Cookson's or Swineburne's Glassworks

Onesiphorus Dagnia (of the Ouseburn Glassworks, Newcastle) set up the first glasshouse at South Shields around 1707. In 1756 they mortgaged the glasshouse to John Cookson. Isaac Cookson had set up a glasshouse in South Shields for his son, John, in 1737. John Cookson entered into a partnership with a Thomas Jefferies to make crown glass there. On John's death in 1785, the works passed to his son Isaac and the Cooksons remained the leading glassmakers in the district until the middle of nineteenth century when the works passed to R. and W. Swinburne and Company, who manufactured glass here until 1876. In the early 19th century the largest glass manufactory in the kingdom. The works used the Ballast Wagonway (HER ref. 2427) to take waste to The Bents and to bring in coarse sand to use in grinding. The Glassworks were acquired in 1892 by the Harton Coal Company and demolished to give access to the Harton Low Staiths (HER ref. 2456). The site has been levelled, leaving only chimney base dated 1865, but more features may survive underground.