Kilner jar

A Kilner jar from no later than 1928

The open jar

A Kilner jar is a rubber-sealed, screw-topped jar used for preserving (bottling) food, invented by the Kilner family and produced by John Kilner & Co., Yorkshire, England.^[1][2][3]

History

The Kilner Jar was originally made by a firm of glass bottlemakers from Yorkshire called Kilner.^[4] The original Kilner bottlemakers operated from 1842, when the company was first founded, until 1937, when the company went into bankruptcy. The Kilner Company was taken to court in 1871 over the coal smoke coming from their Thornhill Lees chimneys and the judge ordered that "no man has the right to interfere with the supply of pure air". The company was forced to close down to convert to gas furnaces and struggled along for a few years despite 3,000 people losing their jobs. In 1937, there was a bankruptcy sale, in which the patent rights to the "Kilner Jar" were sold to the United Glass Bottle company along with the rights to the very similar "Mason" jar that had also been made by Kilner.

In 2000, The Rayware Group purchased the design, patent and trademark of the original Kilner jar and continues to produce them today in China.^{[5] [6]}

Other

In an episode of the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are?, the former Top Gear television presenter Jeremy Clarkson found out that he was a great-great-great-great-grandson of John Kilner.^[7]

Different names of the company

The various names of the Kilner companies were:

• John Kilner and Co, Castleford, Yorkshire, 1842–44
• John Kilner and Sons, Wakefield, Yorkshire, 1847–57
• Kilner Brothers Glass Co, Thornhill Lees, Yorkshire, 1857–73 also at Conisbrough, Yorkshire, 1863–1873
• Kilner Brothers Ltd, Thornhill Lees, Yorkshire 1873–1920 also at Conisbrough, Yorkshire, 1873–1937.

See also

• Mason jar
• Weck jar
• Fowler's Vacola jar
• Food preservation
• Home canning
• Screw cap
• Sterilisation

References