Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

icks, which were laid by ‘bricklayers’, brothers John and Robert Smith. 75 Before 1800
references to bricklayers are few, the term ‘mason’ still being the usual descriptor.
In the eighteenth century brick was becoming more widespread as a building
material, and brickmakers occur in at least three of this zone’s parishes. 76
As noted
earlier, there seems to have been much cross-over between quarrymen, masons,
brickmakers and bricklayers and their networking covered considerable distances. 77
Rather surprisingly, a potter resided in Tardebigge in the 1760s; whether he used local
clay or imported clay from elsewhere is not known. 78
Equally unexpected are references
to two coal-miners in the 1780s and 1790s. 79
Perhaps speculative coal-pits were being
dug, or maybe coal-miners were employed in the construction of the Worcester and
Birmingham Canal, especially the tunnels. Engineering projects and enclosures at the
time gave work to the likes of John Wilkins, land-surveyor. 80
In the Stuart period plumbers and glaziers were often also farmers (of yeoman
status), and (as later) often had relations in another branch of the building trade. 81 George
Hopkins, a Coughton glazier, also ran a public house. 82
Specialist painters seem to have
been in short supply in this zone at the time, but churchwardens’ accounts record local
75 WaRO, CR1998/LCB/40, Throckmorton MSS, (1663-1665).
76 Evidence for brickmaking in Redditch (Tardebigge) is in WoRO, QS 205/49, Epiphany 1705/6, which
records someone drowning in a Redditch brickfield. Also WoRO, probate of John Baker, Tardebigge,
brickmaker, 1724, £4-7-6. WaRO, DR536/32, records that Studley’s new workhouse in 1740 was built of
bricks.
77 WoRO, marriage licence of Absalom Harris, Lower Slaughter, Gloucestershire, mason, Oct. 1757, was
witnessed by William Sire, Tardebigge, brickmaker. Lower Slaughter is approximately thirty-five miles
from Tardebigge.
78 WoRO, marriage licence of Ralph Hatton, Tardebigge, potter, Oct. 1761.
79 WoRO, marriage licence of William Gould, Tardebigge, needlemaker, Jan. 1796, witnessed by Herbert
Willies, Tardebigge, coal-miner. WoRO, probate of John Johnsons, Ipsley, 1782, mentions Richard Cox,
coal-miner.
80 WoRO, probate of John London, Feckenham, (no occupation given), 1793, was witnessed by John
Wilkins, Feckenham, land-surveyor.
81 WaRO, CR1998/LCB/26, Throckmorton MSS, (1672-5) William Churchley, Sambourne, (Coughton),
glazier, (son of a carpenter), is paid for glazing Coughton Court and tenants’ homes.
82 WoRO, miscellaneous probate (813/2543) of George Hopkins, Coughton, glazier, 1665, £212-14-7.
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