The question of who invented the sash window and what is its origins is recorded in the history of the 1600s. Although windows per se were known in Roman times, when clear glass was first made, an English scientist and inventor named Robert Hooke gets the credit for this particular innovation.
London suffered its great fire in 1666, when much of the city was destroyed. Hooke, a member of the Royal Society, was named Surveyor to the city of London and is credited with performing most of the actual work himself. He also designed some of the prominent buildings of the reconstruction. By sometime in the 1670s, some of the great houses in England were being refurbished with the new, elegant windows.
Earlier forms of windows were small cast or blown panes in either rigid frames or casement windows, which could be opened for ventilation as well as allowing light to enter through a wall. Glass windows had been made since the development of clear glass in Roman times, but distortion was great in the cast panes. Larger panes were possible by the 19th century, and the transparent and non-distorting glass we know today was made possible by another British invention in the 1950s.
A sash window, with at least one movable panel that opens vertically or horizontally, differs from a casement, which opens on hinges usually mounted on the sides, although sometimes at the top or bottom. The original sashes had small panes of glass separated by muntin bars, or wooden strips; traditionally six panes were fitted into each panel. Modern windows with large, single panes were not possible until new methods of making sheet glass were developed.
Hooke’s invention was preceded by many years of mechanical, mathematical, and scientific studies. He invented a telescope, improved the manufacture of watches and invented a spring which made the watch possible, discovered many principles of gravity, studied light and refraction, wrote books on scientific theory, was a great friend of famed architect Christopher Wren, and was an architect himself.
Since the cast glass of the 1600s only made small panes, the early windows consisted of individual panes set in muntin bars inside a frame, two or more of which made up a window unit. The clear, undistorted glass we have today that comes in large sheets if desired is made possible by innovations in glass production that date from the 1950s. Hooke’s windows and those made for centuries were single glazed, but today double and triple glazing is often chosen to deaden noise and conserve energy.
‘Who invented the sash window and what is its origins’ may be answered simply by naming Robert Hooke, but it is fascinating to see how this inventive man used a lifetime of knowledge to create the enduring design that works so well.
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