South Shields, Cookson's or Swineburne's Glassworks

HER Number:
2340

District:
S Tyneside

Site Name:
South Shields, Cookson's or Swineburne's Glassworks

Place:
South Shields

Map Sheet:
NZ36NE

Class:
Industrial

Site Type: Broad:
Glassmaking Site

Site Type: Specific:
Glass Works

General Period:
Post Medieval

Specific Period:
C18

Form of Evidence:
Documentary Evidence

Description:
Onesiphorus Dagnia (of the Ouseburn Glassworks, Newcastle) set up the first glasshouse at South Shields around 1707. In 1756 they mortgaged the glasshouse to John Cookson. Isaac Cookson had set up a glasshouse in South Shields for his son, John, in 1737. John Cookson entered into a partnership with a Thomas Jefferies to make crown glass there. On John's death in 1785, the works passed to his son Isaac and the Cooksons remained the leading glassmakers in the district until the middle of nineteenth century when the works passed to R. and W. Swinburne and Company, who manufactured glass here until 1876. In the early 19th century the largest glass manufactory in the kingdom. The works used the Ballast Wagonway (HER ref. 2427) to take waste to The Bents and to bring in coarse sand to use in grinding. The Glassworks were acquired in 1892 by the Harton Coal Company and demolished to give access to the Harton Low Staiths (HER ref. 2456). The site has been levelled, leaving only chimney base dated 1865, but more features may survive underground.

Easting:
3594

Northing:
6697

Grid Reference:
NZ35946697

Lats/Lons:

Sources:
<< HER 2340 >> 1st edition Ordnance Survey Map, c.1855, 6 inch scale, Durham, 4 N.T. Sinclair, & I.S. Carr, 1990, Railways of South Shields, p.4,18 E.L., Thornborrow, 1961, Rise and fall of the Glass Industry in South Shields, South Shields Archaeological and History Society,Vol. II, no. 4 p 7-28 I. Ayris, Chimney Remain near Mill Dam, South Shields English Heritage, 1997, Monuments Protection Program, Site Assessment 1972, A Brief History of Glass Making on Tyneside F. Buckley, Glasshouses on the Tyne in the Eighteenth Century, Journal of the Society of Glass Technology, p27-29 I. Ayris & S.M. Linsley, 1994, A Guide to the Industrial Archaeology of Tyne and Wear, p 47; The Archaeological Practice Ltd.2010, Harton Staithes, Station Road, Tyne and Wear - Archaeological Watching Brief; Entec, 2009, Harton Staithes, Archaeological Assessment