This fascinating footage looks back at the traditions of glassmaking and glassblowing in Sunderland, to coincide with the relaunch of the National Glass Centre.
It shows craftsman glass blowers at the Wear Flint Glass Works, Sunderland, in the 1960s. Wearside's glass making tradition dates back to 674 when French and Italian glaziers, invited over by the Anglo-Saxon abbot Benedict Biscop, made the windows for the Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Priory.
The Wear Flint Glass Works was launched in 1858 by Angus and Greener, with ownership passing to James Augustus Jobling in 1885. Jobling and Co enjoyed great success from 1921 when Jobling Purser purchased the right to manufacture and market the PYREX brand heat resistant glassware from the American firm Corning Inc.
Few people outside the North East realise that each item of desirable and durable PYREX domestic glassware, with designs such as Gaeity, Snowflake, Matchmaker, Fiesta and Tally-Ho hunting for Ringtons, found in every British kitchen after World War II, originated in Sunderland with Joblings.
Corning Glass took control of the Pyrex factory in 1973. The business was again sold to Newell Ltd in 1994 and then to Arc International. But in 2007 production moved to France, and commercial glass manufacture ended in Sunderland after hundreds of years. The region's few remaining glass craftsmen now practise their art in the workshops of the National Glass Centre, close to the site of the original Monkwearmouth priory
