Matthew Turnbull, Cornhill Glassworks

© Glass Animal Covered Dishes by Jennifer Patton
Page 1
matthew turnbull, cornhill glassworks
Glassworks of Matthew Turnbull in Southwick, Sunderland began in 1859.
At 16 years of age, Matthew Turnbull forged glass for Schmied. It is rumored
that his father Thomas Turnbull was a partner of Wear Flint Glassworks in
Sunderland (Sunderland Flint Glassworks). In my research, I read a 2009
thread from www.glassmessages.com. A woman named Sally was doing
extensive research on the life of flint glass manufacturer Thomas Walton
who owned Sunderland Flint Glassworks for one year, 1857. Sally stated
Turnbull ran Haverton Hill Glassworks during the 1840s, a works which
Walton bought in 1849 and sold in 1856.
---This would have been when Thomas Turnbull met Thomas Walton.---
Sally described how Walton followed Turnbull "across the pond" after he
sold Wear Flint Glassworks to Henry Greener in 1858 to help set up Cornhill
Glassworks in 1859. When Thomas Walton left Cornhill Glassworks in 1865,
the company was fully owned by the Turnbull family and renamed. Thomas
Walton's wife passed in 1866 and he left the Southwick area, going to
Manchester. Pressed glass was on the rise. Both Cornhill Glassworks and
Wear Flint Glassworks (Sunderland Flint Glassworks) became involved in
pressed glass after Walton left. Very interestingly, Walton only dealt with
Flint glassmaking. A person in the thread from UK London stated he was
working on the post-excavation analysis of the excavation conducted by
Pre-Construct Archaeology of the glass factory on that site. He mentioned
that all the glass debris he studied did not include any waste from glass
blowing, only from pressed glass. He determined that all Walton flint
related glass must have been cleared out.
Sally told a man who inquired how she came across her information of
Walton being involved with Turnbull's Cornhill Glassworks that she found
research by Alan Leach published in the "Glass Cone" (magazine of the
Glass Association), No. 21, Spring 1989, which was mainly about the
Haverton Hill glassworks. Sally was researching the Waltons because
Thomas Walton's son, Thomas Walton Jr. went to Japan in 1874 to help the
Japanese develop their first Western-style glassworks. Thomas Walton Jr.
background led to her understanding how useful he was in Japan and why
he was chosen.