Bristol blue glass

During the late 18th century Richard Champion, a Bristol merchant and potter, making Bristol porcelain, was working with a chemist, William Cookworthy.{{cite web |url=http://www.businesswest.co.uk/pooled/profiles/BF_COMP/view.asp?Q=BF_COMP_49818 |title=Bristol Blue Glass |access-date=2007-09-01 |work=Business West |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930093111/http://www.businesswest.co.uk/pooled/profiles/BF_COMP/view.asp?Q=BF_COMP_49818 |archive-date=2007-09-30 }} Cookworthy began a search for good quality cobalt oxide to give the blue glaze decoration on the white porcelain and obtained exclusive import rights to all the cobalt oxide from the Royal Saxon Cobalt Works in Saxony.{{cite journal |last=Weeden |first= C. |date=December 1990 |title= William Cookworthy and Bristol blue glass |journal= Glass Technology |volume= 31 |pages= 256–65 }} It is uncertain when Bristol blue glass was first made but the quality and beauty of the glass swiftly gained popularity, with seventeen glass houses being set up in the city.{{cite web |url=http://www.bristolblueglassusa.com/history.htm |title=History of Bristol Blue Glass |access-date=2007-09-01 |work=Bristol Blue Glass USA |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070609104628/http://www.bristolblueglassusa.com/history.htm |archive-date = 2007-06-09}}

Lazarus and Isaac Jacobs were the most famous makers of Bristol blue glass in the 1780s. Lazarus Jacobs was a Jewish immigrant to Bristol from Frankfurt am Main, Germany. In 1774, at the age of seventeen, Isaac joined his father's glass cutting firm at 108 Temple Street, Bristol, and launched Bristol Blue glass as a national brand, using the cobalt oxide Cookworthy imported. Isaac was responsible for the great growth of the company, and the expansion of its goods. Madge Dresser, ‘Jacobs, Isaac (1757/8–1835)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/75898, accessed 29 July 2016] Their company held a royal warrant and made glass for the aristocrats of Europe.{{cite web |url=http://www.bristol-glass.co.uk/xcart/catalog/Heritage-sp-12.html |title=Heritage |access-date=2007-09-01 |work=Bristol Blue Glass |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929094622/http://www.bristol-glass.co.uk/xcart/catalog/Heritage-sp-12.html |archive-date=2007-09-29 }} Bristol’s glass makers were invited to demonstrate their skills at the Great Exhibition of 1851, opened by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. At this period cranberry glass was made for the first time by adding 24 carat gold to lead crystal, giving the glass its ruby red tones.

Production ceased in about 1923.[http://www.bristolblueglass.com/shop/pages.php?pageid=19 The History of Bristol Blue Glass] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110518024154/http://www.bristolblueglass.com/shop/pages.php?pageid=19 |date=May 18, 2011 }}. Accessed 23 May 2011

Around 1970 Thomas Webb & Sons of Stourbridge made a range of about ten Bristol blue glass shapes, but had to stop as they found cobalt dust was contaminating their lead crystal. At the request of John Stott, the managing director of Thomas Webb (who closed down in 1990), Nazeing Glass of Broxbourne, Herts, supplied the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery Shop with a range of some twenty glass shapes, all based on 18th century inspired designs, from 1975 until 1990. Bristol-based glass makers James Adlington and Peter Sinclair held their Hot Glass exhibition in 1988 at Hand Made Glass, Bristol, which led to a revival of Bristol's hand blown glass industry, and to the creation of a company that has spawned the careers of many other studio glassmakers in the southwest of England.{{cite web |title=About Bristol Blue Glass |url=http://bristol-glass.co.uk/xcart/pages.php?pageid=2 |access-date=21 Dec 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120107012925/http://bristol-glass.co.uk/xcart/pages.php?pageid=2 |archive-date=2012-01-07 }} Today, Bristol Blue Glass is produced by The Original Bristol Blue Glass Ltd in Brislington, established in 1988.

In the 1990s, John Harvey & Sons of Bristol began to sell Bristol Cream sherry in bottles made from Bristol blue, after a period of over 100 years during which blue bottles had been associated with the sale of dangerous or poisonous liquids.

Image:Bristol Blue Glass Heron Body.jpg|Bristol blue glass heron body

Image:Bristol Blue Glass Heron Base.jpg|Bristol blue glass heron base

Image:Bristol Blue Glass Heron.jpg|Bristol blue glass heron. Beak being pulled into place

Image:bristol blue glass manufacture arp.jpg|A stage in the manufacture of a Bristol blue ship’s decanter

The glass contains cobalt oxide, which creates a deep yet bright blue, and 24% lead oxide (PbO).{{cite journal |last= Banks |first= M |author2= N. Elphinstone |author3= E.T. Hall |year= 1963 |title= Bristol Blue Glass |journal= Archaeometry |volume= 6 |issue= 1 |pages= 26–30 |doi= 10.1111/j.1475-4754.1963.tb00575.x }}

• Cobalt glass
• Glassblowing

{{Reflist|30em}}

• [http://www.bristol-glass.co.uk Bristol Blue Glass]
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6k9Ie6WLvGg Video of glass blowing at Bristol Blue Glass]

Category:Cobalt

Category:Glass types

Category:Culture in Bristol

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bristol Blue Glass}}