King's Lynn Glass
from the
Glass Encyclopedia

Ronald Stennett-Willson, one of the most prominent UK post-war glass designers, established King's Lynn Glass in 1967, and continued as Managing Director when Wedgwood bought his glassworks in 1969, until he reached retirement age in 1980. He had been closely involved with the Swedish glass industry during the 1950s, and his designs at King's Lynn had the clean functional lines associated with post-war Scandinavian design.

More than half of the staff employed when the company first opened, were skilled glass blowers from Sweden and other parts of Europe. Part of their job was to train local people in glass industry skills.

The Sheringham range of candlesticks and goblets, like the amethyst example shown on the left, was one of Ron Stennett-Willson's most celebrated early designs, and won the Queen's Design Award for Industry. These candlesticks varied in height and had between one and nine discs in their stems, made in five colors amethyst, green, blue, topaz and clear.

During the Wedgwood years, King's Lynn glassworks produced a number of commemorative pieces with small jasperware plaques. In addition to tableware, vases, and commemorative pieces, they also made a range of little glass figurines of animals, birds, and fish.

King's Lynn glass was marked only with paper labels. Following a long Wedgwood tradition, all the glass made by Wedgwood Glass was supposed to be marked with a permanent mark. The mark is sometimes very hard to find and indeed we were told that the etching machines took a while to arrive after Wedgwood purchased King's Lynn glass, and so even during the early Wedgwood days some pieces were not permanently marked.

If you are looking for King's Lynn glass, you can sometimes find items listed under Wedgwood glass on ebay (click here to see the Wedgwood glass listings on ebay).