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The Venetians and Muranians followed the Romans in the art, and examples of old Venetian glassware show rare skill and ingenuity. To the Venetians belongs the honour of first making glass at a cost to allow of its being more generally used, and they also introduced the art of making window glass and drinking vessels into this country. Jacob Verzelina, a Venetian, introduced such glassmaking into England, working at a factory in Crutched Friars, London, between 1550 and 1557, where he made window glass, afterwards carrying on similar work in other places about the country until his death in 1606.

Not until 1619 were glass works started in the neighbourhood of Stourbridge. There we find some remains of a factory worked by Tyzack about that date in making window glass in the village of Oldswinford. That Stourbridge should have been selected as one of the early centres for glassmaking is probably due to the presence in that locality of the so necessary and important to glass manufacturers in building their furnaces and pots, and the coal used for maintaining the fires for melting their glass.