THE DUMBARTON GLASS WORKS COMPANY: A STUDY IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP.

The article presents a study in entrepreneurship by citing the case of the Dumbarton Glass Works Company. Though both the town of Dumbarton, Scotland, and its environs have attracted the attentions of many local historians, relatively little has been written on the origins of the glass industry there. There are suggestions of a glasshouse in Dumbarton, founded so it is said by a Huguenot refugee, in the seventeenth century, and in view of the extent of industrial experiment in Scotland in that century these suggestions may well reflect the truth, but there is no traceable positive evidence. The firm evidence of glass making in Dumbarton really begins with the foundation of the Dumbarton Glass Works Company 1776, and even then there is a further gap to 1793 before the surviving business records begin. The foundation of the Dumbarton glassworks 1776 probably reflected the increasing marketing opportunities for glass in Scotland. Urban growth was one feature of this, as was the general increase in the population of Scotland, reflected in a comparison of Webster's figures in 1755 with those of the Census of 1801. Of the final phase of the company's history from 1838 to 1850 when James Christie was the sole owner, there is a lack of evidence, which makes it difficult to comment on his entrepreneurial abilities.