Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

Fairfax, who was paid by Feckenham overseers ‘to teach Bet Morris the needle business’,
while Widow Holyoake ran a fish-hook business. 284
Although needles were made from wire, drawn out until it was the correct
diameter, the references to local wire-drawers are few. Many needlemakers probably
performed this operation themselves, but Redditch was home to one wire-drawer, and
raw materials were also supplied by Birmingham wire-drawers. 285
That other small offshoot
of the needle industry, pinmaking is not mentioned locally in Period C. 286
It may
be that needlemakers continued to make pins as a side-line, but perhaps, as needle and
fish-hook production became more specialised, it was increasingly difficult to adapt skills
and equipment to pinmaking.
In Period D manufacture of needles and fishing tackle took place in every parish
in this district, but the spread of workers differed greatly. Although Studley and
Sambourne (in Coughton parish) had been early leaders in the needle-trade, Redditch was
now undoubtedly the focal point of the industry. Although there was a water-mill
making needles in Beoley, it did not employ many men. Even within a parish the
distribution of needlemakers was very uneven. 287
284 WoRO, BA4284, (ix), Feckenham overseers of the poor accounts, 1777. Redditch Library, A
Description of Redditch 1776, (copy of a MS by Joseph Monk) mentions Widow Holyoake. WaRO, MI
163, Coughton RC register, mentions several female needlemakers.
285 Redditch Library, A Description of Redditch 1776, (copy of a MS by Joseph Monk) mentions Samuel
Peakman, Redditch, wire-drawer. Berrow’s Worcester Journal 1795 reports Birmingham wire- drawer,
Busby, breaking his leg from a fall on the ice in Redditch. Berrow’s Worcester Journal 8 June 1780 and 30
Dec. 1784 report that local needlemakers in financial difficulties assigned their estate to John Ryland,
Birmingham, wire-drawer, amongst others.
286 John Bott and Thomas Reading, (pinmakers in the previous period), are present until the 1760s, but not
referred to as pinmakers. In John Bott’s probate he is referred to as a yeoman. (WoRO, probate of John
Bott, Feckenham, yeoman, 1764.) Pinmakers appear again (in very small numbers) in Period D.
287 For example, within Coughton parish Sambourne always had more needlemakers than Coughton itself.
See Tables 7.13 to 7.19 above.
307