The first known glass factory was established around 1400BC by the Egyptians. By 500AD glass making had spread throughout the Mediterranean, Northern Europe and Britain thanks to the Roman Empire.

For centuries flat glass was produced by using a metal tube through which a large bubble of molten glass was blown. This bubble was continually reheated to keep it in a pliable form. The bubble was then split and beaten into a flat piece of glass.

In the 1950’s the Pilkington Brothers developed the process of ‘float’ glass. (As described in “How Glass is Made”) In 1960 this process went into full scale production and the profits started rolling in.

Today most of the world’s glass is manufactured using float glass technology.