REMINISCENCES OF SHEFFIELD by R. E. LEADER
CHAPTER 04 - THE WARES AND TRADES OF HALLAMSHIRE.
THERE is a suspicion that
the earlier Sheffield cutlery was of a rough description, coarse and inferior,
and suited only for use among the poorer people. It has been said that
the London and Salisbury makers, as well as foreign rivals, were far in
advance of the Hallamshire smiths in the pro- duction of the finer qualities.
But the evidence in favour of this view is not definite enough to be wholly
convincing. Various seventeenth century references to cutlery have been
quoted from old writers, but some of them, so far from bearing out the
contention, go to prove the opposite. There is, for instance, the recommendation
of Peter Bales (I590) to provide, for making quills, " a good (pen) knife,
right Sheffield is best "; and Hallamshire knives were being exported abroad
in I586 and I589. At this time, too (the reign of Queen Elizabeth), the
Earl of Shrewsbury thought the Sheffield cutlery not unworthy of the acceptance
of Lord Burghley; and he accom- panied his gift of " a case of Hallamshire
whittels" with a remark which shows how celebrated they were, since he
commended them as " being such fruits as his pore countrey afforded with
fame throughout the realm." The preamble to the Act of James I. (I624)
incorporating the Cutlers' Company, speaks of the manner in which the inhabitants,
engaged in the cutlery trade, had, " by their industry and labour, gained
the reputation of great skill and dexterity," and " made knives of the
best edge, wherewith they served the most part of this kingdom and other
foreign countries." The main object of this Act was to keep up the reputation
of their manufactures by providing against the incursion of " deceitful
and unwork- manlike wares"; and it insisted that the edge of all steel
instruments should be made of steel and steel only‹no cast iron " sow metal
gudgeons "were to pass muster. The Steward's accounts of disbursements
made at the Manor Lodge and Sheffield Castle contain references to purchases
of cutlery in the early seventeenth century; and in the eighteent}l century
the Cutlers' Company not unfrequently make presents of " silver-hafted
knives and forks " to the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk, or other distinguished
people. It is not, however, desirable to press the argument that may be
based on these matters too far; and it must be freely admitted that the
commoner kinds of cutlery have always been made here. There is a curious
old publication, written in a vein intended to be comic, called " The Wandering
Spy or the Merry Travellers" (I720), which boasts that one How, of Southend,
made a knife that If touched upon a stair, or stone, Will cut a sirloin
to the bone, And at one stroke, to human wonder, Divide the stubborn jointsllsunder.
And this is compared with Sheffield blades, unfavourably to the latter:
No Yorkshire carrier at a meal Durst draw a Sheffield blade of steel, And
boast his cutting country bauble If one of How's adorns the table. Their
rustic tools are only fit For rural poesies, void of wit, And to divide
fat pork or peasen, Or cut down hooks in nutting season. It is legitimate
to receive with scepticism this eulogy of the wares of the Southend dealer,
when we remember that the name " How," with a cross and sort of Prince
of Wales feathers, was a Hallamshire corporate mark struck by one Thomas
Maxfield in Balm Green. There was also a Robert How, in " Old Waterhouse,"
a cutler, in I774. This How was, it is true, a maker of spring knives;
and Maxfield is given in the Directories of I774 and I787, not as a table
knife cutler, but as striking the How mark on wool shears and joiners'
tools; yet the connection is significant enough to suggest an early instance
of what has been very injurious to Sheffield's reputation‹so marking cutlery
as to allow persons and places at a distance to rob the town of its credit
and good name. And the process has been all too successful, in spite of
those who, in the days when "rural poesies" were placed on cutlery, boldly
challenged London's supremacy by such legends, whether etched on blade,
or printed under transparent scales, as: Sheffield made, both haft and
blade London for your life, show me such a knife. Or again, Sharpen me
well and keep me clean, And I'll cut my way through fat and lean. I'm a
Sheffield blade, 'tis true; Pray what sort of blade are you ? Other specimens
of cutlers' poetry are: To carve your meate is my intent; Use me, but let
me not be lent. And on the other side of the haft: I'll wait upon you at
the table, And doe what service I am able. The proprietors of some of the
lower class of eating-houses in London‹ "threepenny ordinaries "‹marked
the estimate in which they held their customers and the store they set
by their cutlery, by chaining the knives and forks to the tables, as pencils
are tied at Postal telegraph counters. The statement by Sir Arnold Knight
referred to in the preceding chapter, that up to the beginning of the eighteenth
century grinding was not a distinct branch of business, but was performed
by men also engaged in other departments of the cutlery trade, gives some
confirmation to the belief that Sheffield cutlery was not, aforetime, distinguished
by very high quality, or its artizans by great skill. For grinding is notoriously
a diffcult process, requiring a larger experience and finer manipulation
than was likely to be attained by men who, instead of devoting their whole
energies to it, took it as one of many duties incidental to their calling.
Labour so diffused could not be equal in its products to labour specialised.
But Dr. Gatty cannot be right when he makes the date of grinding as a separate
department of labour cotemporary with the founding of the first steam wheel
in I786; since the grinders were sufficiently organised in I748 to form
a benefit society for their own branch. There is much that is suggestive,
and probably significant, in the marked contrast ever noticeable between
the grades of cutlery made in the town and those made in the surrounding
villages. The Directory of I787 puts common pocket and pen knives, and
common scissors, in distinct categories; and it is to be noted that while
there were then ninety makers of pen and pocket knives " in general " in
the town, there were only six outside‹and those close at hand, at Bridgehouses,
Atter- cliffe, and Neepsend; while there were 114 makers of common knives
in the surrounding villages, but only thirty in the town. And the same
is true of scissors. With the exception of one maker at Attercliffe and
one at Brightside, all the "fine scissor" manufacturers were in the town;
while there were as many makers of common scissors in the outlying hamlets
as inside. " Flatbacks" and spotted hafts" came chiefly from Wadsley, Walkley,
Heeley, Dungworth, Darnall, and other places. Wadsley seems early to have
gained for itself the reputation which long made its name a bye-word synonymous
with worthless cutlery. A clergyman who had been brought up among the cutlers
of Coalpit Lane, writing, in I745, of worthless discourses easily reeled
off, says: " This expeditious way of sermonising puts me in mind of the
method made use of by some cutlers, whose professed rule is 'rap Robin
and away with them'; but then such knives are justly called " Wadsley knofct-ons."
That may be taken to be a current saying of the period, expressive of things
hastily made and hurriedly got out of the way. We cannot but suppose that
the localisation of industries, so prominent in the shear, sickle, and
scythe trades of the villages to the south of the town, was characteristic
also of what had obtained through many preceding generations in the making
of knives. The striking manner in which special manufactures cling to certain
localities is usually attributed to the settling here of refugees driven
from the Netherlands, about I570, by the persecutions of the Duke of Alva.
And the way in which each village was, and still is, celebrated for some
particular manufacture is said to have originated in the exiles having
distributed themselves according to their special branches of the craft‹sickle-smiths
in one spot, scythe- makers in another, and so on. To the skill brought
by these aliens is credited a distinct advance in the quality of local
cutlery. The earliest cutlery made here was knives, scissors, and sickles.
These are all mentioned in whal Mr. Sidney O. Addy, in his Sheffield Glossary,
deems to have been the earliest English Dictionary, attributed to the first
half of the fifteenth century‹the Catholicon Anglicum. He gives strong
evidence for believing that the author of this book was well ac- quainted
with this neighbourhood. In it are mentioned arrow- heads, knives (of several
kinds), razors, scissors, sickles, and their several parts‹hafts, tangs,
ferrules; as well as processes of manufacture‹forging, glazing, and smithing.
The places where the cutlery is made are " smythies"; and the smith has
his "paire of tangs" (tongs), his "stythy," and his "blawe bellows." There
is no mention of files. It is decidedly puzzling to find a "thwytelle"
explained by the Latin word dolabrum, which was a butcher's hatchet or
cleaver; for thwytelle has always been accepted as the forerunner of the
whittle, the simplest form of knife‹just a blade with a tang fitted into
a handle, like those used by butchers and shoe- makers, or a very rude
table-knife. It is impossible to suppose that the " Shefeld thwitel," or
thwytelle, which Chaucer's oft- quoted Miller of Trumpington bare " in
his hose," was a butcher's cleaver, and not a rough but ready knife. Furnished
with a sheath, and carried in the stocking, this implement was handy for
all purposes, domestic, agricultural, and, on occasion, for defence or
offence. The sheath was so essential, before the days of clasp or spring
knives, that its manufacture by sheathers was a distinct branch of trade.
The Catholicon speaks of " the chape" of a knife. This was the metal plate,
or mounting of a scabbard or sheath, particularly that which covers the
point. We may fairly take it that whatever the quality of the Sheffield
cutlery may have been previously, it was, throughout the eighteenth century,
of constantly increasing excellence. The year I640 has been given as, approximately,
the date when files and razors were first made here. It is not possible
to fix with any precision the time at which the manufacture of saws and
edge-tools was begun‹whether by the Netherlanders or earlier. But we do
know that in I675-6, awl-blade-smiths and in I68I-2, file-smiths and scythe-smiths,
were of sufficient importance to be admitted within the ranks of the Cutlers'
Company. In I705-6 that Company spent considerable sums " in suppressing
the designs and prosecuting of Mr. Hinchcliff who had hired several persons
of this corporation to go with him to Stockholm, in order to settle an
iron manufactory trade in those parts"; and in I725-27 the skill of the
Sheffield file makers was in such repute that efforts were made, and forcibly
resisted, to tempt them to carry their industry and their tools to France.
The first improvement on the whittle was the jack-knife, a rude device
for shutting the blade in the haft. The blade moved on a pin. When opened,
it was kept in position for cutting by a catch, which rested on the back
of the scales Dr. Gatty* has made an ingenious attempt to give the credit
for this improvement to one John of Liege. This is based largely on the
statement of a Dr. Somerville, who wrote in the eighteenth century; and
on the name " Jocktleteg," or " Jack- a-legs." But the evidence is not
satisfactory, and there is good reason to believet that the smiths of Liege
took their patterns from, rather than supplied them to, England. The date
I650 has been assigned as the time when spring- knives, at first with iron
handles, began to be made. Their inventor is one of those unknown benefactors
whose name is omitted from the rolls of fame. It has been suggested that
as they were originally called couteaux‹a name found in use down to a late
period#‹the device came from France. At first spring-knives were but clumsy,
and made with only one -------------------- * Gatty's Hunter's Hallamshire,
p 165. + Local Notes and Queries, Sheffield Independcnt, April IIth, I878.
# Wilson Joseph, cuttoe and pen knife cutler, Castlefold" (1774)' "Abdy
John, Howard Street, couteau and graver maker" (I787). In the list of Common
Pocket and Pen Knife Manufacturers in the 1787 Directory, " those who make
pen knives have the word Pen put against their names; the others make only
couteaux." ------------------ blade. "Flat-backs" followed one-blade spring-knives.
In stead of the blade and the spring being got up before the knife is "nailed
in," or riveted together, as is the case with " round- backs," the flat-back
was made up entire and then ground, the scales, springs, and covering all
being ground flat at one operation and the blade at another. Then were
many varieties introduced, the technicalities of which it would be tedious
to recount. There were " stamped knives," with brass scales ornamented
by being struck in a die; " framed knives," where ivory, tortoiseshell,
or bone was bevelled into brass; " Chinese knives," with scales pressed
from horn, and a neat device cut in the boss. " Diamonding," or scratching
the bone scale in diamond shapes came in about I755-58, and for some time
the process remained a profitable secret to its possessor. Horn pressing
was used and tortoiseshell, but the dearness of the latter substance soon
compelled resort to an imitation, and spotted knives," made with this,
were very popular, and became, as already stated, an extensive industry
in the villages. The imitation was effected by burning dark marks into
clear horn, by treating it with a composition in which lime was an ingredient.
This sham tortoiseshe]l was also largely used by comb-makers, and it is
still sometimes seen in the commoner class of razors, though its employment
for knives has quite died out. 'The Directory of I787 specifies just one
manufacturer of spotted knives‹Tholllas Beet, land- lord of the Seven Stars,
Trippet Lane. He was still using the mark (a fish hook) of Edward Beet,
one of the many makers of these articles in I787. The stamping of bolsters
in a boss saved labour and gave variety, for, until then, bolsters were
either plain, or filed by hand. One in- genious mechanic devised an instrument
for neatly preparing the scales for the reception of a shield: and, being
ever ready to barter for a pot of ale the advantages that would have accrued
from keeping this in his own hands, the plan was widely adopted. Another
workman, an apprentice in Pepper Alley, improved upon the original one-blade
pocket-knife, by making a "slit-spring knife," uith two blades side by
side; and from this it was a natural step so to shape springs as to allow
of a blade at each end. " Stafford knivcs," called after their maker in
Broad Lane, were an early and very popular form of the improved cutlery,
and with " Barlow " knives had a great vogue, which has not yet wholly
died out. The process of horn pressing tempted makers into trying a great
number of ingenious devices. The pocket knife, dear to the boyish heart,
was used as a bait for seducing its owner into mastering the mysteries
of the alphabet, and we come upon entries wllich show that it was worth
the while of manufacturers to devote themselves exclusively to the making
of " children's A B C knives." Scales were also utilised for the expression
of patriotic sentiments, or of political ardour. pen-knife which obtained
some popularity at the time of Napoleon s overthrow, had on one side a
full-length figure of Wellington, holding in his right hand the Field Marshal's
baton, while over his head the eagle of victory floated in the air. The
other side gave a figure of Peace, standing on a pedestal and waving aloft
four banners which bore the names of the allies‹England, Austria, Prussia,
and Russia. On the pedestal was the inscription, " Perish the usurper who
over- threw Europe and banished national rights." A partner in Wedgwood's
potteries was connected by marriage witlh Sheffield, and the celebrated
ware of that firm was at one time introduced as a material ior knife hafts.
'This gave rise to an angry revolt on the part of the cutlers significant
as an early instance of their readiness to resort to " rattening" as a
corrective to unfair competition. For one Baddeley, of Hanley, commenced
fraudulently but successfully to copy their imitations of stag, buck, and
buffalo horn handles. The workmen refused to make them up, and threats
were sent to the masters that if they persisted in using this man's terra-
cotta handles their works would be blown up. The employers gave way, and
when Haddeley's son visited Sheffield, an attack was made upon him, and
he was served with a written intimation that if he did not discontinue
to supply the handles he and his works would be " done for." An immense
stride in perfecting scissors was taken in 176I, when on Robert Hinchliffe
produced the first pair made of cast steel, hardened and polished. The
story is that love stimulated his inventive genius, and that his efforts
were inspired by desire to win the affections of a young woman whom he
wished to take for wife. The forming of the bows was his greatest difficulty.
His first method was to make them solid; then drilling a hole, he enlarged
this to the required size by laboriously filing away the metal. Afterwards
he hit upon a simpler plan, and a ready sale was found for his wares in
London and other markets. He lived in Cheney Square, and was reputed to
be the first person who put out a signboard proclaiming himself " fine
scissor manufacturer. ' The increasing luxury of the people had created
a demand for forks; edge-tools and joiners' tools had also made their appearance
among the trades of the town. With the multipli- cation of the cutlers
had grown the demand for the fittings of their shops, and thus the manufacture
of anvils, vices, and hammers had taken the position of recognised trades.
In I774, " lancet and phlem makers " were a distinct class‹and the manufacture
of surgical instruments implies both excellence of material and skill in
workmanship and finish. So from I700 to I800 the industries of the town
continued to increase and multiply, in general slowly, but occasionally
with strides which form landmarks in the history of hardware manufactures.
The period is illuminated by the brilliance of two notable discoveries
made nearly at the same time, towards the middle of the century, by Sheffield
men. The inventions of the art of silver-plating by Thomas Bolsover, and
of making cast-steel by Benjamin Huntsman, were destined to have immense
effect. The value of the latter, at least, was not all at once apprehended.
The wise men of Sheffield obstinately refused to use Huntsman's steel.
They complained that it was much harder than anything to which they had
been accus- tomed. But Huntsman found the French more appreciative, and
the superiority the foreigners began to attain thereby raised a competition
which forced the Sheffield cutlers to adopt cast -steel. It has been customary
among writers on this subject to say that up to this time the steel used
in Sheffield was mostly imported from Germany and other countries, and
it has been asserted that steel was not converted here until some years
after Huntsman's invention, the process reaching us by way of Newcastle.*
But this does large injustice to Sheffield. That steel was converted here
and was used by the file-smiths in 1709, is shown by the draft of the agreement
previously named,+ drawn up in that year to be entered into between Samuel
Shore, "ironmonger," and Henry Ball, of Sheffield, steel maker. In this
it was set forth that Samuel Shore, the owner of several furnaces for making
steel, had usually employed Ball " for the making, slitting, and gadding
of steel," and they proposed mutually to agree that Shore was exclusively
to employ Ball, and Ball was exclusively to make steel for Shore, at ten
shillings a heat, with two shillings compassionate money to Ball's mother.
The agreement was not executed, a covenant being substituted, by which,
during ten years, Ball, for 6s. a week, is to make, slitt, and gad all
the steel said Shore has occasion for, having a man to assist him; he is
not to make or gad for anybody, nor slit only for Sam Bayley, Sampson Bayleyt
and Tho. Sayles, filecutters, for what they shall use for their own occasions.
And Widow Ball is to have sixpence a week " while she lives of the ten
years." " Slitting" was cutting, by a machine, thin bars of converted steel
into strips, ready for the cutlers; "gadding" was hammering out these strips
into still smaller sizes. Iron was prepared in the same way for nail makers.
The Middlewood Forge is still known among the old people of the locality
as "the slitting mill." It is believed that the process of " gadding "
still lingers in one or two old-fashioned works. Again, we know that in
I748 the Walkers, to whom is attributed the ~slim" device which robbed
Huntsman of his secret, began erecting steel furnaces and pot furnaces
at Grenoside.# Huntsman removed from Doncaster to Hands- worth in I742,
and there he was prosecuting his experiments with steel until he established
his works at Attercliffe in I772. It is probable that he had furnaces for
converting steel by the cementation process at Handsworth; it is certain
that he had ----------------- * Gatty's Hunter, p. I67n, and Sheffield
Local Register (1785), p. 59. + Ante, p.5. Local Notes and Queries, Jan.
6, I879. # Gatty's Hunter, p. 211. --------------- them at Attercliffe,
as is shown by views of his works in the possession of his descendants.
Mr. R. A. Hadfield (Master Cutler, I899) has called attention* to accounts
of the processes of making steel in Newcastle and Sheffield, given by a
French expert, M. Gabriel Jars, who visited these towns about the year
I764. In his " Voyages Metallurgiques," Jars reports that Swedish bar-iron
was largely converted by cementatlon at Newcastle, and sent in great quantities
to Sheffield and Birmingharb but he found that " dans la ville de Sheffield
et dans ses envirolls, on convertit une tres grande quantitie de fer en
acier," in furnaces built on the same principle as those of Newcastle,
but on a minor scale for economy in construction, and so dealing with smaller
"heats." And M. Jars, in another place, gives an account of Huntsman's
process of refining steel by fusion, and says that attempts made to imitate
this at Newcastle had " succeeded badly." It has been suggested that the
earliest blister-steel makers here‹Samuel Shore in I709 and the Walkers
in I784‹used local iron, and that the advantage Newcastle temporarily gained
was through imitating the Germans, and imporling the produds of the Swedish
mines. For although there are traces of Sheffield buying Danish and Spanish
iron as early as 1557,+ ------------------ * The Early History of Crucible
Steel; " paper read before The Iron and Steel Institute, August, 1894.
Also, " Voyages Metallurgiques (dedie a l' Acadcmie Royal des Sciences
de Paris), par M. G. Jars," and published in 1774, Vol, I., pp. 225, 257.
Mr. Hadfield quotes a highly eulogistic report on Huntsman's Cast-Steel,
by Fourness ad Ashworth, Engineers to their Royal Highnesses the Prince
of Wales and Duke of Clarence. The writers say they are the more induced
to set forth the merits of this, the best cast-steel made in this or any
other country, be- cause during the course of more than thirty ears of
time devoted to the manufacturing of it, Huntsman has so much neglected
his own interest and credit as never to give the public any account of
his steel. They themselves only by accident heard of it, and they offer
their information as friends to a man who ought, in an advanced stage of
life, as well for his own gratification as his family's prosperity and
comfort, to be repaid, by the increase of trade, for his expenditure of
time, and his sedulity in contributing to the convenience of the mechanical
part of society. " This is dated March 28th, 1792. The writers were evidently
unaware that the inventor for whose interests they ~were so generously
concerned, had died in 1776. + Gatty's Hunter, p. I2n. -----------------
we know that iron smelting in this neighbourhood is a very ancient industry,
and was practised certainly in Norman times, and probably even by the Romans.
In the Civil Wars both Royalists and Parliamentarians availed themselves
of the iron works they found hereabouts for casting cannon and cannon-
balls; and early in the eighteenth century the local forges were of considerable
importance. It was therefore natural for the local steel makers to use
the raw material nearest to hand. There has been preserved a memorandum
about the priccs of bar-iron and rod-iron sold at Sheffield between the
years I695 and I724.+ UP to I7I6 there was so steady an increase that "
Mr. Shore and Mr. Cotton were thereby encouraged to set up their iron works,
and then the great prices began to be given for cordwood. And in I722,
the Duke of Norfolk's forge masters, to be revenged of Mr. Shore and Mr.
Cotton, fell their price of iron." In I724 iron sold for £I7 bars,
£I8 I5S. rods. "It so continucd until about two years ago (probably
about I720) that forelgn iron came into England at a low price, and the
forge masters have since sold at £I6 bars and £I7 I5S. rod."
We have also# the details of calculations made by Mr. John Fell, of Attercliffe
Forge, as to the cost of producing iron, having especial regard to the
quantity of cord- wood obtainable from the Duke of Norfolk and other land
owners. The " foreign iron," whose competition is above referred to, was
probably iron from the American Colonies, for from I736 to I757 there was
vehement pressure put upon Parliament to prohibit the importation of iron
from the slitiing mills of New England, the usual wail of Proteciion being
raised that otherwise the home iron tracle would be utterly ruined. The
tanners added their voice for prohibition, urging the ingenious plea that
if the English forges were discontinued the growing of timber would be
discouraged, or the forests would remain uncut, so that there would be
neither oak for ship-building nor bark for tanning. On the other hand there
was expressed in petitions to Parliament, the more enlightened view of
the wisdom of encouraging, by free import, the produce of our Colonies,
thus rendering us independent of supplies from -------------- + Local Notes
and Queries, Sheffield Independent, September 28th, 1874. # Ib., Octobcr
5th, 1874. --------- Sweden and other foreign countries.* In the end the
Free Traders prevailed, and in I757 it was enacted that American bar-iron
should be admitted duty free. The Directory of I774 gives the names of
three firms then making cast steel‹Benj. Huntsman, at Attercliffe, Bolsover
and Co., Sycamore Street, and John Marshall, Millsands. There are two others
described generally as steel manufacturers ‹Greaves, Loftus and Brightmore,
Townhead Cross, and William Parker and Co., Hawley Croft. In I787 there
were five refiners and fifteen converters. In I797, fifteen in all (including
the Walkers of Masbro'), refiners not being distinguished from converters.
The substitution of rolling for the more primitive process of hammering
must be noted as an important step in the development of the iron and steel
industries. It came into special prominence in connection with Henry Cort's
improve- ments in the manufacture of iron in I783. The process had already
been applied by silver platers. In the first instance, these rolled by
hand, then horse-power was substituted; and Joseph Hancock, the man who
was chiefly instrumental in demonstrating the wide adaptability of Bolsover's
invention to many purposes, devoted himself to rolling metal required by
the silver-plate manufacturers. At one time he was, it is said, in High
Street, facing the end of George Street, behind the premises occupied by
Kippax and Nowill, but in 1787 he was in Union Street, where he is described
as " plated metal roller." He afterwards utilised water power for rolling
at the Old Park Mill. Thomas Bolsover, having, by his fortunate discovery
of silver-plating, benefited others rather than himse}f, became a manufacturer
of " saws, fenders, edge tools, cast- steel and emory," in Sycamore Street;
and, extending the rolling process to steel, he erected, about I769, mills
on the Porter Brook, below his house, Whiteley Wood Hall. Perhaps he did
not wholly give up silver-plating. It has been said,+"that, in addition
to his rolling mills, he erected at Whiteley Wood what are now known as
" Forge houses " as
---------- * Local Notes
and Queries, Sheffield Independent, May 25th, 1874. + Ib., August 22nd,
1878, ------------ a plating manufactory, where buttons and snuff-boxes
were made, " buffing " being done higher up the stream, on the site of
Fulwood Corn Mill. Joseph Mitchell and Co.‹who succeeded Bolsover and Co.,
Mitchell being Bolsover's son-in- law‹made gilt and plated-buttons in addition
to edge-tools and saws; which seems to give confirmation to the above statement.
The ruins of the Whiteley Wood Works remain to this day, and the name of
their site, Bowser (Bolsover, Bowsever) Bottom, perpetuates the spirited
but ill-starred enterprise of one of Sheffield's industrial pioneers. An
illustration of the value of rolling may be found in the change it effected
in the saw trade. Formerly the steel for each saw was hammered out of the
bar, but this tedious labour being superseded by the new process, it became
possible quickly to roll sheets of the required ihickness, which had then
simply to be cut into the necessary sizes. And instead of the antiquated
plan of making saws thicker at the tooth edge than in the blade‹so that
in working they might clear themselves, " gait " was given by the simple
but ingenious device of setting the teeth inward and outward alternately.
As we have just seen, Bolsover not only rolled steel for saws at Whiteley
Wood, but he made saws too, improving upon the technical skill of the local
artisans by importing, as foremen, two makers who had worked for a Mr Manwaring
in London. The history of Thomas Bolsover's discovery of silver- plating,
and its influence on the prosperity of the town, has been well and exhaustively
told by other writers.* It may be of interest, however, to focus a few
of the side lights which are beneath the dignity of grave historians, and
to give an account of the origin and fortunes of two firms, typical of
others. ------------------ * See Gatty's Hunter's Hallamshire, pp. I68-9;
Autobiography of Samuel Roberts, p. 37; Mr. Arnold T. Watson's paper on
the Shefmeld Assay Office (Literary and Philosophical Society's Transactions,
October Ist,I88g.) I am indebted for many particulars to the MSS. of the
late Mr. Thomas Nicholson (partner in the early firm of Gainsford and Nicholson,
Eyre Street), kindly placed at my disposal by his repre- sentatives, through
Mr. Arnold T. Watson. I have embodied in this Chapter some of the information
given in my paper on '~ The Rise and Growth of the Trades of Sheffield,"
read before the Social Science Congress when it met here in I865. ---------------------
It is worthy of notice how largely the trade of metal button- making, both
in Sheffield and in Birmingham, had prepared the ground for taking advantage
of the discovery of silver- plating. When Thomas Bolsover, mending a knife
in his attic on Sycamore Hill, hit upon the possibility of plating copper
with silver by fusion, his dominant idea was to utilise the new process
for making buttons; and to this end, in I743 ‹helped, it is said, with
capital by Mr. Pegge, of Beauchief, and in conjuntion with Mr. Joseph Wilson‹he
set up a factory for the manufacture of plated buttons and buckles on Baker's
Hill. It was the sale of these wares, and perhaps also of plated knife
handles, snuff boxes, and so forth, that was snatched from him by a dishonest
traveller to the advantage of unscrupulous rivals. Joseph Hancock, who,
with an outlook beyond buttons, first realised the capabilities of Bolsover's
discovery, was but a brazier. Michael Boulton, a man of fine endowments,
possessing what Smiles calls " a genius for business of the highest order"
destined to give practical effect to ~Tatt's great invention of the steam
engine, was a Sheffield button-maker. Negotiations between him and Mr.
Richard Morton for a partnership here were broken off on a petty squabble
over a paltry £40 as partner's salary; where- upon Mr. Boulton betook
himself, in I764, to Birmingham, with results written large not only on
the silver-plating trade but also on the history of our national industries.-
While some of the early platers began thus as button- makers, others were
cutlers, the transition, when plated knife handles came in, being easy.
Henry Tudor, then in the employment of Young and Hoyland as button chaser,
was hit upon by Dr. Sherburn as a likely practical man to take the -----------
* It is curious to note how Birmingham has benefited by other freaks of
fortune. It was indebted to Yorkshire for Dr. Priestley, who, among other
bellefits, taught it how to gild buttons without gold at a merely nominal
cost; and for electro-plating, the secret of which was sold to Elkingtons
by the most commercially practical of many experimenters, Mr. Wright, who
had been pupil-assistant to Dr. Shearman, of Rotherham. Per contra, it
was an apprentice of Boulton's, one Wilks, who, with another named Mottram,
hit upon a great improvement in the cumbrous old method of making plated
wire. He kept his secret to himself until out of his indentures, and then
came with it to Sheffield, and began business with Mr. Mark Dixon. -------------
head of a concern he contemplated establishing for making best wrought
silver plate. The firm of Tudor and Leader, in Tudor Place, originally
known as Sycamore Hill, was the result. Thomas Leader was an Essex man
who had come here by way of London; and it seems as if the original design
had contemplated only the manufacture of such small articles as snuff boxes,
for Daniel Leader, Thomas's brother, migrated from Essex in 1760, and was
apprenticed to the firm as a " box maker." But the concern grew. It was
one of the first to take up the new method of plating, and when the necessity
for larger appliances for rolling was felt, Tudor and Leader were the pioneers
in substituting horse power for the earlier method of hand labour. A nephew
of Tudor's, one Harry Hurst, proved very useful by employing his artistic
skill in copying the best silver patterns. Dr. Sherburn showed his appreciation
of the efforts of his active partners by be- queathing the bulk of his
property to Henry Tudor, with a share in the concern to Thomas Leader.
Besides this, he left to the latter a favourite horse, and a funny story
is told how Leader, when mounting his new possession for the first time,
got up on the wrong side, by putting his right foot in the stirrup. " Gad
rat it," said he, when the mistake was pointed out, " what can it mean
so that I be on ?" The two working partners lived on the site now occupied
by the Free Library. Afterwards, Mr. Tudor went into Tudor House (since
occupied in various ways, as the first home of the Dispensary, a Bible
Society Depot, and latterly by Corporation Departments), in succession
to Dr. Sherburn. The works were across, that is on the north side of, Tudor
Street, extending from what is now Surrey Street towards the Theatre Royal‹the
site, in recent times, until their present factory was built, of Messrs.
Round and Sons' premises.* In ------------------ * In one of the garrets
of these works, when taken down in I865, there was revealed a considerable
quantity of scrap metal, hidden away in the roof, the booty of some undiscovered
thief. It was here that Bolsover was working when the light of his discovery
dawned upon him. After- wards he lived up a Court in Norfolk Street. This
house became the Second Assay Office, and was so used until I793, when
the premises in Fargate, removed during recent improvements, were built
at a modest cost of £900. ----------------- front of Tudor House,
where is now the Lyceum Theatre, was a bowling green, and Mr. Tudor's gardens
extended over all the surrounding space, in front and to the right; the
grounds sloping down across what is now Arundel Street, amid sycamore trees,
to the margin of the Sheaf. Behind was the garden of Mr. Leader's house,
which, with Mr. Tudor's premises and grounds, covered the site where the
Music Hall was erected in I823, and also that of the Mechanics' Institute,
now the Free Library. The two houses commanded lovely country views. There
is another story of Thomas Leader which illustrates at once the rural character
of the neighbourhood in those days, and the unwise contempt the older firms
felt for new comers. Mr. Leader, walking, with the father of the late Mr.
T. Nicholson, in the field through which Surrey Street was afterwards made,
remarked that the land below had been measured for building. " Yes," said
his companion, " It's for young Roberts and for a plated manufactory, too."
" Gad rat it, man," replied Leader, " let them take skimm'd milk that likes;
we've got the cream"‹an unfortunate remark, for the industry and untiring
energy of Mr. Samuel Roberts, coupled with the mechanical cleverness of
his colleague, Mr. Cadman, and aided by the capital of Mr. Naylor, Unitarian
Minister, as sleeping partner, enabled the firm of Roberts and Cadman to
outstrip all local competitors, and to flourish after Tudor and Leader,
either through reckless management or through the commercial difficulties
attendant on the ruinous war time, had collapsed. Mr. Tudor was for many
years a prominent man in the town's affairs‹as a Town Trustee, one of the
first Guardians of the Assay Office, and in other offices. He had the repu-
tation of being the proudest man in Sheffield, and this earned for him
the title of " My Lord Harry." He was highly indignant at finding another
Henry Tudor, a journeyman, between the wind and his nobility, and he vainly
endeavoured to bribe the man to change his name. He and Thomas Bolsover,
the inventor of silver-plating, married sisters. One of his daughters,
by a second wife, became Mrs. Rowland Hodgson, wife of the friend of Montgomery
and George Bennet.* From a younger daughter the family of Mr. Fernell,
solicitor, are descended. On retiring from business Mr. Thomas Leader,
Senior, returned to Broxted, in his native county of Essex, and died there
in I8I9 at the age of 84. His son, Thomas, was Major in the Loyal Independent
Volunteers (I794), and Colonel in the Sheffield Volunteer Infantry (I803).
He was the hero of a Gretna Green romance, for no sooner did he come of
age (I79I) than he ran away with the daughter of his father's neighbour,
Thomas Henfrey, scissor smith, Master Cutler in I79I, who then lived in
the house which stands askew at the top of Eyre Street. When Mr. Henfrey
built himself a residence at then remote Highfield, to the astonishment
of friends who wondered how he could venture along Sheffield Moor after
dark, Col. Leader succeeded to the Eyre Street House. He died June 4th,
I 833, aged 63, leaving one daughter, wife of the Rev. T. C. Holdsworth,
of Matlock. Robert Leader, the son of Daniel, afterwards proprietor of
the Sheffield Independent, was also in the business, until it was given
up about the year I8I2. Colonel Thomas Leader had allowed his interest
in the Volunteer movement and other outside affairs to divert his attention
from a trade which he conducted somewhat recklessly‹and the penalty had
to be paid. There was some talk of Daniel+ and his son Robert continuing
the concern, but nothing came of it, and the tools and stock-in-trade,
and the house in Surrey Street, were advertised for sale in I8I4. -----------
* Mr. Hodgson's father was Rector of Rawmarsh; his mother was the daughter
of Mr. John Parker, of Woodthorpe, + A venerable Sheffield citizen who
died in 1874 in his 93rd year (Mr. William Ash, joiners' tool manufacturer),
traced some likeness in the late Mr. John Daniel Leader to his great-grandfather,
whom he well remem- bered as " a little stiff man, built like an oak, dressed
in knee breeches, long waistcoat, large cuffed coat, ribbed worsted stockings,
and large buckles on his shoes; " discussing various local matters with
his friend Quaker Abraham Wigram at the &mous hostelry, The Three Stags,
Carver Street. Similarly, the late Mr. Albert Smith was accustomed to tell
another great-grandson that if he put on a pair of old-fashioned horn spectacles,
he would be the image of another great-grandfather, John Smith, the bookseller
of Angel Street, ---------- We can trace in the records of the silver-plating
trade indications that, as was natural, its earlier years, like those of
all new industries in the experimental stage, were characterised by much
unrest and fluctuation. The frequency with which the pioneer firms changed
partners and localities is all the more perplexing because so many men
of the same name were moving about, first in this combination and then
in that‹ now shed from one firm to be joined to a neighbour, or again branching
off from the parent stem to found fresh works. The permutations and combinations
of such names as Morton, Roberts, Nicholson, are many; as to Watsons, as
the time went on, they were endless. Thomas Law must have been early in
the field, because his apprentice, John Winter, now with one set of partners
and now with another, was himself in business from about I765. There were,
too, another appren- tice, Mr. Samuel Roberts, and the Mortons, Richard
and Thomas. By I774 we find, including button and snuff- box makers and
silversmiths, sixteen firms in the trade. And it is of interest to see
how widespread w as already the extension of plating. " These ingenious
workmen," says the Directory of that year, " make a great variety of articles,
an account of which here may not be improper, viz.: " Epergnes, tea urns,
coffee and tea pots, tea kettles and lamps, tankards and measures of all
sizes, jugs, cups, goblets, tumblers, candle- sticks, branches, cruet frames,
water and plater plates and dishes, dish rims, crosses, castors, tea trays
and waiters, bottle and writing stands, tureens, ladles, spoons, scollop
shells, canisters, mustard pots, round and oval salts, bottle labels, cream
pails, bread and sugar baskets, argyles, snuffer stands and dishes, wine
funnels, skewers, cream jugs, lemon strainers, cheese toasters, chocolate
pots, saucepans, stew ditto, snuff boxes bridle bits, stirrups, buckles,
spurs, knife and fork handles, buttons for saddles, and a great variety
of other articles."* ---------------- * To which may be added racing cups--for
one of the early boyish recollections of the writer is a large portfolio
in the possession of his grandfather (Robert Leader) containing the designs
for racing trophies, and many other magnificent articles which had been
made by Tudor and Leaders. Would that the manifold stories the old silversmith
delighted to tell of the early years of the trade, and of the Sheffield
of his youth, had been set down and noted, to be recalled now. -----------------
Not among the earliest, but among early silver-plating firms was that of
Ashforth, Ellis, and Co. (Ashforth, Ellis, Wilson, and Hawksley, it was
in I787). The history of this, both in its beginning and ending, as told
for us by the late Mr. Samuel Ellis, is sufficiently typical to be worth
recording. It was formed about I770 in Hawley Croft‹often called Holy Street.
Mr. George Ashforth brought to it a certain amount of practical knowledge,
and Mr. Samuel Ellis contributed considerable skill in designing and engraving.
Ellis had been trained as a cutler, as his father and grandfather were
before him; but he had drifted into the work of cutting presses for horn
scales, and dies, and his artistic taste had led him to design models and
ornaments for silversmiths. This admirably qualified him for entering on
the plating trade, and the firm quickly won a fair measure of success.
They removed their business to the east side of Angel Street, up a passage
adJoining the shop in recent times occupied by Mr. John Tasker. The workshops
extended so far in the rear that the windows looked upon the back of the
old King Street Gaol. These premises becoming in course of time too small
for their increasing trade, they built new works at the top of Red Hill
(occupied until a few years ago by Horrabin Brothers), and Mr. Ellis erected
for himself the house at the corner of Red Hill and Broad Lane, which has
become a Roman Catholic institution It had a garden and orchard at the
back extending to the top of Red Hill. To his brown wig, Quaker-shaped
coat, white cravat, and shoes with large buckles, Mr. Ellis so invariably
added a flower in his button-hole that he was known in the neighbourhood
as " the old gentleman with a flower in his coat." Although the partners
had not much of the commercial instinct, the concern, so long as it remained
of a compass they could manage by personal attention in the workshops,
went well, and realised for them what was then a handsome fortune. But,
by and bye, travellers, with bolder views, imported larger ambitions than
were entertained by the plain Sheffielders. They got admitted to the firm.
The opening of a branch in Paris, side by side with Wedgwood's show-room,
was followed by another in Dublin; and all went merry as a marriage bell.
But the new spirit did not confine itself within the bounds of sound trading
success. It soared to high personal flights incompatible with good management
We have seen reason to suspect something of the same kind in connection
with Tudor and Leader. The distrac- tions of France, at and following the
Revolution, involved the Paris agency in troubles; and on the top of that,
and with difficulties consequent upon the dismal state of commerce, there
came a special loss of £5000 on goods consigned to Dublin. Bankruptcy,
in I8II, was the result; the business was utterly broken up, and the stock-in-trade
dispersed. Old Mr. Ellis was reduced from amuence to poverty, and ended
his days, like Mr. Joseph Morton, maternal grandfather of Ald. Thomas Dunn,
a fellow sufferer by mer- cantile misfortune, in discharging the duties
of an appointment in the Assay Office. The manufacture of goods in Britannia
(white) metal was another important eighteenth century addition to our
indus- tries. There has been the usual controversy as to the first pioneer
in this trade. Claims to priority have been made on behalf of several individuals,
but the weight of testimony is in favour of Mr. James Vickers, of Garden
Walk (Garden Street). There is strong evidence that he hit upon it by one
of the accidents so frequently met with in the history of commerce. Mr.
James Vickers was one of the earliest adherents of John Wesley in Sheffield.
About I769 he bought for five shillings from a sick man whom he happened
to be visiting, a recipe for making white metal. Experiments with this,
cast in moulds, were so successful that a market was gradually established
for spoons and forks, not only locally but in London, and on the strength
of this success Mr. Vickers applied the metal to many other articles‹tobacco
boxes, beakers, sugar basins, cream jugs, and especially tea and coffee
pots. Mr. Vickers's priority is confirmed by the Directory of I787, where
he appears as the only maker of " measures, teapots, castor frames, salts,
spoons, etc.," in " white metal," besides plating with it bits and stirrups.
His son, Mr. John Vickers, also a noted Methodist, who built Red Hill Terrace,
joined him in partnership, and subsequently carried on the business until
his death at Broombank House, Glossop Road, built by Mr. B, Micklethwaite,
merchant, West Street. Competitors quickly sprang up‹as Richard Constantine;
Broadhead, Gurney, and Spoiles; Froggatt, Coldwell, and Lean; Nathaniel
Gower- and later, Mr. James Dixon, who had been an apprentice at Broadhead's,
laid in Silver Street the foundations of the great establishment at Cornish
Place. Mr. Vickers's business is still carried on by his descendants, Ebenezer
Stacey and Sons, in premises closely adjoining the old ones in Garden Street.
True to the prejudices which made them prone to stand in their own light,
the working population were ever quick to resent efforts to improve the
methods of bringing fuel to the town. Coal, obtained by little more than
scratching the soil or by very primitive mining, is mentioned as in use
in Hallam- shire in the reign of Henry VIII. There is a reference to "the
coalepyttes " (significantly enough in connection with a fatal accident)
in the Burgery Accounts for I587. It is quite possible that these gave
the name to Coalpit Lane. Harrison, in his " Survey " (I637), speaks of
Sheffield Park being " stored with very good coale and ironstone in abundance;"
and its oak forests, close at hand, supplied fuel (' cord wood ') for smelting.
The Norfolk Estate Steward's account for I636 contains payments for " cuttinge
and rivinge old roots and other old wood into cords ;" and disbursements,
in excess of incomings, " aboute the newe cole myne on the Parke Hill toppe
and there abouts." After Harrison's time, near the end of the century,
the splendid trees, containing the finest timber in England, were cut down.
Some portions of the Park (called by the Duke's agents the Hall Park) were
turned into farms. Other portions, where the timber had been felled, lay,
by neglect of enclosing, open to the adjoining (Attercliffe) Common, or
waste, " by which long prescription," it was said in I762, " the freeholders
insist upon it as common, and claim rights of herbage." Mr. Burton, of
Attercliffe Forge, had quietly added pieces of the Park land to the property
leased to him or to Mr. Hayford, and conveniently forgot to pay rent either
for the old or the new. Contemporaneously with the breaking up of the Park,
we read of coal pits at Gleadless being let on lease; and in I702 " colepitts
" at Handsworth are assessed to the poor. In I728 the 8th Duke of Norfolk,
writing to his agent, suggests that, following the example of coalowners
at Worksop and Nottingham, the price of coals from " my colliery at Shef-
field," might be raised a halfpenny a (pack) horse load; but perhaps it
would be as well, " as the road is intolerable bad," first to mend it,
" which would in some measure please them for the advanced price." The
people did not see it in that light, and so far from being " pleased "
at improvements made for their benefit, but as they thought at their cost,
they, as we shall presently see, riotously resented them. A monopolising
policy inspired the Dukes, while desirous of getting their own coals to
the town, to place impediments in the way of others, even of their own
tenants. They used the roads through the Park for their own coals, but
stopped the people of Hands- worth and Gleadless when seeking to avoid
the long detour by Newfield Green and Heeley. In I762 attempts were made
to prevent coals coming from Mr. Spencer's colliery at Attercliffe across
the Common. Mr. Spencer had a colliery on his estate, and a small part
of Attercliffe Common belonged to him; but the Duke claimed, as Lord of
the Manor, to bar Mr. Spencer's access to the town over the remainder of
the Common. " Spencer's tenants of the said colliery," it was said in a
case laid before counsel with a view to an action for trespass, " sell
a deal of coal into the town of Sheffield, in prejudice of the Duke's colliery
in Sheffield Park, and they carry the coals upon horseback, also in waggons
and carts over that part of the Common belonging to the Duke, because it
is a great deal nearer Sheffield than the common high road is." The same
Duke, the gth, took a more enlightened course a few years later, in I774.
Instead of trying to shut out the competition of his tenants and neighbours,
he sought, through the ingenuity of his manager, Mr. Curr, to meet it by
facili- tating the conveyance of his coals to the town by the then very
original means of a tramway with wooden rails. It was two miles long, and
the coals were delivered at a depot at the bottom of the Park hill, near
where Duke Street and South Street join Broad Street. Instead of being
grateful, or pleased," the foolish people saw in this a deep design to
raise the price of coals. A tariff was issued showing a real reduction
in the price of coals as sold at the wharf, but ignoring this, the wildest
stories were afloat, circulated perhaps by the carters, whose occupation
was threatened. The scheme was denounced as an imposition and a cruelty;
and "the merciless wretches," as they are called in a contemporary letter,
were charged with stopping all delivery at the pits, with seeking to almost
double the price, and with refusing to sell in less quantities than a horse
load. Serious riots were the consequence. Several of the " large carriages
on low wheels, which run on a road made of timber, in imitation of one
at Newcastle," were destroyed. A truck, after being dragged in triumph
through the town, was set on fire and sent flaming into the river. The
new loading stage was broken up and burnt; a watch-box and the counting-house
in the coal yard were wrecked, and the tram lines were damaged. The mob
also attacked " The Lord's House " in Norfolk Row, where Mr. Henry Howard
lived. Mr. Howard promptly published a handbill pointing out that it was
never intended to charge higher prices, and showing how, instead of having
this effect, facility of transit must keep them low. He was backed up by
a reassuring statement issued by the Town Collector, the Master Cutler,
and other leading inhabitants as the result of a public meeting. But the
people refused to be comforted, and a few months later the riots were renewed
so threateningly that an association was formed for the mutual protection
of person and property. The tramroad was after- wards relaid with iron
rails; and it has been contended that it was the first in the country so
constructed. Common coal in I734 cost 2s. 6d. a ton, and " Attercliffe
coal " 5s. I0d. The prices at the time of these riots in I774, at the pit
hill, were: Hard, 3s. 4d.; hard and small, 2s. 8d.; small, 2s. per load
of eight corves. The carriage from the pit to the town was 2s. 4d., or
sometimes in winter 2s. 8d. The prices at the new stage were 4s. 6d., 3s.
I0d., and 3s. 2d. respectively, with Is. 2d. per load carriage. Of greater
effect on the industries of the town than any of the advances already described
was, of course, the appli- cation of steam as a source of power. This,
however, was only tentatively making its way in the latter part of the
period of which we are now treating, and its revolutionary effect on trade
belongs not to the eighteenth, but to the next century. It is, however,
germane to the present purpose to record the manner in which man's greatest
ally was received by the people of Sheffield; and it is of interest to
note the mingled feelings of amazement and dread, of disbelief and suspicion
and antagonism with which the new agent was greeted. when, in I785 or I786,
one of the firms of Proctors (for there were several of that name in the
town) erected the first steam grinding wheel on the Sheaf (in what is now
Sheaf Street) the wiseacres predicted ruin to the innovators and all sorts
of disasters to their workmen. Those who flocked to see the engine in motion
were puzzled beyond measure by what was, to them, mysterious and unintelligible;
and for a con- siderable time no grinders could be found to occupy the
vacant troughs. At length one, greatly daring, set at nought the protests
and warnings of his relatives and friends, and began to work; and when
it was found that prognostica- tions of his speedy destruction were not
realised, others followed his example. But even then, the prejudices against
what was called " Old Steamy " remained, and they were encouraged by the
frequency with which, owing to the iniyial difficulties inseperable from
new developments, first one thing then another went out of gear, and the
wheel "fell lame." It is said that the mother of the first grinder who
worked in this wheel, assured by her son of the safety of the boiler, thought
in muddle-headed fashion to carry out the principles he had explained to
her, in her kitchen. Her kettle having " fallen lame," she corked up a
bottle of water and put it in the oven to get hot. The inevitable explosion
occurred, whereupon she said reproachfully, " Thah telled me there were
no danger abaht it, but if thy boiler were to brust, same as moi bottle
did i' t' oven, whoi, it 'ud knock t' wheel dahn." She was taken to see
the engine, but the noise and motion threw her into such bewilderment that
she soon fled from the place, increasingly assured that nothing but disaster
could come from such new-fangled notions. Like steam, trades unions and
strikes belong rather to the nineteenth than to the eighteenth century,
but the latter was not free from attempts at combination, and from mutterings
of the coming storm. The combination laws were such that the organisations
of workmen, until the last years of the century, took the form of " Benefit
Societies." In I720 the tailors formed the first of these. It was called
a sick club, and although it did develop into an association for mutual
helpful- ness in misfortune, its primary object was a curtailment of inordinate
hours of labour. " Whereas," the original deed recites, " we usually work
about at people's houses from six o'clock in the morning to eight o'clock
in the evening for a day's work, and we now find the same prejudicial to
us, and do all of us think it too long confinement for the wages we receive
for one day's work, therefore be it mutually covenanted . . . that we will
not at any time hereafter work abroad for any persons whatsoever in their
houses longer than six o'clock in the evening, nor begin before six o'clock
in the morning, upon any account, occasion, or pre- tence whatsoever, under
the penalty of a sum of sS. of current money of Great Britain for each
offence, proved on the credible testimony of two witnesses." The example
of the Tailors was followed by others, sick clubs or benefit societies
being formed by the Filesmiths and the Cutlers (I732), the Carpenters (1740),
the Grinders (I748), the Scissorsmiths (I79I), and many others with such
names as the " Old Unanimous," " The Union," " The Society Depending on
Providence," " The Shepherds," " Bishop Blaze Club," " Old Gentleman's
Club," " Indefatigable Society," and so on. The names of no fewer than
thirty-six were sent in as intending to march to the opening of the Infirmary
(I797), and besides these others were expected to join in the procession.
Perhaps the powers exercised by the Cutlers' Company did something to delay
the time when the necessity for combination was peremptorily forced upon
the employed. Cases occurred, no doubt, in which the men, labouring under
some grievance, put the master "uppo' t' shelf ' and refused to work for
him until he granted redress. Or they adopted the rough and ready persecution
described in an earlier chapter as employed against "Watkinson and his
Thirteens ;" but it is not until I796 that we come upon the first considerable
strike, or organised movement, on the part of a whole trade. The masters
in this case replied by pledging themselves to reject the demands of the
workmen and to refuse employment to any journeyman without the consent
in writing of his former master‹an early instance of a " black list," or
what we should now call boycotting. The masters, indeed, were not slow
to take up any challenge. Throughout the century they had shown a greater
readiness, under laws that looked leniently on acts on their part which
would have been rank treason in the operatives, to form themselves into
defensive associations, whether against the workmen or against the competition
of one another. Thus in I773 the silver-plate manufacturers formed themselves
into an Association, agreed upon a price list, and bound themselves not
to sell below this, or to allow more than specified discounts. It held
monthly meetings at various taverns, with the in- evitable suppers, and
fined any firm not represented at them. But there arose a good many bickerings
as to breaches of the agreement; the attendances, notwithstanding the fines,
fell off; and the Association flickered out in I784. In I790 there was
trouble in the scissor trade, and the master scissor-smiths got together
a general meeting of merchants and manufac- turers, who resolved to appoint
a committee and to subscribe " to prosecute the scissor-grinders and other
workmen who have entered into unlawful combinations to raise the price
of labour." They did so, and " five poor honest (scissor) grinders to prison
they sent." Mr. George Wood, scissor manufac- turer, of Pea Croft (Master
Cutler in I79I), took a prominent part in the affair, and for this Mather,
in one of his most scathing songs, dubbed him " The Hallamshire Haman."
********************************************************************************
* This out of copyright material has been transcribed by Eric Youle, who
has * * provided the transcription on condition that any further copying
and * * distribution of the transcription is allowed only for noncommercial
* * purposes, and includes this statement in its entirety. Any references
to, * * or quotations from, this material should give credit to the original
* * author(s) or editors. * ********************************************************************************