Sauce bottle manufacturer Birmingham

[Reelpro]

Hello from Canada

I am researching an antique bottle, I believe was made in Birmingham in 1890’s.

It seems to be a somewhat unique HP bottle.

Embossed lettering is slightly different from the common. All letters are the same size or font, with the HP separated by dots.

The commonly found old bottles all seem to have lettering with a larger font used for the HP .

GARTONS.HP.SAUCE on this vs Gartons HP Sauce

it also has a unique Glass makers Mark on the base, like a loose knot of string, ? Or an attempt at a cursive G.

if anyone has info on the Factory that made the HP in 1890 or has seen an example of this bottle , any info would be appreciated.

Thx Mike

 

[Morturn]

Welcome to the Birmingham History Forum. The logo on the bottom of the bottle looks like a Stafford knot.

See here

 

[Pedrocut]

Advert from 1908.

BBC - Nottingham - History - A saucy tribute

Should HP Sauce, which was invented at a house in Nottingham, be commemorated with a plaque?

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Jason Ellis]

Hello from Canada

I am researching an antique bottle, I believe was made in Birmingham in 1890’s.

It seems to be a somewhat unique HP bottle.

Embossed lettering is slightly different from the common. All letters are the same size or font, with the HP separated by dots.

The commonly found old bottles all seem to have lettering with a larger font used for the HP .

GARTONS.HP.SAUCE on this vs Gartons HP Sauce

it also has a unique Glass makers Mark on the base, like a loose knot of string, ? Or an attempt at a cursive G.

if anyone has info on the Factory that made the HP in 1890 or has seen an example of this bottle , any info would be appreciated.

Thx Mike

Hi Mike,
That is definitely the Stafford knot (more commonly known as the Staffordshire knot), so my guess would be the glassworks in Ludgate Street, Tutbury, Staffordshire. It had been run since 1720 by the Jackson family making bottles for the Burton-on-Trent brewery trade. It was rebuilt and re-equipped in 1836 by Henry Jackson who ran it until he died in 1880. It was purchased in 1906 by Webb Corbett the famous Stourbridge glass manufacturers and continued in business until relatively recent times.

The Stafford Knot was used as a mark by many of the pottery manufacturers around Stoke-on-Trent. Although some of the "Stourbridge" glass manufacturers were sited in Staffordshire (Brettle Lane and Brierley Hill) I am not aware of any of them using the Stafford Knot as a mark. The Tutbury glassworks was primarily a bottle works whereas most of the Stourbridge works (whether in Staffordshire or Worcestershire) made mainly high quality tableware and decorative ware, not bottles in the Victorian era.

 

[Reelpro]

Hi

Thank you for the terrific information, this will help my trail carry on, and perhaps find the true origin of this little gem of a bottle found in a the bottom of lake in Northen Ontario, Canada by my father in law the late Emile Contant, adventurer, scuba diver, and bottle collector.

Thanks Mike

 

[Jason Ellis]

My pleasure. Just for another bit of trans-Atlantic interest, the Jackson glassmaking family of Tutbury, Staffordshire are related to General Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson (1824-1863) of American civil war fame. Nothing to do with Birmingham I know, but I couldn't help throwing it into the mix.

 

[Astoness]

Hi

Thank you for the terrific information, this will help my trail carry on, and perhaps find the true origin of this little gem of a bottle found in a the bottom of lake in Northen Ontario, Canada by my father in law the late Emile Contant, adventurer, scuba diver, and bottle collector.

Thanks Mike

wow how on earth did the bottle find its way canada...amazing and a great find by your father in law..my advise is to hang onto it..i myself have one or two old bottles connected to the pub trade my ancestors ran a few around birmingham and my dad was born in one

lyn

 

[mikejee]

HP Pickle was first sold in Canada in 1909 and HP vinegar in 1912. It got to the USA in 1913.Because of shipping losses, it was manufactured by E.D.Smith & Sons at Winoa, Ontario from 1942. It is not clear if they still manufactured it after WW2.

 

[Pedrocut]

The advert from 1908, shown in Post 3, is from the Lyttelton Times published in Canterbury, New Zealand. Ceased printing in 1935.

So Galton’s sauce must have been popular around the world.

At a Sheffield Trades Exhibition in October 1904. Among the trade exhibits was a huge bottle representing Galton's HP sauce. It was 26 feet high.

The name of Galtons seems to disappear about 1930.

 

[Reelpro]

More on the HP Bottle with a Staffordshire Knot. A few Canadian bottle historians are on the trail as well now.
We have also found a Holbrook’s & Co bottle with the same embossed Staffordshire Knot .

Both Birmingham companies operated about the same time 1875-1900, Birmingham Vinegars and Midlands Vinegars .

There was likely a glass house that made bottles for these companies in the Birmingham area that embossed their bottle base with the “knot”.

Finding the particular glass house 1875-1900 is the challenge now.

Cheers Mike

 

[Pedrocut]

Holbrook & Co. (Holbrook’s Worcestershire Sauce)

The “Holbrook” story got its start in the West Midlands of England in the late 1860’s with a company that manufactured vinegar called Tompson, Berry and Co. Also referred to as th…

baybottles.com

 

[Jason Ellis]

More on the HP Bottle with a Staffordshire Knot. A few Canadian bottle historians are on the trail as well now.
We have also found a Holbrook’s & Co bottle with the same embossed Staffordshire Knot .

Both Birmingham companies operated about the same time 1875-1900, Birmingham Vinegars and Midlands Vinegars .

There was likely a glass house that made bottles for these companies in the Birmingham area that embossed their bottle base with the “knot”.

Finding the particular glass house 1875-1900 is the challenge now.

Cheers Mike

Mike,
Excellent find with the sauce manufacturer. I would be cautious about assuming that the glassworks was a Birmingham one. I suggest it is more likely that a Staffordshire glass manufacturer would use the Stafford knot as their emblem than a Birmingham one. As I explained in an earlier post this points towards Jacksons in Tutbury, Staffordshire, which was specifically a bottle manufacturer. In my previous post I ruled out one of the "Stourbridge" glasshouses within the confines of Staffordshire (as opposed to Worcestershire - they straddled the border), but I have had a new thought. There was a bottleworks at the Delph, on Moor Lane, Brierley Hill which must be another candidate. I am sorry I didn't think of it earlier. I have posted some info on the Delph Bottleworks, but I still favour Tutbury simply because it is more in the "heart" of Staffordshire where the Knot as the county emblem would have had more resonance.

 

[Pedrocut]

Another thing to bear in mind is that Staffordshire encompassed part of Birmingham at the time, reaching down to Witton Circle ?

 

[Jason Ellis]

Pedrocut, you are of course correct about the county boundary. However, my research leads me to believe that none of the Birmingham glass manufacturers had any particular interest in bottle making. I have listed those of which I am aware in case anybody has a contrary view. However, I still don't believe that a Birmingham glassworks would use the Stafford knot as an emblem.

Snow Hill Glassworks​

1656 Mayer Oppenheim obtains patent for red & ruby flint glass
1762 Mayer Oppenheim advertises glasshouse and dealing house for sale.
1775 Mayer Oppenheim became bankrupt.

Union Glassworks, Dartmouth Street
1818 Established Bacchus, Green & Green
1822 Bacchus and Green
1833 George Bacchus & Co.
1841 George Bacchus & Sons
1851 exhibited at Great Exhibition
1860 Bacchus family sold out to Stone, Fawdry & Stone
1860 Sir Ben Stone joins firm (friend of the Richardsons)
187? Closed

Etna Flint Glass Works, Birmingham
1851 July 24th press moulded and uranium coloured plate registered by George Joseph Green.

Bagot Street Glassworks
Made flat glass
1850 purchased by Chance Brothers
1876 closed by chance brothers

Victoria Glassworks, Dartmouth Street​

Run by James Stevens senior & his son James junior until about 1880

Park Glass Works, Spring Hill
1788 founded by Isaac Hawker formerly a glasscutter of Spiceal Street, then a glassmaker of 14 Edgbaston Street.
1792 death of Isaac Hawker, business continued by his son John
1803 John Hawker still working the glasshouse
1808 or earlier passed to Biddle and Lloyd (John Biddle and David Lloyd)
1822 last known reference to Biddle & Lloyd
1833 reference to John Biddle alone.
1850 Lloyd & Summerfield made coloured vases shaped like the onion family
1861 Lloyd & Summerfield apply the Siemens’ patent furnace to glass melting

Islington Glass Works, Birmingham Heath.​

1799 built by Owen Johnson after his glass toy manufactory in Birmingham was destroyed by fire in 1799 (see Aris Gazette of 4 Sep 1799)
1803 Owen Johnson alone mentioned in trade directory.
1805 established partnership of Shakespear & Johnson abandons the New Town Glasshouse, Walmer lane and joined by John Berry establish themselves here.
1815, December 20th partnership dissolved. Shakespear either founded or moved to the neighbouring Soho Glassworks. Johnson & Berry take Rice Harris into partnership.
1829, May 8th Owen Johnson retires
1832 Aug 9th, John Berry leaves partnership.
1833 firm run as Rice Harris & Co.
1849 employed 400 hands.
1851 exhibited at Great Exhibition
1878/9 closed

Belmont Row Glass Works, Great Brook Street, Ashted, Aston
Established some time after 1804 when Thomas Harris left the partnership of Hughes and Harris to take up glass making. Run by partnership of Harris, Smart and Co. Partners were Thomas Harris, T. L. Hawkes, Thomas Smart and Rice Harris.
1810 Hawkes and Smart leave the firm. Thomas Harris and Rice Harris continued until 1814.
1814, November 8th Rice Harris left and was replaced by John Harris.
1819, September 7th, John Harris retires and the firm becomes Harris, Gammon & Co. (probably Thomas Harris, William Gammon and Thomas Lowe).
T Harris eventually died or retired and the firm became William Gammon & Co.
1832 Thomas Lowe retired, business continued by William Gammon
1833 William Gammon & Co mentioned.

Broad Street Glasshouse
1832 Messrs A. F. Osler and T.C. Osler moves established family firm of glasscutters to Broad Street
1849 exhibited at Birmingham Exhibition

Icknield Glassworks, Freeth Street, Rotton Park
1850 F & C Osler take Edward Page as partner and move to purpose-built glasshouse on the bank of the old Birmingham Canal.
1851 produced glass fountain centrepiece for the great exhibition
1855 F & C Osler were sole owners
1882 F & C Osler made etagere now in Birmingham Museum
1922 closed.

Hands Glassworks, Lodge Road, Hockley
Crystal and coloured glass
1930 closed

Soho & Vesta Glass Works, Lodge Road, Hockley
1816 William Shakespear left the Islington glassworks and took into partnership Thomas Fletcher to build or buy the Soho works.
1822 Thomas Fletcher left the firm.
1833 run as Hannah Shakespear & Co.
1850 John Walsh Walsh purchased factory from Samuel Shakespear
1882 Lewis John Murray joins as manager
1951 closed

Isaac Barnes
1855-75 Cambridge Street, Broad Street, Summer Row

Barr Street, Great Hampton Row, Hockley
Francis Barnes
Coloured glass
1858 Closed

Warstone Lane, Hockley
G.H. Barnes
Closed 1890

Hampton Street Glassworks
1865 established by Thomas Lane

Great Brook Street, Glasshouse, Aston
1829-1887 W. Gammon & Son

Toledo Glassworks, Aston Brook Street, Aston
Parkes & Saunders

Spon Lane Glassworks, Smethwick
1814 British Crown Glass Company formed by Thomas and Philip Palmer, Nathaniel Chater and Samuel Brookes
1822 October 17th Thomas Shutt died.
1824 purchased by Lucas Chance
1832 sheet glass introduced by Lucas Chance.
1840 invented paper-thin glass for microscopy
1847 Chances adopt new method of making rolled plate-glass.
1851 shown on ordnance survey as British Glass Works
1851 built a lighthouse works in the site

Birmingham Plate Glass (Gibbins), Smethwick
1877 closed by Chance Brothers

Halesowen Street Glassworks, Oldbury
Manufactured antique-glass for most of 19th Century.

 

[Reelpro]

Hello

I figured Birmingham because of the Holbrook & Co bottle also with the Staffordshire Knot.

Both HP and Holbrook with the same bottle makers mark on the base - the “Knot”

I wouldn’t imagine they would both go very far to get bottles made if they did not make the bottles themselves.

Mike

 

[Pedrocut]

Just for the record Handsworth parish was transferred from Staffordshire to Warwickshire, and became part of Birmingham, in 1911.

 

[mikejee]

They did not just use one bottle maker. I have a Daddies sauce bottle ( which was an HP product) of the period, dug up in Tividale, which has a P on the base

 

[Pedrocut]

"In 1951 over 300 million bottles of Holbrook’s Worcestershire sauce had been sold across the world. Containing brandy
and sherry in its 27 ingredients it takes 5 years to make as it is brewed cold."

Northampton Mercury.

 

[Jason Ellis]

Hi Reelpro,
Now you are getting to the nub of it. A sauce manufacturer would never dream of building their own glassworks, demanding enormous capital. Even Schweppes didn't make their own bottles - they initially purchased them from the Dial Glassworks in Audnam, Stourbridge. However, before you ask why didn't I mention the Dial glassworks earlier, it is because their specialty was bottles capable of handling the high pressure of a carbonated drink, similar to the "Hamilton" bottle of 1809 or Hiram Codd's marble-stoppered bottle of 1870 (from which - Coddswallop). Although by 1849 Dial glassworks was making bottles for Lea & Perrins, sauce manufacturers of Worcester I have never heard of the Dial Glassworks using the Stafford knot as an emblem.

The manufacture of glass bottles developed through three distinct stages:

• Originally each bottle was individually blown by a workman using centuries-old techniques,
• In 1802 Charles Chubsee of Stourbridge patented an open and shut foot-operated mould into which the glassblower could more quickly define the shape of a bottle. Henry Ricketts of Bristol developed this process 19 years later,
• In 1832 the process became fully automated, a continuous flow of molten glass being poured into moulds by machine with no craftsman required. Originally invented in America it was quickly picked up by the Stourbridge manufacturers. The era of mass production had begun and the Victorian sauce (and quack medicine) manufactures had a field day.

The sauce manufacturer would buy in the bottles from a least-cost supplier. The sauce manufacturer would apply their decorative paper label, but the glass manufacturer's emblem was already applied to the bottle by the mould in which it had been made. So there are two separate quests here. Who made the sauce and who made the bottle? Finding either one with certainty may well reveal the other if there are any extant records from either company.

 

[Jason Ellis]

They did not just use one bottle maker. I have a Daddies sauce bottle ( which was an HP product) of the period, dug up in Tividale, which has a P on the base

A huge range of possibilities. I might be able to help you narrow that down:

• Is the "P" surrounded by a triangle, a diamond or a triangle?
• If none of the above, when viewed normally, is the "P" the right way round or is it a reversed mirror image?

Jason

 

[Jason Ellis]

Sorry that should have said triangle, circle or diamond. There are bottle manufacturers all over the world who have used "P" as their emblem. Not just UK, but Spain, Turkey and Russia to mention a few!

 

[Reelpro]

Hi

Yes the P seems a clue - we have many examples of the Holbrook bottles with a P, also some HP bottles with a P

And we have found one Holbrook with a P and a Knot P Knot - haha

So we have HP with just a plain P, and HP with only the Knot

We have Holbrook with just a plain P, and a Holbrook with only the knot, and a Holbrook with a P and a knot.

A glass bottle maker that used the P by itself and also used the Staffordshire Knot and a combination of P and the knot.

Birmingham pre 1911 - Handsworth Parish ?

MIKE

 

[Reelpro]

This is the base of a Holbrook I have in my collection .

P only embossed.

 

[Jason Ellis]

Hi Reelpro,

I am on the case with some of my fraternity of glass afficianados. I have to admit that currently I am stumped. Percival Vickers in Manchester comes to mind - just because of the "P", but that doesn't feel right. They wouldn't use a Stafford knot either.

Regards

Jason

 

[mikejee]

Here it is Jason

 

[RobT]

Thought this might interest some, from a collection of pictures book, and a painting competition from 1936