Up until the introduction of the railways, when timetables required trains to be punctual and clocks to be accurate, it didn’t matter if the church clock was out of kilter with the neighbouring village. In rural areas, people rose and went to bed by the sun. The first clock to be installed on a church was Salisbury Cathedral in 1386, followed by Wells Cathedral six years later; the mechanism is in the Science Museum. Those wealthy enough in England to afford a timepiece in the late sixteenth century obtained one from Germany or the Low Countries, especially when religious persecution meant immigrants crossed the Channel to make clocks and watches in London. Calvinist Geneva in 1556 charged its goldsmiths with idolatry and, as they were prevented from making jewellery, they turned their hand to watches instead. English clockmakers with backgrounds in locksmithing, blacksmithing and needlemaking made their way from the provinces to London, but by the seventeenth century rivalry from immigrant craftsmen (no change there) meant the Blacksmiths’ Guild in particular felt threatened. It wasn’t until 1631 that a breakaway group gained a Royal Charter from Charles I for a Clockmakers’ Guild. The start of the Civil War eleven years later put paid to the guild for the duration. Like locksmiths, blacksmiths and needlemakers, jewellers had the necessary skill for such fiddly, meticulous work.
Claudius Saunier, in his fascinating 1881 Watchmaker’s Handbook https://archive.org/stream/watchmakershand00tripgoog warns the watchmaker about associated health issues. Close work and the constant use of a strong lens could result in conjunctivitis which, pre-antibiotics, could lead to blindness. He recommends a green cardboard lampshade to protect the eyes from radiation and warns of ‘the dazzling light of gas’ suggesting that bathing eyes with cold water and staring at large stationary objects will help. For him, shortsighted boys should not be apprenticed because eyesight deteriorates under the strain of detailed work, but he contradictorily cites an opthalmist (sic) who claims close work preserves the eyesight! Sensibly, considering a jeweller needs a steady hand, he warns against alcohol and tobacco use. Like a modern-day health and safety manual, he recommends the correct bench height, cautioning that middle-aged watchmakers are bad tempered due to poor posture. Aside from his warnings, we now know mercury used in barometers and pendulums had its own perils (see hat making, Chapter 9) and high temperatures when smelting metals and the use of acid can result in bad burns.
A useful book – the SoG has a copy – is Britten’s Old Clocks and Watches and their Makers, originally published in 1894 and reissued by Methuen in 1982. This lists, in alphabetical order, all watch and clockmakers, dates and towns where they worked itemising famous watches. There is little biographical information, but it shows what an ancestor produced. Some researchers and archivists have indexed clock and watchmakers for various counties and the SoG and local record offices may hold copies. Edward Legg (1937–2008) compiled one for Buckinghamshire www.dumville.org/stories/clockmakers_b1.html. A partial list of Northampton clockmakers compiled by W.N. Terry, curator of Northampton Museum and Art Gallery, is online at www.edintone.com/watchmakers. Ann Spiro has assembled http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~blacksmiths/clockmakers-1.htm. Ancestry, in its occupations section, has G.H. Baillie’s 1947 Watchmakers and Clockmakers of the World online. The Company of Clockmakers www.clockmakers.org has helpful information and a booklist.
Many early clocks and watches made in London are housed in the oldest clock collection in the world. Providing a fascinating history and explanation of how watches and clocks were made, the Clockmakers’ Museum, established 1814, is moving after a 140-year sojourn at Guildhall to London’s Science Museum, opening summer 2015. Other clock and watch exhibitions include those at the V & A, Science Museum, British Museum and the Royal Observatory at Greenwich. Outside London, amongst others, are: Hollytrees Museum, Colchester; the Dorset Collection of Clocks in Dorchester; Belmont Clocks at Faversham, Kent; the Clock Trust, Funtington, West Sussex and the Usher Gallery, Lincoln, which houses the collection of jeweller and watchmaker James Usher (1845–1921). For museums and collections around the world, try www.nawcc-index.net/Museums.php.
To protect their possessions, the Ancient Egyptians made locks from wood. From Roman times, locks and keys were metal and, although bulky, could be carried on the person. Unfortunately for the owner, if not the thief, keys were virtually the same design with a cylindrical shaft and single tooth. The modern flat key with pins was invented as late as the mid-1800s by Linus Yale, and was unavailable in the UK until 1911 at the earliest. From 1818, following a competition to find a lock which couldn’t be broken, the winner Jeremiah Chubb produced in his Wolverhampton factory high-quality locks which thwarted picking. The name is still famous today. The Chubb Collectanea in the LMA, although it has minimal genealogical information, may be of interest to anyone whose ancestors worked in the locksmith trade (or were burglars) www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do.
A locksmith made locks, keys, padlocks and safes. Interestingly, Abraham Derby of coke fame (see Blacksmiths) was the son of a yeoman farmer and locksmith. The principal centres were Willenhall, Staffordshire, where Yale is still based, and neighbouring Wolverhampton; locks were made in both towns from the sixteenth century. Lockmaking is listed as the principal trade of the seventeenth century in Wolverhampton and trade directories from the late seventeenth century list many of the lockmakers in town. Red Book Directories might be useful and copies are held in Wolverhampton Archives and Local Studies.
Pigot’s Directory for Willenhall for 1834 lists and names fifteen bolt makers, two brassfounders and casters, three dye sinkers, five file makers, five iron and steel warehouses, ninety key makers, eleven key stampers, 280 lock makers and seventeen spring latch makers as well as two spur makers for South America! A brief glimpse at virtually every page of the 1851 census shows a locksmith family neighbouring another, with twelve-year-old boys citing it as their occupation. By 1855, there were 340 locksmiths in the area, employing their entire family in a backyard workshop where children filed keys and hours were a brutal 6am to 7pm. A locksmith apprentice working up to eighteen hours a day slumped over a bench might develop a hump-back and crooked left leg, leading to Willenhall’s nickname of ‘Humpshire’. According to the Children’s Employment Commission report of 1843, they might be ‘cruelly beaten’ with a stick, hammer handle or ‘whatever came to hand’. If work wasn’t sold this week, there was no money to buy raw materials for next week.
Why Willenhall? Because, like Stockport in Cheshire where hat makers were paid less than those in London, Willenhall locksmiths earned less than locksmiths in Wolverhampton, who made more complicated, higher quality and therefore more expensive locks. Those made in Willenhall might cost a penny each, and were exported all over the world because they were so cheap. By 1860, like the hatting and shoemaking industries, locks were produced in factories rather than backyard workshops. The workforce was largely female and far cheaper than men.
Like so many working-class trades, it is difficult to find genealogical details for locksmiths other than census records. Online forums request help with hard-to-find relatives which may offer a solution. A website giving information about keys and lock making is found at www.historyofkeys.com/locks-history/history-oflocksmithing and Willenhall and Wolverhampton websites are useful for background to the area. As always, try local record offices.
An interesting visit for anyone with a locksmith in their family history is the Black Country Living Museum’s Locksmith’s House www.bclm.co.uk/locations/the-locksmiths-house in Willenhall, where locksmith Richard Hodson plied his trade from 1792. The family, working in a two-storey workhouse behind their house, specialised in bar padlocks. The house later became a drapery. The museum holds demonstrations of lock making and there is a working forge and lock gallery. Visits must be booked in advance.