HEART OF ENGLAND GLASS

The West Midlands of England has been the vital heart of glassmaking in Great Britain for over four centuries. In 1612 Paul Tyzack, a French glassmaker from the Lorraine district who had settled in the Stourbridge area, baptised his first son at St. Mary's church in Kingswinford. In the ensuing four hundred years, the area, which encompasses Dudley, Wolverhampton, Birmingham and the glass district of Stourbridge which itself includes Amblecote, Brierley Hill and Wordsley, witnessed some of the greatest artistic and technical revolutions in glass to affect glassmakers worldwide. In the 1790s two glasscutters from Dudley and Stourbridge harnessed the new technology of steam power to drive their cutting lathes and intricate cut glass was born. In 1876 John Northwood rediscovered the ancient Roman art of cameo glass and influenced the likes of the great Emile Gallé and countless other international cameo glass artists to the present day. Even glass geniuses were ‘exported' including John..

Primary location: United Kingdom