Thomas Webb & Sons was one of the most important English glassmakers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, based in the Stourbridge glassmaking district of the West Midlands. Founded by Thomas Webb in the 1830s, the firm became renowned for technical innovation and for some of the most ambitious art glass produced in Britain during the Victorian period.
The company is especially celebrated for its English cameo glass, in which layers of coloured glass were carved and acid-etched to create relief decoration, typically white figures and flowers against a coloured ground. The finest pieces were produced by the brothers George and Thomas Woodall and their team, and these are now highly prized. Webb also made Burmese glass under licence, shading from yellow to pink, and developed coloured art glass such as Alexandrite, alongside fine engraved rock crystal glass and high-quality cut tableware that continued well into the twentieth century. Many pieces carry an acid-etched or engraved Thomas Webb mark, but unmarked examples exist, and cameo glass by other Stourbridge firms is easily confused with it. Condition is vital, since chips, cracks and polished rims significantly reduce value.
