The Last Fifty Years of the Excise Duty on Glass

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By a statute of 1777all the duties imposed by the Acts since 1745 were repealed, but only to be replaced by a new Excise duty upon manufactured glass and a Customs duty on the various kinds of imported glass. In the words of the Act: “For upon all the materials or metal or other preparations whatsoever, which shall hereafter be made use of in the making of all plate or flint glass, and of all enamel, stained, or paste glass, and of all phial glass . . . the sum of 18s. 8d. for every hundred-weight.” A duty of 7s. per cwt. was also placed on the materials used in the manufacture of broad glass, that is, “spread window glass.”

D. N. Sandilands