Glass and Religion: The Jackson Family and the First Hundred Years of the Tutbury Glassworks by Philip A Bell and Christopher S Tipper

The village of Tutbury, Staffordshire has long been known for the quality cut glass produced there by Thomas Webb & Corbett Ltd and successor firms. Yet few have heard of Henry Jackson or the Tutbury Glass Company, who were making glass there for almost 100 years before Webb & Corbett arrived in 1906. Surprisingly little has been known about the early period, so myths, half-truths, and plain nonsense flourished in the absence of facts.
Now, as a result of extensive research conducted on both sides of the Atlantic, a fuller story can be told of that early period and of the Jackson family, founders first of a glass and earthenware business in the United States and then of a glassworks in Tutbury. It is a complex tale of religious dissent, expulsion from college and chapel, and emigration – but also a story about ambitions and the practicalities of building and maintaining a specialised business in a rural location. In addition, the key role played by Tutbury glassmakers in one of the foremost craft unions of the 19th century is here explored.