In the early 19th centuary the most striking
feature of the glass works would have been the conical brick
structures known as the glasshouse cone.These buildings
acted both as a furnace and a chimney with the workers congregated
around a central furnace inside the cone itself.Many of these
structures were to be found around the Stourbridge area of the
UK,no doubt due in part to the fact that the special fire clay
used to make the clay pots in which the batch was made was abundant
in this area.These pots were and often still are made by hand.Pot
filling was often carried out on a Friday when the raw materials
were weighed,mixed and partly fused(fritted)to burn off gas and
impurities.Cullet(broken glass) was then added.This mixture was
then transffered to the pot and by Monday the melting process
would be completeand the glass ready to work.The glass makers
worked in teams known as chairs,usually four men to a chair the
"gaffer" "servitor" "footmaker"
and "taker in".
In the making of a glass the servitor would blow the bowl and
hand it to the gaffer who would add the stem and the foot handed
to him by the footmaker.The gaffer sat in a wooden chair with
long arms that he used to roll the blow pipe with the glass on
the end to keep it from sagging.Once the foot was on the glass
a solid pontil rod was stuck to the centre of the foot,this allowed
the gaffer to detatch the blow pipe and finish the glass using
a selection of hand tools.Once satisfied with his work the gaffer
would hand the glass to the taker in who would take it to the
annealing chamber to cool down.This process differs surprisingly
little from the techniques used today,see my Glass
works today page for details. |
