Can you possibly throw any further light on Isaac Hawker and his son John Alfred Hawker? Where they came from etc. please. Also, if you have the time, another of my husband's ancestors with the name Silvers, was supposed to be connected to glass manufacturing in Birmingham, but I can only find boot and shoe makers! My sister-in-law has inherited a pair of beautiful red glass swans which were made by a distant family ancestor! This thread makes very interesting reading. Thank you.
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John Alfred Hawker
- Thread starter JudyTink
- Start date
Jason Ellis
master brummie
Hello Judy, I will reply in two halves. This half concern the Silvers family. The Silvers family was immensely important in the glassmaking firm of Stevens and Williams, later Royal Brierley Crystal of Brierley Hill. But as I am sure you are aware, Brierley Hill certainly isn't Birmingham. If you want to know more about the Silvers family involvement in Brierley Hill glassmaking please let me know because I can certainly explain that. Concerning the Hawker family I need to dig out some old records from my archives and because I am just about to go on holiday I will be a while in responding.
Thank you for your prompt reply. There's absolutely no rush to respond. Enjoy your holiday. J
Jason Ellis
master brummie
Hi Judy, I managed to do this before going on holiday by merging my earlier notes with the articles kindly provided by MikeJee.
Park Glass Works, Spring Hill Birmingham
The Park Glass Works was possibly the first full-scale glassworks to be built in Birmingham and is therefore of great historical significance. It opened in 1788 on the Soho Loop of the Birmingham Canal in Spring Hill. It was built by Isaac Hawker[1], who had previously traded as a glasscutter.
In 1772 Isaac advertised that he “had moved out of Spiceal Street to no 14 Edgbaston Street, Birmingham where he had laid in a fresh assortment of cut and Plain GLASSS and a great variety of Smelling Bottles[2]” Then in 1778 Isaac Hawker, Glass Manufacturer advertised that he “is removed from No 14 Edgbaston Street to No 14 New Street where he continues to sell, wholesale and retail a great variety of cut and plain glass[3]” The reference to him as “Glass Manufacturer” has led others to believe that he had built an earlier glassworks in 1778 before he built the Park Glass Works in 1788. I suggest this is flawed. It is commonplace for glass decorators in the 18th century to advertise themselves as glass manufacturers. Their view is that performing the intricate cutting that turns a dull glass blank into a thing of beauty is “manufacture”. Add to this that they were also extensively adding silver and silver plate accoutrements to their works of art; they would truly regard themselves as “manufacturers”. Furthermore, the address of No 14 New Street is clearly town-centre retail premises and not the site of a 100ft tall glassworks! The insurance record[4] for the New Street premises dated 25 Nov 1788 describes Isaac as “silversmith and glass cutter”.
The Park Glass Works site was located on the Dudley Road, approximately one mile north-east of Birmingham City centre. It is bounded to the east by Heath Street South, to the west by Birmingham Canal Old Line and to the south by the Birmingham New Line Canal.
Its construction is 176 years after the glassmaking industry began at nearby Stourbridge, but Birmingham was booming in 1788 and Isaac Hawker obviously spotted a market opportunity once canals had come to Birmingham. Rather than buying blanks from the Stourbridge glassworks to decorate i.e., cut and retail, he developed a bold scheme to build his own glassworks in Birmingham.
Prior to the canals it would have been uneconomical to bring the heavy raw materials of sand, clay and coal to Birmingham by road. R.K. Dent wrote in 1879, “Previous to Mr Hawker’s first attempt to manufacture glass in Birmingham in 1785, the Midland counties were supplied from Stourbridge, but before the end of the century, Birmingham glass was competing strongly with that of Stourbridge . . .[5]”
Isaac and his family were non-conformists, several of the family burials were at the Friends Burial Ground at Bull Street in Birmingham. The Society of Friends in Birmingham was at that time the spiritual home for many of Birmingham’s great entrepreneurs, manufacturers, bankers and scientists. It is almost inevitable that he raised capital to build the glasshouse from his Quaker brethren.
Isaac and his wife Sarah had five children: John[6], Sarah[7], Ann[8], Mary[9] and Isaac[10]. As we follow the fortune of the business through newspaper announcements it is possible to track the family’s involvement.
The business traded as Isaac Hawker & Son. There are many references to the business in the National Archives including records in the Matthew Boulton Family Papers.
Isaac Hawker died in 1791[11] and the business was continued by his oldest son John Hawker who carried on running the business.
About 1808-1810 John Hawker sold the glassworks to Biddle and Lloyd (John Biddle and David Lloyd) who used the works to produce stained and coloured glass.
If we track later generations of the family it appears that some returned to Isaac’s trade of retailing glass, while others pursued different trades.
By 26 February 1827 John Alfred Hawker[12], merchant, dealer and chapman of Birmingham, grandson of Isaac Hawker was bankrupt[13]. Then by 10 March 1831 he was back in business, this time as a maltster[14]. There is nothing to suggest that he was involved in the glassmaking business.
Isaac Hawker’s second child Sarah Hawker had married Isaac Bedford in 1792 but he died in 1798, aged 30 so Sarah went into business with her son Isaac Hawker Bedford[15]. In 1843 “the partnership lately subsisting between Sarah Bedford and Isaac Hawker Bedford both of Birmingham, vendors of glass and chinaware heretofore carrying on under the firm of Sarah Bedford and Son was this day dissolved[16]”. Sarah Bedford then carried on the previous trade in her own right.
But it appears that Isaac Hawker Bedford had simply cut his mother’s apron strings and set up on his own because in 1846 Isaac Hawker Bedford of Birmingham obtained a patent for “improvements in the manufacture of window and other glass[17]” The reference to window glass suggests that by then he was working as a glass maker, presumably in somebody else’s factory. Although it is possible that his improvements were discovered while operating as a glass decorator rather than a glass maker. An improvement in annealing comes to mind as an example of what it might have been. This is only one of many patents that he registered. Many more can be seen for glass dishes in the National Archives.
About 1835-1842 Biddle sold the glassworks to Lloyd & Summerfield.
1850 Lloyd & Summerfield made coloured vases shaped like the onion family.
1861 Lloyd & Summerfield apply the Siemens patent furnace to glass melting.
1870s glassworks closed.
1880 the glassworks were demolished and the site remained vacant until the Barker & Allen silverworks was built on the site in 1896.
2017 the entire area was scheduled for redevelopment by Galliard homes to build the “Soho Wharf” scheme of 750 new homes and apartments.
May 202 Oxford Archaeology was commissioned to undertake a comprehensive archaeological survey. This uncovered some remnant of the glassworks, but most of it had been erased by the building of the Barker and Allen silverworks[18].
[1] Isaac Hawker, born about 1742, probably son of John Hawker and his wife Mary Holmes.
[2] Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, 8 Oct 1772.
[3] Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, 6 Oct 1788.
[4] London Metropolitan Archives, City of London, Records of Sun Fire Office.
[5] Robert Kirkup Dent, Old and New Birmingham, Birmingham, 1879, p.343
[6] John Hawker, son of Isaac Hawker and his wife Sarah, b. 17 Jan 1764, Birmingham, m. Margaret Walker, 14 May 1787, Birmingham.
[7] Sarah Hawker, dau. Of Isaac Hawker and his wife Sarah, b. 13 Nov 1768, Birmingham, m. Isaac Bedford, 13 Jan 1792, Birmingham.
[8] Ann Hawker, dau. Of Isaac Hawker and his wife Sarah, b. 17 Sep 1771, Birmingham.
[9] Mary Hawker, dau. Of Isaac Hawker and his wife Sarah, b. 2 Feb 1774, Birmingham.
[10] Isaac Hawker, son of Isaac Hawker and his wife Sarah, b. 24 Apr 1776, Birmingham
[11] Isaac Hawker d. 18 November 1791, Birmingham, bur. 23 November 1791.
[12] John Alfred Hawker, son of John Hawker and his wife Margaret, nee Walker, b. 8 Nov 1792, Birmingham, d. 1839, Birmingham.
[13] Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, 26 Feb 1827 and Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, 30 June 1828.
[14] Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, 28 Mar 1831.
[15] Isaac Hawker Bedford, son of Isaac Bedford and his wife Sarah, nee Hawker, b. 30 July 1794, Birmingham; d. 1868, Birmingham.
[16] Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, 29 May 1843.
[17] Birmingham Journal, 3 Jan 1846.
[18] Oxford Archaeology, Soho Loop, Dudley Road, Birmingham, Archaeological Evaluation Report”, June 2020
Park Glass Works, Spring Hill Birmingham
The Park Glass Works was possibly the first full-scale glassworks to be built in Birmingham and is therefore of great historical significance. It opened in 1788 on the Soho Loop of the Birmingham Canal in Spring Hill. It was built by Isaac Hawker[1], who had previously traded as a glasscutter.
In 1772 Isaac advertised that he “had moved out of Spiceal Street to no 14 Edgbaston Street, Birmingham where he had laid in a fresh assortment of cut and Plain GLASSS and a great variety of Smelling Bottles[2]” Then in 1778 Isaac Hawker, Glass Manufacturer advertised that he “is removed from No 14 Edgbaston Street to No 14 New Street where he continues to sell, wholesale and retail a great variety of cut and plain glass[3]” The reference to him as “Glass Manufacturer” has led others to believe that he had built an earlier glassworks in 1778 before he built the Park Glass Works in 1788. I suggest this is flawed. It is commonplace for glass decorators in the 18th century to advertise themselves as glass manufacturers. Their view is that performing the intricate cutting that turns a dull glass blank into a thing of beauty is “manufacture”. Add to this that they were also extensively adding silver and silver plate accoutrements to their works of art; they would truly regard themselves as “manufacturers”. Furthermore, the address of No 14 New Street is clearly town-centre retail premises and not the site of a 100ft tall glassworks! The insurance record[4] for the New Street premises dated 25 Nov 1788 describes Isaac as “silversmith and glass cutter”.
The Park Glass Works site was located on the Dudley Road, approximately one mile north-east of Birmingham City centre. It is bounded to the east by Heath Street South, to the west by Birmingham Canal Old Line and to the south by the Birmingham New Line Canal.
Its construction is 176 years after the glassmaking industry began at nearby Stourbridge, but Birmingham was booming in 1788 and Isaac Hawker obviously spotted a market opportunity once canals had come to Birmingham. Rather than buying blanks from the Stourbridge glassworks to decorate i.e., cut and retail, he developed a bold scheme to build his own glassworks in Birmingham.
Prior to the canals it would have been uneconomical to bring the heavy raw materials of sand, clay and coal to Birmingham by road. R.K. Dent wrote in 1879, “Previous to Mr Hawker’s first attempt to manufacture glass in Birmingham in 1785, the Midland counties were supplied from Stourbridge, but before the end of the century, Birmingham glass was competing strongly with that of Stourbridge . . .[5]”
Isaac and his family were non-conformists, several of the family burials were at the Friends Burial Ground at Bull Street in Birmingham. The Society of Friends in Birmingham was at that time the spiritual home for many of Birmingham’s great entrepreneurs, manufacturers, bankers and scientists. It is almost inevitable that he raised capital to build the glasshouse from his Quaker brethren.
Isaac and his wife Sarah had five children: John[6], Sarah[7], Ann[8], Mary[9] and Isaac[10]. As we follow the fortune of the business through newspaper announcements it is possible to track the family’s involvement.
The business traded as Isaac Hawker & Son. There are many references to the business in the National Archives including records in the Matthew Boulton Family Papers.
Isaac Hawker died in 1791[11] and the business was continued by his oldest son John Hawker who carried on running the business.
About 1808-1810 John Hawker sold the glassworks to Biddle and Lloyd (John Biddle and David Lloyd) who used the works to produce stained and coloured glass.
If we track later generations of the family it appears that some returned to Isaac’s trade of retailing glass, while others pursued different trades.
By 26 February 1827 John Alfred Hawker[12], merchant, dealer and chapman of Birmingham, grandson of Isaac Hawker was bankrupt[13]. Then by 10 March 1831 he was back in business, this time as a maltster[14]. There is nothing to suggest that he was involved in the glassmaking business.
Isaac Hawker’s second child Sarah Hawker had married Isaac Bedford in 1792 but he died in 1798, aged 30 so Sarah went into business with her son Isaac Hawker Bedford[15]. In 1843 “the partnership lately subsisting between Sarah Bedford and Isaac Hawker Bedford both of Birmingham, vendors of glass and chinaware heretofore carrying on under the firm of Sarah Bedford and Son was this day dissolved[16]”. Sarah Bedford then carried on the previous trade in her own right.
But it appears that Isaac Hawker Bedford had simply cut his mother’s apron strings and set up on his own because in 1846 Isaac Hawker Bedford of Birmingham obtained a patent for “improvements in the manufacture of window and other glass[17]” The reference to window glass suggests that by then he was working as a glass maker, presumably in somebody else’s factory. Although it is possible that his improvements were discovered while operating as a glass decorator rather than a glass maker. An improvement in annealing comes to mind as an example of what it might have been. This is only one of many patents that he registered. Many more can be seen for glass dishes in the National Archives.
About 1835-1842 Biddle sold the glassworks to Lloyd & Summerfield.
1850 Lloyd & Summerfield made coloured vases shaped like the onion family.
1861 Lloyd & Summerfield apply the Siemens patent furnace to glass melting.
1870s glassworks closed.
1880 the glassworks were demolished and the site remained vacant until the Barker & Allen silverworks was built on the site in 1896.
2017 the entire area was scheduled for redevelopment by Galliard homes to build the “Soho Wharf” scheme of 750 new homes and apartments.
May 202 Oxford Archaeology was commissioned to undertake a comprehensive archaeological survey. This uncovered some remnant of the glassworks, but most of it had been erased by the building of the Barker and Allen silverworks[18].
[1] Isaac Hawker, born about 1742, probably son of John Hawker and his wife Mary Holmes.
[2] Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, 8 Oct 1772.
[3] Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, 6 Oct 1788.
[4] London Metropolitan Archives, City of London, Records of Sun Fire Office.
[5] Robert Kirkup Dent, Old and New Birmingham, Birmingham, 1879, p.343
[6] John Hawker, son of Isaac Hawker and his wife Sarah, b. 17 Jan 1764, Birmingham, m. Margaret Walker, 14 May 1787, Birmingham.
[7] Sarah Hawker, dau. Of Isaac Hawker and his wife Sarah, b. 13 Nov 1768, Birmingham, m. Isaac Bedford, 13 Jan 1792, Birmingham.
[8] Ann Hawker, dau. Of Isaac Hawker and his wife Sarah, b. 17 Sep 1771, Birmingham.
[9] Mary Hawker, dau. Of Isaac Hawker and his wife Sarah, b. 2 Feb 1774, Birmingham.
[10] Isaac Hawker, son of Isaac Hawker and his wife Sarah, b. 24 Apr 1776, Birmingham
[11] Isaac Hawker d. 18 November 1791, Birmingham, bur. 23 November 1791.
[12] John Alfred Hawker, son of John Hawker and his wife Margaret, nee Walker, b. 8 Nov 1792, Birmingham, d. 1839, Birmingham.
[13] Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, 26 Feb 1827 and Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, 30 June 1828.
[14] Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, 28 Mar 1831.
[15] Isaac Hawker Bedford, son of Isaac Bedford and his wife Sarah, nee Hawker, b. 30 July 1794, Birmingham; d. 1868, Birmingham.
[16] Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, 29 May 1843.
[17] Birmingham Journal, 3 Jan 1846.
[18] Oxford Archaeology, Soho Loop, Dudley Road, Birmingham, Archaeological Evaluation Report”, June 2020
Jason Ellis
master brummie
Hi Judy, please send me some key dates for Francis Silvers or even better a pointer to a census record which I presume is how you have located him. I should then be easily able to map him into the rest of the Silvers family which I already have comprehensively documented. This of course assumes that he is linked to the Silvers glassmaking family of Brierley Hill. I am tempted to think that he is because many glassmakers lived in Heneage Street.
Yes, thank you,that is the guy who is an ancestor of my husband. Disappointing because even far back they all seemed to be shoemakers. His family roots go far back to Dudley but maybe a sibling was in the glass industry. That's the story spread throughout the family and then there are those small red/pink glass swans gifted to my sister-in-law.
Jason Ellis
master brummie
Hi Judy,
I regret to say that I do not believe that "your" Francis Silvers is related to the Silvers family, glassmakers of Moor Lane Glassworks, Brierley Hill. I have carefully reviewed both families and updated everything in www.familysearch. org. Both family trees appear reliable, but they don't overlap. You can find "your" Francis Silvers at https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/K83W-KWG.
For the glassmaking family you should start with Joseph Silvers (1778-1854) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/MLS2-82J. What follows below is an excerpt from my book "Glassmakers of Stourbridge and Dudley 1612-2002":
On 2nd February 1824 Thomas Honeyborne leased for fourteen years to ‘Joseph Silvers and Joseph Stevens both of Moor Lane . . . Glassmanufacturers . . . all that glasshouse now used for manufacturing of flint glass with the Warehouses Pot Rooms Store Rooms Crate Shops Barns Hovels and other outbuildings . . situate at Moor Lane.’ The annual rent was £80. Joseph Stevens[1] was the oldest son of William Stevens, a glass packer of Brierley Hill and worked as an agent for Benjamin Littlewood at Holloway End Glasshouse. Joseph Silvers[2] came from Woodside, the son of Benjamin Silvers, who owned properties and nail-shops in that area. When he baptised his daughter, Eliza in 1814[3], Joseph Silvers is described as an agent. He and his family lived next to the Swan Inn in Moor Lane[4] and he probably worked for the Honeybornes at Moor Lane Glassworks. He was certainly working for Thomas Honeyborne in 1824 as a trusted servant. Thomas Honeyborne recorded in his account book that he had sent him ‘on account of the colliery’ £50 on 2nd January and £70 on 4th January 1824. This would be in relation to Thomas Honeyborne’s firm of coalmasters, Honeyborne, Pidcock and Brettell at Brierley Hill. The two partners, Silvers and Stevens, were brothers-in-law. Joseph Silvers married Joseph Stevens’ sister, Anna Maria[5] in 1805[6] when Joseph Stevens witnessed the marriage. After taking the lease on the glassworks, Joseph and Anna Maria Silvers moved into Moor Lane House[7].
Sometime after 1824 and before 1828 Joseph Silvers and Joseph Stevens were joined in partnership by James Mills[8] and the firm traded as Silvers, Mills & Stevens, making flint glass[9]. However, this arrangement was short-lived. Joseph Stevens either fell out with his partners, or more likely wanted the freedom of running his own business, so in 1828 they dissolved the partnership:
‘Notice is hereby given, that the partnership subsisting between us the undersigned, Joseph Silvers, James Mills and Joseph Stevens, as Flint Glass-manufacturers, at Moor Lane in the Parish of Kingswinford, in the county of Stafford, is this day dissolved by mutual consent. Dated this 10th day of May 1828.’[10]
Joseph Silvers & Co. paid £2,438 11s 6d excise duty for the year ending 5th January 1833[15], suggesting this was the eleventh largest of the sixteen Stourbridge/Dudley glasshouses of the day. In 1835 there was a change in the advertised products of Silvers, Mills and Stevens, now comprising flint glass, plain and cut[16].
In Robson’s 1839 Birmingham and Sheffield Directory. The firm is listed as Stevens & Silver (flint), Brierley Hill.
Bentley’s 1840 Directory of Stourbridge again lists the firm as Silvers and Stevens, glass manufacturers, Brierley Hill. It also lists Joseph Silvers living in Moor Lane and James Stevens living in Brierley Hill. Fowler and Son’s 1840 map shows Joseph Atkinson (which he had inherited it from Honeyborne) as the owner of the glassworks, and J. Silvers and J. Stevens as the occupiers. In 1841 Joseph Silvers lived with his wife and two of his daughters at Moor Lane House[18].
In November 1845 James Stevens represented the firm at a meeting of the Master Flint Glass Cutters at the Stork Hotel in Birmingham. He died in 1846[19], aged forty-eight. He had made a will on 27th January 1837[20], describing himself as a gentleman of Brierley Hill. As he never married, he left his estate to his many nephews and nieces. This left Joseph Silvers in sole control of the business, who - now aged sixty-seven - decided to retire. His only son William had died at the age of twenty-seven, so he handed the business to his two sons-in-law, William Stevens and Samuel Cox Williams. They leased the works for seven years from Joseph Atkinson and founded the firm of Stevens and Williams in 1847.
This is the firm that went on to world-wide renown as Royal Brierley Crystal.
[1] Joseph Stevens, son of William Stevens and his wife Susannah, nee Cartwright, bap. 3rd Aug 1783, Brierley Hill.
[2] Joseph Silvers, son of Benjamin Silvers and his wife Hannah, nee Smith, bap. 1st Nov 1778, Dudley St. Thomas’s.
[3] Eliza Silvers, daughter of Joseph Silvers and his wife Maria, nee Stevens, bap. 16th Jan 1814, Brierley Hill.
[4] DA, William Fowler's 1822 Plan of the Parish of Kingswinford.
[5] Anna Maria Stevens, daughter of William Stevens and his wife Susannah, nee Cartwright, bap. 10th Feb 1788, Brierley Hill.
[6] Mar. Joseph Silvers and Anna Maria Stevens, 4th Aug 1805, Dudley St. Thomas’s.
[7] Rent Rolls.
[9] Pigot and Co.'s National Commercial Directory for 1828-9.
[10] London Gazette, 27th May 1828.
[15] Thirteenth Report of the Commission into the Glass Excise, 1835, Appendix 7.
[16] Pigot and Co.'s 1835 National Commercial Directory.
[18] PRO, 1841 Census of Kingswinford.
[19] James Stevens, bur. 4th May 1846, Brierley Hill.
[20] PRO, PROB 11/2038, Will of James Stevens, 22nd Jun 1846.
Thank you for your detailed account of the early Brierley Hill glass making industry in the 1800s. Obviously it was just a family wish and a story developed, just as the same family reckoned connection to Blakemores (Spar) through the husband of Edith Silvers, Joseph Henry Blakemore!
Louise Thornhill
New Member
Jason Ellis thank you so much for the interesting information about Isaac Hawker. I have only just discovered he is my 6 times Great Grandfather and Great, Great Grandfather to my Great, Great Grandfather, James Hawker, the Oadby poacher. To be able to prove Isaac Hawker opened a glassworks in 1788 is really exciting. I look forward to finding out more about him and his family.
Thank you.
Kind regards
Louise
Thank you.
Kind regards
Louise
Louise Thornhill
New Member
Thank you Mikejee so much for all this information about my 4 times Great Grandfather John Alfred Hawker. I've only just found out about him and Isaac. It's so exciting.
Kind regards
Louise
