Pearline Glass from
The Glass Encyclopedia

In 1889 George Davidson's glassworks in the North East of England introduced one of their most popular and successful lines, a colouring which they called Pearline. It was only made in two colours, blue and lemon yellow, each with a white edge. Pearline glass was so successful that Davidson's introduced a new suite of designs made in pearline almost every year until 1903, and continued production of pearline until the outbreak of the First World War (1914).

Davidson's pearline glass is virtually always marked with a number or (on very early pieces) the word Patent. It is a form of opalescent glass, where heat reactive chemicals (notably arsenic) were included in the glass and when parts of the newly formed glass piece was reheated at the furnace, these parts (usually the top edge) turned white. There is considerable variation between pieces as to how much white they show, depending on how closely and for how long they were returned to the furnace.

The Pearline colour combination of a white opalescent edge on turquoise blue glass was almost unique to Davidson's. Greener's (from nearby Sunderland) produced a smaller number of patterns in a very similar colour, and these can be identified both by the registration numbers and from pattern books and advertisements of the time. Lemon Pearline is often called Vaseline Glass, which is a general term used for any kind of yellow glass with an appearance similar to the old yellow vaseline ointment. This includes hand blown glass as well as the output from many factories. The term vaseline glass should never be applied to blue pearline.

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