Elizabethan Glassmaking | A collection of documents and related items, 1585-1617

Elizabethan Glassmaking

Collection of documents relating to glassmaking in Staffordshire between 1585 and 1617, comprising:

i) Articles agreed between Richard Bagot and Ambrose Hensey for establishing a glasshouse and furnace in Bagot's Park, indenture signed by Hensey, witnessed by Anthony Bagot and two others, 1 page, oblong folio, 5 June 1585, spotting

ii) Thomas Playfed, letter of recommendation for G[er]erd Hencye, glassmaker ('...beinge one of my Lord Byshoppes workemen at his Lordshippes glassehouse... I would very willingly have keept him still but that his brother and hee could not agree so that hee would rather depart than live in continuall troble...'), 1 page, 4to, Eccleshall Castle, 26 June 1585, dust staining

iii) Nicholas Gillott, "owner of a Glasse worke within the countie of Stafford", petition to Sir Edward Coke, Chief Justice of the King's Bench,concerning financial distresses brought about by the recent royal proclamation forbidding the use of wood in glassmaking ('...my selfe and 3 apprentises... and... poore men theire wyves and children and servants to the number of 40 are like to be undone wch formerlie have lived in good fashion by the makeinge of glasse...'), with Coke's autograph answer subscribed consenting to the petition, 1 page, folio, integral address leaf, 5 August 1615, dust staining

iv) "Articles to be performed by virtue of our Commission of sale annexed touchinge forestes Parkes & Chases", concerning the felling of trees ("...nor any tree to bee cutt other then in places to bee assented unto by such as wee have appoynted to take care for the bewtie of the forest p[ar]ke or Chase..."), 3 pages, folio, n.d.

v) Draft letter [by Walter Bagot to Sir Robert Mansell], entreating him to allow him to use £300 worth of wood already felled for glassmaking although technically in contravention of the royal proclamation "published here in this Countie of Staff[ord] the xvijth of June", referring to his having had a glassworks in his grounds for the past eight years ('...the lyke was in my fathe[r]s time and other my Ancesters the space of twoo hundred years wch I can prove by good records...') and to Mansell's having taken away by messenger Bagot's chief workman, Jacob Heuze, for his works at Wollerton, 1 page, folio, [1616], damp staining

vi-xi) Petitions by Walter Bagot concerning his financial plight as a result of the royal proclamation prohibiting the use of wood in glassmaking and the monopoly possessed by Sir Robert Mansell (who has ignored his entreaties): one addressed to the Privy Council, fair copy signed by seven Staffordshire justices of the peace, with two related drafts; another addressed to King James I ("... yo[u]r Maties: petitioner, and his auncestors...havinge ben possessed above the space of three hundred yeares in a poor patrimonie in this Countie... the greatest part whereof is barren and hard land, unprofitable, but onely for nourishinge of woodes... the landes of other men adioyninge of like nature, wth manie coale mynes, turfe, and peatt..."), fair copy with two related drafts; altogether 6 pages, plus blanks, folio, c.1617, some damp staining

[with:] an album of notes on glassmaking by Captain W. Horridge, former owner of the above, together with other notes, transcripts, photocopies, and offprints on historic glassmaking

[also with:] two boxes of fragments of glass and other material found by Horridge at the sites of the glassworks in Bishop's Wood and Bagot's Park.

Staffordshire, together with the Weald, was the chief centre of glassmaking in England in the Elizabethan period, as it had been in the Middle Ages.