Glass Brothers factory from the London Free Press, Dec. 18, 1888 The Glass Brothers Pottery In the mid-1880s, Samuel Glass, a member of a prominent London family brought William Gray, a Tilsonburg pottery manufacturer, to London to start a new business. Glass and Gray had operated a pottery together in Tilsonburg for several years. A number of investors including 17 potters took shares in the new London Crockery Co. The Company was a short-lived operation which did manage, in two years (1886-8), to bring into operation two large kilns in the vicinity of Highbury Ave. and the CNR tracks. After the company failed, Glass, in partnership with his brother John, bought the plant and continued to manufacture on the site until 1897. Relying initially on Gray's expertise, London Crockery and, afterwards, the Glass Brothers put out a wide variety of crockery vessels. By 1888, the company's five kilns could turn 30 tons of clay (imported from New Jersey and Bristol) into crockery each day.