Ronald Stennett-Willson and Wedgwood glass

Clean shapes, rich colours and a touch of Scandinavian cool: the glass made at King’s Lynn under Ronald Stennett-Willson is some of the most collectable British glass of the 1960s and 70s.

Scandinavian ideas, Norfolk furnaces

Ronald Stennett-Willson was one of Britain’s leading post-war glass designers, and in the 1950s he worked closely with the Swedish glass industry. In 1967 he brought those ideas home and founded King’s Lynn Glass in Norfolk, making modern hand-made glass in simple, elegant forms.

One of his best-known early designs, the Sheringham candlestick, won a Queen’s Design Award. Its stem holds from one to nine glass discs and it was made in five colours.

Wedgwood Glass

In 1969 Wedgwood bought the company, and King’s Lynn Glass became Wedgwood Glass. The range carried on, and Stennett-Willson stayed as managing director until he retired in 1980. Wedgwood went on to take a controlling stake in Dartington Glass in 1982, bringing designer Frank Thrower’s work into the Wedgwood range too.

The glass animals

Some of the most popular pieces from King’s Lynn are the solid glass animals and paperweights: birds, owls, whales, rhinos, seals and more, in clear, amber, smoke and other colours. Several were designed for Wedgwood by David Midwinter of the Stoke-on-Trent potting family, so not every Wedgwood glass animal is a Stennett-Willson design. Some carry a Wedgwood mark or a paper label, but many have lost their labels over the years, so the shape, colour and weight of the glass are often the best clues.