CHAPTER V
BRISTOL AND NAILSEA GLASS
IT is a matter of regret that Bristol’s ancient fame for making and cutting glass should have so completely disappeared. In the palmy days of its glass industry it boasted no fewer than fifteen “glass-houses,” and it had no rival in the country either as regards the quantity or the quality of its output. This was in the year 1760.
Thirty years later the first glass-maker appears on the roll of the city’s freemen. But seven years previously we read that a certain townsman was admitted a freeman of the city upon his undertaking to train a city schoolboy, as his apprentice, in the difficult art of glass “grinding” without the usual premium of £7. But as early as 1666 an order was made by the City Council to the effect that “no stranger or foreigner should presume to open a shop, either with or without glass windows, under a penalty of £5”—a fact which seems to indicate that, although glass windows may still have been a novelty, there existed facilities for their supply if required.
Apart from casual references like these, the history of Bristol glass is entirely obscure. But as the trade returns for the year 1695 show that the duty on glass for that year amounted to £17,642, and that a “drawback” allowed on exported glass amounted in the case of Bristol to no less a sum than £2976, it is pretty clear that by that time the industry in Bristol had assumed very considerable dimensions.
Bristol glass is certainly the most beautiful of all Old English glass, and there is no doubt that many of the fine specimens one sees, both coloured and plain, were actually produced in the factories of that city. The colouring of Bristol glass is exceptionally brilliant, especially its deep blues. The opaque milky-white ware, which is most common, is often “ribbed” with white streaks or ornamented with flowers in colours and gold, or daubed with red, blue, and yellow, or with one of these colours only. Fig. 29 shows specimens of both kinds.
It is a matter for great regret that the factories renowned in early times for the beauty and finish of their output did not maintain their existence for a longer period. The exact date at which the famous opaque ware was made is open to considerable doubt, but the year 1760 cannot be very wide of the mark, for reasons to which I have already referred.
In any case, the records of the city show that in that year its glass furnaces were in full blast. We find recorded in 1715 a bequest of china and glass, and in a long account of a feast given to commemorate the accession of Queen Anne there is included among the expenditure of the corporation an item of £6, 14s. for glasses.
At first glass was extremely costly: the corporation was called upon to pay no less than £4, 16s. for “a glass to be placed in Mr Alderman Laroche’s coach, which was broken at the gaol delivery.” Fine specimens of the glass-worker’s art fetched extremely high prices.
The glass itself was exceedingly brittle and easily broken as compared with other English and Irish glass. It was frequently decorated with enamelled colouring, and many specimens are found with finely curved and twisted handles. It was, in my opinion, the object of the Bristol glass-houses to imitate white porcelain, and, in support of this idea, we find manufactured in Bristol glass such articles as vases, cups and saucers, plates, mugs, and other utensils usually made from porcelain and earthenware.
Of course, the art of manufacturing this opaque white or milky glass was well known abroad. The white glass of Venice, of Orleans, and of Barcelona was already famous. The characteristic feature of its manufacture was the large amount of lead and the small quantity of tin employed as ingredients—quantities altogether out of proportion to those used in the manufacture of ordinary transparent glass.