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Most of the major glass houses in Manchester closed down between the 1870s and 1930s. With the story of Molineaux & Webb we saw that the company was in good health until the 1920s, when it gradually began to sink into debt. The story for the Manchester glass firm of Burtles & Tate is quite similar, whereas Percival & Vickers ran into trouble a decade or two earlier. The glass businesses of the Derbyshire family were beset by financial problems from an early date.
The Derbyshire Brothers
The Derbyshire family began their glassmaking activities in Hulme, on the south side of Manchester. As James Derbyshire and Brother they registered a number
of designs in the 1860s, changing their name to J.J. & T Derbyshire circa 1870, representing James, John and Thomas Derbyshire. The partnership dissolved in 1873 with John Derbyshire establishing the Regent Road Flint Glass Works in Salford later that year. The pattern registrations for the Derbyshire businesses, judged to be the best quality of the pressed glass items produced by the Manchester glass houses, follow the movements of John Derbyshire, drying up at the Hulme glass works in 1873 when he left, and continuing at Regent Road until 1876.
Butter registered May 29th 1868
(thanks to Roy for the photo)
 In May 1876, John Derbyshire dissolved his partnership with an Elric Birch at Regent Road and was declared bankrupt. He was finally discharged from bankrupt status in 1881 at which time he was listed as of "no occupation." He later emigrated to Australia. The business at Regent Road underwent a bewildering sequence of partnerships and dissolutions. In 1877 it was dissolved again, this time listed as a partnership between Edwin Henry Downs and Richard Walton. Downs, also a hotel proprietor in Bolton, shared the same fate as John Derbyshire and was declared bankrupt some years later.
It is suspected that James Derbyshire took over the Salford works at some point in the 1880s, once more making it a family concern. The factory went under the name of James Derbyshire & Sons, but in fact it was sons-in-law Herbert Whitehurst and Geroge William Plummer, who later took over the business when James died in 1889.
A further dissolution occurred in November 1891 with the business being run by a trio of Herbert Whitehurst, Geroge William Plummer, and William Moss. This business partnership also listed a glass works at 248 City Road Hulme amongst their assets, the first glass business of James Derbyshire. In 1892, an Arthur Sinclair bought the business from George William Plummer and the company became public listed, trading under the name of "James Derbyshire & Sons." A couple of Derbyshire family members were included on the initial share register but they no longer had control of the company. Sinclair's business lasted for no more than a year when it folded again in 1893, with the major glass company of Davidsons known to have bought some of the Derbyshire moulds later in the year. This looks like the last sign of activity from the Regent Road works, though the name of "James Derbyshire & Sons" was not officially dissolved until 1907. The glass works that the company once owned in Hulme was sold on and was still in operation by 1910, run under the name of "Wood & James." James Derbyshire & Sons share register from 1892
Burtles & Tate
Burtles & Tate were based in Poland Street, Ancoats, and started business circa 1858. Thomas Burtles was from Greenock, Scotland, though the family had spent some time in the Warrington glass industry in the early 19th century. Matthew Tate was from Newcastle. An early dissolution notice from November 1860 shows they were also in business with a Samuel Walton, who left the partnership at this time. They were then joined by a John Davison who died in 1865.
On the 1861 census Matthew Tate was listed as a glass manufacturer employing 8 men and 6 boys. If this was the sum total of employees at the firm, the company must have been a very small enterprise in its early days. On the 1881 census, the company head Richard Burtles claimed to employ 80 men 48 boys and 11 women.
The Burtles family eventually took control of the firm, and when they listed publically in 1916 at a value of £17,000, all the share capital was distributed between sixteen Burtles family members. The largest shareholding belonged to Richard Burtles, with Charles William Burtles acting as company manager.
The company may well have listed to raise money during the war. Within a year they had arranged a loan from the bank against the value of the company land and factory, and soon after they raised a further sum against another set of land with properties in the Jersey Street and Oldham Road area. Although they paid some of it back it looks like the bankers called in the loans and the company went into voluntary liquidation in October 1924.
Percival & Vickers
Based at Jersey Street, Ancoats, this company started life as Percival & Yates in the 1840s, and was later renamed to Percival, Yates & Vickers, the three head figures being Thomas Percival, William Yates and Thomas Vickers.
In 1862, William Yates was interviewed for a government commission report on the working condition for children in British factories. At this time the company, along with Molineaux and Webb, were the big two glass factories in Manchester, with Percival & Yates employing slightly more people.
William Yates described the working conditions thus:
We have 373 persons in our employ; 48 are boys under 13, nine or ten of whom are only about 10 years old; the youngest of those wash the tumblers, for they are not strong enough to hold the tumbler on the wheel for flatting. Some between 10 and 11 in the glass-house will be "taking in." There is a prejudice among the glass blowers that no one makes a good glass maker, unless he begins young.
We have 75 lads between 13 and 18; some of those will be flatters or cutters, and some in the glass houses assisting as takers in, stickers up, or footblowers.
We employ 31 females, 9 of whom are under 18, but none under 13; some of them frost the glass with a file and sand, but most of our frosting is done by lads at machines; the rest of the women are in the stock room.
Our usual hours for all but the glass houses are 6am to 6pm, and we leave off at 1pm on Saturday; but in the glass houses two sets are employed, who work by turns every alternate six hours from 7am on Monday to Friday morning, making 51 hours in the week. In the warehouse and cutting shop we occasionally work till 8pm, but not more than two or three weeks in the year, about Christmas time.
In the glass houses they have half an hour in every six for a meal; all the other branches have an hour and a half; the latter leave the premises; the glass-blowers eat theirs at their place of work.
As the metal has to be heated in the furnace, and prepared for working, from the Friday to the Monday, and has then to be worked out during the week, night-work is necessary in our business.
In 1865, William Yates left the partnership, and the company changed its name to Percival & Vickers, and became public listed. Thomas Percival and Thomas Vickers both owned an equal number of shares. The rest were divided amongst various businessmen, and the Yates family who kept a small interest. Unlike many other Manchester glass firms, no particular family ever held a significant controlling stake.
1883 London Directory advert
The company floated at an optimistic value of £120,000 - six times the value of Molineaux & Webb although they were probably only slightly bigger at this time. The value of the shares was voluntarily reduced to £60,000 in the late 1870s and reduced again to about £20,000 by 1900, which feels more realistic.
Thomas Percival died in 1875 and his interest was briefly carried on by his sons Thomas and Walter, but they sold out soon after, probably to concentrate on their own business of Whittingham & Percival which was up and running in the Pendleton area of Salford. At this point the Vickers family could have taken a controlling interest but the share registers indicate that they failed to do so. The Vickers family listed themselves as soap manufacturers and may have concentrated on other businesses.
By the end of the century, the company was headed by a James Booth. The list of company directors had no members from the Percival or Vickers families, but ironically still had a member of the Yates family on the board, although they had been jettisoned from the company title over 30 years earlier.
Percival & Vickers issued its final pattern registration in 1902, filed for bankruptcy in 1907, and disappeared off the company lists in 1914.
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