Thames Plate Glass Company was a British glass works that operated from 1835 to 1874.[1] Its factories were located at the northern end of Goodluck Hope peninsula, and it was a major employer in Orchard Place district.[1] It demonstrated some very large plate glass at The Great Exhibition of 1851.[1]
The company produced part of the optics for the Craig telescope, a large telescope with a lens built in the 1850s. The lens was a doublet with a flint glass by Chance Brothers and a plate glass cast by Thames Plate Glass Company.[2] [3]
In 1872 the company provided glass samples to Professor Barff.[4] He had a lecture published about this in the Journal of the Society of the Arts in April 1872.[4] He also noted statistics provided by the Thames Plate Glass Company, which state that the UK was producing 7.5 million feet of plate glass per year.[4]
The company went out of business by the mid-1870s.[1]
One of those employed by the company was Cuthbert Dixon,[5] who went on to manage a plate-class company in America.[5]
Some contemporaries to the company were the Birmingham Plate Glass Company, British Plate Glass Company, and the Manchester and Liverpool Plate Glass Company.[6]