By the This Day in Wine History Editorial Team · Researched, fact-checked & verified by the TDIWH Editorial Team.
The strong, dark, heavy wine bottle — the shape that made it possible to lay wine down to age and, eventually, to trap the fizz of Champagne — did not come from a vineyard or a cellar. It came, indirectly, from a naval timber shortage. In 1615, England’s king banned the burning of wood in glass furnaces to save oak for his warships. The unintended consequence, decades later, was the modern wine bottle.
Key takeaways
- In 1615, James I banned wood as fuel for glassmaking, to conserve oak timber for shipbuilding and the navy.
- Glassmakers switched to coal; hotter coal furnaces produced tougher, darker “English” glass.
- Sir Robert Mansell secured control of the new coal-fired glass industry.
- That strong glass became the robust English wine bottle — though the popular credit to Sir Kenelm Digby as its “inventor” is contested.
Saving oak for the navy
In 1615, King James I issued a proclamation with a very seventeenth-century worry behind it: England was burning through its oak. Timber was strategic material — it built ships — and the glass industry, with its wood-fired furnaces, was singled out as a glutton. Oak, the proclamation noted, had “that toughnesse and heart” that made it “of excellent use for shipping,” and the “wastfull destruction” of it by glasshouses was declared intolerable.
So the crown forbade the use of wood to fuel glassmaking, and pointed the industry at a different fuel: glass could be made, the proclamation said, with “sea-cole, pit-cole and other fewell, without any manner of wood.” It was, in modern terms, a piece of naval-forestry policy. Nobody was thinking about wine.
A king trying to keep oak in his shipyards pushed an entire industry onto coal, and coal made the glass that made the bottle.
The accident in the furnace
The switch from wood to coal changed the glass. Coal furnaces burned hotter, and to protect the molten glass from coal smoke, glassmakers enclosed it in covered pots and built bigger, permanent, brick furnaces with chimneys. The glass that came out was tougher, thicker, and darker than the delicate wood-fired product — a robust, near-black “English glass.”
One man came to dominate this new industry: Admiral Sir Robert Mansell, who from 1615 acquired an interest in glassmaking and consolidated a monopoly over coal-fired production in the following years. English glass was now strong, cheap, and made at scale — a material looking for a use.
It found one in the bottle. By the middle of the century, English glasshouses were turning out squat, dark, heavy “shaft-and-globe” wine bottles, strong enough to be stacked and binned in a cellar, to survive rough handling, and eventually to hold the pressure of a wine still fermenting inside. That strength is what made bottle-aging — and, later, sparkling wine — possible.
Crediting it carefully
Popular history likes to hand the invention to one man: Sir Kenelm Digby, a colorful courtier and dabbler in science, is often called “the father of the modern wine bottle,” credited with commissioning the strong dark bottle in the 1630s. It makes a tidy story. It is also shakier than it sounds.
The evidence is a Parliamentary dispute of 1661–62, in which witnesses claimed Digby had invented the bottles “near 30 years” earlier — testimony recorded decades after the fact, which the wine writer Tom Stevenson has argued is closer to hearsay than proof. Strong coal-fired glass, and many glassmakers making bottles from it, predated Digby’s supposed breakthrough. Digby may well have popularized a particular robust design; he did not conjure the bottle from nothing.
The safer and more interesting truth is upstream of any single inventor. A king trying to keep oak in his shipyards pushed an entire industry onto coal, and coal made the glass that made the bottle. The wine bottle we know was set in motion not by a vintner’s idea but by a forestry decree — one of those moments when the history of wine turns on something that has nothing to do with wine.
Quick facts
- The decree: 1615: James I bans wood as fuel for glassmaking
- The reason: To conserve oak timber for shipbuilding and the navy
- The switch: Glassmakers move to coal; hotter furnaces yield tougher, darker glass
- The industrialist: Sir Robert Mansell, who controlled coal-fired English glass
- The result: The strong dark “shaft-and-globe” English wine bottle (mid-17th century)
- Why it mattered: Strong enough for binning, aging, and later sparkling wine
- The caveat: Sir Kenelm Digby’s credit as “inventor” of the bottle is traditional and contested
This day in wine history
- 1615 — James I bans wood-fired glass furnaces to save oak for the navy; glassmaking shifts to coal.
- 1615 onward — Sir Robert Mansell builds a monopoly over coal-fired English glass.
- c. 1630s–1650s — The strong dark English wine bottle emerges, traditionally (and contestedly) linked to Sir Kenelm Digby.
Frequently asked questions
Why did England ban wood-fired glass furnaces in 1615?
To conserve oak timber. Oak was needed for shipbuilding and the navy, and glassmaking’s wood-fired furnaces were seen as wasting it. James I’s 1615 proclamation forced glassmakers to switch from wood to coal.
How did that lead to the wine bottle?
Coal furnaces burned hotter and, with covered pots, produced a tougher, darker glass. That strong “English glass” was ideal for robust wine bottles — heavy enough to bin, age, and eventually hold the pressure of sparkling wine.
Did Sir Kenelm Digby invent the wine bottle?
He is traditionally credited with it in the 1630s, but the claim is contested. It rests on Parliamentary testimony from 1661–62, decades after the fact, and strong coal-fired glass and bottle-making predated him. He likely popularized a design rather than inventing the bottle outright.
Who was Sir Robert Mansell?
An admiral who, from 1615, built a monopoly over England’s new coal-fired glass industry — the industry that produced the strong glass from which the English wine bottle was made.
Read more
Discover more pivotal turns in wine’s story in our Turning Points in Wine History collection, or read how Champagne came to depend on strong glass.
Further reading
As an Amazon Associate, This Day in Wine History earns from qualifying purchases. Book links are affiliate links; cover images are used for identification.
Willy Van den Bossche
Illustrated history of glass bottles 1500-1850, including the sturdy English wine bottle.
David Whitehouse
British Museum survey of glassmaking, from ancient furnaces to modern techniques.
Sources
- Institute of Historical Research (Univ. of London) & The National Archives, The Power of Petitioning project — quoting the 1615 proclamation on glass and timber. history.ac.uk
- J. F. Larkin & P. L. Hughes (eds.), Stuart Royal Proclamations, Vol. I (Oxford, 1973) — the authoritative edition of the proclamation’s text. oup.com
- Dictionary of Welsh Biography (National Library of Wales), “Mansel, Sir Robert” — on the coal-glass monopoly. biography.wales
- Stephen Skelton MW, “The Knight Who Invented Champagne” — on coal furnaces, English glass, and the strong bottle. englishwine.com
- Tom Stevenson, “No Merret in Digby” — a critical reassessment of the Digby bottle attribution. wine-pages.com
- Eleanor S. Godfrey, The Development of English Glassmaking 1560–1640 (Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1975) — the standard history of the coal transition. uncpress.org
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