Draft:Thomas Pache


Thomas Pache
Thomas Pache 1841-1918
Born10 June 1841
Birmingham, England
Died13 December 1918 (aged 77)
Birmingham, West Midlands, England
OccupationsArtificial Glass Eye Maker, Manufacturer
Known forArtificial Glass Eyes
Snellen's "Reformed Eye" using English glass
AwardsPrize Medal

Thomas Pache (10 June 1841 - 13 December 1918) was a pioneering Ocularist[1] and owner of the award winning family firm Pache & Son, which provided major UK hospitals with artificial glass eyes as well as the perfected Snellen "Reformed Eye". [2]

Early Life

Born in Birmingham and of Swiss-Huguenot ancestry[3], Thomas descended from an old historic bourgeois family from Morges in the Canton of Vaud, Switzerland, which has ancestral records dating back centuries involving local artisans, merchants, and businessmen.[4]

He was the second eldest of eight children to Charles Lewis Pache (1814-1885) and Frances Pache (1818-1890). His father was also a master artificial eye maker, who having seen French glass eyes at the Great Exhibition of 1851 went on to make superior glass eyes that were much cheaper. His firm operated in Hurst Street, Birmingham.[5]

Charles Pache Senior

Thomas was also the grandson of Charles Pache Senior (1766-1849), who was a successful Engraver and copper plate printer, running a business in the old city area of Bristol.[6] [7]

Charles Lewis Pache business advertisement circa 1853

He first joined his father's business in 1871 which was under the name C Pache & Son, specialising in Artificial Glass Eyes, as well as Syringes, test tubes, foreign bird skins and insects.[8]

Pache & Son

It was in the late 1870's when the firm was eventually handed over to Thomas, as noted in the London Gazette on June 3, 1879: NOTICE is hereby given, that the Partnership heretofore subsisting between us the undersigned, Charles Pache and Thomas Pache, trading as C. Pache and Son of No. 171 Bristol-street, Birmingham, in the county of Warwick, Artificial Eye Manufacturers, is dissolved by mutual consent. The said Thomas Pache will continue the business and receive and pay all debts due and owing to and from the said firm.

The Pache Family

It was during the 1890's that the family firm had consolidated it's position as one of the countries leading artificial glass eye makers, and by 1900 was providing them to all major hospitals in the UK.[9] It was also providing naturalist supplies, particularly to taxidermists, which required the studying of a range of animal eyes to replicate perfectly in glass form.[10]

By this time, the firm would have upwards of 4,000 eyes in stock and ready to be delivered to hospitals at any one time. They created glass eyes in various colours, sizes, and morbid conditions. Due to their exquisite design and detail, they even supplied models to universities so that the various examples of diseases and conditions of the eye could be examined by the students.[11]

In 1894 Thomas wished to further secure the future of the firm, and looked to pass down the craftmanship of making artificial eyes, which relied on meticulous artistic precision. He now had his son Frederick Louis Pache working alongside him as his protégé and heir. The business was solely ran by the family members which included his daughter Ella, and numerous in-laws and cousins.[12][13]

Pache & Son

In the later 1890's, Thomas managed to perfect Snellen's Reformed Eye using English glass, which was notoriously harder to work with as it was lead-glass instead of the lighter soda-lime glass of which the Muller brothers used when they had originally succeeded in 1892 to blow a hollow artificial eye.[14]

This enabled the business to profit greatly from this breakthrough, as the reformed eye was used by hospitals in the UK to treat eye injuries leading up to and during the first world war. This was because it had a hollow space between two connected glass layers instead of a thin, single shell, preventing a sunken look which in turn provided more comfort and better mobility to the user.[15]

Later Life

It was in 1910 when his son and heir to the family business Frederick Louis Pache unexpectedly passed away from a short bout of Tuberculosis aged 38, leaving behind a wife and 4 children.[16]

Thomas Pache in 1914

The unexpected death of Thomas' son and heir came as a shock to the firm, but it still carried on operating, with his daughter Ella Pache now helping in managing the business.[17]

On 13 Dec1 1918 Thomas died of arterial atheroma in Kings Norton, Birmingham aged 77. He left a large fortune valued at £10,665 as well as numerous leaseholds and dwelling houses he owned in Birmingham, which were inherited by his daughter Ella Pache and the remaining family members.[18]

Daughter Ella carried on the family business until sometime in the 1940's, from which it ceased to operate.[19]

The Pache family business had spanned over a century and across 3 generations. It helped contribute to the advancement and perfection of artificial glass eyes, as well as the working and cultivation of English glass from the 19th through to the 20th century.

References

  1. ^ https://eyemuseum.ranzco.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/History_V4_2.pdf
  2. ^ https://www.college-optometrists.org/professional-development/college-journals/acuity/all-issues/summer-2025/an-art-and-a-science
  3. ^ https://www.pastellists.com/Genealogies/Pache.pdf
  4. ^ https://www.pastellists.com/Articles/Pache.pdf
  5. ^ https://uncletomstales.com/a-virtual-tour-of-the-back-to-backs/a-virtual-tour-of-the-back-to-backs-part-25/
  6. ^ https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/GLS/Bristol/JOSEPHtoRINGER
  7. ^ Library of Birmingham; Birmingham, England, UK; Birmingham Church of England Parish Registers; Archive Roll: M84
  8. ^ The National Optical Journal; "Artificial Eyes"; by Charles H. Lea; circa early 1900's
  9. ^ https://www.college-optometrists.org/professional-development/college-journals/acuity/all-issues/summer-2025/an-art-and-a-science
  10. ^ Probate Record; 10 May 1919; Birmingham; and, hardcopy photocopy of Thomas Pache will.
  11. ^ The American Journal of Photography 1892 interview with Thomas Pache titled "ARTIFICIAL HUMAN EYES"
  12. ^ The American Journal of Photography 1892 interview with Thomas Pache titled "ARTIFICIAL HUMAN EYES"
  13. ^ Class: RG13; Piece: 2834; Folio: 150; Page: 41
  14. ^ http://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/12586/1/H.E.%20Henkes%20%282%29.pdf
  15. ^ https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/31257/1/CHINNERY%2C%20Holly_Ph.D._2018.pdf
  16. ^ The National Archives of the UK; Kew, Surrey, England; Lunacy Patients Admission Registers; Class: MH 94; Piece: 45
  17. ^ England Marriage Reg. MXF 095912; 28 Mar 1923; Birmingham; Warwick; Vol. 6d; Pg. 394; #343.
  18. ^ Probate Record; 10 May 1919; Birmingham; and, hardcopy photocopy of Thomas Pache will.
  19. ^ Probate Record; Birmingham; 24 May 1930; to Ella Beatrice Grimson, widow; Effects £528 2s 8d.

Sources

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