Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

y the falling numbers of tanners in probate. 153
After 1760 references to tanners in any
sources are very few, the last local tanner dying in Studley in 1807. 154
Skinners and glovers are not as conspicuous as in Zones A and C, but are present
in small numbers until the 1730s, when they disappear from local records. For the most
part these craftsmen used sheepskins, but one early skinner also worked horse-leather. 155
The ‘apprentices’ room’ in a Sambourne glover’s inventory, shows that he did not work
entirely alone, but the skinner/glovers’ businesses were mainly small family affairs. 156
Mid-nineteenth century censuses list female glovers in the villages, but not in such great
numbers as in Zone C. Curriers as such do not appear in this zone until the nineteenth
century, when the White family of Headless Cross cured and sold leather among their
other activities. 157
Presumably shoemakers and glovers supplied leather for other
purposes in earlier times, but only with the advent of trade directories do we find the odd
reference to leather-sellers and leather-cutters. 158
In Period A the absence of saddlers and harness and collarmakers is noticeable.
Local customers perhaps had to visit their nearest market town for saddlery items at that
time. From the 1760s saddlers are found in Feckenham and from 1800 they spread to
some other local villages. Maybe they also made items such as leathern aprons and
pulley-belts used in the needle-mills.
Chandlers were present in most of the zone’s parishes, and, as elsewhere, they
tended to be of a fairly high social status, none more so than John Cresser of Coughton,
153 13 tanners in probate in Period A, 3 in Period B, 2 in Period C and only 1 in Period D.
154 TNA, PCC probate of Thomas Handy, Outhill, Studley, tanner,1807.
155 WoRO, probate of Humphrey Eaton, Feckenham, skinner/glover, 1687, £24-13-6.
156 WoRO, probate of Thomas Bird, Sambourne, (Coughton), glover, 1717, £76-1-7.
157 Before 1730 some tanners are referred to as ‘coriarius’ which may mean both tanner and currier.
Various nineteenth century sources record Thomas and John White as curriers, leather-cutters, leathersellers,
butchers, shopkeepers and farmers.
158 For example, Thomas Rogers, Studley, shoemaker, bootmaker, leather-cutter from 1826-1851.
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