Up: Hayward
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Revd. Samuel Hayward (1718-57) |
In 1757, at the height of his powers and when he was barely thirty-nine
years of age, he died. His epitaph reads:
"Hayward undaunted met his nature's foe
And smiled exulting as he felt the blow."
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A hundred years later, his sermons were still being published and
read.
The founder of Haywards Limited was only five
years of age when his father, the Reverend Samuel Hayward, died.
Unfortunately no record of how and where he spent his early days has
been preserved. When young Samuel Hayward set up for himself in the
glass trade, he described himself as a "glass-cutter and glazier."
The distinction been the crafts is fine, but it tells us that even at
that early stage the Haywards, having started a job, preferred to see
it through. "The business of the glazier," according to a reference
book of the period, "may be confined to the mere fitting and setting
of glass, even the cutting up of the plates into squares being generally
an independent art requiring a degree of tact and judgment not
necessarily possessed by the building artificer."
Of the many guilds representing the various
trades in the City, that of the glass sellers was of comparatively
recent date. For example the Ironmongers' Company had been incorporated
in the reign of Edward IV, just three hundred years before Samuel
Hayward started business. The Worshipful Company of Glass Sellers,
the members of which sold drinking glasses and other vessels as well
as window-glass and mirrors, was not formed until two centuries later
when Charles II was on the throne.
The glass trade had been severely restricted.
In 1615, Admiral Sir Robert Mansell, Treasurer of the Royal Navy,
possessed the sole right of manufacturing glass in England, a
privilege he retained for thirty years.
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