Part 54

_Nuts and Bolts_.--In addition to a score or two of private firms engaged in the modern industry of nut and bolt making, there are several limited liability Co.'s, the chief being the Patent Nut and Bolt Co. (London Works, Smethwick), which started in 1863 with a capital of £400,000 in shares of £20 each. The last dividend (on £14 paid up) was at the rate of 10 per cent., the reserve fund standing at £120,000. Messrs. Watkins and Keen, and Weston and Grice incorporated with the Patent in 1865. Other Co.'s are the Midland Bolt and Nut Co. (Fawdry Street, Smethwick), the Phoenix Bolt and Nut Co. (Handsworth), the Patent Rivet Co. (Rolfe Street, Smethwick), the Birmingham Bolt and Nut Co., &c.

_Optical and Mathematical Instruments_ of all kinds were manufactured here in large numbers eighty years ago, and many, such as the solar microscope, the kaleidoscope, &c. may be said to have had their origin in the workshops of Mr. Philip Carpenter and other makers in the first decade of the present century. The manufacture of these articles as a trade here is almost extinct.

_Papier Maché_.--This manufacture was introduced here by Henry Clay in 1772, and being politic enough to present Queen Caroline with a Sedan chair made of this material, he was patronised by the wealthy and titled of the day, the demand for his ware being so extensive that at one time he employed over 300 hands, his profit being something like £3 out of every £5. It has been stated that many articles of furniture, &c., made by him are still in use. Messrs. Jennens and Bettridge commenced in 1816, and improvements in the manufacture have been many and continuous. George Souter introduced pearl inlaying in 1825; electro-deposit was applied in 1844; "gem inlaying" in 1847, by Benj. Giles; aluminium and its bronze in 1864; the transfer process in 1856 by Tearne and Richmond. Paper pulp has been treated in a variety of ways for making button blanks, tray blanks, imitiation jet, &c., the very dust caused by cutting it up being again utilised by mixture with certain cements to form brooches, &c.

_Paraffin_.--The manufacture of lamps for the burning of this material dates only from 1861.

_Pins_.--What becomes of all the pins? Forty years ago it was stated that 20,000,000 pins were made every day, either for home or export use, but the total is now put at 50,000,000, notwithstanding which one can hardly be in the company of man, woman, or child, for a day without being asked "Have you such a thing as a pin about you?" Pins were first manufactured here in quantities about 1750, the Ryland family having the honour of introducing the trade. It formerly took fourteen different persons to manufacture a single pin, cutters, headers, pointers, polishers, &c., but now the whole process is performed by machinery. The proportion of pins made in Birmingham is put at 37,000,000 per day, the weight of brass wire annually required being 1,850,000 lbs., value £84,791; iron wire to the value of £5,016 is used for mourning and hair pins. The census reports say there are but 729 persons employed (of whom 495 are females) in the manufacture of the 11,500,000,000 pins sent from our factories every year.

_Planes_.--Carpenters' planes were supplied to our factors in 1760 by William Moss, and his descendants were in the business as late as 1844. Messrs. Atkins and Sons have long been celebrated makers, their hundreds of patterns including all kinds that could possibly he desired by the workman. Woodwork is so cut, carved, and moulded by machinery now, that these articles are not so much in demand, and the local firms who make them number only a dozen.

_Plated Wares_.--Soho was celebrated for its plated wares as early as 1766; Mr. Thomason (afterwards Sir Edward) commenced the plating in 1796; and Messrs. Waterhouse and Ryland, another well-known firm in the same line, about 1808, the material used being silver rolled on copper, the mountings silver, in good work, often solid silver. The directory of 1780 enumerates 46 platers, that of 1799 96 ditto; their names might now be counted on one's finger ends, the modern electro-plating having revolutionised the business, vastly to the prosperity of the town.

_Puzzles_.--The Yankee puzzle game of "Fifteen," took so well when introduced into this country (summer of 1880), that one of our local manufacturers received an order to supply 10,000 gross, and he was clever enough to construct a machine that made 20 sets per minute.

_Railway Waggon Works_.--With the exception of the carriage building works belonging to the several great railway companies, Saltley may be said to be the headquarters of this modern branch of industry, in which thousands of hands are employed. The Midland Railway Carriage and Waggon Co. was formed in 1853, and has works of a smaller scale at Shrewsbury. The Metropolitan Railway Carriage and Waggon Co. was originated in London, in 1845, but removed to Saltley in 1862, which year also saw the formation of the Union Rolling Stock Co. The capital invested in the several companies is very large, and the yearly value sent out is in proportion, more rolling stock being manufactured here than in all the other towns in the kingdom put together, not including the works of the railway companies themselves. Many magnificent palaces on wheels have been made here for foreign potentates, Emperors, Kings, and Queens, Sultans, and Kaisers, from every clime that the iron horse has travelled in, as well as all sorts of passenger cars, from the little narrow-gauge vehicles of the Festiniog line, on which the travellers must sit back to back, to the 60ft. long sleeping-cars used on the Pacific and Buenos Ayers Railway, in each compartment of which eight individuals can find sleeping accommodation equal to that provided at many of the best hotels, or the curious-looking cars used on Indian railways, wherein the natives squat in tiers, or, as the sailor would say, with an upper and lower deck.

_Ropemaking_ is a trade carried on in many places, but there are few establishments that can equal the Universe Works in Garrison Lane, where, in addition to hundreds of tons of twine and cord, there are manufactured all sorts of wire and hemp ropes for colliery and other purposes, ocean telegraph cables included. Messrs. Wright introduced strain machinery early in 1853, and in the following year they patented a rope made of best hemp and galvanised wire spun together by machinery. On a test one of these novelties, 4-1/4in. circumference, attached to two engines, drew a train of 300 tons weight. To supply the demand for galvanised signalling and fencing cords, the machines must turn out 15,000 yards of strand per day.

_Rulemaking_, though formerly carried on in several places, is now almost confined to this town and the metropolis, and as with jewellery so with rules, very much of what is called "London work" is, in reality, the produce of Birmingham. Messrs. Rabone Brothers are the principal makers, and the boxwood used is mostly obtained from Turkey and the Levant, but the firm does not confine itself solely to the manufacture of wood rules, their steel tapes, made up to 200ft in one length, without join of any sort, being a specialty highly appreciated by surveyors and others.

_Saddlery_.--One of the oldest local trades, as Lelaud, in 1538, speaks of "lorimers" as being numerous then. That there was an important leather market is certain (Hutton thought it had existed for 700 years), and we read of "leather sealers" among the local officers as well as of a "Leather Hall," at the east end of New Street. The trade has more than quadrupled during the last 25 years, about 3,000 hands being now engaged therein, in addition to hundreds of machines.

_Screws_.--In olden days the threads of a screw had to be filed out by 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.