Mike, the article by Zoe Josephs is an excellent find: the "Rosetta Stone" of early Birmingham glassmaking! Sadly, as you observed, the transcription is appalling, so I've taken the liberty of presenting the section on Oppenheim until he left Birmingham (minus the footnotes — it's a bit long but quite fascinating). The article continues in great detail on Oppenheim's later ventures in and around Rouen.
Mayer Oppenheim was born at Pressburg (Bratislava), then in Hungary, probably about 1720. Nothing is known of his family or his early years, but he seems to have been a man of good education, and apparently also a Talmud scholar with excellent Jewish connections; his signature appears on a commentary on a tractate of the Babylonian Talmud by Arye Lob Ben Ascher of Minsk, a scholar of repute, which was published in Metz. This book was passed down by Oppenheim to the famous Tevele Schiff, Chief Rabbi of the Great Synagogue, London, from 1765 to 1792, who annotated the margins with his notes.
On 5 December 1755 "Mayer Oppenheim, the eldest, of the City of London Merchant", received a patent from King George II. Married, with a family and settled in this country, he had "with great labour, industry application and at considerable expense, invented and brought to perfection a method entirely new and not hitherto practised of making or manufacturing red transparent glass which would be of general utility". He was granted a licence of sole making and vending this invention for 14 years, provided he published its exact nature. (These specifications are important in glass history, because they state the component parts of flint glass or glass of lead. This formula formed the foundation of red glass at that time and consisted of two parts of lead, one part of sand, and one part saltpetre or borax.)
In 1770, the licence having expired, Mayer obtained a second; an unusual privilege, he claimed, and in spite of the opposition of his fellow-businessmen. He was now living in Birmingham, where he was later to acknowledge he had learnt his skills in English flint glass "by long study in the glasshouses". Coming as he did, however, from the great glass centres of Bohemia and Hungary, it seems probable he brought some expertise with him. He now claimed to have perfected a garnet glass, which, by varying the ingredients, could be made either opaque or transparent. Kunckel, the Potsdam chemist, who was director of the glasshouse of the Elector of Brandenburg, had made a beautiful ruby glass in 1679, using gold, and he had many imitators. Mayer also used gold with another substance he called "braunstein".
But glass was by no means Mayer's only interest. On 22 February 1762, the Birmingham Gazette announced that "Mayer Oppenheim of Snow Hill wished to purchase 1200 gross children's metal buckles at different prices". At the same time, however, "he is willing to leave the foreign hardware and inland glass manufactory at Snow Hill, Birmingham, any person that is disposed to carry on either of these above trades may by allowing him a reasonable premium (with a capital of £1000 be put in such a way as to clear £500 a year or with less sum in proportion). The above glass-house and the dwelling house part of the said building to be let for a time as can be agreed on. Enquire of the said Mayer Oppenheim, who has to sell a large parcel of Lynn sand and fine white arsenic. N B the red transparent glass is to be had at the above glass-house, either a light rose or a deep ruby colour."
It was Birmingham on the threshold of the Industrial Revolution on which Mayer had set his sights, a town of dozens of flourishing trades and particularly attractive to an ambitious Jew. Dissenters of all kinds were welcomed, no one interfered with their religious observances. "No trade guilds, no companies existed and every man was free to come and go, to found, follow or leave a trade just as he chose ... Birmingham was emphatically the town of Free Trade." Matthew Boulton was building his astounding prototype of the modern factory, but generally businesses were small, with a great deal of putting out of labour. Sketchley's Directory of 1770 lists Mayer as Merchant at 98 Snow Hill; his neighbours were button moulders, jewellers, gunsmiths, cabinet makers, a watchmaker, a japanner and a plater. Before the cutting of the canals brought cheap and reliable transport, Birmingham manufacturers were forced to concentrate on small light articles of relatively high value. Buckles, buttons, and "toys" — that is, desirable trinkets in polished steel and precious metals, tortoiseshell, and enamel, were of great importance, and many of these trifles were made in glass. The directories of the 1770s and 1780s list a number of glass pinchers who "prepared glasses for the common link buttons and are also makers of glass buttons". The pinchers used only small furnaces less than six feet in height and were often able to work in secret, avoiding Excise duty. Birmingham seems to have been the centre of this trade, selling parts of candlesticks, decanter stoppers, lustre drops for the fashionable girandoles at cut price to the glass-houses. Whether Oppenheim made any of these articles or only supplied the glass we do not know. However, in spite of crippling taxation, the demand for these luxury articles was rapidly growing and certainly at a later date he claimed to be able to make them.
Whatever Mayer's reasons for wishing to sell out in 1762, he apparently did not do so, for he was, as we have seen, still there by 1770 and the glass works were obviously prospering, in London as well as Birmingham. On New Year's Day 1770 he advertises again in the Gazette: "Wanted immediately hands, men and boys, glassmakers and tisseurs, either to work in Birmingham or at London in same business. Any persons being out of employment may apply to Mr Mayer Oppenheim at his glass-house in Snow Hill, Birmingham. N B good wages to good workmen."
The 1774 Directory continues to list Mayer as before. In 1775 his account books have been stolen, in which were foreign bills amounting to £50. A free pardon for their return and "no questions asked by me" is promised. "Payment of above bills are stopped, therefore they will be of no service to such person or persons having them in their possession."
This proved to be the first of a series of misfortunes. Mayer had by now a very large family; he had married twice and had had seven children by his first wife and at least five by his second. Some of the older boys were a problem, "wasting a great deal of his capital". In May 1777, the London Gazette announced: "Mayer Oppenheim, late Birmingham glass-maker bankrupt." From July 1778 to February 1780 he remained a prisoner for debt in the King's Bench Prison, London. A relative, Nathan Oppenheim, took over in Birmingham and not very long after Mayer's arrest in December 1778 advertised in the Birmingham Gazette: "Glasshouse. Any person wishing to be concerned in erecting a glasshouse for the purpose of carrying on this trade in the Cane and Wave way may be acquainted with particulars by me Mr Nathan Oppenheim who intends to join in carrying on the same."
Nothing more is heard of him or the Snow Hill Glass-house, though glass toymaking was carried on at Snow Hill until 1785.
It is rather endearing to read: "Mayer was still describing himself as 'de Birmingham' in the letters patent of 1784. Perhaps, since the condition of the Jewish businessman in France was so precarious at this time, the title gave him a certain prestige".
