Usually known under the general term 'beaker' this group of English drinking glass spans the whole of the seventeenth century. It is classified into five sub-groups. These are shown in the classification below. The first (glasses with the bowl directly attached to the foot) is a fairly general group where the type of glass 'metal' the vessel is made from provides the only real clue to dating. The second sub-group (glasses with an applied foot rim) is contemporary with the cigar-shaped and mould-blown stems of the first half of the century and survive almost unchanged from the forms pioneered in the earlier wood-burning forest glass houses. The third type (glasses without an applied foot rim) is uncommon and represents a transition between the second and fourth types, starting just before the middle of the century and lasting until its end. The bulk of fourth type (tumblers) is contemporary with the 'Greene' stemmed glasses and feature alongside their stemmed counterparts in the designs of John Greene, but those with basal moulding only appear later and were probably produced until the turn of the century. The final sub group has only three glasses (bun-footed glasses), but these show considerable similarities, one each having been found in London, Guildford and Poole. They appear to date from the end of the century and may all be imported, since the bun-foot design is much more common on continental Europe. This group does not include one type of beaker that occurs on some early seventeenth century sites, since these appear to be remnants of a sixteenth century tradition. These are one-piece designs where the foot is double-thickness, made by pushing-up the kick to meet the narrowed bowl-base.
This page talks about this sort of glass and includes a classification of all the variations we know about. If you know of any other variations please let us know, so we can keep the list up-to-date.
This figure shows a reconstructed 'Wafelbeker' or beaker with chequered spiral moulding. This particular example was found in Holland, but matches closely those found in England, giving support to the theory that many glasses of this type were probably imported. This design is said to have been a speciality of the glass works in Liege and Antwerp in Belgium, but may have been made throughout the low countries.
The earlier glasses were made for two different types of drink - wine and beer. As with the stemmed glasses, the types of drink became more varied as the century progressed and John Greene illustrates nests of six and twelve tumblers of graduated sizes (one example of such a nest has been excavated in Guildford). His orders also include tumblers for Beer, Claret (French wine) and Sack (fortified Spanish wine), the order numbers being in the ratio of 4:2:1 respectively.
In common with the stemmed glasses, early in the century virtually all the glasses are made from glass that is tinted due to the presence of impurities in the mixture. Early clear glasses do exist, but are only encountered rarely, since they represent the 'luxury' high-priced end of the market. After about 1675, the quality of English glass-making improves dramatically and even the 'low' end of the market is served with glass that is of reasonable quality. The best quality glass is shown by the tumblers with moulded bases, dating to the last quarter of the seventeenth century. The bun footed beakers include examples of the use of opaque white glass, which appears to be rare at the end of the century. Mid-late 17th C beaker wall fragments exist which use white threads and other colours, but in general they are too small to indicate the shape of the complete glass. Such decorative techniques are more common in earlier glasses and this is consistent with the shift in emphasis from decoration to clarity, weight and form as the century progresses.
Moulding and trailing are common as listed in the classification. Prunts are found on a few examples. One fragment appears to have a double wall with patterns of air bubbles trapped between. Wall fragments have been found with enamelling, including lettering, but it is probable that these were imported. As discussed above the use of applied decoration decreases during the century, with moulding being the only common decorative technique at the end of the century.
As indicated in the introduction, the dating of the sub-groups vary. Little constructive can be said about type A. Glasses type B are among those found from the site of a glass-sellers shop that was almost certainly burnt in the great fire of London in 1666 and feature in 'civil-war' sites. They are also similar to fragments found in forest glass-house sites pre-1615. The latest dated find of this type is one from Aldgate in London where an example was found in a layer dated by other finds to 1700-1720, but it appears unlikely that they were made in significant numbers much after 1680 (survival of a piece for 20-30 years is consistent with evidence from other sites). This type of glass is sometimes depicted in Dutch old master paintings and such evidence, along with a range of other dating evidence is discussed by Hugh Tait in his article on "Glass with Chequered Spiral-Trail Decoration"in the 1967 edition of Journal of Glass Studies. They are also covered in some detail in "Glass without gloss"by Harold Henkes. (see references) The earliest examples of type C probably date from about 1640-1645 and later examples are of an established 'lead' glass probably after the mid 1680s. Type D appears entirely contemporary with the Greene stem glasses and probably shares their end date of around 1680. The largest group of these beakers was found in one location at Guildford, but in a context that suggests a clear-out of unfashionable glasses. A minority of those glasses have low levels of lead in the glass, probably more as a result of recycling lead glass than a deliberate addition to the batch. Type E probably date from the last quarter of the century, but there are two few to provide any clear evidence.
One of the strangest features of this group is the way that some of the later type C glasses have been made. They have very thick solid 'kicks' at the base, which then transition to extremely thin walls at the base of the sides. Most examples have broken at this point, but they are thought to be similar to others found in Holland where the walls reverse taper towards the rim which is up to ten-times as thick as the base. This presumably is a result of the way they were made - any suggestions will be gratefully received!
Our thanks go to Hugh Willmott for his helpful comments and suggestions during the development of this page.
This classification is based on that developed for eighteenth-century drinking-glasses by E. Barrington-Haynes. The main classification is based on stem type, so this part has had to be refined to allow for the fact that glasses in this group do not have stems. Alpha-numeric groups are used to represent the features of a complete glass or a fragment. This introduction describes how the classification works. Since many excavated seventeenth-century drinking glasses are incomplete, an 'o' is used in the middle of a classification group to denote that a part is missing. In the list of glasses which follows, only the most complete examples are recorded, i.e. the existence of a vessel fragment with sufficient remaining to allow identification of its bowl and foot types means that fragments which are similar, but less complete, are not separately identified. The first character is a capital letter. It conveys details about the form of the glass and is followed by two lower-case letter indicating details of respectively the upper and lower parts of the bowl. The last two groups convey information about the shape of the bowl and foot of the glass. Bowl descriptions are necessarily fairly coarse, since it is difficult to be precise if only a small part of the bowl remains. Shapes are given by lower-case roman numerals similar to those used for the stem types: (the numeral viiii is used instead of the correct form ix, so that it can be easily sorted in a computer data-base)
Foot designations are simple, with the first letter showing the shape of the foot or rim: 'f' denoting a flat foot, 'k' foot with a high kick, 'p' pedestal and the second letter indicating if it is plain or moulded 'f' denoting a foot with a folded rim, 'p' a plain-edged foot, 'm' a plain-edged foot with moulded decoration and 'w' a wavy-edged ring.
Reference: Barrington-Hayes, E., Glass Trough the Ages, 1959 (and in Arthur Churchill, "Glass-Notes" Series)