Sir Robert Mansell, Admiral of the Fleet, was granted a Royal Monopoly for the making of glass in 1623. He realised almost instinctively that the only alternative to precious wood for fuelling the glassmakers' furnaces was coal. Newcastle, amid the largest coal-producing centre in the world, eventually proved the best site for the industry.
Immigrant Huguenots fleeing from France after the Massacre of St Bartholomew in 1572 materially assisted Sir Robert, and set up their businesses alongside the Ouseburn and the Skinnerburn. Curiously enough, though enjoying every advantage, they did not prosper. Whatever the reason, the 'gentilhommes verriers' moved to Stourbridge. A furious Sir Robert drove them back, however. In 1621 the monopoly of Sir Robert and his redoubtable wife was confirmed by the king, after a tenacious legal battle. Sir Robert Mansell died in 1653. He and his redoubtable wife had proved remarkable adopted citizens of Newcastle, promoting the glass industry with great energy. During the occupation of Newcastle by the Scots in 1640, a smuggled letter from the Mayor referred to his concerns, not about coal, but over twelve hundred cases of glass ready to be shipped to London
A second migration, this time of the Dagnia dynasty from the Forst of Dean, arrived in 1684. Their reign lasted until 1728, when they were bought out by Joseph Airey and Isaac Cookson. The Dagnias moved on to develop their glass interests in South Shields. Newcastle had now become the largest glass-producing centre in the world, with 31 glasshouses within half a mile of the centre of Newcastle (increasing to 41 by 1827). In 1703 one R. Neve writes of Newcastle glass: ' Tis the glass that is most in use here in England... The cases are brought to London in the coal ships.' A pleasant tradition is that when champagne was invented by Dom Perignon, he sent for bottles from Newcastle, which he judged to be the best for containing the pressure of his new wine. In the year 1743-1744 some 115 tons of glass were exported to Europe, the West Indies and Africa - but none by now, it seems, to France.
The years 1730-85 marked the great era of elegance in Newcastle glass-making, and were notable for the achievement of the Beilbys (q.v.) and the superb Newcastle Light Baluster. The famous Dutch engraved glasses by David Wolffe, Aert Schouman and Franz Greenwood, which can be seen in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam and the Victoria and Albert in London, and other museums world wide were in fact Newcastle Light Balusters. Tyneside reached its zenith as a glass-making centre in 1827, but R.W. Swinburne and Co. of South Shields (the successor to Isaac Cookson's company) shared with Chance Bros of Birmingham the enormous task of supplying plate glass for the famous Crystal Palace of 1851, a fact seemingly forgotten nowadays. Swinburne also won a medal there for an exhibit of opaque plate glass.
There is no memorial to the Mansells and almost the only reminder of the great Tyneside glass industry is the Lemington Cone, a notable eighteenth-century structure containing a million and three-quarter bricks. I am indebted to the meticulous research undertaken by Squadron-Leader James Rush in his books The Ingenious Beilbys and A Beilby Odyssey. The royalties from both books went to the Cheshire Home at Matfen Hall, Northumberland.