Old English Glass Houses

This is a collection of papers researched and written by Francis Buckley and originally published in the Journal of the Society of Glass Technology in the 1920s. Each chapter gives details of glass making factories around the UK from the late 17th century to the early 19th. John Houghton, an eminent member of the Royal Society, wrote a series of Letters to Parliament under the general title of Husbandry and Trade Improvement . Letter Number 198, dated 15th May 1696 listed all the glass works in England and Wales which were working at that time, around 90 in total. Buckley probably used Houghton’s listing for his research, it is an obvious starting point, most of the glassworks in Houghton’s list are mentioned along with many more. The additional ones are glassworks that were built after 1696, in fact in some of his papers Buckley continues into the early part of the 19th Century. There are also glassworks listed for areas not covered by Houghton for example Cumberland and many parts of Yorkshire, and Scotland. One of the fascinations of Buckley’s papers is that he not only lists his references, he actually states what they are, giving additional information to that in the main text.