Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

Over the two centuries a couple of coopers were always present in riverside
parishes, where perhaps making barrels was especially useful for the river-trade. 135
Weethley was the base for a family of turners for at least a century, while Simon Barnes,
although described as a yeoman, owned ‘turning tooles and a lathe in the shop’. No
doubt turning wooden objects such as treenware bowls or legs for stools and chairs was a
useful by-employment for rainy days. 136
Sawyers first make an appearance in the 1780s
but become more plentiful in the nineteenth century. 137
The Avon provided osiers for Bidford’s basketry craftsmen: William Edkins,
basketmaker, and William Harward, putchin-maker. 138
Some labourers may have
pursued basketry as a sideline, such as Ephraim Churchley, variously described as
labourer and sieve-bottomer. 139
135 GlosRO, probate of William Porter alias Baker, Welford, cooper, 1670, (value unclear). Other coopers
of this surname were in Wixford and Flyford Flavell. TNA, PCC probate of Matthew Snedwell, Broad
Marston, (Pebworth), cooper, 1669, indicates that he was in fact a ship’s cooper at sea. Welford seemed to
be something of a woodworking centre for this zone with wheelwrights, coopers and carpenters.
136 The Parker family were turners in Weethley from the 1680s to the 1780s. GlosRO, probate of Simon
Barnes, Broad Marston, Pebworth, yeoman, 1708, £245-5-1, list turning tools.
137 These references to coopers, turners and sawyers appear in a variety of records including probate,
marriage licences and censuses. WaRO, Bidford 1851 census lists a ‘labourer at the sawmill’.
138 WoRO, probate of William Harward, Bidford, putchin-maker, 1731/2, £142-19-10. (Putchins were
fish-traps made from basketwork.) He had a parcel of osiers, thirteen baskets, three and a half dozen
putchins and other goods ready for sale. The quantities may suggest that he supplied customers over a
wider area than just the parish.
139
WaRO, Long Marston 1841 census, and Long Marston baptisms 1813-1820. Basketmakers in Alcester
also made sieves. In the Vale of Evesham ‘sieve’ may mean a type of shallow basket for transporting fruit,
e. g. bushel and half bushel ‘sieves’ in A. Heseltine, Baskets and Basketmaking, (Princes Risborough, Shire
Publications, 1982), p. 31, and J. G. Jenkins, Traditional Country Craftsmen, (London, Routledge & Kegan
Paul, 1978), p. 46. WaRO, Bidford 1851 census also lists a beehive-maker; beehives at that time were
usually of the basketwork type.
171