Dilwyn and Patricia Hier (Dil and Pat), are perhaps best known as the founders of Specialist Glass Fairs Ltd., and the organisers of the National Glass Fair, held bi-annually at the National Motorcycle Museum, near Birmingham. This venture grew out of their hobby of collecting decorative, antique, Stourbridge glass and the concept of bringing glass dealers to them rather than travelling all over the country in search of glass.
Dil, with an engineering background, is fascinated by the inventive techniques employed by the Victorian glass makers and decorators to achieve such masterpieces in glass. This fascination was fuelled by the book by Cyril Manley entitled Decorative Stourbridge Glass and the wonderful collection at Broadfield House Glass Museum, which has sadly closed. Once hooked on this type of glass the search for knowledge began, and it began with an introduction to Cyril Manley, by Charles Hajdamach the curator of Broadfield House, and through Cyril to Stan Eveson, the ex technical director of Thomas Webb & Sons. These knowledgeable and influential people were able to facilitate access to archive materials and so the hunt for detail was on. Fortunately Pat was of a like mind and it has been their obsession since 1982.
Over the years a wealth of knowledge has been acquired and with so many false attributions to Stourbridge glass it was felt time to make the acquired knowledge available via the internet. It was also felt a total waste if all the detail accumulated was not recorded for the benefit of future generations. It has been very important that their collection is based on fully authenticated items, identified at source and not attributions by the vendors. It is hoped that the information provided on this site will enable an informed judgement to be made on any pieces you might be lucky enough to find.
So why, initially, protect the content with passwords? Well, some of the content is reproducing archive materials where copyright issues have to be sorted. Other content has been put together with the original intention to publish a book and it might be that this content will be subject to an access fee.
Our aim is still to make significant information available free of charge and therefore more will be made accessible as time goes on.
We hope you enjoy this site and would welcome any feedback.
The search for knowledge has been global and on one trip to the USA they were fortunate enough to meet with the editor of The Glass Collector’s Digest, Tom O’Connor. He not only introduced them to various collectors, museum curators and glass factory owners but also published an article on their visit.