Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 21.djvu/425

 and left issue. Glascock devoted the long intervals of half-pay, both as commander and captain, to literary labours, and produced several volumes of naval novels, anecdotes, reminiscences, and reflections, which, as novels, are stupid enough, and in their historical parts have little value, but are occasionally interesting as social sketches of naval life in the early part of the century. The titles of these are: 1. ‘The Naval Sketch Book, or The Service Afloat and Ashore,’ 2 vols. 12mo, 1826. 2. ‘Sailors and Saints, or Matrimonial Manœuvres,’ 3 vols. 12mo, 1829. 3. ‘Tales of a Tar, with characteristic Anecdotes,’ 12mo, 1836. 4. ‘Land Sharks and Sea Gulls,’ 3 vols. 12mo, 1838. His ‘Naval Service, or Officers' Manual,’ 2 vols. post 8vo, 1836, comes under a different category, and proved, as it was meant to be, a useful manual for young officers; it passed through four editions in England; the last, published in 1859, has a short advertisement by Glascock's daughter, in which she says that ‘the work has been translated into French, Russian, Swedish, and Turkish, and adopted by the navies of those powers, as well as by that of the United States.’ It is now, of course, quite obsolete, though still interesting to the student of naval history and customs.

 GLASS, JOSEPH (1791?–1867), philanthropist, born in 1791 or 1792, was the inventor of the chimney-sweeping machine now in use. A less successful machine was invented in 1805 by Smart, but until the production of Glass's invention the friends of the sweep were unable to carry the bill for the suppression of climbing-boys. Glass, having perfected his machine and proved its practicability, was examined before a committee of the House of Lords; the result being the act of parliament for the suppression of the old system of sweeping chimneys (1 July 1842). Glass received the silver medal and the prize of 200l., but he never patented his invention. He was actively engaged for many years, first in advocating the claims of the sweeps, and afterwards in prosecuting the masters who attempted to evade the provisions of the act. The law was made more stringent in 1864. Glass died at Brixton, Surrey, 29 Dec. 1867, in his seventy-sixth year.

 GLASS, RICHARD ATWOOD (1820–1873), manufacturer of telegraph cables, was born at Bradford, Wiltshire, in 1820, and educated at King's College, London. He began life in a London accountant's office, where in the course of his business duties he became acquainted with Mr. Elliot, who was associated with the wire-rope manufactory of Kuper & Co. In 1852 Glass, who had a mechanical as well as a financial turn of mind, first adapted the wire-rope covering to submarine cables. It was first applied to the Dover and Calais cable, then partially completed. Afterwards the plan was adopted for many other cable services with great success. In the early days of submarine telegraphy Glass gave most valuable patronage and support to the enterprise by the manufacture of various descriptions of cable. The Atlantic cables of 1865 and 1866 were made under his direct superintendence. After being knighted for these services in 1866, Glass quitted the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company, and subsequently became chairman of the Anglo-American Telegraph Company. He was returned member for Bewdley, Worcestershire, in 1868, and sat for that constituency from December of that year until the March following, when he was unseated on petition. He married in 1854 Anne, daughter of Thomas Tanner, and died on 22 Dec. 1873 at Moorlands, Bitterne, Southampton.

 GLASS, THOMAS, M.D. (d. 1786), physician, a native of Tiverton, Devonshire, was entered as a medical student at Leyden on 29 Oct. 1728 (Leyden Students, Index Soc. p. 41), and graduated M.D. in July 1731 (‘Dissertatio Medica Inauguralis, De Atrophia in genere,’ 4to, Leyden, 1731). He practised with great success at Exeter. To his brother Samuel Glass, a surgeon at Oxford, he imparted a process of preparing magnesia alba. Samuel perfected the preparation, published in 1764 an ‘Essay’ on its use and salutary effects as a medicine, and derived a handsome profit from its sale. He ultimately sold the secret to a firm of chemists. Meanwhile, in the summer of 1771, Thomas Henry [q. v.] a Manchester apothecary, communicated to the College of Physicians what he maintained to be an ‘improved’ method of preparing magnesia alba, and his paper was printed in vol. ii. of the college ‘Transactions.’ After Samuel Glass's death on 25 Feb. 1773 (Gent. Mag. xliii. 155), Henry published in the following May ‘Strictures’ on the magnesia sold ‘under the