page_title: Chance Brothers
section_title: 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: Chance Brothers / History / 20th century
caption_attribution_description: English: Three men in white suits, with face masks, each holding a long pole thru a hatch into a glassblowing furnace.
context_page_description: Chance Brothers and Company was a glassworks originally based in Spon Lane, Smethwick, West Midlands, in England. It was a leading glass manufacturer and a pioneer of British glassmaking technology.
  The Chance family originated in Bromsgrove as farmers and craftsmen before setting up business in Smethwick in 1824. Situated between Birmingham and the Black Country in the agglomeration of the Midlands industrial heartland, they took advantage of the skilled workers, canals and many advances that were taking place in the industrial West Midlands at the time.
  Throughout its almost two centuries of history many changes affected the company which, now privatised, continues to function as Chance Glass Limited, a specialised industrial glass manufacturer in Malvern, Worcestershire at one of its small subsidiary factories. The social and economic impact of the company on the region is the subject of a project sponsored by the Heritage Lottery Fund.
context_section_description: The company in partnership with the Ministry of Munitions' Optical Munitions and Glass Department expanded significantly during World War I 
  In the early 20th century, many new ways of making glass evolved at Chance Brothers such as the innovative welding of a cathode ray tube used for radar detection.
  In 1933, the company was reported to be involved in an attempt to contact "any intelligent life" on the planet Mars, using adapted lighthouse optics from a mountaintop, the Jungfrau, in Switzerland.
  Chance also popularised slumped glass tableware, Fiestaware that included many innovative designs, including the famous Swirl pattern (1955), and also Lace (1951), Night Sky (1957), Green Leaves (1958), Calypto (1959), with floral depictions from 1965 with Anemone.
  During world War II, the company was involved in production of cathode ray tubes for early radar sets, making up to 7,000 per week. In 1943 the artist Mervyn Peake was commissioned by the War Artists' Advisory Committee, WAAC, to paint pictures recording such work.
  Pilkington Brothers acquired a 50% shareholding in 1945 but the Chance operation continued to be largely separately managed and a factory was established in Malvern, Worcestershire in 1947 to specialise in laboratory glass where the operation was incorporated as an arms-length subsidiary. In 1948 the Malvern plant produced the world's first interchangeable syringe. By the end of 1952 Pilkington had assumed full financial control of Chance Brothers, but were not actively involved in its management until the mid- to late-1960s. When plastic disposable syringes displaced glass in the late 1960s, the range of its precision bore product was diversified.
  The production of flat glass ceased at Smethwick in 1976. The remainder of the works closed in 1981 ending more than 150 years of glass production at Smethwick and all flat glass production was absorbed by Pilkington's St Helens factories. Remaining glass tube processing, especially the manufacture of syringes and laboratory glassware, was moved to the Malvern plant.
  In 1992, during a period of rationalisation at Pilkingtons, a management buy-out reverted the Chance plant in Malvern to private ownership and it became an independent company, changing its registered name to Chance Glass Limited, but retaining the historical Chance logo. Since then the company has continued to develop its range of products and processes, and areas now served include the pharmaceutical, chemical, metrology, electronics and lighting industries.
caption: Glass-blowers 'Gathering' from the Furnace. (1943) by Mervyn Peake (Art.IWM ART LD 2851)
exif: {}