The Lighthouse Links Programme. Our relaxing canal walks start from Holly Lodge Secondary School in Smethwick was the Galton Valley Canal Museum in the first school group to help MADE establish Smethwick to the Chance Glass the Lighthouse Links with Bidstone Lighthouse, Works factory. You can join a guided near Liverpool and Kinnaird Lighthouse in walk or download a printable map Scotland. Year 7 students chose to help the from our website. Factory tours are Chance Glass Works Heritage Trust when they occasionally available. Check our www.chanceglassheritage.org.uk PAST discovered that a skip hire firm planned to website for more information. Walks and tours continue work on the site. Redevelopment over possible ruin was their overwhelming preference. We thank Holly Lodge PRESENT @ChanceBrosGlass pupils for their valuable involvement in providing a convincing argument. MADE has held a series of talks that inform the public about the past FUTURE Bournville College went one step further by collaborating with MADE to present and the future of the Glass visit Nash Point Lighthouse in Wales. Lecturer Bonita Leatham worked Works. On the left we were with MADE to create a programme of study for Level 2 and 3 students. entertained with an enthralling talk Bournville has now made lighthouse links with Nash Point lighthouse in headed by Mark Lewis, co founder of We would like to thank everyone who has been involved in this Wales, South Solitary Island, NSW Australia and Low Point Lighthouse in Talks the World Lighthouse Association. MADE project, from former Chance Glass employees to Canada. We hope that Bournville College continues to make lighthouse volunteers, from the Smethwick Library Archives to links for many years to come. Birmingham University, from our far flung lighthouse friends to the Friends of Galton Valley Canal Museum; and for Would your group like to make a link to a lighthouse? Visit our website Former Chance Glass worker and the many offers of help and advice from whoever to access our lighthouse map, teaching resources, certificate templates MADE volunteer, Arthur East tells FREE crossed our path. and links to websites that will enable you to share the stories from the the Friends of Smethwick Archives glassworks with stories from the sea. about his experiences of Chance For information about the trust and its future plans Glassworks. (Right) Read all about You can still Bournville College students for the Chance Glassworks site please visit: Friends of Smethwick Archives MADE’s project get involved by visit Nash Point Lighthouse in ‘Everybody’s Story’ in visiting our website www.cgwht.org (Chance Glass Works Heritage Trust) South Wales. You can stay in their A mini scrapbook exhibition (left) this publication. We have and by discovering how holiday cottages; and even get with newspaper cuttings, maps of worked with Chance Glass we have worked with our @ChanceTrust @CGWHT married in the lighthouse! Chance Glassworks, and of course; enthusiasts and volunteers both partner organisations such as the copies of Chance Comments locally and globally. It may be the Chance Glass Works Heritage Chance logo photography credit: Ian Stenson magazines. end of this particular project, but its Trust, Sandwell Library Archives, legacy will live on though this short local friends groups, schools, For future news concerning Chance publication, the website and the colleges, the University of Exhibitions Glassworks visit the web links at the Chance Glass Works Heritage Trust. Birmingham and more. back of this publication. Image Source: Chance Comments. Template being laid out for the Palace of West Minister clock tower.

Publication fold out.indd 1 22/03/2017 10:08:16 The Chances were a West Midlands industrial Did you know…? Did you know..? dynasty. They began as Worcestershire farmers …that Joseph Paxton, head gardener at Chatsworth House designed the and craftsmen, entered commerce and created … that Chance Glass produced…cathode ray famous Crystal Palace that was built to house the Great Exhibition of a huge glassmaking business in Smethwick in the tubes for televisions, laboratory glass, prisms for 1851? tanks, ultra-thin glass (0.14mm) to shield solar 19th century. The company became one of the Chance Glass was commissioned to produce 300,000 panes of the largest panels for space satellites, glass globes for most important industrial employers in the plate glass of its time to glaze this magnificent building. In comparison, the petrol station signs, landing lights for aircraft, car West Midlands, at its height employing 3,500 Selfridges building in Birmingham; (built by the architecture company, headlamps, radiation shields, household products people producing specialist glass for a wide ‘Future Systems’) has 15,000 aluminium disks; which alludes to the sheer such as plates, glasses, and novelty ashtrays, range of applications. scale of the Crystal Palace that housed the wonders of the Industrial railway signal lights...the list goes on... Revolution from around the world. Chances produced specialist glass at a scale unprecedented in the UK for clients of every type. It produced glass for the iconic Crystal Palace for the Did you know..? Nash Point lighthouse lens Great Exhibition of 1851 and the Houses of Parliament, it manufactured The Crystal Palace ...that the lighthouse lenses supplied (Detail) equipment used in WW1 through to arguably their most lasting legacy; by Chance Glass Works were based innovative optical glass which is still used in lighthouses across the world on a French design by Augustin today. Fresnel, (pronounced Frenel)? Chance built their first lighthouse Excerpts above taken from the History West Midlands website. For more lens in 1851 and refined their craft details visit http://www.revolutionaryplayers.org.uk/the-chance-family- to produce the finest lenses in the mechants-and-glassmakers/ world; described by Mr Alan Taylor, a former Chance employee and Arguably their greatest achievement was creating the first generation of lighthouse expert as, “a giant glass modern lighthouses through the design and production of lanterns to beehive.” consistent standards of clarity and luminescence. ‘To this day there are Read about the rivalry between hundreds of lighthouses which stand on every continent, all of which Oral Histories Hands up for the handkerchief Britain and France in ‘Lighthouses: emerged from Spon Lane when the West Midlands was an industrial vase! The Race to Illuminate the World.’ powerhouse, and whose brass plates, polished and conserved by their Although the project aim was by Toby Chance and Peter Williams. modern day keepers bear the name “Chances Brothers, Smethwick, to bring together existing Almost everyone knows information and knowledge someone who owns a vase England”’ [Dr Malcolm Dick]. This made an immeasurable contribution Did you know?... to maritime safety at a global level and had far reaching consequences for about Chance Glassworks, oral just like this one. Check out ...that Smethwick Library Archives trade, empire and the map of the world. history was not part of our aims chanceglass.net to get the full and objectives; however, when lowdown on this range of vase and helped MADE’s volunteers archive a whopping 16,000 pages of This fascinating story of global impact is explored in a book ‘Lighthouses: someone wants to share their many more types of domestic lighthouse order books? The Race to Illuminate the World’ written by Toby Chance, (James story for a project called glassware. Volunteers will still be transcribing Chance’s great-great-grandson and the grandson of Sir Hugh Chance, ‘Everybody’s Story’; how could for years to come. Want to chip in? the last Chairperson of an independent Chance Brothers Glassworks). we refuse! The Handkerchief Vase Visit our website.

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