A METHOD OF MANUFACTURING GLASS ICICLES, SPANGLES, AND EVERY OTHER DESCRIPTION OF ORNAMENTAL GLASS WORK, WITH A LOOP OR LOOPS OF THE SAME MATERIAL
Year: 1816

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JOHN
ASTON WILKES, of Birmingham, in the County of Warwick, Glass Manufac-
turer, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third; .by His
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Thirtieth day of September, in the
fifty-sixth year of His reign, did give and grant unto me, the said John Aston
Wilkes, my executors, administrators, and assigns, His special licence, full
power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said John Aston Wilkes, my
executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said John Aston
Wilkes, my executors, administrators, or assigns, should at any time agree
with, and no others, from time to time and at all times during the term of
years. therein expressed,, should and lawfully, might make, use, exercise, and
vend, within England,, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my
Invention of "A METHOD OF MANUFACTURING GLASS ICICLES, SPANGLES, AND
EVERY OTHER DESCRIPTION OF ORNAMENTAL GLASS WORK, WITH A LOOP OR LOOPS OF
THE SAME MATERIAL;" in which Letters Patent there is contained a proviso

page_text: obliging me, the said John Aston Wilkes, under my hand and seal, to cause
a particular description of the nature of my said Invention, and in what
manner the same is to be performed, to be inrolled in His Majesty's High
Court of Chancery within two calendar months next and immediately after the
said recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same, relation being thereunto
had, may more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
John Aston Wilkes, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention,
and the manner in which the same is to be performed, is particularly described
and ascertained in manner following (that is to say):-
Specification of a Patent for the manufacturing of icicles, spangles, and
every other description or ornament peculiar to glass chandelier furniture,
with a loop or loops of the same material, which loop or loops may be
attached by heat to any of the said articles after they are completed in other
respects, either in part or in whole. This process may be effected by any of
those methods by which two seperate pieces of glass with the assistance of heat
are united to each other, but I have found it most conveniently accomplished
in the following manner :-The article to which the loop is intended to be
affixed being cut and polished, either completely or partially, as its form or
bulk may render expedient, is cautiously exposed by the workman to the
stream of a common blowpipe with one hand, whilst with the other he attaches
to its softened extremity or edge a small portion of flint or any other coloured
glass, which when sufficiently hot he presses flat with a pair of plyers or any
other tool; this done, it is again heated quite soft and immediately perforated
with a piercing tool of iron or any other metal, the loop thus formed being
finally rendered circular in its shape and smooth in its surface by the combined
employment of the blowpipe and piercing tool; or the glass loop may be
manufactured separately, either in dies, or by winding a filament of softened
glass round a wire as is done in making a certain description of beads called
lapped beads, which may or may not be cut and polished like the article
with which it is to be united, and then attached by heat to any of the various
species of glass chandelier furniture, either with or without the interposition of
a third portion of glass.
In witness whereof, I, the said John Aston Wilkes, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, this Twenty-third day of November, in the year of
our Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixteen.
JOHN ASTON WILKES. (L.S.)

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Twenty-third day of November,
in the fifty-seventh year of the reign of His Majesty King George the Third,
the aforesaid John Aston Wilkes came before our said Lord the King in
His Chancery, and acknowledged the Instrument aforesaid, and all and
every thing therein contained and specified, in form above written. And
also the Instrument aforesaid was stampt according to the tenor of the
Statute made in the fifty-fifth year of His said Majesty's reign.
Inrolled the Twenty-seventh day of November, One thousand eight
hundred and sixteen.