancashire and Dublin, I've become interested in the glass industry in Britain generally and the development in the 19th century....there were hundreds of early Victorian glassworks with glass cones in these areas - were there ever works with glass cones in Wales?
 
So far I have only found online very brief mentions of glass production in Newport (1885), Cardiff (1826) and Neath (1740).
Can you tell me any more about any of these?
Or, was there anywhere in North Wales where glass was produced? I can't find glassworkers in censuses.....N or S.
There was plenty of coal in Wales, but was there sand available, and transport?
 
Any one with some information?

[dragongirl]

Hi Alison
Pilkingtons glass was in Pontypool for a number of years
I just googled Welsh Glass Factories  comes up with too many to quote though it does say most produced clear glass
 Sorry can`t be more helpful

[davierj]

Welsh Royal Crystal in Rhayader is the only surviving manufacturer of hand made lead crystal in Wales.

Dave

[little alison]

Thanks for responses, but - I'm trying to find out about earlier glass production in Wales - if any. (Pilkingtons came in 1957, I gather.)

I've tried googling and Ancestry censuses and searching old Directories and have found very little.

There was so much going on in glass in other areas where my relatives were in the 1800s, that I am very puzzled as to why it doesn't seem to have happened - in the Victorian era - in Wales.

[Morganllan]

Hello 

This oil painting by Victorian Painter William Butler depicts a Glass Kiln at Loughor:

http://www.swanseaheritage.net/article/gat.asp?ARTICLE_ID=78

It says that Loughor Glassworks may have been built as early as 1740-50 but had other uses until around 1848 when glass manufacture resumed.

The People's Collection Wales has a photograph of the site:
http://www.peoplescollectionwales.co.uk/item/5330-loughor-glassworks-site-of

There is an article on the Glasshouse at Loughor on the Welsh Journals, vol 19, 1968:
http://welshjournals.llgc.org.uk/browse/listissues/llgc-id:1272866

Kind Regards
Morgan

[Morganllan]

London Gazette, Feb 3rd 1865
dissolution of a partnership between "Thomas Gill Whitehouse and Charles Wilmott, carrying on business as Glass Bottle Manufacturers at the Cambrian Glass Bottle Works, Llanelli"

Cambrian News 12th May 1876
Reopening of Cambrian Glass Bottle Works at Loughor, only one in Wales, Manager William Gore

Cambrian News, 2nd June 1876
Notice that the Cambrian Glass Bottle Works, Loughor was to be re-opened by Messrs Gore & Company.

London Gazette, Jan 4th 1878, has a report of bancruptcy proceedings of William Gore, "lately carrying on business in copartnership with Alfred Hall, under the style of Gore & Co., at the Cambrian Glass Bottle Works, Loughor, near Llanelli, South Wales, as Glass Bottle Manufacturers, now residing at 5, old Bread Street, in the city and county of Bristol, out of business"

[little alison]

Thanks very much for these - I now feel I have something! So there was at least one cone in Wales.
It was in just the sort of place I would expect, by the shore sand, and near enough to Swansea for transport - also a possible area for sales, because the Severn bridge wasn't there then, and it would have been more difficult to get glass from Bristol.
And a fascinating story in the Welsh Journals!
But this the only works in Wales in 1876.
The Swansea Directory in 1895 referred people to Bristol or Warrington for glass....

I have also been told about  about a glass house operating inside Swansea Castle from about 1678 - 1696.

Now I wonder if there was ever anything of this sort in North Wales where there was coal? Or anywhere else?

[Morganllan]

Glass in Flint:

http://www.fflint.co.uk/industry.html

[little alison]

Hello again - thanks, but yes, I did find this one yesterday.
The picture is getting clearer, especially since I looked at a map of where the coal is found in Wales.

Any glass places are concentrated where the coal is. A little bit in the North and a lot in the South.
But the glass houses don't seem to have thrived, do they? As far as I can tell. I wonder if there were other difficulties.

Was it hard to get  a glass cone built? (A difficult and dangerous job anyway.) I now think I have found two operating in old castles. Were the possible sites (for coal) too near the other big glass places?

Any one know anything about these, which I have found brief mentions of?

South Wales Glass Works, Newport, 1885.
1826/7 - Guest & Co Glass Works established in Cardiff
'In the 1740s a case was made for the setting up of a Glass Works at Neath'…was it ever?