Chance Brothers Limited, Smethwick

BS6/1 Corporate records; BS6/2 Share records; BS6/3 Employment records; BS6/4 Financial records; BS6/5 Legal records; BS6/6 Property records; BS6/7 Operational records; BS6/8 Administrative records; BS6/9 Sales and marketing records; BS6/10 Reference material; BS6/11 Chance & Hunt Limited; BS6/12 Lighthouse works; BS6/13 Glasgow works; BS6/14 Subsidiary companies; BS6/15 Chance family papers; BS6/16 Wartime records. This catalogue was produced with support from the National Cataloguing Grants Programme for Archives.

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Chance Brothers Limited was a leading glass manufacturer established on Spon Lane, Smethwick following the purchase by Robert Lucas Chance (1782-1865) in 1824 of The British Crown Glass Company glassworks on the Blakeley Farm estate. Prior to this, Robert Lucas Chance had worked at the Nailsea glassworks near Bristol, owned by his father William Chance and partners Edward Homer and John Robert Lucas (both friends and brother-in-laws to William) from 1811 and he had become a glass merchant in London in 1815. John Hartley, a crown glass expert, became a partner of the company in 1828 after being brought from the Nailsea glassworks. Robert Lucas' brother, William Chance (1788-1856) then became a partner three years later. In 1832, Chance introduced the blown glass cylinder method for the production of sheet glass. Chance then went on to open a chemical works at Oldbury 1835 to supply the company with the chemicals required for the manufacture of glass. Following the death of John Hartley in 1833, his two sons James and John were made partners of the firm and the company was named 'Chance and Hartleys' in 1834. This partnership was dissolved in 1836 and James and John Hartley went on to start their own glassworks in Sunderland. 'Chance and Hartleys' was renamed 'Chance Brothers'.

James Timmins Chance (1814-1902) joined the firm in 1838 and became a partner the following year. In 1840 the company developed a process for manufacturing very thin glass for microscopic work, which was not replaced until 1949 and in 1845 the excise duty on glass was lifted and the demand increased significantly. During the same year, Chance began its production of coloured and ornamental glass for use in stained glass windows with the help of George Bontemps. Bontemps then joined the firm in 1848 and supervised the setting up of a plant for the manufacture of optical and dioptrical glass including lenses for telescopes and cameras. James Timmins Chance took a keen interest in this area and showcased a new lens design for lighthouse manufacture at the Great Exhibition in 1851. The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London was constructed to house the exhibition and Chance received its most famous commission to glaze the entire building. James' work in the field of optics and dioptrics, previously associated exclusively with France, gained the company international recognition as Chance established its Lighthouse Works in the same year. The lights and apparatus produced by Chance were installed at hundreds of lighthouses all across the world until the sale of the works to Stone-Platt Ltd in 1954.

In 1852 Chance took a licence for the production of rolled glass, first developed by James Hartley, which was produced by Chance until the closure of the rolled plate division in 1976. In 1885 they took out a further licence for the Mason and Conqueror Machine, which they developed into a double rolling machine for the lamination of glass between rollers achieved by using a second pair of rollers to imprint a pattern on the glass. This double rolling process was used to create a range of white and tinted figured/cathedral glasses (Flemish being the most popular design).In 1867, Alexander Macomb Chance (1844-1917) became head of the ornamental department, which came under scrutiny shortly before his appointment as other specialist companies were offering a much cheaper service. In 1868 he then became manager of the chemical works in Oldbury, which he made a great success of. The chemical works became the Oldbury Alkali Company Limited in 1890 and Chance & Hunt Limited in 1898. During the 1890s Chance collaborated with Sir William Crookes to produce spectacle and other optic lenses, marketed under the title 'Crookes Glass' and later became pioneers of the first dark lenses for UV protection. In 1899 James Timmins Chance retired and in the same year the company became a private limited company and was renamed Chance Brother & Company Limited. In 1904, the Fourcault 'drawn flat sheet' process to produce far larger sheets of glass was developed by Emile Fourcault in Belgium and Chance adopted this method for a number of years, often drawing glass to the full height of the seven-storey building of the glass works.

Chance purchased the Glasgow Plate Glass Company in Firhill in 1907. The plant originally produced flat glass but by 1930 the small scale production of glass silk or fibres for use in insulation began, a product originally developed in Germany in 1914. The company was renamed Glass Fibres Limited in 1938 when Pilkington Brothers acquired a major stake in it following their acquisition of shares in Chance in 1937. The company was then re-organised again in 1944 and renamed Fibreglass Limited. In the 1930s Chance started to produce two new products. They began producing some of the first cathode-ray tubes (CRTs) in conjunction with John Logie Baird for television and demonstrated a huge 22 inch tube for the time at the 1938 Berlin Radio Exhibition. Also, in 1929-1930 they produced their first pressed domestic glassware with Orlak ovenware and then went on to produce tableware in a variety of patterns including Spiderweb (1934), Britannia (1949) and Lancer (1950). In 1951 the company began to produce slumped domestic glassware called Fiestaware including plates, trays, dishes, bowls, vessels and glasses in various shapes sizes and patterns. The production of pressed glassware ended in 1953 as Fiestaware began to take off. During the Second World War domestic glassware production was halted in favour of optical glass production towards the war effort. On the approach to the war Chance and Pilkingtons set up a shadow optical glass factory called Umbroc at St Helens in case bomb damage disrupted production at the Spon Lane glass works.

In 1947 Chance opened a new plant in Malvern for the production of syringes and precision tubing. They were first to produce interchangeable barrels and plungers for syringes, which required incredible precision of manufacture. This plant is still in use today, operating under the name Chance Glass Limited (as of July 2010). One of the company's last major accomplishments was the re-glazing of the clock faces of the Palace of Westminster Clock Tower that houses Big Ben Bell in 1956, to correct the mis-match of coloured glass caused by repairs to damage caused during the war. Ironically, the original opal glass had been supplied by a German glass manufacturer before the Second World War and was subsequently damaged by the Luftwaffe. In 1952 Pilkington finally assumed control of the business and Sir Willam Hugh Stobart Chance (1896 - 1981) stepped down as Chairman a year later. In 1957 the Optical Division was relocated to St Asaph and became Chance-Pilkington Optical Works, resulting in a loss of staff from both Spon Lane and the Malvern plant. The Glasgow Works in Firhill closed in 1964 as much of the Fibreglass production had been moved to Pilkington's St Helens plant and rolled plate production was restricted to Smethwick so the St Helens plant absorbed the rest of the rolled plate production at Glasgow. Twelve years later, the Rolled Plate Division at Spon Lane was closed. This left the site extremely underused and whilst the micro-slide, tubing and Fiesta divisions continued to operate for a further five years, the site was eventually closed in 1981.