Philip Lawson Johnston Practiced Engraving on Milk Bottles. Now He Holds Two Royal Warrants

Philip Lawson Johnston is a glass engraver in Oxford, UK, who engraves glass by hand – gifts, trophies and awards, and large pieces such as windows and panels – and holds royal warrants from HM The late Queen Elizabeth (2009) and HM King Charles (2024). He left school with two A levels and a diploma in History of Art; in early 1971 he and his brother Andy visited an engraver, bought an old dentist drill and taught themselves on jam jars and milk bottles.

Philip draws the design straight onto the glass with a felt-tip pen – drawing, rubbing out and drawing again until he is satisfied – and often shows it to the customer to approve or change. He then engraves with a dental drill held like a pen and controlled by a foot pedal, working over a sink with a small stream of running water that keeps the glass cool and washes away the dust. Most pieces are done within a day or two.

Philip takes commissions: about 85% of his engraving is commissioned, mainly retirement, anniversary and wedding gifts, trophies and awards. He also works with interior designers and architects on large-scale pieces – windows, doors, panels and table tops – which he engraves on site; he doesn’t give trade terms. He aims to work to the customer’s timetable, including last-minute orders, and ships abroad, usually with DHL.

Philip finds customers mainly through word of mouth, which still accounts for a good proportion of his commissions, along with many repeat orders. Regular exhibitions have also produced a number of sales and commissions – most often at Patrick Mavros on Fulham Road in London, where he has shown about nine times. His earliest customers were kind friends and family.

In early 1971, after a degree of persuasion, Philip and his brother Andy went to visit an engraver to watch how it was done – and came away thinking it was worth a try. There were no courses around at that time. They bought and shared an old dentist drill and taught themselves, practicing on jam jars and milk bottles.

Philip had left school with very few qualifications: two poor A levels and a diploma in History of Art. He was drifting, with little clue what he wanted to do other than something in the field of art. His mother met someone who engraved glass – very few people did in those days – and thought it might suit him and his brother. For Andy, six years older and married, it was more urgent to find out whether this would become his main occupation. Philip was living with his parents at their home in Bedfordshire and was quite relaxed about it; it became clearer later. There was a great deal of mutual encouragement between the two of them as they each discovered ways to depict their designs. Andy engraved glass until his death in 2006, and Philip has continued ever since. Among the engravers who inspired him were Laurence and Simon Whistler, both no longer living, and Jimmy Denison-Pender.

“Gradually it became clear that this was something we could both do and gain some sort of living by.”

The process starts with the choice of a piece of glass and the design to be engraved. If it’s a commission, the customer’s preferences can govern this; otherwise it’s Philip’s own desire to engrave something he has seen, a new subject or the reimagining of a previous one. Once that is agreed, he begins to create the design. He doesn’t generally work it out on paper, but on the piece itself, with a felt-tip pen – drawing, rubbing out and drawing again until he is satisfied with the overall look. At that stage he often shows it to the customer, who can approve it or suggest how it could be changed or improved.

Video: Philip Lawson Johnston

Then he starts engraving, with a dental drill held like a pen and controlled with a foot pedal that varies the speed. He works over a sink, with a grill to lean on and a small stream of running water over the spot he is engraving: it keeps the glass cool and washes away the dust. People often ask him how long it takes to engrave one piece. “It’s like, ‘How long is a piece of string’.” He works quickly, and one evasive answer he sometimes gives is that it has taken him over 50 years. Most pieces are completed within a day or two.

All of these pieces are engraved with the same tool – a dentist drill. There are some wildlife pieces and some commissions, such as those with buildings, and the larger-scale ones. The plate with the oryx was engraved as a thank-you present for someone’s stay, maybe in South Africa. The king cheetahs are a genetic variation of the normal cheetah, with stripes instead of spots; Philip met one in his cage at an animal conservation center in the Kruger. The egrets and the calla lilies are simply subjects he loves engraving because they are elegant, and the two bowls with buildings are samples of the many commissions he has had for buildings. The large window is on the front of the school chapel of The Vanessa Grant School for girls in Rongai, Kenya. Photo of Philip’s hands: Sim Canetti-Clarke.

Most of Philip’s customers are in the UK, and occasionally in the US and Europe. About 85% of his engraving is commissioned: retirement, anniversary and wedding gifts, trophies and awards. Occasionally he works with interior designers and architects to engrave large-scale pieces such as windows, doors, panels or table tops – for private houses, institutions, companies, churches and schools. The larger pieces take much longer, with planning and design discussions, and he engraves them on site. The largest engraving he has ever done is that chapel window in Kenya, engraved in November 2016. There is also a window above the front door of a North Oxford house, engraved in September 2017, and a couple of panels for doors in a church in Château-d’Œx, Switzerland, from April 2018.

Between 2015 and 2019 he made seven trips to China and South East Asia for Johnnie Walker, engraving multiple bottles and decanters for the whisky’s Chinese market, with about fifteen different designs – mostly wildlife and interesting subjects. There was immense time pressure to complete each assignment, and the trips also involved banquets and meetings where he had to get up and speak about the engraving and the designs.

Lastly, but not least, he was granted a royal warrant as glass engraver to HM The late Queen Elizabeth in 2009, and more recently, in 2024, a warrant from HM King Charles.

Philip’s very earliest customers were kind friends and family; he probably made his earliest sale later in 1971, the year he started. Then, as people got to hear about what he was doing, the customer base expanded. “Word of mouth has always been one of the most effective source of customers.”

Today, word of mouth still accounts for a good proportion of Philip’s commissions, and there are many repeat orders. Regular exhibitions have produced a number of sales as well as commissions. For six or seven years he exhibited every year with his brother Andy and two other brothers who were painters and dealers, until Andy died. Since then he has shown most often at Patrick Mavros on Fulham Road in London – about nine times – and twice in Oxford, at St Andrew’s Church.

“I’ve never considered quitting.” But Philip has got, and still sometimes gets, a bit bored, particularly if he has to do a number of similar pieces, or if it’s a subject he isn’t really interested in. There have been times when he wasn’t happy with the result and started again. Other times he has made a mistake – a spelling, for example – or slipped on the glass and scratched it. Then he starts again, and later re-engraves the abandoned piece with something that covers up the old engraving. “Elephants are quite useful for this as they tend to cover a wide space!”

“The antidote to when I am a bit bored with it all is a new order coming in with a subject that I really enjoy or something unusual.”

“My intention is to create on glass designs that not only are pleasing to the eye and accurate in what they portray, but also reflect in some way the care and attention to detail of the Creator, as observed in the world around us.”

Have a question for Philip about his work or a commission, or a few words about his story and work? Leave them in the comments at the end of this story.

Who: Philip Lawson Johnston
What: Glass engraved by hand – gifts, trophies, awards, windows, doors and panels
Where: Oxford, UK
Started: February 1971
Audience: 817 Instagram followers; 200 website visits a month
Customers: Mostly in the UK, occasionally in the US and Europe
Price range: £100–£20,000
Custom orders: Yes – about 85% of his work
Ships: Abroad, usually with DHL
Works with designers: Yes
Channels: Word of Mouth & Offline