Manufacturer Notes: Bagley & Company Limited

William Bagley.....and in 1871, another two years later, he started his own company with the aid of a cousin.
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Bagley's moved toward machine operations when in 1894 he bought half of the Ashley Bottle Co., which had been established in order to promote the Ashley machine, first in Great Britain, and possibly the world, to make bottles by the semiautomatic machine operation. With Cunningham, Shaw & Co. of St. Helens, he bought the stock of Ashley machines, and divided them in 1899. By 1919 he was operating Owens AE Machines at Knottingley.

Toulouse, Julian Harrison: Bottle Makers And Their Marks (Camden, Thomas Nelson Inc., 1971).
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Between 1912 and 1975 Bagley produced a vast amount of collectable and art deco  designs in pressed glass, and exported them all around the world.

www.glass-time.com/orderbagleyglassbook.html
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Bagley & Co Ltd. A glass company in England which lasted just over one hundred years (1871-1975).  From 1912 it is famous for its pressed glass and lead glass. It had some classic Art Deco designs including one with black glass covered with polka dots.

www.stylendesign.co.uk/guidepages/eatoc1.html
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Advertised as late as 1966 as glass manufacturers.

Bottling: A Quarterly Supplement to the Brewing Trade Review (London, Review Press, 1942 1966)
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Efforts of the various concerns were concentrated on the following: Bagley & Co.  Ltd., installing Owen's automatic bottle machines;

Journal of the American Ceramic Society (American Ceramic Society, 1919)
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Bagley & Co Ltd, Knottingley Glass Bottle works, Knottingley (Yorks.)

Rousset, Camille; Annuaire de la verrerie et de la céramique (Paris,1907)
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Two years later in 1871 William Bagley in partnership with his cousin John William Bagley established a single pot furnace on a site next to the canal in the Bendles, Knottingley.
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William Bagley (or Mr. William as he became respectfully known) was born in Hunslet in 1842 and began his association with the glass industry in 1850 at the age of 8 when he was employed at Pilkington Bros. of St. Helens. As a young man he went to Castleford and during the 1860's was known to be living in Welbeck Street. It was here that he made his mark and on 13 July, 1867 he became secretary of the Yorkshire Glass Makers Trade Protection Society.
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Following the death of John William Bagley in 1897 the company embarked on a programme of modernisation which was to place it at the fore-front of glass making for many years.

In June of 1898, Bagley & Co. registered as a private limited company with a working capital of £60,000 in shares of £10 each and William Bagley was appointed Chairman and managing Director. The following year they purchased the patent rights of the Ashley-Arnall bottle making machine, and later sold half the shares in the machine
to a Lancashire firm.

Probably the most outstanding advance was achieved around 1905 when the Owens Automatic Bottle machine was invented in America. the European rights to the Owens machine were purchased by Bagley's. It was considered to be one of the most wonderful inventions of the age, being entirely automatic and resulted in the ultimate decline of mouth blowing.
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After the war production was adapted to cover a variety of domestic household ware, both utilitarian and decorative. Craftsmen from the North East came down to Knottingley and passed on their knowledge to a locally recruited workforce and this subsidiary business opened under the trade name of 'Crystal Glass Co.'

William Bagley died on Wednesday January 16 1924
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By the 1930's the company was run by Percy and Stanley Bertram Bagley, sons of the founders John William and William Bagley.
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In 1962 the Bagley Company was taken over by Jackson Brothers, another concern built up and owned by local industrialists. Jackson's in turn was taken over in 1968 by Rockware Glass, and a succession of National and International mergers or take-overs saw the disappearance of local founders.
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A new era dawned in 1994 when the Bagley factory in Knottingley was acquired by Austrian based company Stolzle Oberglas AG who formed a subsidiary of this group under the name 'Stolzle Flacconage' They commenced a huge investment programme and no expense was spared in installing the most advanced regenerative furnace with a  capacity of 108 tonnes and a life span of 8 years. Production commenced in 1995 and today.....

Gosney, Ron; Glassmaking In Knottingley (www.knottingley.org/history/glassmakers.htm)
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BENDLES HOUSE
Built at the north side of Bendles Field and occupying the site which now forms the eastern end of Weeland Crescent. Following the establishment of Bagley’s Glassworks in May 1871, the house was the home of John Wild, one of the founding partners, until his death in 1884. The house was gradually encompassed by the glassworks and
was eventually sold to the Company and demolished to facilitate further expansion of the works early in the twentieth century.

Spencer, Terry; Field System and Place Names Of Old Knottingley
(www.knottingley.org/history/spencer/knottingley-place-names02.htm)

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Bagley & Co
Knottingley, England (1871 1975) Originally Bagley, Wild & Co (bottle manufacturers), then Bagley & Co (from 1890). Traded as The Crystal Glass Co from 1912 (coloured "crystaltint" glass introduced 1933). Alexander H Williamson (mid 1930s) (23 designs registered from 1923 to 1938)

www.great-glass.co.uk
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Bagley, Wild & Co.
Manufactures of all kinds of
Flint and Green Glass Bottles

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Bagley, Wild & Co., Great Northern Goods Station.
King's Cross. Works: Knottingley, Yorkshire.

Please note. -We have removed to our more extensive premises at the
Great Northern Goods Station, King's Cross.

Siebold, Louis; Year-Book Of Pharmacy 1875 (London, J. & A. Churchill, 1875)
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Bagley, Wild, & Co. ; Glass Bottle Manufacturers ; Great Northern Railway Goods Depot, King's Cross, London, Knottingley Glass Works, Knottingley, Yorkshire, and at Glasgow, Scotland.
Bottles of various colours, shapes, and sizes, combination, stoppered, ground stoppered, &c.

Paris Universal International Exhibition 1878. Official Catalogue of the British Section Part I. (London, George E. Eyre and William Spottiswoode, 1878)
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1892 Bagley, William, Glass Mkrs Bagley & Co, Knottingly

www.blacksheepindex.co.uk
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Initially Bagley was a bottle making factory established in 1871 by cousins John William Bagley and William Bagley and John Wild. The firm was very forward thinking in their approach to producing glass and in 1903 were the first in the UK to acquire the rights to the American Owens bottle making machine.

www.pressedintime.com/bagley.htm

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