- Also known as
-
Thomas Betts
-
primary name: Betts, Thomas
- Details
- individual; British; Male
- Other dates
- -1765 (died)
- Address
- Hart Street, Bloomsbury
the Kings Arms Glass Shop opposite Pall Mall, Charing Cross, London (1742-65)
- Biography
- Four billheads and one trade card in Heal Collection. Heal,66.4, 5, 6 and 7 state "Bought of Thomas Betts Glass Cutter..." Heal's annotations on mounts: "Compare billheads in A.H. collection dated 1746-7, 1752, 1755, 1756 & 1761. All at the above address. Compare also billhead in A.H. collection of Jonathan Collett (Heal,66.8), glass manufacturer at the Kings Arms in Cockspur Street, opposite Pall Mall, Charing Cross dated 1781 & 1793." Heal's annotations on mount of Heal,66.7: "In 1738 Thos. Betts was known as a 'glass polisher' his address then was 'of Bloomsbury'. In 1744 he was at the King's Arms, Charing Cross - see letter from Francis Buckley, author of 'History of Old English Glass', see billhead in A.H. collection dated 1746/7. F. Buckley is of the opinion that the 'cut saucer' was the candle holder to catch grease on the girandoles." Heal,66.9 is a trade card advertising "Thos. Betts Glass-Cutter...Makes & Sells all Sorts of Curious Cut Glass Such as Cruets, Castors, Salts, Lustres, Dessarts [sic], Dishes, Plates, Punch Bowles, Cream Bowles with Globes for Lanthorns, Large Salvers or plates, in Flint Glass or Looking Glass to fit China Dishes or without. Likewise Curious Work in Looking Glass either Old or New in General. Cheaper & Better then hitherto has been done. He being the Real Workman for many Years."
In 1756 Betts took a lease on a house in Lewisham where he had access to water-power, making redundant the hand-operated machinery that he would have used previously. At his death his estate was valued at over £3,000. Werner gives an indication of life for Betts's glass-workers: in 1744 he advertised that an apprentice, Andrew Pawl, a Bohemian, had run away; in 1751 another young man, Richard Lidgley, applied successfully to the courts to be discharged from his apprenticeship as he was suffering from lead poisoning from exposure to dust breathed in while working at working at a machine cutting and polishing glass which had a high proportion of lead.
- Bibliography
- Mortimer, 1989
A. Werner, Thomas Betts: an 18th-century glasscutter, in Journal of the Glass Association, I, 1985, pp. 1-16.
