Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

market place. As well as retailing ironmongery, he acted as factor for metal-ware
craftsmen such as nailmakers, rather like his Black Country counterparts. 178
More typical of blacksmiths perhaps was John Raboll, who stipulated ‘my funeral
be only such as becometh a person of my degree.’ 179
Openings for blacksmiths were
few, and the job was skilled, so it is not surprising that the town’s smithies attracted sons
of blacksmiths from surrounding villages. One such was John Willis, also a maltster and
the town’s baptist minister. 180
In Period C probate data and marriage licence data show no blacksmiths in the
parish, but this paints a false picture. In 1770 Joseph Jones, a Tardebigge blacksmith,
settled in Alcester, and by 1792 the town was home to four blacksmiths including James
Pettipher, who was also a dealer in bar-iron. 181
Growing horse-traffic may have called
for more shoeing-smiths, while iron was increasingly used for other purposes.
The 1835 directory lists three blacksmiths; while another at this period, James
Pettepher, was described as a farrier. 182
Perhaps in addition to shoeing horses this
indicates his role as an animal doctor, maybe employed by some of the old timers in
preference to William Allsop, veterinary surgeon, who moved his business from
Birmingham to Alcester at this period. 183
Nailmakers, locksmiths and cutlers were always rare in Alcester. One family of
cutlers, the Felsteeds, made and repaired items such as knives, scissors and swords in
178 WoRO, probate of Thomas Lucas, Alcester, gent, 1707, £960-18-2 and of Richard Harrison, Alcester,
nailer, 1696; Harrison, who called Thomas Lucas ‘my master’, had family connections with Birmingham.
Rowlands ‘Continuity and change in an industrialising society’, in Hudson, Regions and Industries, pp.
120, shows that focus for ironmonger-factors shifted to Birmingham in the eighteenth century. Lucas lived
in Churchill House, re-built in 1688.
179 WoRO, probate of John Raboll, Alcester, blacksmith, 1733, £37-0-0.
180 WaRO, DR360/86/1 and DR360/80/23, Alcester poor records and settlements, 1656 and 1717. WoRO
probate of John Willis, Alcester, maltster, 1706, £258-15-0. Saville, Alcester – a History, p. 61. Henry
Bellamy, who settled from Redditch in 1717, was of a family of blacksmiths..
181 UBD 1792. WaRO, DR360/65, Alcester settlement certificates, 1771.
182 WaRO, Alcester baptisms 1818.
183 WaRO, Alcester baptisms and Pigot’s Warwickshire Directory 1835.
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