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Chance Brothers

  • Thread starter Thread starter Wendy
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and again. The site had a very friendly dog there. He belongs to the caretaker , who has an apartment on the ground floor. I say friendly, but that is not true for skip lorries that pass from the firm which is at present on the site (illegally) and is to be forced out (hopefully) in November by an enforcement order. The dog does not like these and barks furiously at them. After the frip round the building, we went on a walk on the canals round the site . You will notice that some of the windows in the outbuildings are bricked in. This was to give extra support to the walls , as it was feared that the weight of glass sheet stored in them would be to much for them to support.
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I went on a guided tour of the old Chances Glass factory on Thursday. This was part of this weekends heritage open days. Just derelict buildings but very interesting.
 
i did the tour this morning...very informative and interesting and mark davies was a very good guide...great to see the black country yet again doing their best to preserve their heritage...good luck to them:)

lyn
 
What a daunting project Mike. Hope it all works out for them.

And a very nice clock and tower - first pic post #42.

There's irony in there that a glass factory has some windows blocked up (albeit to prop up the building). Viv
 
Back in the 1960s I was working for Henry Hope & Sons, metal window manufacturers, in Smethwick. I think we were doing the frames and Chances did the glass for a lighthouse. In a spare part of one of our buildings we constructed the fully assembled top of a lighthouse. I think it was to test it all out before shipping somewhere the other side of the world.
 
Not quite the same place as when I used to visit on business. However, as posted previously, Chance Glass Ltd are still going strong in Malvern, and I supplied them with high temperature-resistant materials for handling hot glass. There is still a market for precision Pyrex tubes and optically-pure components such as medical slides.

One of Chance's major markets was for TV tubes, and a couple of managers set up their own company making the rear connectors for tubes, also in Oldbury. I can't remember the name of this company, even though I supplied them (!), but they no longer exist as cathode-ray tube TV's are a thing of the past. I always liked working in and with the glass industry, and my first 'proper' job was as a technologist at Triplex Safety Glass Co, Kings Norton.

G
 
We've just had a few days in Lincolnshire and whilst there visited the aircraft museum at East Kirkby. At the back of one of the hangars was one of Chance's contributions to the war effort.
 

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Sorry, I took these on my phone and can't get them the right way up. They're fine on my laptop but not when posted on the forum. Frustrating!
 
You're welcome Lyn. There's a huge 'antique' village just outside where we were staying. They had several Chance handkerchief vases but quite dear I thought - still looking for another bargain.
 
Thanks for correcting the photos Mike, however, there were two different views of the light - could you alter the one below please? Thanks.
 

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Sorry, I did correct both on my coputer, but then put the same one back twice. It is now corrected
 
Lady Penelope said:
You're welcome Lyn. There's a huge 'antique' village just outside where we were staying. They had several Chance handkerchief vases but quite dear I thought - still looking for another bargain.
Click to expand...

and i know you are sooooo good at finding the bargains pen:D:D

lyn x
 
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This page taken from the Illustrated London News 1862 is on sale on eBay
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ANTIQUE-...840312?hash=item1cad4193b8:g:tBcAAOSwPcVVnohm

It refers to a stained glass window by Chance's but I have not been able to enlarge the print sufficiently to read the text bottom left and second column top. The subject matter is Robin Hood's last shot.
 
try this david... its better if you post it as thumbnail rather than full image as you cant enlarge a full image then ..click on image..click on arrow top right of image then click on image again it should enlarge..i hope

lyn

chances glass.jpg
 
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If you go to the link the cursor can be moved over to zoom.

The page can be downloaded from the Newspaper Archives as a pdf.
 
thanks pedro i didnt do it that way but i have posted it so that we can enlarge the image

lyn
 
Sebastian Evans, mentioned in the newspaper article, worked, it appears, at Chance Brothers, Oldbury for ten years. The Wiki mentions the Robin Hood window and other details relating to Birmingham. It would be interesting to follow the history of the window once the 1862 International Exhibition was over. Given that Evans worked for Chance it maybe that it had a customer already. However, I get the impression that despite the religious dimensions in the window it was not made for an ecclesiastical building.
I did, during a quick search, find reference to a stained glass window in a restaurant in West London. Whether it is this window I have no idea but curious none the less.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Evans
 
Sebastian Evans may have designed the window, but did he copy the depiction of Robin Hood’s Last Shot from someone else’s engraving? He would no doubt show, as he intended, that stained glass could be used for domestic as well as ecclesiastic subjects.
 
Hi Lyn, Hope you had a good holiday - your Chance Bros sandwich plate is on ebay for £19.99 plus postage!!!

Pictures below relating to private message :
 

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thanks pen i have replied to your pm...had a nice break away..the highlight was watching at least 150 red kits being fed...fed at 3 oclock every day..got there at 2.30 by which time about 30 kites were hovering around us so they must know when grub is up...bang on 3 a man comes out and emptied a sack of meat onto a grass island and from nowhere the kites just appeared:eek: amazing sight to watch...i took some video footage and photos but wont know how they turned out until i have got them off my camera

lyn
 
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