Richard Atwood Glass
Sir Richard Atwood Glass (1820 - 22 Dec 1873) was an English telegraph cable manufacturer and a Conservative politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1868 to 1869.
Glass was born at Bradford, the son of Francis Glass. He was educated at King's College, London.[1] In 1846 with George Elliot, he provided capital for an insolvent wire-rope manufacturers Heimann & Kuper, and by 1851 the firm was trading as Glass, Elliott & Company. The company produced submarine communications cables and in 1854 ran a circuit from Denmark to Sweden and undertook the manufacture of long cables for the French Mediterranean Telegraph Company of J W Brett. The cables with a resin-insulated conducting wire protected by an armour of iron wire proved to be very long-lasting, and in the later 1850s the company introduced anti-corrosive compounds to coat the finished cable. The firm merged with the Gutta-Percha Company in 1864, and Glass became managing director of the resulting Telegraph Construction & Maintenance Company.[2] Glass's company provided half of the first Transatlantic telegraph cable and all the cable laid by the Great Eastern in 1866. Glass was knighted for these services.[1]
At the 1868 general election Glass was elected Member of Parliament for Bewdley. He was unseated on 16 February 1869 when the election was declared void.[3]
Glass lived at Ashurst, Dorking, Surrey. He died at the age of 53.
Glass married Anne Tanner, daughter of Thomas Tanner of Amesbury in 1854.
References
- ^ a b William Retlaw Williams. The parliamentary history of the county of Worcester : including the city of Worcester, and the boroughs of Bewdly, Droitwich, Dudley, Evesham, Kidderminster, Bromsgrove and Pershore, from the earliest times to the present day, 1213-1897 ; with biographical and genealogical notices of the members
- ^ Distant Writing - A History of the Telegraph Companies in Britain between 1838 and 1868
- ^ Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "B" (part 3)
External links
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