with similar or slightly altered names.
Today, driving north from the center of the town of Stourbridge, in Staffordshire, some one-half mile on the left is the glass factory of Webb and Corbett, specializing at the present time in crystal. Diagonally across the street lies the property of Thomas Webb and Sons. Located there is the head office and plant which is still operating. Here crystal is also produced, but in limited quantity only at the moment, as a change of ownership has recently taken place. About a mile further east is the imposing works of Stevens and Williams, better known today as the Royal Brierley Crystal of England, a division of Stevens and Williams, Ltd. Smaller operating glassworks are also in the surrounding areas. Upon realization of this geographic relationship, it is easily recognized that most artist workmen would not necessarily spend forty or fifty productive years of their life in one single factory. The individual designer trademarks of these men were not left behind when they transferred their allegiance from one factory to another, as these marks were their own emotional makeup. We should, therefore, not be too critical of a wrong attribution on an unsigned piece as to whether it had its origin in either Webb or Stevens and Williams. Only one criterion is important, and that is the finished quality of the piece itself. Should the handmark or signature of a Woodall, Locke, or Northwood also appear on the piece, a considerable value would, of course, be added. A company mark has relatively small additional value in view of the fact that it is either English cameo or not, and if it is English, the origin was in this Stourbridge area. It is the artistic accomplishment that is important. Strangely enough, neither the personal productions of Joseph Locke with the New England Glass Co. and, subsequently, The Libbey Glass Co., nor those of Frederick Carder, co-founder of The Steuben Glass Co., would ever be mistaken for the work they did in England prior to their emigration to the United States. It must also not be overlooked that these glassmen, as their period of retirement occurred, normally would continue to use factory blanks in their own home workshops.
A salient feature that strikes one quite forcibly in digging into the personal history of these artist workmen, was their close relationship to each other. There existed in the Stourbridge area a very fine and well-recognized school of art. It became a common practice for the greatest of the top group of glassmen to attend this school faithfully, from their early school years to the latter part of their lives. This particular art training was pursued after their factory work was over, several times a week. Not one of the great artists in Stourbridge was an exception to this rule, and the evident devotion to their trade is all too evident in the high standards of their general production, to say nothing of their individual pieces.
Glass factory owners were not only employers, but also patrons for individual productions on the part of their men. This in itself accounts for the positive origin of the many unsigned pieces. When you walk into the factory museum of Stevens and Williams today, only open to the general public with prior arrangements, and you see several cases of art glass made for the factory by individually recorded workers at the time of manufacture, any question of origin ceases. It must be recalled that these particular works were never offered for sale, nor quite obviously are they today. Stevens and Williams has a recorded history in glass production of one hundred and forty years.
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Lechevrel
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