Leighton, the most notable member of a family of glass-makers, flourished between 1825 and 1868. His father, Thomas Leighton was born in Birmingham, England, became foreman, or "gaffer, " of a glass-house in Dublin, and was holding a similar position at the Canongate Works in Edinburgh in 1825 when the New England Glass Company of Cambridge, Massachussets, contracted for his services as superintendent of its plant. Since glass-makers were forbidden to emigrate, he had to smuggle himself out of the country and was joined later by his wife Ann and their children.
Career
All seven of their sons entered the company's service: James as machinist, Oliver as cutter, the other five as blowers. John, the eldest, succeeded his father as gaffer. William learned every branch of the business and was specially interested in the chemistry of glass-manufacture. Experimenting constantly, he produced a great variety of colored glass and even made imitation jewels.
In 1848 or 1849 he hit upon an original formula for ruby glass, which consisted of dropping the right number of twenty-dollar gold pieces into the mix. The resulting metal was a handsome rose-red, free from any suggestion of yellow, with a golden glint in some lights and an occasional tinge of magenta, and possessing its own characteristic weight and ring. It could stand comparison with the best European ruby glass and has always been prized.
When the glass industry moved westward with the growth of the nation and the search for cheap fuel, Leighton went with it and in 1863 was taken into the firm of Hobbs, Brockunier & Company of Wheeling, West Virginia. J. H. Hobbs, the senior member of the firm, was also a former employee of the New England Glass Company. Leighton now made several improvements in the technique of glassmanufacture, but his great stroke was the working out, in 1864, of a new formula for lime-flint glass. Hitherto it had been an inferior article and was little used. By substituting bicarbonate of soda for soda-ash in the batch and by determining the proportions of all the materials with greater care, he made a lime-flint glass equal in appearance to the old lead-flint, and distinguishable from it only by its weight and its lack of the resonant, metallic ring. The new glass could be manufactured for less than half the cost of the old, which it practically drove from the market. Leighton retired in 1868.
Achievements
Leighton's fame rested on his production of high qality imitation jewels. He was credited with the original formula to create ruby and lime flint glass.
Connections
Leighton had been married, March 8, 1829, to Mary Needham. His son William succeeded him as superintendent of the works of Hobbs, Brockunier & Company.
