Topic: Location of 20th Century British Glass Works

[Clem]

Canning Town glass update. Thank you for valuable background . May I add a little the glassworks stat Canning Town was coming to the end of it's useful life so Queenborough in Kent was developed and at some point Dale Brown at Swindon Swinton Mexborough was purchased. These operations had no link to United Glass until UG bought the Company in 1984 closing it in 1986. Bells whisky bought CTG in the mid 70's because they were short of bottles for their growing brand. The company owned a number of potential names for the new business including Phoenix but chose to continue with the name from a very tough east end district. The Swinton site operated on both sides of Whitelees Road where the furnace sites were reputed to have been unchanged for over 100 years. There was a nominal sales presence in London including Swallow St at Piccadilly Circus which appears to have been a front for Lavish entertainment and was promptly closed by Bells on acquisition.

[sph@ngw]

" a front for lavish entertainment in Swallow Street, Piccadilly Circus" sounds extremely interesting and juicy!"
While not imputing any connection what so ever I came across this article in the Evening Standard on "Mr Soho", when I googled "Swallow Street, which now has a restaurant called "Gaucho".
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/is-it-all-over-for-mr-soho-6979938.html
I am sure any connection is just fanciful unfounded imagination,, but  there were quite a few "louche" establishments in that area, dating back many centuries....
More to the point, the Canning Town Glass Works and the Rockware factory at Greenford, near Harrow, were the last two major London Glass Works.
the late Dr David Watts "Glass making in London" privately printed book is a very comprehensive  history. I think we still have a few copies left in our shop as it may already be out of print!

[Clem]

I never did get to the Swallow St. office which appears to have been close to Veeraswamys Britains first Indian. UG at New Cross lasted longer than CTG and their Brimsdown Enfield plant also survived into the eighties. The book sounds interesting which I guess makes me some kind of nerd.

[Clem]

Thanks to predictive text Swinton Mexborough appears as Swindon in an earlier post apologies

[sph@ngw]

May I post this detailed  researched map and list of Twentieth Century Domestic Glass ?
(note no Irish glass factories are shown because of partition, and it is Britain not including Northern Ireland e.g. Tyrone Crystal