An important engraved armorial cut-glass table service The Wear Flint Glass House, Sunderland, first quarter 19th century

each piece cut with prismatic banding above short plain pillar flutes alternating with fine diamond-cut flutes, the drinking glasses with diamond-faceted ball knop and petal-shaped circular foot, the underside cut with alternating panels of fine diamonds, the decanters, rinsers and larger items engraved with the coat-of-arms of the Darnell and Mowbray families of Co. Durham, inscribed with the motto AUDATES FORTUNA IUVAT within a ribbon, the drinking glasses each with the Darnell crest of a cock pheasant sitting proper with a falcon's leg erased at the thigh proper, comprising: a large punchbowl, twenty wine goblets, twenty-four wine glasses, fifty-four medium wine glasses, twenty-three wine flutes, twenty sherry glasses, sixty-one port glasses, twenty-seven liqueur glasses, twenty-nine large tumblers, eleven small tumblers, twelve large Prussian-shaped decanters and nine stoppers, six smaller decanters and one stopper (3 possibly later), eighteen water carafes, twenty-four double-lipped wine glass coolers, twenty wine glass rinsers, a water jug, four pedestal footed claret jugs, two cream jugs, seventeen ice plates, thirteen oval dishes, in three sizes, four salts, two biscuit jars (one extensively damaged), two preserve jars, covers and stands, two footed preserve jars and covers (413)

The early history of the Darnell Service is unclear. Stylistically and by strong local association, it is considered to be the production of the Wear Flint Glassworks or Company at Sunderland in the North-East of England. Two very similar extensive cut-glass services produced in the first quarter of the 19^th century – the celebrated Londonderry Service made for the 3^rd Marquess and that for the Lambton family of Durham – are widely published. Until recently the existence of the Darnell Service was unknown. At over 400 pieces in size and with such a variety of shapes it is perhaps the largest and most complete surviving glass table service attributed to the Sunderland glassworks. Indeed, it may well be one of the most extensive produced in England in the early 19^th century.
Sir Thomas Darnell, a baronet under James I, fought for the Royalists during the Civil War. At the Restoration in 1660, the Darnells returned from exile overseas to take up lands at Up Leatham and at Guisborough Hall in North Yorkshire. In about 1800 William Darnell, who had married Mary Watson in 1802, lost the family wealth and estates to excesses of the turf and was forced to move into the gamekeeper’s cottage. By good fortune in 1812, his son, Robert Watson Darnell, married Jane, daughter of John de Mowbray who allegedly owned his own band and Hetton Colliery in County Durham. Robert and Jane moved to The Grange at Bishopwearmouth, close to Sunderland. According to family tradition they raced, owned a pack of hounds and lived an extravagant lifestyle.
The family believes that the service was a wedding present on the occasion of Robert and Jane’s wedding in 1812. It may, in fact, date closer to 1820 than 1810.
If indeed the service does date from 1812 it would make it one of the earliest of the company’s services. It is believed, for example, that the Lambton Service was made for John George Lambton of Lambton Castle around 1823. With their flared bucket-shaped bowls, reminiscent of the rummers typically associated with North-Eastern glass, the drinking glasses in this service are similar to those of the Darnell apart from the faceted knops. In 1932 the contents of Lambton Castle were sold and the catalogue lists a suite of heavily cut glass with armorial engraving, numbering 239 items in all.
With its exquisitely ornate and detailed armorial engraving, The Londonderry Service is perhaps the finest of all and may also be traced to 1823. The service is referred to in the Newcastle Courant of 16^th November 1823 as ‘ a table service of glass value of nearly 2,000 guineas has been manufactured by the Wear Flint Glass Company for the Marquess of Londonderry and on Saturday last the Marquess and Marchioness…..visited the manufactory for the purpose of inspecting it and expressed the highest approbation.’
The majority of the service (189 pieces) was acquired by Sunderland and Museum and Art Gallery in 1986 when Lord Londonderry sold the family estate of Wynyard Hall, near Durham. Writing recently on the subject of the Londonderry and Lambton Services (‘The Sunderland Glass Services: a Reappraisal’, The Journal of the Glass Association, vol.6, 2001, pp.24-37) Susan Newall believes that ‘allowing for breakages during the previous 140 years, it might be assumed that the [two] services …contained roughly the same number of items, possibly between 250 and 300.
Two further smaller services are known, one of which belongs to the Duke of Northumberland. Thirty-seven broken pieces were sold by Sotheby’s at Syon House in 1997. Another much more modest service was made for William Stobart of Picktree in County Durham, twenty-one items of which were sold in these rooms, 1992. It has long been thought that the famous cut-glass service made for the Duke of Wellington towards the end of the 1820s is also a production of the Wear Flint Glass Company. This has yet to be established.
What is intriguing are the links of the owners of the respective services to the flourishing coal trade of the North-East of England. Coal was the life-blood of the glass industry and the owners of both the mines and the glassworks would have had much contact with each other. Robert Darnell’s wife, Jane, was the daughter of a colliery owner. The Londonderry, Lambton, Northumberland and Stobart families had strong mining interests. The account books of the glasswork’s main shareholder, John White, shows that he kept a running account with Lord Londonderry for coal.
Matching suites of table glass were popular in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries throughout Europe and these gentlemen from the North followed the fashion of the day in ordering such suites. The important precedent set by the Prince Regent in acquiring a matching glass wine service made by Perrin and Geddes of Warrington between 1806 and1808, personalised through the use of his engraved coats-of-arms was also probably an influential factor, given the Prince’s role as leader of fashion for the aristocracy of the day (see R. and C.Gray, ‘The Prince’s Glasses. Some Warrington Cut Glass 1806-1811’, Journal of the Glass Association, vol.2, 1987, pp.11-18).