Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

distances to find employment. 220
The settlement of another Redditch forgeman was
discussed in quarter sessions. 221
By 1730 it appears that bar-iron production ceased at both the Redditch forgemills
and at Ipsley. Increased competition from Russian bar-iron imports may have been
the main factor in their demise. 222
In Stuart times in cottages on the commons something else was stirring which was
to have far more impact on this zone than the nailmaking mentioned above. Some
families had started making needles. There has been much speculation regarding how,
when and why the needle-trade came to this area. Nineteenth century antiquarians
favoured a story of monks at Bordesley Abbey passing the skill to locals before or after
the dissolution of the monasteries. Another oft-repeated tale was that the local needle
industry’s origins lay in the migration of needlemakers from the Buckinghamshire village
of Long Crendon. Evidence for the romantic, monastic story is lacking, and, although
Buckinghamshire needlemakers did make significant contributions to the local needletrade,
these were at a later date. More careful researchers have revealed a different
story. 223
In view of the importance of the needle industry in the development of the study
area it is relevant to summarise its origins here. Needlemakers were at work in London
220 WoRO, probate of Stephen Spencer, Tardebigge, forgeman, 1699, £54-10-0.
221 WoRO, QS139/64, quarter sessions 1681, mentions John Brockshaw, who had secured a post at
Cookley forge near Kidderminster. It was decreed that Tardebigge parish would still be chargeable if he
fell on hard times.
222 C. Evans, O. Jackson and G. Ryden, ‘Baltic iron and the British iron industry in the eighteenth century’,
Econ. Hist. Rev., 55, (2002), pp. 645, 647.
223 Information in this paragraph is based on Jones, ‘The development of needle manufacturing in the west
midlands before 1750’, and Richardson, The Book of Redditch, pp. 61-63. It is significant that Buchanan,
‘Studies in the localisation of seventeenth century Worcestershire industries’, found no needlemakers in
Worcestershire from 1600 to 1650.
293