The English Glass Company Little Things in Glass

­­Welcome to Little Things in Glass! - and metal and plastics too.

Little Things in Glass will attract industrial historians and those interested in how a small Leicester company (which was started by the John Bull Rubber Company and based on Czech Glass outworker production of chandelier components and glass fancy jewellery), became so consistently successful by the development of unusual niche products including pressed technical glass mouldings based on a process utilised by Roman Glassmakers (e.g. Phalerae medallions) and exploited by the Bohemian Glass Industry ­to this day. Amongst other glass items, the company pioneered low cost double sided fire polished spherical and aspherical lenses (an important component in modern quality car headlight fittings) and all this after becoming effectively bankrupt by 1939.

Due to a strong diversification policy in the 1960s, the company also originated the introduction of bonded or stick-on road markers (including Stimsonite™ Corner cube reflectors) as compared to the dug-in, old style CatsEyes™, with the full support and co operation of the Ministry of Transport. This successful diversification was sold in the early 1970s to Tarmac. Roadcraft Ltd is now the European distributor and specialist for the modern range of Stimsonite™ Road Studs and other roads safety products.

Finally, the company also introduced what was to become Europe’s largest and most innovative range of small dispensing pumps sold under the trade mark englass, which was registered in the 1960s.

Tom Lawson, the author of this definitive record of a successful and innovative small 20th century manufacturing business, was employed initially as Technical director becoming managing director and then chairman of The English Glass Co. Ltd., from 1959 to 1993. These were difficult economic times and the history illustrates how one small firm was able to survive and prosper until the 1990s when it became part of a larger company, Rieke Packaging who also acquired the englass trade mark. The fire polished glass moulding division was eventually restarted as Bluebell Industries in Derbyshire.