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Nail Making
In 1710 Darlaston had 23 nail makers. By
this time nail making had become extremely simple due to
the invention of the slitting mill in 1565. This
prepared iron rods for the nailers, so that all they had
to do was to cut the rod to the correct length, point
one end, and make the head. This was one of the first
examples of mass production, as large quantities of
nails could be made simply by unskilled people. The
nailers couldn't afford to buy the rods themselves, they
were advanced to them by the mills, to where they
returned the completed nails and were paid for them.
They were also given standard allowances for waste.
Nailing was a seasonal occupation and dealers spoke of
the difficulty of obtaining nails at harvest time. About
the end of the 18th century this began to change as
factories appeared employing large numbers of
wage-earning people. A bundle of rods weighed 60 pounds
and was 4ft 6" long. The nails were characterised
according to the number produced from a given weight of
iron. Long thousand (1,200) nails weighing 4 pounds,
were known as four penny bundles. Larger nails were
called 100 work, and were priced by the hundred. They
were more profitable than the smaller ones, as less work
was required to produce them, and less waste produced.
There were many types of nails including:
brads,
tacks, spriggs, dog-eared frost nails, sheath nails, and
sparrables
Most of these types go back to the early
16th century. The introduction of machine nailing in
1810 led to a further increase in the numbers of people
employed in the industry, but in Darlaston the last nail
manufacturer had closed by 1888 due to the preference
for light engineering. Even by 1818 such diverse iron
products as fire irons, bullet moulds, thumb latches,
and handcuffs were produced here.
Clock Making
In the 18th century there were at least three highly
skilled Darlaston clockmakers producing long case clocks
to a very high standard. |
