Pyrex - Heat Resistant Glass
Corning LTD
The hugely popular Pyrex brand of glassware was originally developed in America but all British-made Pyrex is still manufactured at the Wear Glassworks in Sunderland.
The story of Pyrex begins in the early 20th century with an American company, Corning Glassworks, who began work on developing a new glass to withstand extremes of temperature. The glass was to be used in train lanterns which had a tendency to crack due to the extreme heat on one side (from the light) and extreme cold from snow and rain on the other.
By adding boron to the typical glass mix of silicate sand, soda and ground lime, the glass became much more resistant to heat and was more lightweight. The new glass was named Nonex, standing for non-explanding glass. The resilient nature of this new glass led to little need for replacement however, and soon Corning were needing to find other sources of income.
In 1913 one of Corning's scientists, J.T. Littleton, took some sawn off Nonex battery jars home for his wife to use as makeshift casserole dishes. It was found that the glass survived use for cooking just as well as traditional ceramic ovenware. Soon Corning began redeveloping the product, removing harmful chemicals such as lead from the mixture, to produce glassware which could be used for cooking and so, in 1915 in America, Pyrex was launched with reasonable success.
The patents for Pyrex were brought tot he Uk but initially no major Glassworks were interested in the new product. Finally a small company in Sunderland, Wear Glassworks, bought the patent to manufacture Pyrex for sale in Britain and Europe. In 1954 Corning bought shares in Wear Glassworks and the company is now known as Corning Ltd.
Submitted by: Vicky Harper, 25 August 2006
