Artist. Glass decorator. Inventor. These were the various occupations of my brilliant great-great-grandfather, Thomas Henry Shields King, whose artistic career was marred by tragedy and scandal. Born in 1863 to Thomas Todd and Jane King, he grew up in the Islington, London area with his eight siblings. He appears in the 1871 census as a scholar and his father is a manager for a boot and shoe dealer. In 1877 his mother died of tuberculosis. Jane was just 41 years old and her widowed husband had several children to take care of. Thomas Todd took a position at Clarke’s shoe factory in Shoreditch and in 1879 he married Mary Louisa, the daughter of his under manager Robert Taylor. The age gap of 20 years didn’t seem to bother Mary.

The King family appear in the 1881 census living at 7 Castle Road, St Pancras. Thomas Henry’s occupation is given as artist but we know from the tragic events of the following year that he was in the business of glass etching, a technique of creating artistic designs on the surface of glass. According to the website Bear Glass, “Acid etching is a process invented in the Victorian era. It gives a frosted, etched finish in delicate tones of white and diffused shades and is capable of producing very intricate patterns” (www.acidetchedglass.us/history.html). A template or stencil of the design is affixed to the glass which is dipped in hydrofluoric acid, an extremely corrosive substance that eats away at the exposed glass creating a rough surface and translucent appearance of frosted glass.

It was precisely this corrosive substance that killed Thomas Henry’s father on 6 November 1882. According to one family historian, “Thomas Todd was in the habit of drinking Worcestershire sauce straight from the bottle. With characteristic Victorian carelessness”, his son had put a mixture of glacial acetic acid and hydrofluoric acid in a Worcestershire sauce bottle for etching glass. Before he could be stopped, Thomas Todd grabbed the bottle and drank the contents of it. He died seven hours later from acute gastritis and peritonitis consistent with drinking acid. Upon the death of his father, Thomas Henry, his siblings and widowed stepmother all faced the prospect of going into the workhouse. Rather than face this bleak future and given the obvious attraction between Thomas Henry and his 24-year-old stepmother Mary Louisa, they decided to set up home together. Future census returns indicate that Thomas and Mary lived together as husband and wife. The story passed down through the family was that there was something odd about their relationship but if anyone asked they could produce a marriage certificate showing Mary Louisa was married to a Thomas King!

By 1891 the family had taken up residence in Bethnal Green. Several children were born to this strange union of stepmother and stepson. Consequently Thomas’ siblings were not only aunt and uncle to his children but were also their ‘siblings’ so to speak since Mary Louisa was stepmum to her ‘husband’s’ siblings and mother to his children. The census of 1891 shows Thomas Henry working as a master glass embosser. For various pubs around London, he made ornamental windows and mirrors using a sandblasting technique.

At the turn of the century the family relocated to 31 Balls Pond Road, Tottenham. The 1901 census gives Thomas’ occupation as a self-employed glass decorator working from home. The family moved to 35 Balls Pond Road in the following year and there is an entry for Thomas in the 1902 London Post Office Directory as glass embosser at this address. If you have ancestors in London of a particular occupation, you might find them and their business premises listed in similar trade and Post Office directories, many of which can be found online at www.thegenealogist.co.uk. In 1906 the family moved back to the house they lived a few years earlier at number 31 Balls Pond Road.

There have been some changes by the time of the 1911 census. Thomas’ sons Harry and Richard, now much older, are assisting in the family glass decorating business. The family are still residing at Balls Pond Road but they have moved next door to number 33 while Thomas uses the premises at number 31 as his workshop for the family business. London electoral records show they lived at this address till about 1917. Electoral records are also good sources of genealogical information that show where your ancestors lived and for how long. They complement the census records and fill in the 10-year gap between censuses. If you can’t locate an ancestor in the census you might still be able to find them in the electoral rolls.

It does appear, from previous bad experience, that Thomas has stopped using acid etching and now uses the safer method of sand blasting to decorate glass. The website Glass Etching Secrets describes this process as “one of the most desirable etching processes available today because it can help you achieve artistic items with various unique effects. This process uses a sandblaster and an air compressor to power the system which blasts high pressure abrasives onto the glass. The hard abrasives then lightly chips the surface of the glass to create a frosted look. The longer you blast, and the higher the pressure, the deeper the exposed parts of the stencil are etched into the glass” (www.glassetchingsecrets.com/glasssandblasting.html). Thomas advertised his business in at least one trade magazine. The 1917 National Glass Budget contains a listing for him as glass engraver of 31 Balls Pond Rd.

By 1918 the family had moved to Potters Bar, Barnet. It was about this time that Thomas started to design sandblasting machines and on the 11th May 1920 he patented an idea for an improved sandblasting device. I found his patent listed at the website Espacenet which “offers free access to information about inventions and technical developments from the 19th century right up to today” (/www.epo.org). The website has data on more than 90 million patents from all over the world.

Patent application number 166,761 begins with a brief introduction followed by a description of the invention: “I, Thomas King of ‘Branksome’, High Road, Potters Bar, in the County of Middlesex, Sand Blast Machine Maker, do hereby declare the nature of this invention to be as follows. This invention relates to machinery or apparatus for use in cutting or decorating glass, metal, stone and other hard substances or for cleaning or otherwise improving such surfaces… by means of sand driven or actuated by a blast of steam or compressed air.” One of the dangers inherent with the operation of sandblasting machines is the health hazard that comes from breathing in the fine dust matter created in the air. In his patent application, Thomas states that “the chief object of this invention [is] to prevent the free circulation of dust particles… and so minimise the danger to health incidental [to] the operation with the aid of the present improved device being rendered practically immune from such danger” (Patent 166,761).

We don’t know how successful his invention was, but records show that he built and sold the invention. In his will dated 1 August 1922 Thomas writes: “I give and bequeath the proceeds realised by the sale of my Patent No 166761… comprising machines, parts, wood patterns and core boxes and everything in connection with the patent to be divided equally.”

One family story that was passed down told of Thomas Henry’s habit of drinking while collecting payment in person from publicans for work performed where as a matter of course a drink was put on the bar. This led to him becoming an alcoholic. In 1923 when Thomas was close to death, his son James went to his father’s cottage in order to exercise the pony that belonged to his father. James harnessed the pony to the trap and started to drive it but the pony had a mind of its own and knew exactly where it was going – on a circuit from pub to pub. The pony would not move until it had received a pint of porter in a bucket. James had a drink with each publican for good will and after he was done was not sure who was more inebriated – him or the pony!

Thomas Henry King died on 29 October 1923. His sons continued the family glass business for a few more years until the 1930s. The family business has long since gone but it’s quite possible the next time you go out for a pint in London you might be sitting in the same pub that my great-great-grandfather once frequented whose windows and mirrors he ornately designed.