Gold is for the mistress – silver for the maid
Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.
‘Good!’ said the Baron, sitting in his hall,
‘But Iron – Cold Iron – is master of them all.’
Rudyard Kipling, Cold Iron
The streets of London were, legend told us, paved with gold and the Industrial Revolution was based on the black arts – not of magic – but manufacturing. Before 1700, only twelve types of metal were known: gold, copper, silver, lead, tin, iron, mercury, arsenic, antimony, zinc, bismuth and platinum. By 1800, there were twenty-four.
See also wheelwrights (Chapter 10) and ironmongers (Chapter 5).
Joe Gargery and Pip (Dickens’ Great Expectations) were blacksmiths (often shortened to smith). A blacksmith worked with ‘black’ metal – iron with its black oxide once finished – and there were so many that Smith is the most common surname in the English language. Labouring in dangerous conditions, they made and mended iron implements such as harrows, pokers, firedogs, shovels, tools like scythe blades and hammers, gates and fencing. Although the farrier was responsible for treating horse ailments as well as shoeing, smiths occasionally made horseshoes and constructed and fitted metal rims for wheelwrights. Every village of necessity had a smithy, often sited at a convenient crossroads. After the arrival of the horseless carriage, it was the village blacksmith who became a mechanic to change with the times.
Smith and wheelwright combined forces to make cartwheels. The area in front of the smithy was deliberately kept clear for this purpose. The trick was to make the metal tyre smaller than the wheel, heat it until the metal expanded to fit the wheel, hammer it into position and douse it with water before hot metal burnt wood. The metal tyre should fit the wheel snugly and perfectly.
The most important equipment in a smithy was the forge and its large chimney, anvil, block and bellows operated by the apprentice. Tools as detailed in The Book of Trades 1806 included the sledge hammer, smaller hammers, tongs, files, punches, chisels and pincers to hold and work with red and white hot metal. In front of the forge was the trough of water for rapidly cooling hot metal and wetting coals to make them burn hotter.
Early man used charcoal to smelt iron from iron ore. Coal may have been used when available but was an unsuitable fuel because sulphur reacted with the iron, causing it to crumble. The blacksmith called this ‘hot or red short’. Charcoal making devoured trees so extensively that there was a serious shortage before the Industrial Revolution and research shows more trees in England today than 300 years ago.
In 1709, Quaker Abraham Derby (1678–1717) developed a process to turn cheap coal, not wood, into charcoal to make coke for blast furnaces. Consequently, the production of cast and wrought iron was considerably cheaper, could be made on a bigger scale and led directly to the Industrial Revolution. Coke was also a by-product of the gasworks; coal burnt in resorts produced gas and the resultant coke could be bought direct by any blacksmith or coal merchant living nearby. Blacksmiths today, when they can get it, still use high quality coke or gas. Abraham Derby’s blast furnace can be visited at Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron.
There is more to smithing than merely beating hot metal with a hammer. The temperature of the iron was specific to each job and what was being produced. A smith had no thermometer and skilfully judged temperature according to the colour of the fire and the metal; iron became red, orange, yellow then white. Forging heat, the most useful, was yellow-orange. Iron melts at white hot. The hotter the fire, the softer the metal. For welding two pieces of metal together, the heat needs to be extremely high. The metal beating is crucial; the skill lies in where to strike the metal and how hard. Lighter strokes are required for more intricate work. Brittle cast iron could not be beaten with hammers. A smith’s labourer and apprentice helped with hammering and turning metal and using the bellows. Without the smith, we wouldn’t have those fabulous Georgian terraces, for it was the smith who made cast iron railings and fixed them to the house.
Smiths charged by the weight of items made. They might ask six pence per pound for railings and window bars. Ornamental work, because of its intricacy, was more expensive; brackets and lamp irons, for instance, would be between eight and fourteen pence per pound. Cast iron railings and sash weights were fifteen shillings to eighteen shillings per hundredweight. A journeyman smith received between three and five shillings a day, but a specialist in intricate work earned considerably more.
A fascinating insight into the life and temperament of Sherington blacksmith Bill Clark and his previous incumbent Bill Groom was published on page fifteen of the Bucks Standard on 27 December 1968. Blacksmiths were ‘bluff, independent and kindly,’ and in the author’s opinion, ‘craftmanship involved a balanced use of hand, brain and eye and the result was contentment’. The article describes a distinctive plough fashioned by Bill Clark and wheelwright Georgie Hyne, who made entire farm carts, not just wheels, and ‘luxuriated’ in the feel of wood under his hands.
My father tells me that when he was working in the early 1930s at boiler maker firm Daniel Adamsons, Dukinfield, blacksmiths wore white coats and were regarded more highly than any other workers. Daniel Adamsons’ records for 1869–1984 are held at Cheshire Archives and Local Studies Centre in Chester.
A whitesmith worked with white metal such as tin or polished metalwork to a highly polished finish. Often known as tinners or tinsmiths, they mended pots and pans for the poor, many travelling the country with a backpack; the tinker. John Bunyan, author of The Pilgrim’s Progress, called himself a tinker, walking the countryside preaching, but genealogists must be aware that some tinkers were vagrants with a poor reputation. Their raw material was tin plate, flat plates of iron covered in tin to prevent it rusting. A brightsmith generally worked cold metal. Under the generic term blacksmith, some artisans specialised in making bells or locks and keys.
The Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths http://blacksmithscompany.org is fortieth in the order of precedence and its earliest records date from 1299. Its website has an excellent explanation of its history. Records and archives from the end of the fifteenth century to the present day include minutes, accounts and bindings of apprentices, the boys’ fathers’ names and their and town of origin. Many boys originated from outside London. Clocksmiths, gunsmiths, armourers and farriers might also belong, often at loggerheads with each other. Anchorsmiths from the Royal College of Deptford could also be members. Pre-1828 records are held in the LMA/Guildhall, but the website warns family historians that there are no records for blacksmiths working outside London.
From the middle of the eighteenth century, most blacksmiths worked outside Company control and records of working smiths were not kept. The best line of inquiry is apprenticeship records which, as legal documents, had to be registered. Most boys were apprenticed at fourteen for seven years. For boys apprenticed outside London, records are sparse, but try county museums and record offices for the area where your ancestor lived.
Durham’s records held at the university include records for whitesmiths and blacksmiths, amongst others, for the eighteenth to twentieth centuries. Auctioneers Rowley Son and Royce sold the contents of Mr Richards’s blacksmith shop, Wimpole, in October 1837, itemising out all the tools and valuing each of them. Examples include a grindstone and frame for ten shillings and a screw-spanner and four spike bits for two shillings and sixpence. The total valuation for the fifty items was £28 18s 6d.