Well I have to alter this post as my latest buy, as I said, for the total of £1.99, turns out to be this nice little hobnail pattern Greener pressed glass jug. Not by George Davidson & Co of Gateshead, Newcastle-upon-Tyne but by Henry Greener of Sunderland. It’s a fantastic example of an imitation cut glass jug made for the use of “ordinary folk” who wanted something nicer on their table than earthenware pottery.
They could aspire to the “higher classes” with utilitarian but beautiful glassware within the budget of large numbers of people for the first time in history. The mass production of the Industrial Revolution meant a man could make 150 jugs in a day rather than one glass piece over several days.
This drove down the price of day to day objects and caused an explosion of ingenuity, design and production in glass manufacturing as in many other industries.
This (now) Greener pressed glass jug weighs 426g, it’s heavy! It’s one of the identification factors for old pressed glass, it’s just much heavier than modern stuff. They hadn’t learnt how to use less glass material and cost cut yet.
In the handle, and particularly the rim, there are loads of bubbles in the glass, I can’t see any in the body of the jug as the pattern makes it hard to see them. There appear to be no inclusions.
The mould was not quite as tight as it could have been, you can see the flange of glass at the bottom of the handle, it’s really obvious when you feel the jug. The hot glass extruded through the loose part of the mould, leaving a flat and sharp surface protruding.
The maker’s mark is not especially clear on the bottom, but with a bit of juggling the piece around in the light I can see it’s the lion in a mural crown, the mark of George Davidson used between 1880 and 1890 approximately. Except that’s not what it is when looked at very very carefully. There’s a line joining the two paws of the lion, making it the second Greener mark used roughly between 1885 and 1900.
I’m really pleased with it. This Greener pressed glass jug is a great example of a useful and good looking household item from a time when these pieces were becoming available to a large population for the first time.
I have a pair of these, they belonged to my mother. There were a lot of pressed glass items in her china cabinet, quite interesting to see where they were made. We live in the North East so Sunderland glass would have been readily available. Nice to put a manufacturer’s name to them.