The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-04-19 00:00:00

Correspondence.

WERE THE DISCOVERERS OF THE STOUR-
BRIDGE FIRE-CLAY GIPSIES?
To the Editor of the Stourbridge Observer.

Sir,—l was led to the consideration of the above
question by the following passage that I lighted on
accidentally in Kelly's Worcestershire Directory
"There are ktill residing in the vicinity of the town
(Stourbridge) decendants (refugees from the king-
dom of Hungary and province of L.,rrane in the year
1555 or 1556) of a company headed by a person of
the name of Henzoll Heuzey, who, trusting in their
knowledge of a practical skill in music as a means of
existence, and not meeting with that support in Lon-
don which they anticipated, left it and found their
way into the Midland Counties,and at length formed
their encampment at the " Lye Waste." Here the
wanderers observed, with no small degree of plea-
sure, the existence of the valuable fire-clay, out of
which they had formed the glass and melting pots.
The precise spot upon which the strangers took up
their abode, and where the first glass-house was
erected is still known by the name of "Hungary
Hill."—On reading this passage I was convinced
that, if the tale were true, these glass-workers could
never have been Huguenot refugees--such would not
have roamed about the country, "forming encamp-
ments" and trusting to music for their livelihood,
nor would they have profesued to come f.rom
Hungary. On the other hand, everything, especially
the words I have italicised, suggested that they
from
Gipsies, who are known to have flock?dteoevnetih• rom
France in large numbers during
Ithew
salsxcourteousl
cen-
tury. Pursuing my enquiries,
n to Collection);
directed by a Stourbridge clergy
b Hgt
y H. Sydney
Tytlery, and Tyzack (Stourb. 1
that,
for a Genellogy of the Noble
BFm7aina ilies of Henze
Grazebrook, Esq. Here I find t
itterrding to
ía digging the zo es for their
popular belief, it was
tent poles that these three emigrant families dis-
covered the fire-clay, and further that according to
a French
igenealogy the Hennezels were a noblesse
originaire du Rayanme de Bohenze, a striking state-
ment when one considers that Boh6ntens is the
French designation of the G-ipsy race. Mr. Graze-
brook, however, being mainly occupied with the
descendants of these families, dismisses the story of
the
henc
y any trustworthy r s "but a tradition, not Corrobo-
rated orthy evidence but he did
not disprove it, nor in a letter with which he has
kindly favoured me does he reject, though he cannot I
confirm, my supposition. True, the "nobility " of
these three families seems to him to militate against
my view, but then on the one hand M. Chatriau (of
Erckmann-Chatrian fame) is also a gentilshonone
verrier by descent, yet worked himself as a boy at
glass-blowing, and on the other Gipsies have often
occupied far higher stations than is commonly im-
agined. To cite one proof of this last statement,
Charles Besvile, a Gipsy King, who was buried at
Rossington, near Doncaster, on 30th January, 1709,
was "a mad, mighty fine spark, keeping company
with a great many knights, gentlemen, and esquires,
and possessed:of an eqate of .2200 a year" (Hunter's
History of South Yorkshire). Nor should I feel sin. •
prised to find the art of glass-making, or improve-
ments in the art, introduced to England by Gipsies,
, seeing that to Gipsies has bean ascribed the intro-
, duction of playing-cards to Europe, of music to
Hungary, and of the Age of Bronze to Scandinavia,
while M. Bataillard in a recent work has actually
dwelt upon the manufacture by them of glass in
sundry countries. I cannot here discuss these
various theories, but the mention of them may serve
to show that my notion is not so preposterous as at
first sight it might appear. This notion rests, how-
ever, solely upon the Tradition of Hungary Hill.
Can any of your readers then assist me to determine
the truth or falsity of that tradition its antiquity
(1. e. where the earliest record of it occurs), and
whether it is current at the present day. Whatever
the result of such enquiries, it,..cannnot but be in-