Kilner jar The company was forced to close down to convert to gas furnaces and struggled along for a 66 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 2003, The Rayware Group purchased the design, patent and trademark of the original Kilner jar and continues to produce them today in China. A more detailed history of the companies by the Society
Dorothy Kilner Dorothy Kilner Dorothy Kilner (17 February 1755 – 5 February 1836), who used the pseudonyms M. P. and Mary Pelham, was a prolific English writer of children's books, who combined didacticism with a strong knowledge of children's character. Dorothy was born on 17 February 1755, probably at Woodford, Essex. She was the youngest of five children of Thomas Kilner (1719–1804), public servant and landowner, and his wife, Frances, née Ayscough (1718–1768). The family moved to Maryland Point, then in Essex, in 1759. She was greatly inspired by a friendship that began in childhood with Mary Ann Maze (Mary Ann Kilner,