Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

zone’s heaths and commons than records would suggest, after 1750 references to
nailmakers cease hereabouts until the nineteenth century when a few nailmakers appear
in a variety of sources.
In the eighteenth century this zone was home to the odd cutler and locksmith, who
are joined in Period D by small numbers of fender-makers, engineers, machinists and
boiler-makers. In the 1840s and 1850s the following are added to the list: filemaker, filecutter,
awl-maker, awl-blademaker and mechanic. 208
Despite this variety of occupations,
metalworkers other than needlemakers and blacksmiths always formed a very small
percentage of the workforce, never exceeding 0.9%. 209
In 1755 Thomas Woods of Studley, was described as a ‘hardwareman’. He may
have been an ironmonger or may have produced or supplied nails and associated items. 210
Other ironmongers are not in evidence in this zone until Period D when one appears in
the growing town of Redditch.
Thefts of iron reported in Worcestershire Quarter Sessions show that it was
considered a valuable commodity. 211
The raw material used by blacksmiths was bariron,
the production of which was important in the economy of the west midlands region
and the nation, not only for blacksmiths but for nailmakers and others. 212 Before 1730
this zone played a part, albeit small, in the production of bar-iron. In the second half of
the seventeenth century two forge-mills at Redditch and one downstream at Ipsley, (all
powered by the River Arrow), were converting pig-iron into bar-iron. Why had these
mills been pressed into service as iron forges? Firstly, they were near sources of charcoal
208 WaRO and WoRO 1851 census and Billing’s Worcestershire Directory 1855..
209 See Tables 7.2, 7.4, 7.6 and 7.8.
210 WaRO, Studley parish register, burials 1755.
211 WoRO, for example QS 105/36a, b, in 1663.
212 P. King, ‘The production and consumption of bar iron in early modern England and Wales’, Econ. Hist.
Rev., 58, (2005), p. 5.
290