hand, and the head struck up on the anvil. The next step was to turn
them in a lathe, but in 1849 a Gerimn clockmaker invented a machine by
which females could make them five times as fast as the most skilful
workman, and, as usual, the supply created a demand; the trade for a few
years received many additions, and the "screw girders," as the
hard-working lasses were called, were to be met with in many parts of
the town. 1852, 1,500 hands were employed, the output being from 20 to
25 tons per week, or 2,000,000 gross per year. Gradually, however, by
the introduction and patenting of many improvements in the machinery,
the girls were, in a great measure, dispensed with, and their employers
as well, Messrs. Nettlefold and Chamberlain having, in 1865, nearly the
whole trade in their hands, and sending out 150,000 gross of screws per
week. Nearly 2,000 people are employed at Nettlefold's, including women
and girls, who feed and attend the screw and nail-making machines.
Notwithstanding the really complicated workings of the machines, the
making of a screw seems to a casual visitor but a simple thing. From a
coil of wire a piece is cut of the right length by one machine, which
roughly forms a head and passes it on to another, in which the blank has
its head nicely shaped, shaved, and "nicked" by a revolving saw. It than
passes by an automatic feeder into the next machine where it is pointed
and "wormed," and sent to be shook clear of the "swaff" of shaving cut
out for the worm. Washing and polishing in revolving barrels precedes
the examination of every single screw, a machine placing them one by one
so that none can be missed sight of. Most of the 2,000 machines in use
are of American invention, but improved and extended, all machinery and
tools of every description being made by the firm's own workpeople.
_Sewing Machines_.--The various improvements in these machines patented
by Birmingham makers may be counted by the gross, and the machines sent
out every year by the thousands. The button-hole machine was the
invention of Mr. Clements.
_Sheathing Metal_.--In a newspaper called _The World_, dated April 16,
1791, was an advertisement beginning thus--"By the King's patent,
_tinned copper_ sheets and pipes manufactured and sold by Charles Wyatt,
Birmingham, and at 19, Abchurch lane, London." It was particularly
recommended for sheathing of ships, as the tin coating would prevent the
corrosion of the copper and operate as "a preservative of the iron
placed contiguous to it." Though an exceedingly clever man, and the son
of one of Birmingham's famed worthies, Mr. Charles Wyatt was not
fortunate in many of his inventions, and his tinned copper brought him
in neither silver nor gold. What is now known as sheathing or "yellow"
metal is a mixture of copper, zinc, and iron in certain defined
proportions, according as it is "Muntz's metal," or "Green's patent,"
&c. Several patents were taken out in 1779, 1800, and at later dates,
and, as is usual with "good things," there has been sufficient
squabbling over sheathing to provide a number of legal big-wigs with
considerable quantities of the yellow, metal _they_ prefer. George
Frederick Muntz, M.P., if not the direct inventor, had the lion's share
of profit in the manufacture, as the good-will of his business was sold
for £40,000 in 1863, at which time it was estimated that 11,000 tons of
Muntz's mixture was annually made into sheathing, ships' bolts, &c., to
the value of over £800,000. The business was taken to by a limited
liability company, whose capital in March, 1884, was £180,000, on which
a 10 per cent, dividend was realised. Elliott's Patent Sheathing and
Metal Co. was formed in.1862.
_Snuff-boxes_.--A hundred years ago, when snuff-taking was the _mode_,
the manufacture of japanned, gilt, and other snuff-boxes gave employment
to large numbers here. Of one of these workmen it is recorded that he
earned £3 10s. per week painting snuff-boxes at 1/4d. each. The first
mention of their being made here is in 1693.
_Soap_.--In more ways than one there is a vast deal of "soft soap" used
in Birmingham, but its inhabitants ought to be cleanly people, for the
two or three manufactories of hard yellow and mottled in and near the
town turn out an annual supply of over 3,000 tons.
_Spectacles_.--Sixty and seventy years ago spectacles were sent out by
the gross to all part of the country, but they were of a kind now known
as "goggles," the frames being large and clumsy, and made of silver,
white metal, or tortoise-shell, the fine steel wire frames now used not
being introduced until about 1840.
_Stereoscopes_, the invention of Sir David Brewster, were first made in
this town, Mr. Robert Field producing them.
_Steel Pens_.--Though contrary to the general belief, metallic pens are
of very ancient origin. Dr. Martin Lister, in his book of Travels,
published in 1699, described a "very curious and antique writing
instrument made of thick and strong silver wire, wound up like a hollow
bottom or screw, with both the ends pointing one way, and at a distance,
so that a man might easily put his forefinger between the two points,
and the screw fills the ball of his hand. One of the points was the
point of a bodkin, which was to write on waxed tables; the other point
was made very artificially, like the head and upper beak of a cock and
the point divided in two, just like our steel pens, from whence
undoubtedly the moderns had their patterns; which are now made also of
fine silver or gold, or Prince's metal, all of which yet want a spring
and are therefore not so useful as of steel or a quill: but the quill
soon spoils. Steel is undoubtedly the best, and if you use China ink,
the most lasting of all inks, it never rusts the pen, but rather
preserves it with a kind of varnish, which dries upon it, though you
take no care in wiping it."--Though Messrs. Gillott and Sons' Victoria
Works, Graham Street, stands first among the pen-making establishments
open to the visit of strangers, it is by no means the only manufactory
whereat the useful little steel pen is made in large quantities, there
being, besides, Mr. John Mitchell (Newhall Street), Mr. William Mitchell
(Cumberland Street), Hinks, Wells and Co. (Buckingham Street), Brandauer
and Co. (New John Street, West), Baker and Finnemore (James Street), G.
W. Hughes (St. Paul's Square), Leonardt and Co. (Charlotte Street),
Myers and Son (Charlotte Street), Perry and Co. (Lancaster Street),
Ryland and Co. (St. Paul's Square). Sansum and Co. (Tenby Street), &c.,
the gross aggregate output of the trade at large being estimated at 20
tons per week.
_Stirrups_.--According to the Directory, there are but four stirrup
makers here, though it is said there are 4,000 different patterns of the
article.
_Swords_.--Some writers aver that Birmingham was the centre of the metal
works of the ancient Britons, where the swords and the scythe blades
were made to meet Julius Cæsar. During the Commonwealth, over 15,000
swords were said to have been made in Birmingham for the Parliamentary
soldiers, but if they thus helped to overthrow the Stuarts at that
period, the Brummagem boys in 1745 were willing to make out for it by
supplying Prince Charlie with as many as ever he could pay for, and the
basket-hilts were at a premium. Disloyalty did not always prosper
though, for on one occasion over 2,000 Cutlasses intended for the
Prince, were seized _en route_ and found their way into the hands of his
enemies. Not many swords are made in Birmingham at the present time,
unless matchets and case knives used in the plantations can be included
under that head.
_Thimbles_, or thumbells, from being originally worn on the thumb, are
said by the Dutch to have been the invention of Mynheer van Banschoten
for the protection of his lady-love's fingers when employed at the
embroidery-frame; but though the good people of Amsterdam last year
(1884) celebrated the bicentenary of their gallant thimble-making
goldsmith, it is more than probable that he filched the idea from a
Birmingham man, for Shakespeare had been dead sixty-eight years prior to
1684, and he made mention of thimbles as quite a common possession of
all ladies in his time:
"For your own ladies, and pale-visag'd maids,
Like Amazons, come tripping after drums,
Their thimbles into armed gauntlets change;
Their neelds to lances."
_King John_, Act v. sc. 3.
"Thou liest, thou thread, thou thimble."
"And that I'll prove upon thee, though thy
little finger be armed in a thimble,"
_Taming of the Shrew_, Act iv., sc. 3.
The earliest note we really have of thimbles being manufactured in
Birmingham dates as 1695. A very large trade is now done in steel,
brass, gold, and silver.
_Thread_.--Strange are the mutations of trade. The first thread of
cotton spun by rollers, long before Arkwright's time, was made near this
town in the year 1700, and a little factory was at work in the Upper
Priory (the motive power being two donkeys), in 1740, under the
ingenious John Wyatt, with whom were other two well-remembered local
worthies--Lewis Paul and Thomas Warren. Many improvements were made in
the simple machinery, but fate did not intend Birmingham to rival
Bradford, and the thread making came to an end in 1792.
_Tinderboxes_, with the accompanying "fire steels," are still made here
for certain foreign markets, where lucifers are not procurable.
_Tinning_.--Iron pots were first tinned in 1779, under Jonathan Taylor's
patent. Tinning wire is one of the branches of trade rapidly going out,
partly through the introduction of the galvanising process, but latterly
in consequence of the invention of "screw," "ball," and other bottle
stoppers. There were but five or six firms engaged in it ten years back,
but the then demand for bottling-wire may be gathered from the fact that
one individual, with the aid of two helpers, covered with the
lighter-coloured metal about 2cwt. of slender iron wire per day. This
would give a total length of about 6,500 miles per annum, enough to tie
up 25,718,784 bottles of pop, &c.
_Tools_--The making of tools for the workers in our almost countless
trades has given employ to many thousands, but in addition thereto is
the separate manufacture of "heavy edge tools." Light edge tools, such
as table and pocket knives, scissors, gravers, &c., are not made here,
though "heavy" tools comprising axes, hatchets, cleavers, hoes, spades,
mattocks, forks, chisels, plane irons, machine knives, scythes, &c., in
endless variety and of hundreds of patterns, suited to the various parts
of the world for which they are required. Over 4,000 hands are employed
in this manufacture.
_Tubes_.--Immense quantities (estimated at over 15,000 tons) of copper,
brass, iron, and other metal tubing are annually sent out of our
workshops. In olden days the manufacture of brass and copper tubes was
by the tedious process of rolling up a strip of metal and soldering the
edges together. In 1803 Sir Edward Thomason introduced the "patent
tube"--iron body with brass coating, but it was not until 1838 that Mr.
Charles Green took out his patent for "seamless" tubes, which was much
improved upon in 1852 by G. F. Muntz, junr., as well as by Mr. Thos.
Attwood in 1850, with respect to the drawing of copper tubes. The Peyton
and Peyton Tube Co., London Works, was registered June 25, 1878, capital
£50,000 in £5 shares. Messrs. Peyton received 1,000 paid-up shares for
their patent for machinery for manufacturing welded and other tubes,
£3,500 for plant and tools, the stock going at valuation.
_Tutania Metal_ took its name from Tutin, the inventor. It was much used
a hundred years ago, in the manufacture of buckles.
_Umbrellas_.--The name of the man who first carried an umbrella in this
town (about the year 1780) has not yet been enrolled among our
"Birmingham Worthies," but he must have been known to some of our
fathers, for it is not much more than 100 years ago since Jonas Hanway
walked down the Strand, shielding his wig from the wet with the first
umbrella seen in London. The metal work required for setting-up,
technically called "furniture," has long been made here, and gives
employment to about 1,700 hands, two-thirds of whom are females.
_Vinegar_.--Fardon's Vinegar Brewery, Glover Street, is worth a visit,
if only to look at their five vats, each upwards of 30ft. high and 24ft.
in diameter, and each capable of storing 58,000 gallons. But, besides
these, among the largest of their kind in the world, there are thirteen
24,000 gallons vats, five 15,000, and twenty seven 10,000.
_Vitriol_.--The Oil of Vitriol in 1800 was reduced from 3s. per lb. to
1s.; in 1865 it was sold at 1d.
_Watchmaking_.--Few names of eminent horologists are to be found in the
lists of departed tradesmen; so few indeed that watchmaking would seem
to have been one of the unknown arts, if such a thing was possible at
any period of the last two hundred years of Birmingham history. Messrs.
Brunner (Smallbrook Street), Swinden (Temple Street), and Ehrardt (Barr
Street West) take the lead at present among private firms, but the
introduction of a watch manufactory is due to Mr. A L. Dennison, who,
though not the originator of the notion, after establishing factories in
America (in or about 1850) and Switzerland, came to this country in
1871, and, with other gentlemen in the following year started the
Anglo-American Watch Co. (Limited), a factory being erected in Villa
Street. The trade of the Co. was principally with America, which was
supplied with machine-made "works" from here until the Waltham, Elgin,
and other firms over there beat them out of the market, a not very
difficult operation, considering that our fair-trading cousins impose a
25 per cent. duty on all such goods sent there by the free-traders of
this country. The Villa Street establishment was purchased in 1875 by
Mr. William Bragge, who developed the business under the name of The
English Watch Co., the manufacture being confined almost solely to
English Lever watches, large and small sized, key-winding and keyless.
In January, 1882, Mr. Bragge, for the sum of £21,000 parted with the
business, plant, stock, and premises, to the present English Watch Co.
(Limited), which has a registered capital of £50,000 in shares of £10
each, the dividend (June, 1884) being at the rate of 6 per cent. on
paid-up capital.--In April, 1883, the prospectus of The English Double
Chronograph Co. (Limited) was issued, the capital being £50,000 in £10
shares, the object of the company being to purchase (for £15,000) and
work the patents granted to Mr. W. H. Douglas, of Stourbridge, for
improvements in chronographs, the improvements being of such a nature
that ordinary keyless English levers can be turned into double
chronographs at a trifling cost.
_Whipmaking_, as a trade distinct from saddlery, dates from about 1750,
and it received a great impetus by the introduction, in 1780, of a
machine by Matthew Dean for the easier manipulation of the leather
thongs.
_Whistles_ of all sizes and sorts, from the child's tin whistle to the
huge and powerful steam whistles used on board the American liners, are
made in this town, and it might be imagined there could be but little
novelty in any new design. This, however, is not the case, for when the
authorities of Scotland Yard (June, 1884) desired a new police whistle,
samples were sent in from many parts of the country, from America, and
from the Continent. The order, which was for 40,000, was secured by
Messrs. J. Hudson and Co., Buckingham Street, and so distinct is the
speciality, that fifty other places have followed the example of the
Metropolis.
_Wire_.--Wire-drawing, which formerly had to be done by hand, does not
appear to have been made into a special trade earlier than the beginning
of the 18th century, the first wire mill we read of being that of Penns,
near Sutton Coldfield, which was converted from an iron forge in 1720.
Steel wire was not made till some little time after that date. The
increased demand for iron and steel wire which has taken, place during
the last 35 years is almost incredible, the make in 1850 being not more
than 100 tons: in 1865 it was calculated at 2,000 tons, in 1875 it was
put at 12,000 tons, while now it is estimated to equal 30,000 tons. In
March 1853, a piece of No. 16 copper wire was shown at Mr. Samuel
Walker's in one piece, three miles long, drawn from a bar 6/8ths in
diameter. Originally the bar weighed 128 lbs, but it lost 14lbs in the
process, and it was then thought a most remarkable production, but far
more wonderful specimens of wire-spinning have since been exhibited. A
wire rope weighing over 70 tons, was made in 1876 at the Universe Works,
of Messrs. Wright, who are the patentees of the mixed wire and hemp
rope. Birdcages, meat covers, mouse traps, wire blinds, wire nails, wire
latticing, &c., we have long been used to; even girding the earth with
land and ocean telegraph wire, or fencing in square miles at a time of
prairie land, with wire strong enough to keep a herd of a few thousand
buffaloes in range, are no longer novelties, but to shape, sharpen, and
polish a serviceable pair of penny scissors out of a bit of steel wire
by two blows and the push of a machine, _is_ something new, and it is
Nettlefold's latest.
_Wire Nails, Staples, &c._, are made at Nettlefold's by machinery much
in advance of what can ba seen elsewhere. In the nail mill the "Paris
points" as wire nails are called, are cut from the coil of wire by the
first motion of the machine as it is fed in, then headed and pointed at
one operation, sizes up to one inch being turned out at the rate of 360
a minute. In the manufacture of spikes, the punch for making the head is
propelled by springs, which are compressed by a cam, and then released
at each stroke; two cutters worked by side cams on the same shaft cut
off the wire and make the point. A steel finger then advances and knocks
the finished spike out of the way to make room for the next. Wire
staples, three inches long, are turned out at the rate of a hundred a
minute; the wire is pushed forward into the machine and cut off on the
bevel to form the points; a hook rises, catches the wire, and draws it
down into the proper form, when a staple falls out complete.
_Wire Gauge_.--The following table shows the sizes, weights, lengths,
and breaking strains of iron wire under the Imperial Standard Wire
Gauge, which came into operation March 1, 1884--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Size | DIAMETER | Sectional | WEIGHT OF | Length | BREAKING STRAINS
on | ------------| area in |----------- | of | ----------------
Wire | Inch Mille- | Sq. |100 Mile | Cwt. | Annealed |Bright
Gauge| metres | Inches |Yards | | |
------------------------------------------------------------------------
lbs. lbs. yds. lbs. lbs.
7/0 .500 12.7 .1963 193.4 3404 58 10470 15700
6/0 .464 11.8 .1691 166.5 2930 67 9017 13525
5/0 .432 11. .1466 144.4 2541 78 7814 11725
4/0 .400 10.2 .1257 123.8 2179 91 6702 10052
3/0 .372 9.4 .1087 107.1 1885 105 5796 8694
2/0 .348 8.8 .0951 93.7 1649 120 5072 7608
1/0 .342 8.2 .0824 81.2 1429 138 4397 6595
1 .300 7.6 .0598 69.6 1225 161 3770 5655
2 .276 7. .0598 58.9 1037 190 3190 4785
3 .252 6.4 .0499 49.1 864 228 2660 3990
4 .232 5.9 .0423 41.6 732 269 2254 3381
5 .212 5.4 .0365 34.8 612 322 1883 2824
6 .192 4.9 .0290 28.5 502 393 1644 2316
7 .176 4.5 .0243 24. 422 467 1298 1946
8 .160 4.1 .0201 19.8 348 566 1072 1608
9 .144 3.7 .0163 16. 282 700 869 1303
10 .128 3.3 .0129 12.7 223 882 687 1030
11 .116 3. .0106 10.4 183 1077 564 845
12 .104 2.6 .0085 8.4 148 1333 454 680
13 .092 2.3 .0066 6.5 114 1723 355 532
14 .080 2. .0050 5. 88 2240 268 402
15 .072 1.8 .0041 4. 70 2800 218 326
16 .064 1.6 .0032 3.2 56 3500 172 257
17 .056 1.4 .0025 2.4 42 4667 131 197
18 .048 1.2 .0018 1.8 31 6222 97 145
19 .040 1. .0013 1.2 21 9333 67 100
20 .036 .9 .0010 1. 18 11200 55 82
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_Yates_.--At one period this was the favourite slang term of the
smashing fraternity for the metal used in their nefarious business, the
spoons manufactured by Messrs. Yates and Son being the best material for
transmutation into base coin.
~Trafalgar.~--See "_Nelson_" and "_Statues_."
~Train Bands.~--The Trainbands of former days may be likened to the
militia of the present time, but were drawn from every parish in the
hundreds, according to the population. A document in the lost Staunton
Collection, gave the names and parishes of the men forming "Lord
Compton's Company of Foot for the Hundred of Hemlingford" in 1615, being
part of the "Warwickshire Trayue Bands." Birmingham supplied six men
armed with pikes and six with muskets; Birmingham and Aston jointly the
same number; Edgbaston one pike; Coleshill three of each; Sutton
Coldfield. four pikes and six muskets; Solihull three pikes and four
muskets; Knowle the same; Berkswell two pikes and five muskets; and
Meriden one pike and two muskets. These Trained Bands numbered 6OO men
from Coventry and the county in 1642, besides the Militia and Volunteers
of Warwickshire, which were called up in that year. These latter
mustered very strongly on the days for review and training, there being
at Stratford-upon-Avon (June 30) 400 Volunteers well armed and 200
unarmed; at Warwick (July 1 & 2) 650 well armed; at Coleshill (July 4)
8OO almost all well armed; and at Coventry near 800 most well armed--the
total number being 2,850, making a respectable force of 3,450 in all,
ready, according to the expression of their officers, "to adhere to His
Majestie and both Houses of Parliament, to the losse of the last drop of
their dearest blood." These fine words, however, did not prevent the
"Voluntiers" of this neighbourhood opposing His Majestie to the utmost
of their power soon afterwards.