Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

Measie of Arrow was described specifically as a joiner. He occupied extensive premises
at Arrow which he used as his home and his farming base, but he also had a shop in
nearby Alcester where he made or stocked items such as chairs, stools, coffins, bedsteads
and cupboards. 130
The carpenter’s job must have changed much over the study period as half-timber
building techniques faded and perhaps more sophisticated cabinet making was demanded
even in the countryside.
Other woodworkers were not as numerous as carpenter/joiners, but were
apparently on the increase over time. 131
Wheelwrights may have prospered as roads
improved and horse-traffic increased. 132
Wheelwrights often made and assembled whole
vehicles rather than just dealing with wheels. In the 1750s William Ladbury was
described merely as a ‘wright’, while in 1841 Thomas Bridges was enumerated as a
‘coach-maker’. 133
Some wheelwrights doubled as ploughwrights and may have sold
ploughs to farming folk further afield, for instance in the Champion Country which had
less timber and fewer woodworkers.
The produce of the woodland estates, both timber and coppice-wood, continued to
be a vital factor in the local economy, though not always explicit in archives. Often
landowners or their stewards dealt in these products, but the odd specialist timbermerchant
also occurs. 134
While landowners and yeomen exploited the timber and
130 WoRO, miscellaneous probate (814/2698) of Edward Measie, Arrow, joiner, 1666, £202-15-8.
131 Tables 6.2 and 6.4 show an increase to 1.8 or 1.9% in probate and marriage licences. Table 6.6
(baptisms) also has a similar figure and suggests an increase during the period 1813-1840. The 1841
census gives a figure of 2.6% of adult males in woodworking trades other than carpenters.
132 Three out of the 5 wheelwrights in probate appear in Period D.
133 TNA, IR1/53, apprentice books list William Ladbury, Inkberrow, wright, and WaRO, Arrow 1841
census.
134 For example, TNA, PCC probate of Robert Fullwood, Oldberrow, esquire, 1739, mentions a coppice in
his manor of Oldberrow. SCLA, DR134/54/5, a deed of 1704, refers to John Baker of Shelfield (Aston
Cantlow), timber-merchant.
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