REMINISCENCES OF SHEFFIELD by R. E. LEADER
CHAPTER 01 - THE TOWN AND ITS INHABITANTS.
THE town of which this
volume treats was a place very different from the city of today. The period
may be said,
in general terms, to
comprise the hundred years which make up the eighteenth century. When it
begins, the
streets still ran on
lines fixed by primeval footpaths; the houses were dotted down with all
the contempt for
symmetrical arrangement
characteristic of communities where individual will is strong and corporate
regulation
small; the inhabitants
clung tenaciously to the habits of their forefathers; the trades retained
the narrow customs of mediaeval workers; and the system of local government
was but the legacy slightly developed and modified,
but still the legacy
of the feudal period. When it ends, old habits, old views, old institutions,
old fatalisms were
being superseded; old
landmarks were disappearing, old manners being lost, and even an old dialect
dying out.
The more heroic measures
which have improved part of the town, in its exterior aspect, out of recollection,
belong to a later period
whose history has yet to be written. But already something had been done,
though not
much, towards widening,
straightening, and levelling the streets.
The more aggressive projections
had been cut off, frontages to some extent harmonised, and picrturesqueness
sacrificed to convenience
The older shops and houses of the main thoroughfares had become interspersed
with
others which, if more
commodious, were uglier; and these, in their turn, seemed almost ripe for
renovation. Into
the conditions of manufacture
and trade, into the relations between employers and employed, a new spirit
had,
at the end of the century,
been infused by the introduction of steam and machinery. But even then
this influence
was latent rather than
developed; and its development, with the revolution brought by railways
and other
inventions, does not
come within the scope of this volume. Nor had there yet been introduced
those institutions
of popular self-government
which were to be substituted for the quaint old doings of the Burgery.
The affairs of the town
continued to be administered in an informal, happy-go-lucky fashion. There
was a slight
improvement on the time
when all the magistrates lived miles away, for one was now resident here.
But justice
was still dispensed on
patriarchal lines; the peace was kept, order more or less preserved, and
crime
professedly detected
by a handful of constables of the old school, and by decrepit watchmen
who were far more
afraid of evil-doers
than evil-doers were of them. Sleeping in their watch-boxes, they were
the victims of many
practical jokes, and
they took the earliest opportunity of sneaking off to bed. The gradual
working towards
changes whose development
is not yet altogether complete, may be traced in the following pages. There
may
still be detected, by
the observant eye, survivals of the departed past in our streets, and there
are lingering
remnants of old manners
and customs among our people. In not a few nooks and corners there can
be found
traces of habits, both
in homes and workshops, which differentiate the inhabitants of true Hallamshire
descent
from the " uitlanders
" who have come from outside. And in byeways, in courts, in smithies, and
in wheels there
may still be heard by
those who have ears to hear and are free from the Boardschool misdelusion
that local
pronunciation and local
words, because broad, are necessarily vulgar the virile speech that has
come direct from the Saxons and the Danes who settled here when history
was dawning.
Materials for forming
any accurate estimate of the condition of the people in the earlier period
embraced in this
volume that is to say
before Huntsman had revolutionised the steel trade, before Bolsover's discovery
of silver
plating had created SCALE
OF LIVING, a new industry, before the invasion of machinery, and when the
water of
our five streams formed
the sole motive power are scanty and fragmentary. That there was much poverty
may
be gathered from many
incidental entries in the accounts of the Town Trustees and of the Cutlers'
Company.
That the houses were unsanitary
is certain. That the scale of living was of the humblest is evident. That
the
workshops were deplorable
hovels may be judged by survivals, if not actually within human memory,
yet as
known from the descriptions
of those who have but recently passed away. The habits of an essentially
conservative people like
the natives of Hallamshire are as abiding as their speech; and there can
be little doubt
that the smithies, with
their mud floors, and the grinding hulls, bespattered with wheelswarf,
which not a few of
us remember, were the
exact counterparts, in their damp and squalor and dirt, of those in which
the artisans of
Sheffield had worked
time out of mind.
Unfavourable conditions
of labour stamped an impress on the bodies of workers so indelibly as to
find
expression in such epithets
of common speech as that which made the knock-knees of the cutlers a bye-word.
The severe regulations
of the Cutlers' Company as to the admission of freemen and apprentices,
designed to
limit the staple industry
in a few hands, were a fatal hindrance to growth and progress. But they
had this
advantage that while
discouraging the introduction of outsiders in times of prosperity, they
kept the numbers of
the distressed, in periods
of adversity, within comparable bounds. Thus the burdens imposed on householders
for the relief of the
poor were not onerous. In 1721, the amount levied was £70 8s. 1d.,
and as there were 1,320
persons assessed, the
yearly poor rate averaged little more than one shilling per head. In cases
of emergency,
the resources of the
Town Trustees, the Cutlers' Company, and the subscriptions of the better-to-do
inhabitants
were fully equal to the
provision of extra parochial assistance. In I735, £90 was sufficient
to discharge the entire
cost of the maintenance
of the Poorhouse. The number of inmates, about that time, seems to have
ranged from
24 to 34. Afterwards
it increased, steadily but slowly, to 70 in I743, to 94 in 1745, and to
156 in 1786. The overseers managed affairs with a stern economy that offered
no inducement to "go into the house." Thus the charges for
two weeks in 1744, with
60 inmates, amounted to only £8 6s. 8d.; and in 1761, with III inmates,
to £12 8s. 10d. for a fortnight. It is hardly necessary to add that,
as the century drew towards its close, with its wars and terrible
commercial depression,
the poor rates advanced by leaps and bounds supplemented by large voluntary
contributions. But throughout
the greater part of the century, in normal times, the rates were low, and
the amount of assistance given such as to indicate an absence of poverty,
either widespread or excessive. Having due
regard to the purchasing
power of money, food must be deemed to have been cheap, and rents low.
Sack and claret, thought
good enough as presents to the Duke of Norfolk, cost 1/- or 1/6 a bottle,
or 3/- a gallon. As to wages, our information is scanty, and we can only
pick out odd indications here and there. It is evident that the operatives
had to be content with what seems now very little. The figures must, however,
be appraised by their
relation to what has
been said of the prices of food; and if we multiply both by three or four,
we shall arrive at
some basis for comparison.
At Eyam, in 1737 (where, probably, the price of labour was somewhat lower
than in
Sheffield) a mason's
wages were 1/2 a day, his apprentice's 4d. A labourer received only 8d.,
augmented to the
not munificent sum of
10d. when he had two daughters helping him to carry dirt, in baskets, from
the quarries.
Mr. Samuel Shore (I709)
bound a steel converter to work for him only, for ten years, at 6/- a week,
with 6d. extra
as a charitable grant
to his widowed mother. Mr. Samuel Walker, of Grenoside, engaged (1746)
a carpenter, to be
employed in his foundry,
or as occasion might require, to make new or to repair, for ten years;
and he was
prohibited from working
for anyone but his master even for himself. His wages, subject to strict
deductions for
any absence, were 7/-
a week for two years; 7/6 for the next two; and 8/-, or as much as would
make his wages
equal to those of any
other servant, for the remaining six. The Rev. E. Goodwin gave these as
the wages current
in Sheffield in 1764:
A common labourer, 1/- per week; a carpenter, 1/6. A journeyman cutler,
he said, could earn 2/- a week; and in certain businesses good workmen
sometimes made 20/-. The following story may be taken as
typical of the earnings
of cutlers, when they " had a mind to work," at this period. Samuel Dixon,
a cutler in
Westbar Green, while
paying his addresses to the young woman whom he afterwards married, had
some lover's
" tiff." In the course
of this he said: " Betty, oi'd 'av thee kno 'at oi nother care for thee,
nor nooa woman i'
Shevveld. See thee, oi
can addle me noine or ten shilling a week, onny week when oi 've a mind
to work. Foind
me another chap i' t'
taan 'at can do it besoide messen." When he had completed his apprenticeship,
he still lived with his master, paying 2S. 6d. a week for board and lodging;
but, provisions getting dearer, this was raised to 3s. A second advance
to 3s. 6d. was attempted, but this he resisted, and it ended in his still
lodging in the house, but
finding his own victuals
. There were not, we must conclude, the extremes of riches and poverty
seen in later
times. The lines of division
were less marked, all classes being much nearer to a common level. If there
were
many poor, there were
few really wealthy. A very modest competence enabled a man to pass for
rich in those
days. In the neighbourhood
of the town there were a certain number of families of superior station,
but the
modern manufacturing
nabob would look with contempt on the wealthiest of these. Most of them
were the
descendants of yeomen,
whose modest freeholds had, in the course of genera- tions, and by advantageous
marriages, been enlarged
until the owners became squires and lords of manors. In some cases the
revenues
from landed property
had been largely increased by profitable iron smelting and forging, at
Wortley, or Chapel-
town, or Attercliffe,
or Renishaw, by such families as the Sitwells, of Mount Pleasant, the Parkins,
and others.
The wealth of the Clays,
of Bridgehouses, came from Derby- shire lead mines; that of the Saundersons,
of
Grimesthorpe, from tanning.
There were, besides, the I3 Amforths of High House, the Burtons of Royds
Mill, the
Jessops of Broomhall,
the Brights of Banner Cross (represented l y Lord John Murray), the Staniforths
of Darnall,
the Rawsons, tanners,
of Wardsend, the Bagshawes (as successors to the Gills) of the Oaks, the
Parkers of
Woodthorpe, the Wilsons
of Broomhead, and the Shirecliffes of Whitley. All these " sat on their
own land." The
Walkers were already
beginning to build up large fortunes at Grenoside, and the Fells of New
Hall were rich; but
in both cases their wealth
was made as ironmasters, and no instances can be found, until after 1750,
of large
individual prosperity
derived from the town of Sheffield by those engaged in the staple trades
of the place. Dr.
Gatty, on the authority
of the first Mr. Samuel Roberts, endorsed by Mr. Hunter, has said that
in the middle of the
eighteenth century £I00
a year was considered a handsome in- come, qualifying its possessor for
the first rank
among his fellows; and
£500 was a fortune that justified retiring from business. The account
book of the Rev.
John Pye, minister of
Nether Chapel from I748 to I773, throws instructive light on the cost of
living among the
better class of inhabitants
who had some degree of appearance to keep up. From this we learn that although
for
many years he had an
income which did not exceed £100 per annum, yet, out of that, he
kept a horse, and saved
considerable sums. Up
to the year I757, in which he was married, he paid a modest £I3 per
annum for board and
lodgings, and after his
marriage his household expenses ranged from £2 2s. to £4 4s.
per month, though
occasionally they were
both higher and lower. He appears to have paid his servant £2 a year
wages. The material for a coat and breeches cost him £3 4s., and
the tailor's charge for making them up was 8/6. A pair of shoes cost
5/6. The worsted for
a pair of breeches was bought for 8/-, and trimming for the same for 3/6.
The tailor made a
waistcoat and mended
other things for 3/-. For tea, I2/4 was paid for I.5lb.; and I4/6 (this
was in 1764) for a load of
wheat. The expenses of
a journey to London were £8 6S. At first, an annual contract for
shaving was made at IO/-
a year, but this was
afterwards increased to I 5/-. Mr. Pie's income and expenditure were affluence
compared
with the condition of
a neighbouring village minister, the Rev. Samuel Smith, of Stannington
Nonconformist (now
Unitarian) Chapel (17I3-I76I).
The stipend seems to have been about £I2 a year, with a house; but
even from that
sum, any money spent
on the structure of the chapel was deducted before the balance was paid
to the
ministers so that the
£40 a year on which Goldsmith's village parson was reputed " passing
rich" was, by
comparison, boundless
wealth. Mr. Smith has left a MS. memorandum book, in which, interspersed
with sermons and abstracts of religious books, there are jottings of his
accounts during some incumbency he held before going to Stannington. The
contributions of his flock were counted in shillings, even these being
often left unpaid.
Reference has just been made to the forges and foundries as the chief source of wealth in this district in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Walkers, first, in a small way, at Grenoside, and afterwards on a large scale at Masborough, are a conspicuous illustration of this. But no more striking proof of the scale of living, even among men rightly held to be prosperous above their fellows, can be adduced than that, for the years I755 to I760, the three, or perhaps four, partners were content to take out for their own share £I40 per annum. At first this was done with some fear and trembling. There were questionings whether the forge would bear it; but year by year the profits increased, and the firm wisely spent all the revenue, beyond their own modest wants, in extensions and improvements. Samuel Walker records that in I757, "tho' we took out £I40, I make no doubt we cleared £I,I40 this year," and from that time they went on by leaps and bounds".
John Fell, from being
a clerk to Dennis Hayford, or Heyford, of Wortley and Attercliffe Forges,
became the lessee of the latter. There has been preserved an old assignment
of the Attercliffe Forge dated I 692, which gives a clue to its history.
In 1688 Sir John Reresby was indignant at the quality of some newly appointed
county justices:
"amongst others John
Eyre, of Sheffield Park, Mr. Ratcliffe, &c. The first can neither write
nor read, the second is
a bailiff to the Duchess
Dowager of Norfolk's rents; and neither of them have one foot of freehold
land in
England." This John Eyre,
of Sheffield Manor, is mentioned in I692, as protecting the Park, in the
Duke of
Norfolk's interest, against
persons claiming a right of road through it. The Duke had leased to him
a message
and iron forge near Sheffield,
called Sheffield Forge, but, becoming bankrupt, Eyre assigned it, in trust
for his
creditors, to George
Bamforth, of High House, and the Rev. Cuthbert Browne, the latter of whom
combined with
the spiritual duties
of Assistant Minister of Sheffield. These trustees under Eyre's bankruptcy
sold the forge for £70 to Dennis Hayford of Millington, Thomas Barlow
of Sheffield (Town Trustee), and John Simpson of Babworth, who had also
ironworks at Chapeltown, Wadsley, and Rotherham. From these it came in
course of time into the hands of John Fell, and afterwards to Richard Swallow,
who had managed it for Madame Fell during her widowhood.
Though there is some divergence of view as to the conditions under which the seventeenth century closed, there can be little question that the trend of influence during at least the first half of its successor, was retrograde. It is, for instance, exceedingly striking to notice how many of the leading families who had given distinction to the neighbourhood and tone to its society, had, when the time dawns with which this book is more especially concerned, gone away or gone under, or had been so dispersed that their beneficial influence was lost.
The glories of Attercliffe
Hall under the Spencers had departed; and Carbrook was deserted by the
Brights who had made it famous. The light of the elder branch of the Brights,
of Whirlow, had flickered out miserably in an
ale-house, where Fox
of Fulwood and Hall of Stumperlowe had joined with Henry Bright in ruining
their once fine
estates by low dissipation
The Banner Cross property of the Brights was in the hands of aliens, with
no local
associations; and though
there were still Brights at Greystones and Nether Edge.
The late Mr. Arthur Jackson,
in a lecture delivered in 1893, took exception to the description given
by Hunter of the low social state of the town in the seventeenth century;
and he maintained that there was, at the end of that
period, more comfort
and more culture than Mr. Hunter quite realised. The opinions of Mr. Arthur
Jackson on any
subject connected with
the Sheffield of the past, which he had studied so well and sympathetically,
are entitled
to the highest respect;
but a very careful examination of the instances he cited leads to the conclusion
that his
contention was unproved.
Mr. Jackson's illustrations, which roamed all over the century and were
not confined
to its later years, were
taken from Hunter himself. They were, therefore, well known to the historian
of
Hallamshire, and the
verdict he arrived at was formed in the full light of the evidence from
which Mr. Jackson
drew opposite deductions.
The Ashtons having ended
in an heiress, Whiteley Wood Hall, like Banner Cross, had come into new
hands.
Already when Mr. Banks,
the attorney, who is one of Mr. Arthur Jackson's instances of the successful
accumulation of seventeenth
century wealth, lived at Shirecliffe Hall, that house had been shorn of
its ancient
honours and had been
divided into three; and Mr. Banks himself left Sheffield " when he had
scarcely passed the middle period of his life. As to the Hollisses, the
Hanbys, and the Birleys, they had long ago migrated to London,
where they made their
money, though they honourably marked their former connection with Sheffield
by
founding the charities
which perpetuate their names. Darnall Hall had become of secondary interest
to the Staniforths for the elder son had gone off. Bank's wife, daughter
of Rowland Hancock, an ejected minister, and his predecessor in the occupation
of Shirecliffe, brought him a fortune of £400. Mr. Banks became a
Member of Parliament, but during his residence in Sheffield, his finger,
like that of Mr. Thomas Chappell, with whom he had served his articles,
and whom he succeeded on the Town Trust, is found in every local pie. It
was one Chappell an attorney, one Bright a lawyer (both concerned in the
Duke of Norfolk's affairs) and one Buck a chirurgeon of Sheffield (whom
I had caused to be prosecuted not long before for having two wives), '
who in I676 excited Sir John Reresby's indignation by getting up a bogus
charge against him of having caused the death of his black servant. Reresby
brought an action against "the knave" Bright at York Assizes, and recovered
of him a hundred marks, and more than that my credit, all the World being
convinced of the malice and falsehood of the inventor." Reresby's Memoirs.
The Parish Church Register has this entry "1681, Oct. 20. Bap. Sarah, d. of John Buck, chirurgeon.'' To Chappell, too, seems to have been due the injunction obtained in the time of James 1. (1685) compelling the Sheffield Burgesses to carry out the decree of charitable uses made in the reign of Charles Il. (1681), whereby he and another attorney, William Simpson, were placed first on the list of Trustees. Chappell, Banks, Simpson, and a fourth attorney, John Styring, were the commissioners under Eyre's bankruptcy, and there are few legal documents of the period in which the names of one or other of them do not occur. The witnesses to Eyre's deed of assignment are " Ch. Pegge and Jane Pegge," landlord and landlady of the Angel Inn sign of the prevailing custom, of which we shall meet with many examples, of transacting almost all matters of business in taverns.
The Saundersons of Grimesthorpe, who in I660 had produced a bishop of Lincoln, were so scattered as to be indistinguishable from ordinary folk. And the same story, of departure or decadence, might be told of others. The instances to the contrary are in directions other than the cutlery trades. After the iron forges, tanning ranks, at this time, as the foundation of fortunes. The Rawson clan, for example, ancient freeholders of Hallamshire, had their tannery at Upperthorpe from the middle of the sixteenth century, and as the generations went by they showed that "there was nothing like leather " by establishing tan pits at Walkley and Philadelphia, perhaps also at Norwood; and by joining forces, matrimonially, with the other Rawson at Wardsend. They pervade the centuries as leading Sheffield citizens, even close to our own times, although in the end, brewing was found more profitable than tanning.
There was a very curious story told in connection with some proceedings taken in Chancery, about I722, in a vain attempt to recover an endowment which had eluded Braithwell School. John Bosvile, tanner, of Wardsend, brother of the Vicar of Braith- well, had built the school house in 1693, and was known to have made a will endowing it with certain lands; but on his death in I697 nothing could be heard of any such will or endowment. A suit was instituted, and evidence was taken in which it was freely imputed that Thomas Bosvile and Thomas Rawson had, somehow, contrived, to their own emolument, to deprive the school of the benefits John Bosvile either conferred, or intended to confer, on it. Some hesitation in accepting this version which was only one, and that the unsuccessful, side of the case is justified by the difficulty of reconciling what was said about Thomas Rawson with what we know of his family. According to the Braithwell deponents, Rawson was apprenticed by John Bosvile, as a tanner, " out of charity," It was made to appear that he so worked himself into the good graces of the old man as to get possession of the business on easy terms. But Rawson's father had himself been a tanner at Wardsend, probably through his marriage with the widow of one of the Bosviles, a daughter of an Upperthorpe Rawson; so that there is no need to seek a sinister explanation of the fact that the son Thomas, who was only an infant when his father died, should be brought up to, and ultimately inherit, a business with which he was both paternally and maternally connected. However this may be, the exception afforded by the Rawsons to what has been said as to the disappearance of old families in the eighteenth century, in no way affects the contention that such fortunes as were acquired were made outside the staple trades of the town. Those families which had been most prominent were no longer here to send, as they had done in the olden time, the cadets of their houses to be apprenticed in Sheffield workshops.
Nothing is more remarkable
than the manner in which, throughout the seventeenth century, the surrounding
yeomen and local gentry bound their younger sons to the Sheffield cutlers.
Brights, Foljambes, Wortleys, Shirecliffes, Jessops, Seliokes, and many
others thought it no disgrace to bring up their boys as handicraftsmen;
and when we come to consider, as we shall have to do, the conduct and treatment
of apprentices in the eighteenth century, it cannot but be concluded
that there had set in a marked deterioration in the quality of the material
out of which the " mesters " were made. The Sheffield of the eighteenth
century was thus bereft of many of the ameliorating influences of the seventeenth.
There was witnessed a steady exodus on the part of those who had money,
obtained in ways unconnected with the cutlery trades. The best families
passed away to places presenting larger opportunities, or to more attractive
country estates. And there was the same tendency
intellectually.
The Grammar School, the
churches, and an active nonconformity introduced a certain number of cultivated
clergy, and some of the leading families gave their sons to the medical
and legal professions; but any scion of exceptional literary or scientific
ability soon drifted away to larger spheres. It is evident that the men
from whom Masters Cutler and Town Trustees were chosen were typical of
and scarcely distinguishable from the class of " Little Mesters." They
had the same homely habits, the same vernacular, the same difficulties
with penmanship, and spelling, and grammar. They spent their days in aprons,
with shirt sleeves tucked up. After working hours they had their "drinking"
with their Dames in the houses adjoining their shops; and then cleaned
themselves, preparatory to joining their neighbours in the bar parlour,
there to discuss the gossip of the town; or, what time the church bells
were celebrating the victories of Marlborough or Wolfe, of Anson or Rodney,
to brag of the invincibility of British arms by sea and by land. Just as
the Walkers at Rotherham were content to divide a
modest £I40 a year
among the partners, so the thrifty burghers, with their frugal " dames
" careful of their goods
and keeping a severe
watch on the appetites of the apprentices, enjoyed a very fair amount of
substantial
comfort. They knew nothing
of luxuries, and would have regarded many of the things we think to be
necessaries
with contempt. But for
those content with plain living and rude plenty, they did well enough .
And there was
nothing to prevent any
steady and industrious freeman rising from the position of a journeyman
into the rank of
a small employer. It
was but a step, as the following anecdote will show:-
Early in the century a working mans gardener and small farmer lived at Shiregreen. His family consisted of three sons and one daughter. The eldest son had served his apprenticeship to a cutler, and was of age in I72I. One evening when the family were sitting together, the father spoke thus '- Oi'l tell yo what oi've been thinking on this good bit, an' as yo're all here together, oi mud as weel tell yo; then yo'll all kno moi proposals to yo. Sam (to the eldest son) tha knos tha's getten a good trade i' thee fingers. Naw tha sees thee brother Bill has allas been at hooam wi' me, an' has worked hard all his loife, an' has been a good lad. Then here's thee sister, sho'll want summut dooin' for her. Then here's yore poor bloind brother, he mun be taen care on. Now Sam, oi'll tell thee. If thou ll give up thee claim as t eldest to this place, oi'l gie thee ten pund, an' that'l set thee noisely agate o' mestering. An' oi'l do t' best oi can for thee sister, an' yore brother Bill 'al tak t' lots place, an' t' gardens, an' he'll do for yore bloind brother." Sam agreed, and with the £10 set up as a " mester cutler" in a yard below the old Lord's house in Fargate, and prospered. This was in the year I730. Thus a " mester " required no more capital than would pro- cure an anvil and a few tools, with enough ready money to pur- chase materials in small quantities, and to pay a modest rent for a mere shed with a hearth in the corner. Nor did it involve much change of habit, for the " Little Mester" continued as before to labour with bare arms and in leathern apron. but he was now the employer of others, not the employed by others. And in the moral dignity accruing therefrom lay all the difference. The employed might mean only a man and a boy; a striker and an apprentice; but the cutler was his own master: a freeman in truth. And that achieved, nothing but a few years of patient saving stood between him and the office of Master of the Cutlers' Corporation of Hallamshire. They all did it in this way. Not by birth, not by inheritance, except in so far as that was a help to freemanship; but by work and frugal industry. The humble position of the Masters Cutler is shown by the fact that it was no unusual thing for them, after they had passed the chair, to become recipients of the Company's charity.
But the encouragement
given by the nature of the trades to individual working was not an unmixed
blessing. It
promoted, it is true,
a large feeling of independence, yet the ease with which file-cutting could
be carried on in
the cottage, or smithing
done in a shed behind it, was highly detrimental to health. And the loss
of time incurred
by outworkers enormously
restricted their powers of production. The modern system under which men
are
gathered together in
factories has its evils, but at any rate orders are there, and materials
and appliances are
ready to hand. One remembers
with amazement the wastefulness of the old system. An outworker might spend
long hours in hanging about, waiting for an order from the firm, or firms,
which had employment to give. And a
commission at length
obtained, he sacrificed further hours in wandering about among the shops
of dealers,
buying his bit of steel,
or his hafts, or his scales, or other materials. It was inevitable, if
he meant to get a pittance " for t' missus and t' childer," that, when
all had been got together, he should toil, early and late, in " t' shank
end
o' t' week " to earn
a scanty wage. But even when his goods were completed the workman had to
carry them to
the factor's, with by
no means a certainty of their acceptance.
A very familiar spectacle
in the Sheffield streets, down to far later times, was that of cutlers
" bahn a livverin," with their wares " lapped " in bits of sacking sometimes,
if from the surrounding villages, bringing their " spotted hefts," or "
flatbacks," or sickle blades, or scythes, on donkeys. Arrived at the warehouse,
there was a chance of the goods not being wanted, or being thrown out as
" wasters ;" and in any event there was sure to be tedious bargaining and
beating down by unscrupulous buyers, ready enough to take advantage of
the necessities of the poor cutler. Nor was it any better for the Little
Mester if he made goods on speculation, on the chance of finding a customer.
It must be remembered that, at the period of which we are writing, there
were no merchants, as the term is now understood. The last century was
well advanced towards its close before the business of the merchant was
distinguished from that of the manufacturer The manufacturers and
factors had themselves no certain market, and they were naturally excessively
cautious not to overstock themselves with goods.
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