Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

connections with distant forges. One gentleman-ironmaster, William Sowley, was one of
the wealthiest people in the whole study area. 215
Around 1700 the iron-trade was attractive enough for Sir John Huband to erect a
new iron-mill in Ipsley. 216
Thomas Wright was making iron there in 1703 and John
Ruston may have served in the same role in the 1720s. 217
It is noticeable that Thomas
Wright’s bride was a Fortescue, of a noted local gentry family, which may have backed
his business venture. Gentlemen who managed the Redditch forges at this time include
Wheeler, Mugg and Harward. 218
The forges at Redditch and Ipsley probably only employed a handful of men,
whose status is hard to judge with so little evidence. No ‘hammermen’ or ‘refiners’
appear in local records, and only a couple of ‘forgemen’. The probate of one forgeman,
Joshua Goodale, was witnessed by a nailer, who may well have been supplied by the
forge. 219
Another forgeman, Stephen Spencer, was valued at £54-10-0, but £40 of this
was ‘in several debtes dew to the deceased’. His probate administration mentions two
relations, both forgemen, one of whom lived at Upleadon, Gloucestershire, some forty
miles away, a reminder that in the iron-trade men sometimes had to travel considerable
215 WoRO, miscellaneous probate (811/2267) of John Atmore, Redditch, (Tardebigge), gent, 1664, £279-
15-4. He had ‘stock at the forge, iron in bloomes, piggs, etc.’. Other family members too were connected
with forges. WoRO, probate of William Sowley, Bordesley, (Tardebigge), gent, 1689, £1764-6-0. His
family were involved in forges elsewhere. He inherited some wealth from a relation, Robert Reade, who
preceded him at the forge. WoRO, probate and miscellaneous probate (812/2394) of Robert Reade,
Tardebigge, yeoman, 1664/5, £56-3-4. Peter King also provides information about Nathaniel Mugg who
ran the forges in the 1690s.
216 VCH Warwickshire, iii, p. 184.
217 WoRO, marriage licence of Thomas Wright, Ipsley, ‘ferri fabricator’, (ironmaker), Nov. 1703, and
information from Dr. Peter King’s gazetteer. Wright may have been involved with forges in Cheshire, and
Ruston with a forge at Lydney in Gloucestershire.
218 Information from Peter King’s gazetteer.
219 WoRO, probate of Joshua Goodale, Redditch, (Tardebigge), forgeman, 1700, £50-3-0, and of Stephen
Spencer, Tardebigge, forgeman, 1699, £54-10-0.
292