Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

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For the most part ‘(stone-)masons’ were based in quarrying parishes and, like
their counterparts in Zone B, probably extracted and dressed stone, as well as building
with it. Probate documents and deeds reveal something of how these stonecutter-masons
lived, renting land for digging stone and supplementing their income with farming,
brewing and other by-employments. Masons’ probate inventories mainly suggest a
modest life-style and show that their working tools were worth little. 54
If masons held
(and farmed) varying amounts of land, the reverse was also true: some farmers were
involved in extractive industries. 55
Some masters in the trade did well for themselves, for example, the stone-cutter,
George Walker, who held considerable land and property. 56
By contrast their employees
were often needy. Joseph Hemming was removed from Aston Cantlow to Halesowen,
more than twenty miles distant, a reminder that, with limited opportunities in quarrying
and building, such workers had to migrate further than those in many other trades. 57
John Walker alias Farmer of Newnham, Aston Cantlow, lived in the area where
Wilmcote limestone occurs. His inventory (total £7-1-6) would suggest that he only eked
out a meagre existence as a lime-burner and brickmaker. However, his house had three
53 As happened in the Cotswolds. E. Brill, Life and Tradition in the Cotswolds, (Gloucester, Alan Sutton,
1987), p. 141, states that quarrying mainly took place between Michaelmas and Christmas.
54 WoRO, miscellaneous probate (795/254) of Francis Biddle, mason, Temple Grafton, 1663, £21-10-0, and
WoRO, probate and miscellaneous probate (798/630) of Lewis Figgott, mason, Inkberrow, 1665, £23-0-0,
and WoRO, probate of Thomas Ellins, mason, Binton, 1697, £27-8-4. Figgott was illiterate, but Biddle had
a bible and books.
55 WoRO probate: Thomas Badson, Binton, stonecutter, 1741/2, £17-10-0, possessed at least three
messuages, a close, a small amount of meadowland, ridges in the common field and enjoyed rights of
common for one beast. He owed an £80 mortgage for much of this property to a Stratford writing master.
WoRO probate of Richard Edkins, Aston Cantlow, stonecutter, 1747, reveals that he held a new 8 acre
enclosure, which may correspond to the quarter-yardland allotted to him in the enclosure award (WaRO,
QS9/12/1). WaRO, QS9/12/1, Aston Cantlow enclosure award, shows that John Dunn, yeoman of Aston
Cantlow, had a lime-kiln, which he may have worked himself or rented out. My tables no doubt understate
the number of people involved in quarrying and building, as quarrying farmers and labourers are not
included.
56 George Walker served as a churchwarden and left money for charity. (WoRO probate of George Walker,
Aston Cantlow, stonecutter, 1751.) Another successful mason was Thomas Johns, who leased the tithes of
Wilmcote from Lord Brooke. (WaRO, CR1886/BL/1877).
57 WaRO, DR259/49/1, Aston Cantlow removal order of Joseph Hemming, 1714, to Halesowen.
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