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    The Country Blacksmith
    The Country Blacksmith
    The Country Blacksmith
    Ebook124 pages1 hour

    The Country Blacksmith

    By David L. McDougall

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    About this ebook

    The blacksmith was once crucial to village life, whether commissioned for the humblest repair, the most luxurious ironwork or even the odd anvil marriage. Occupying prime position in the village, the forge attracted custom from miles around and was a hive of industry and social interaction. David L. McDougall here describes the varied work blacksmiths undertook, the tools and techniques they used, and the magical and mystical qualities with which they were associated. If you want to know more about the rise and fall of the country blacksmith – and the recent revival of the craft – this colourfully illustrated book is the ideal introduction.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateMay 10, 2013
    ISBN9780747813620
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      Book preview

      The Country Blacksmith - David L. McDougall

      THE BLACKSMITH’S TRADE

      A blacksmith courted me, I loved him dearly.

      He played upon his pipes both neat and trimly.

      With his hammer in his hand he strikes so steady,

      He makes the sparks fly all round his smithy.

      (Traditional, recorded 1902)

      THE BLACKSMITH of folksong, literature, legend and poem was a skilled and clever workman. In the countryside the smith was a vital linchpin of the community, the ‘king of craftsmen’. Without the blacksmith other tradesmen were unable to work, as they all originally relied on the smith’s ability to make, sharpen and mend their tools and equipment, or to shoe their horses.

      The blacksmith’s forge was the hub of village life, where the continuous activity produced a spectacle attracting visitors; local gossip and politics were exchanged, and work was planned. Often, the smith was a man of some standing, involved in parish life as a churchwarden, an overseer of the poor or the surveyor of roads. In addition, the smith may have combined his craft with a business as a farmer or a publican, assisted by his family.

      The blacksmith’s medium is iron, the ‘black metal’, worked hot. Other smiths worked in other metals, the name of their craft reflecting the material they used. The goldsmith, silversmith and coppersmith were mostly found in large population centres. A ‘brownsmith’ worked with both brass and copper, turning out domestic goods. The ‘whitesmith’ generally worked with lead or its alloys, and might have made pewter goods or bearings, but may also have used tin and tinplate, the materials of the specialist ‘tinsmith’, or produced locks, the usual province of the specialist ‘locksmith’. Further specialisations requiring the blacksmith’s art are the related trades of ‘chainsmith’, ‘nailsmith’ and ‘oddwork smith’.

      Many small smiths’ workshops, often attached to houses and dotted about the countryside, produced myriad small forged items needed for the Agricultural Revolution, and later for the Industrial Revolution. In the Midlands hardware district and, specifically, in the Black Country (the area around Dudley, Stourbridge and Wolverhampton) it was traditional for entire families to work in the small chain, nail and oddwork shops. Making one size of chain, pattern of nail or type of ‘odd’ fitting was usually classed as unskilled work, requiring little training. Many women were employed, starting in this work from a young age.

      ‘The Country Blacksmith’, an engraved version of a painting by J. M. W. Turner. A dispute has arisen concerning the price of iron, and the charge to the butcher for shoeing his ‘poney’. Original painting 1807.

      The general village or town smith, who could turn his hand to any work and who was also the local farrier, did, however, need a long period of training or apprenticeship before he could take on the wide range of work expected of him. The blacksmith’s son or daughter might have learned the basics from an early age in the days before formal schooling. Bound apprenticeship to a ‘master’ smith to learn the ‘art and mistery’ was for a minimum term of seven years. At the age of twenty-four an apprentice would be ‘tested’ and then ‘freed’ to become a master smith himself, or a travelling ‘journeyman’ smith working for others. The termination age of apprenticeship was altered to twenty-one in 1768, but nevertheless a long training was still required. Census returns of the nineteenth century identify twelve-year-old smiths’ apprentices and suggest that master blacksmiths seldom retired. Working hours were long, especially in summer, when farmers worked most of the daylight hours and might need a horse to be shod or a tool to be repaired urgently.

      A spike-maker in the Black Country working at her stall. Spikes and other small ‘oddwork’ were often made on an anvil stake or ‘bick’ iron by women blacksmiths. From The white slaves of England, 1896.

      Making agricultural chains in Cradley Heath. The mother’s young children are asleep on the bellows and in a swing chair behind. From ‘Nails and chains’, 1890.

      Angus Sandeson, the ‘Orkney blacksmith’, at his forge. The visitor, calling with his horse to be shod at the ‘smiddy’, is the smith’s daughter’s suitor. A moral tale from Sunday at Home, 1876.

      Blacksmiths were among the earliest craftsmen to organise into a guild to protect their trade and the public. The Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths can trace its origins as a London City guild back to before 1434, when the Brotherhood of the ‘Company of the Craft of Blacksmythes’ was formed with sixty-five brothers and two

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