Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

Those attracted into the industry were still mainly from local villages. 263
However, some needlemakers came from further afield or at least had connections with
distant places. Abraham Dean alias Collins, needlemaker, of Littlewood Green, Studley,
but temporarily of Willesden Green, Middlesex, had property in Buckinghamshire,
another needlemaking area. 264
Perhaps he travelled in needles, linking Long Crendon
and London markets with the Needle District, which had now established a growing,
skilful labour-force and an extensive trading network. 265
In Period C needlemakers leaving probate more than doubled from the previous
period (Table 7.2) although there was little change in the percentage of needlemaker
grooms in marriage licences (Table 7.4). While the needle-trade was barely holding its
own in Coughton parish it was still on the increase in neighbouring Studley. 266
This shift
in emphasis may be explained by an increased concentration of needlemakers nearer the
needle-scouring mill at Washford in Studley. Needlemakers were also on the increase in
settlements near water-powered needle mills in Alcester, Redditch, Feckenham, and
Beoley. So, whereas Sambourne (in Coughton parish) had been at the forefront of the
needle trade, with horse-mills pressed into service in the previous period, lack of a
suitable water-mill left it behind. In the needle-trade ‘horse-mills soon became a thing of
the past’. 267
By contrast, Beoley, previously uninvolved in the needle-trade, was now
home to the enterprise of John and Matthew Mills, who harnessed the water-mill there,
263 Individuals can be traced in local registers and apprenticeship records.
264 TNA, PCC probate of Abraham Dean alias Collins, Littlewood Green, (Studley), needlemaker, 1749.
The PCC scribe writes Longenden as the parish where he owned land in Buckinghamshire. Dean’s
widowed mother had married a Studley yeoman.
265 Another link with the capital is shown in TNA, IR1/46, which lists the apprenticeship of William
Reding of Redditch to Charles Martin of St. Botolph Aldgate, London in 1719.
266 See Tables 7.12 and 7.19 above (burial register information from Coughton and Studley).
267 S. Timmins, Birmingham and the Midland Hardware District, (London, Hardwicke, 1866), p. 198.
Redditch Indicator 22 Dec. 1860 refers to Benjamin Gould, a Studley needlemaker of the late eighteenth
century, whose donkey, employed to drive a needle-mill, was disturbed by a neighbour’s clarinet-playing.
303