INDUSTRY

GLASSWORKS

Apprentices had normally to be born into glass-making families before serving the seven year apprenticeship.

The conditions in the glassworks were very uncomfortable, work was extremely hot and the glasshouses were dark and had little ventilation. It is not surprising that the employees were described as a very decent fellows but given to drinking.

The glassworks did possess a beer cellar, but this was used (in part!) for glass - blowing. The beer was used for making very large bottles. The glassblower (normally an apprentice), would take a mouthful of beer and spit it into the partially blown bottle. The beer immediately evaporated into steam, due to the immense heat of the glass. By holding his thumb over the end of the blow pipe, the sudden force created by the vaporised alcohol was sufficient to expand the globe to the required size. The largest globe created by this method was said to be one hundred and five gallons.

It is not known exactly how many men were employed in the Works, but three hundred is a popular estimate for workers at Dumbarton. Unskilled labour was recruited locally whilst craftsmen were imported from other parts of the United Kingdom, and even Europe. Thomas Gerrard, a skilled glassworker, was persuaded to work in Dumbarton from Pilkingtons in 1849. After nine months, he left and went to Birmingham, and from there to America and Canada where he worked as a blower in New Jersey, Montreal and Philadelphia. He then returned to the UK where he worked for Pilkingtons again, Sunderland, Nailsea and then returned to Pilkingtons. Craftsmen were in demand!

The majority of employees, though, worked outside the glasshouses in areas such as the cutting room, the clay house (the Works made its own bricks), the packing warehouse, kelp store or joiners shop, making crates for packaging.

In Dumbarton, the glassworks owned two rows of workers’ cottages, although it is not known exactly how many cottages there were. It is probable that accommodation was either free of charge or extremely cheap and included as part of pay. Pay scales are not recorded in the Dumbarton factory but it is probable that craftsmen earned approximately one pound per week in 1830.

By 1850, the Glassworks had ceased to be a profitable business due to the repeal of tariffs on foreign glass. Cheaper imports flooded the markets and Christie sold his works to Alexander Denny who cleared the site to build his engineering works.