A Picture of Sheffield
Extract from : The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, Issue 404, December 12, 1829In the manufacture of a razor, it proceeds through a dozen hands; but it is afterwards submitted to a process of grinding, by which the concavity is perfected, and the fine edge produced. They are made from 1 s. per dozen, to 20 s. per razor, in which last the handle is valued at 16s.6d.
"Scissors, in like manner, are made by hand, and every pair passes through sixteen or seventeen hands, including fifty or sixty operations, before they are ready for sale. Common scissors are cast, and when riveted, are sold as low as 4s. 6d. per gross! Small pocket knives, too, are cast, both in blades and handles, and sold at 6 s. per gross, or a halfpenny each! These low articles are exported in vast quantities in casks to all parts of the world.
"Snuffers and trays are also articles of extensive production, and the latter are ornamented with landscapes, etched by a Sheffield artist, on a resinous varnish, and finished by being dipped in diluted nitric acid for a few seconds or minutes.
"Messrs. Rodgers also introduced me to an extensive range of workshops for the manufacture of plated and silver ware, in which are produced the most superb breakfast and dinner services. The method of making the silver plate here and at Birmingham merits special notice, because the ancient method was by dissolving mercury in nitrous acid, dipping the copper, and depending on the affinity of the metals, by which a very slight article was produced. But at Sheffield and Birmingham, all plate is now produced by rolling ingots of copper and silver together. About the eighth of an inch in thickness of silver is united by heat to an inch of copper in ingots about the size of a brick. It is then flattened by steel rollers worked by an eighty horse power. The greater malleability of the silver occasions it to spread equally with the copper into a sheet of any required thickness, according to the nature of the article for which it is wanted. I saw some pieces of plated metal, the eighth of an inch thick, rolled by hand into ten times their surface, the silver spreading equally; and I was told that the plating would be perfect if the rolling had reduced it to the thinness of silver paper! This mode of plating secures to modern plate a durability not possessed by any plate silvered by immersion. Hence plated goods are now sought all over the world, and, if fairly used, are nearly as durable as silver itself. Of this material, dinner and dessert services have been manufactured from 50 to 300 guineas, and breakfast sets from 10 to 200 guineas, as sold on the spot.
"At Sheffield are actually cast and finished, most, if not all, the parts of grates sold as their own make by the London furnishing ironmongers. Their names are placed on them, but, in truth, [pg 413] they merely put the parts together. I saw in Messrs. Picklay's rooms superior castings for backs of grates, little inferior in delicacy to plaster of Paris; and for grates connected with one of these patterns, I was told 100 guineas each was lately paid by a northern squire. Grates with folding doors are made here as well as at Chesterfield. The doors are in half heights, so as to serve two purposes, and grates so supplied sell for about two guineas extra. Mr. Picklay has brought the kitchen range to great perfection. With one fire he roasts, boils with water and steam, and bakes. Economy and completeness were never more usefully combined; and a public establishment in Sheffield is fitted with one which has cooked a dinner complete for above three hundred persons. It cost nearly £300, but such grates for small families may be had at ten guineas.
"The mercantile part of the Sheffield trade is performed chiefly by travellers, but the principal shops in London deal directly with the manufacturers here. To humour public prejudice in regard to "Town make," as it is called, and to serve as an advertisement for various retailers in London and other large towns, their connexions in Sheffield keep steel brands, with which their names are placed on the articles, and they thereby pass with the public as the real manufacturers. I saw in different workshops, in Sheffield, the steel brands of our famous town makers, and the articles in wholesale quantities packing up to meet the demand in London for "real town made." This is a standing joke at the expense of cockney credulity among the Sheffield cutlers.
"Sheffield is noted for the manufacture of superior files; and many anecdotes are told of the artifices which have been made use of to aggrandize or to repudiate the celebrity of the marks of some well-known makers.
"In Sheffield generally the workmen get from 20s. to 24s. per week. Dry grinders get £2, and some £5 or £6, and these high wages are paid as an equivalent for the shortness of life. Many women are employed as filers, burnishers, polishers, finishers, &c. &c.; and they get from 6s. to 12s. per week.
"Very fine cutlery is manufactured by Mr. Crawshaw. I saw in his warehouse all those elegant patterns of pen-knives which, in the best shops of London, Bath, &c. excite so much admiration. His lobster knives, with four or more blades, on slit springs, with pearl and tortoiseshell handles, are the most perfect productions of British manufacture. His pen-knives with rounded or beveled backs, to turn in the quill and shave the point, are simple and effective improvements. He showed me plain pocket-knives so highly finished, that the first cost is 38s., yet so deceptive is cutlery, that I might have preferred others which I saw at only 7s. or 8s. It is the same in regard to the scissors of Champion and Son,—articles at two or three guineas did not appear to my uninstructed eye worth more than others at a few shillings; yet in all these high priced articles, nearly the whole cost is in workmanship, and there are but few workmen who can produce them. At the same time, Mr. Crawshaw deals in pen-knives at 5s. per dozen, and Mr. Champion in scissors at 2s. or 3s. per dozen.
"The novelties and curiosities in this way are extremely numerous, and the makers and inventers are as modest and communicative as they are original and ingenious. Thus a knife an inch long, weighing eight pennyweights six grains, containing seventy odd blades and instruments, cost £30 in making: scissors the eighth of an inch long, twenty-five of which weigh but a grain, sold at 3s. per pair: a knife, mounted in gold and pearl, containing thirty blades, is valued at £30; pocket-knives with twenty-six parts are sold at six guineas; the very best two blades mounted with pearl and gold, made by Crawshaw, are in common sale at two guineas in Sheffield. Messrs. Champion are esteemed the best makers of scissors; and ladies' working scissors, in general commerce, are finished and mounted as high as five or ten guineas. The best pocket-knives are made by Crawshaw, and fetch, in mounting, from two to five guineas. He is also the general maker of what are called the 'best town made.' I may here add, that Messrs. Champion can make a single set of table knives and forks, the fair market price of which would be 100 guineas.
"The mechanical ingenuity of Mr. Crawshaw has also been displayed in the construction of AN ORRERY consisting of at least 1,000 wheels, which, by a single winch, turns all the planets in their respective periods; and also the whole of the satellites, including those of Herschell. This orrery, perhaps the completest in the world, was made in all its details by this gentleman, and, in its wheel-work, is an astonishing production.
"One of the wonders of Sheffield is its Grinding Establishments. To aid [pg 414] the grinders, companies have erected very spacious buildings divided into small rooms, and provided the whole with steam engines. The rooms are then let out by the month to master grinders; and at properly adjusted grindstones in each room I saw every variety of grinding, sharpening, and polishing. The finest work is polished by hand, and in this slavery I saw the delicate hands of the superior sex solely employed. The payment is trifling; but I was told that the hand of woman is the softest, most pliable, and most accommodating tool which has yet been discovered for conferring the finest polish on the refractory substance of steel. Can we wonder at its effect in softening the ruggedness of the other sex, and how hard must be the heart of that man which does not yield to an influence which subdues even the hardness of steel.
"The manufacture of spectacles, telescopes, microscopes, etc. is carried on to a great extent in Sheffield. Above five gross per day are ground of convex and concave glasses in one shop. Concave basins cast in iron of the radii of curvature of proposed lenses are fixed in rows on a frame, and rubbed with water and emery. A concentric convex basin is then covered with round pieces of plate glass fixed with pitch; and the convex stir face, with its glass pieces, is then turned and wabbled in the concave basin by steam power. In this manner from six to twelve dozen glasses are ground at once by one basin working within the other on an eccentric axle which wabbles the inner basin while it is revolved. Of course, in time, i.e. in eight or ten hours, the glasses are so abraded, that the outside of one basin exactly fits the other, and the lenses between are of the true curvature. They are then knocked off the pitch; turned and worked on the other side, on the second day; cleaned with spirit of tar, rounded or clipt with blunt scissors, and fitted in spectacle frames or tubes. In Mr. Cutt's factory I saw twenty-six of these basins for spectacles, and about eighteen for telescopes and microscopes; several being at work."
Fine Arts "The Sheffield trades require and promote the Fine Arts in many ways. Chantrey was a carver and gilder here, and many persons in Sheffield were his first patrons, when he began to model. He was a native of Norton, where his parents still reside, and his first youthful employment was that of bringing milk to the town on asses, as is the present custom. At present, Mr. Law is an exquisite modeller in wax; and there are some ladies who copy the best pictures with a degree of taste and perfection which is astonishing. I allude particularly to those of Miss Green, of Westville House, and Miss Sambourne, at Highfield Green. Then this district possesses a treasure in Mr. Cowen, of Rotherham, whose merit as a landscape painter, has recommended him to the zealous patronage of Earl Fitzwilliam and the Duke of Devonshire. I confess I have never seen more exquisitely finished and more poetical productions."
Improvements, etc. "The Shrewsbury Hospital, at Sheffield, has lately been rebuilt in an improved situation, by Messrs. Woodhead and Hurst, of Doncaster. It accommodates eighteen aged men and eighteen women in a very convenient manner. It has been liberally supported by the present Duke of Norfolk, and is managed by trustees of his nomination. The men are allowed 10s. per week, and the women 8s. There is also another hospital, founded by a Mr. Hollis, a Sheffield cutler; as a provision for sixteen cutlers' widows, who besides habitations, receive 7s. per week, coals, and a gown every two years.
"In conclusion I have assembled some miscellaneous facts. Sheffield parish is ten miles by three. The Park of 2,000 acres was inclosed in Queen Anne's time.
"The Duke of Norfolk is Lord of the Manor, from his ancestors the Lovetots, Furnivals, Nevilles, Talbots, and Howards.
"Roger de Busli had 46 manors in Yorkshire, and in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire 179.
"The Cutlers' Company was incorporated 21st James I.—The cutlers are 8,000 or 10,000 in number.
"In 1751, the first stage-wagon went from Sheffield to London. In 1762, the first stage-coach.
"In 1752, the plated manufacture began.
"In 1770, the first bank was opened.
"In 1786, the first steam-engine grinding-wheel was established.
"The casting or melting of steel began 60 years ago, till which time Swedish bar-steel was used.
"There are iron-forges near every Roman station, and Abbey Dale is full of cinders from smelting, with apertures to windward to serve as blasts.
"Beds of scoriae found in the parish, on which trees grow, and in old pleasure [pg 415] parks.—Roman coins are also found in scoria.—A quarry of stone at Wincobank Hill, contains fossilized vegetables, chiefly calamites. They are succulent, and of the bamboo family. In the coal districts, branches and trunks of trees are found; and Mr. Rhodes took out of solid stone, a fossil post of walnut wood. South-east of Tickhill, is an accumulation of subterranean trees, in black earth, mixed with shells and rounded stones.
"It is believed at Sheffield, that the executioner of Charles I., was a person of the name of William Walker, a native of Darnall, near Sheffield. Such was the tradition at his native place. He died at Darnall in 1700 and was buried in Sheffield church, where there was a brass plate to his memory. It is certain that a Walker, was one of the masks, and that this Walker was an active partizan: but he was a man of learning, and wrote some tracts on mathematics and politics.
"Dr. Buchan, began his career as a Scotch physician at Sheffield, and actually wrote his famous 'Domestic Medicine,' in the house at the south corner of Hartshead, in which for many years has resided Mr. J. Montgomery."
The varied and attractive character of our extract is the best plea for its length; but reading like this never tires.—-Sir R. Phillips' Personal Tour.
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Title: The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, Issue 404, December 12, 1829 Author: Various Release Date: March 5, 2004 [eBook #11463] Language: English
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