The Eggintons were "a glass family", originally from Birmingham, England. Oliver Foley Egginton was one of four brothers from a second marriage. He specialized in glass cutting but was also knowledgeable about other aspects of the glass business.
Related Files: Obituaries: Oliver F. Egginton; Joseph A. Egginton; and Walter E. Egginton. Additional genealogical information can be found in the Portland file.
The Eggintons were "a glass family", originally from Birmingham, England. Oliver Foley Egginton was one of four brothers from a second marriage. He specialized in glass cutting but was also knowledgeable about other aspects of the glass business.
Oliver emigrated in 1865, joining his brother Enoch and half-brother Thomas in Maine where Enoch had been appointed superintendent of the Portland Glass Company at the time the company was established in 1863. In 1865 Oliver arranged for the immigration of his sons: Joseph Augustus, Oliver Enoch (called "George"), Alfred James, and Walter Edward to work at the Portland factory. Here Joseph soon became head of the company's cutting department.
After a disasterous fire in 1867 all of the Eggintons, except Joseph, immediately moved to Montreal to help run the recently established St. Lawrence Glass Company. Joseph initially stayed behind in Portland, but he too emigrated, a couple years before the Portland company closed in 1873, and established his own glass decorating company in Montreal. The St. Lawrence Glass Company ran into financial difficulties and closed by 1875, causing Oliver and Walter to move to Corning, NY about 1873 where they initially worked for the company that was to become J. Hoare & Company. When T. G. Hawkes established his own cutting shop in 1880 Oliver and Walter joined him. Joseph also eventually left Montreal, sometime before 1890. He too moved to Corning where he cut glass for Hawkes from time-to-time but also set up his own business which included the design and manufacture of stained (leaded) glass panels. Enoch, "George", and Alfred James all died while the family was living in Montreal.
Oliver Egginton left Hawkes and established his own company in 1896. Walter joined his father in this venture which was incorporated in 1899. When Oliver died the following year, Walter became head of the O. F. Egginton Company. Although it prospered initially, the company began to fail after 1910 and was dissolved in 1918. The Egginton trademark, above on the right, is said to have been acid-etched on glass as early as 1900 (Sinclaire and Spillman 1997, pp. 133-6; see also Spillman, 1996, pp. 284-287).
[Kohut, John], 2006: An interview with the Egginton sisters, The Hobstar, Vol. 28, No. 7, pp. 4690-6.
Spillman, J. S., 2005: The Egginton family: glassmakers on the move, The Glass Club Bulletin, No. 203, pp. 5-16 (winter 2005)
Updated 5 Sep 2007