The Annals of Willenhall Part 21

Mechanical ingenuity in lock making has also expanded itself along the line of marvellous miniatures, in the production of toy locks so small that they could be worn as pendants or personal ornaments. Allusion will presently be made to a Willenhall specimen.

Another ingenious variety of locks was contrived to grab and hold the fingers of pilferers.

The first patent granted in England for a lock was in 1774; ten years later Joseph Bramah, of London, "the Napoleon of locks," patented his famous production, with which he challenged the whole world. The reward of 200 guineas which he offered to anyone who could pick his lock remained unclaimed for many years, till in the Exhibition year 1851 an American visitor named Hobbs took up the challenge, and succeeded, after a few days of persevering experiment, in overcoming the inviolability of it.

The sensation caused by this achievement was almost of national dimensions; but of more importance was the decided impetus it have to the inventive skill of lock makers, by demonstrating that Bramah had not yet arrived at finality in lock making; a great number of further improvements were soon forthcoming in the manufacture of these goods.

Chubb's patent was granted in 1818; this inventor declared it was possible to have the locks on the doors of every house in London opened by a different key, and yet have a master-key that would pa.s.s the whole of them. Chubb's world-famous concern is now located at Wolverhampton.

Dr. Plot, writing of this county in 1686, makes no mention of the trade being carried on in Willenhall, but gives some account of it in Wolverhampton; gossiping pleasantly on "sutes" of six or more locks, pa.s.sable by one master-key, being sold round the country by the chapmen of his time; of the finely wrought keys he had seen; of the curious tell-tale locks which recorded the times they had been opened; and of one valuable Wolverhampton specimen containing chimes which could be set to "go" at any particular hour.

A local writer has said-on what authority is not stated-that Queen Elizabeth granted to the township of Willenhall the privilege of making all the locks required for State purposes; and argues from that profitable piece of State patronage the rapid growth of Willenhall, as evidenced by the fact that in 1660 when the Hearth Tax came to be levied this place paid on 13 more hearths than the mother town of Wolverhampton.

Dr. Wilkes has recorded that in his time Willenhall consisted of one long street, newly paved; and he then proceeds to say:-

"The village did not begin to flourish till the iron manufactory was brought into these parts in the reign of Queen Elizabeth."

This may, or may not, refer to the making of locks and keys, but it certainly refers to the great devastation of Cannock Forest in providing charcoal for iron-smelting. The doctor continues:-

"Since that time this place is become very populous, and more locks of all kinds are made here than in any other town of the same size in England or Europe. The better sort of which tradesmen have erected many good houses."

Some of these "good houses" are still standing; and as to the "populousness" of the place, there may have been 2,000 inhabitants at that time. A return has been given forth that in 1770 Willenhall contained 148 locksmiths, Wolverhampton 134, and Bilston 8; while nearly a century later, in 1855, the numbers were Willenhall 340, Wolverhampton 110, and Bilston 2, which shows that the trade grew in Willenhall at the expense of the adjoining places. Yet lockmaking was carried on in Bilston as early as 1590, when the Perrys, the Kempsons, and the Tomkyses, all leading families, were engaged in the trade. In 1796 Isaac Mason, inventor of the "fly press" for making various parts of a lock, migrated from Bilston to Willenhall.

The Willenhall specimen of a miniature lock is thus mentioned in a diary of the Rev. T. Unett, "June 13, 1776, James Lees, of Willenhall, aged 63 years and upwards, showed me a padlock with its key, made by himself, that was not the weight of a silver twopence. He at the same time shewed me a lock that was not the weight of a silver penny; he was then making the key to it, all of iron. He said he would be bound to make a dozen locks, with their keys, that should not exceed the weight of a sixpence."

Before the rise of factories into which workmen might be collected, and their labour more healthily regulated, Willenhall lock-making was always conducted in small domiciliary workshops. Had any one at the close of the eighteenth century peeped in at the grimy little windows of one of these low-roofed workshops, and made himself acquainted with the extreme dirtiness of the calling, he would scarcely have ventured to regard it as one befitting the dainty hands of the highest personage of the most fastidious of nations. Yet that unfortunate monarch, Louis XVI., prided himself not on his statesmanship, but upon his skill as a practical locksmith, and his intimacy with all the intricacies of the craft. He had fitted up in his palace at the Tuileries a forge with hearth and anvil, bellows and bench, from which it was his delight to turn out with his own hands all kinds of work in the shape of "spring, double bolt, or catch lock."

He smokes his forge, he bares his sinewy arm, And bravely pounds the sounding anvil warm.

Locks of every variety of principle and quality are produced in Willenhall; the chief kinds being the cabinet lock, the best qualities of which range from 10s. to 3 each, while the commoner ones are sold at from 10s. to 3s. the dozen; the rim lock for doors having two or three bolts, and opening with k.n.o.b and key; the stock or fine plate lock, imbedded in a wooden case to stand the weather when used on exposed yard or stable doors; the drawback lock for hill doors, with a spring bolt that can be worked from the inside with a k.n.o.b or from the outside with a latch-key; the dead lock, having one large bolt worked by the key, but not catching or springing like the rim lock; the mortice lock, which is buried in the door, and may be of the dead, the rim, or the drawback variety; the familiar loose padlock made in immense quant.i.ties both of iron and of bra.s.s; and others less familiar.

The lock-producing centre includes Wolverhampton, Willenhall, Wednesfield, and some of the outlying rural districts like Brewood and Pendeford, where parts and fittings are prepared. In the mother parish the business is extensive and extending; at Wednesfield, iron cabinets and till locks, as well as various kinds of keys, are produced in great numbers, for keys are frequently made apart from the locks as a separate branch of the trade.

Willenhall produces most of the same kinds as Wolverhampton, except the fine plate, though oftener in the cheaper qualities; rim locks are very largely made, all on the Carpenter and Young patent, most of them for export. Willenhall locks are all warded, the wards varying in strength and complexity, known as common, fine round, sash, and solid wards.

It was the Carpenter and Young invention of 1830, making the action of the catch bolt perpendicular instead of horizontal, which renewed the vitality of the town's staple industry.

As registered the patent was entered:-

"No. 5,880, 18 January, 1830. James Carpenter, of Willenhall, and John Young, of Wolverhampton, locksmiths. Improvements in locks."

Mr. R. B. Prosser, a recognised authority on patents and inventions, records that in 1841 Carpenter brought an action against one Smith, but the verdict was given for the defendant, it being held that Carpenter's lock was not a new invention (Webster's Reports of Patent Cases, Vol. I., p. 530).

Notwithstanding this the lock has always been known, and is still known, as "Carpenter's lift-up lock."

James Carpenter, the founder of the business still carried on under the style of Carpenter and Tildesley, was not a native of Willenhall. His first place of business was in Walsall Street opposite the "Wake Field"; thence he removed to Stafford Street, occupying the premises now the Three Crowns Inn; subsequently building and occupying the Summerford Works (and Summerford House) in the New Road, where the concern is still carried on James Carpenter, the patentee, was a keen man of business, and distinguished for great decision of character. His daughter Harriet married James Tildesley, who became a partner in the business. Carpenter died in 1844, and Tildesley in 1876, and the concern has since been carried on by the two eldest sons of the latter in partnership, James Carpenter Tildesley (who is now permanently invalided, and of whom more anon), and Clement Tildesley. Mr. Clement Tildesley, who, like his brother, is a county magistrate, still lives at Summerford House, where he was born.

Mr. Rowland Tildesley, solicitor, and Clerk to the Willenhall Urban District Council, is the fourth son of James Tildesley.

James Tildesley's eldest daughter, Louisa Elizabeth, married William Henry Hartill, surgeon, and J.P. for the county of Stafford, who died in 1889; his second daughter, Emily, married John Thomas Hartill, J.P., surgeon, who filled the office of President of the Staffordshire Branch of the British Medical a.s.sociation in 1885, and again in 1907.

With these few biographical details of Willenhall's chief inventor we pa.s.s on.

Other local patents in this branch of industry on the Register are:-

No. 8543-13th June, 1840-Joseph Wolverson, locksmith, William Rawlett, latch maker, both of Willenhall. "Locks and latches."

No. 8903-29 March, 1841.-James Tildesley, of Willenhall, factor, and Joseph Sanders, of Wolverhampton, Lock manufacturer. "Locks."

No. 10611-15th April, 1845.-George Carter, of Willenhall, jobbing smith.

"Locks and latches.

No. 12604-8th May, 1849.-Samuel Wilkes, of Wednesfield Heath, bra.s.s founder. "k.n.o.bs, handles, and spindles for the same, and locks."

[There are patents in the name of Samuel Wilkes, at Darlaston, ironfounder, in 1840, for hinges; and for vices in the same year. In 1851, Samuel Wilkes, of Wolverhampton, iron founder, took out a patent for hinges. In 1845, Samuel Wilkes, of Wolverhampton, bra.s.s founder, took out a patent for kettles. The Wilkes' family hereabouts are manifestly as ingenious as they are numerous.]

At the present time there are some 90 factories and 143 workshop employers in Willenhall, besides nine factories and 47 workshops in the Short Heath district. The most important firms in the lock trade are Messrs. Carpenter and Tildesley, H. and T. Vaughan, William Vaughan, John Minors and Sons, J. Waine and Sons, Beddow and Sturmey, Legge and Chilton, and Enoch Tonks and Sons. In the casting trades are John Harper and Co., Ltd. (by far the largest concern), Wm. Harper, Son, and Co., C.

and L. Hill, H. and J. Hill, T. Pedley, H. and T. Vaughan (under the style of D. Knowles and Sons), and Arthur Tipper. In this branch of the industry women are largely employed, and children to a slight extent, in attending to light hand and power presses. Female labour is now utilised in the making of parts of machine-made locks (a method of production introduced during the last generation), and for varnishing, painting, and bronzing both the machine and the hand-made goods.

The rate of wages for workmen in the lock trade now ranges from 20s. to 35s. per week, yielding an average of about 29s. Of the wares produced there are probably 300 varieties, many of them in several sizes each, the gross output running into thousands of dozens per week, and so great is their diversity that they range from field padlocks to ponderous prison locks, and the selling prices vary from 1d. to 30s. each. They are exported all over the world, finding good markets in Australasia and South Africa.

Tradition forbids that we should omit here the two stock ill.u.s.trations of the fact that lock-making ranks among the notoriously ill-paid industries. One is the familiar exaggeration that if a Willenhall locksmith happens to let fall the lock he is making, he never stoops to pick up because he can make another in less time.

The other is the hackneyed anecdote of the late G. B. Thorneycroft, who was once taunted with the sneer that some padlocks of local manufacture would only lock once; and who promptly retorted that as they had been bought at twopence each, it would be "a shame if they did lock twice" at such starvation prices of production. But Willenhall's contributions to the hardware production of the Black Country are by no means limited to this endless variety of locks, some for doors and gates, some for carpet bags and travelling trunks, some for writing portfolios and jewel caskets; but extends to lock furniture and door furniture, latches, door bolts, hasps and keys, hooks and steel vermin traps, grid-irons and box-iron stands, files and wood-screws, ferrules and iron-tips for Lancashire clogs; and other small oddments of the hardware trade.

The making of currycombs, though shrunk to somewhat insignificant proportions within the last quarter of a century, was once a very prominent industry in Willenhall. In 1815 James Carpenter, whose name is now so prominent in the lock trade, took out a patent, which was registered as follows:-

No. 3956-23rd August, 1815.-James Carpenter, of Willenhall, curry comb maker. "Improvements to a curry comb, by inverting the handle over the back of the comb, and thus rendering the pressure, when in use, more equal."

Another typical industry was the making of door-bolts, now represented by the firms of Joseph Tipper, and Jonah Banks and Sons. It is interesting to note that among the last of the old trade tokens circulating in this locality, were the Willenhall farthings issued by Austin, a miller, baker, and grocer, who carried on business at the corner of Stafford Street (the same now conducted by Joshua Rushbrooke); the obverse of this coin bore as a design characteristic of the town a padlock, a currycomb, and a door-bolt, with the legend, "Let Willenhall flourish," and the date 1844.

[Picture: Willenhall coin]

The Currycomb manufacture is now represented by D. Ferguson, and by W. H.

Tildesley, the latter adding to it the making of steel traps.

But whatever loss has been incurred by the shrinkage of this industry has been more than made up by the enormous growth of the trade in stampings-keys are stamped-and in malleable castings.

The earliest Willenhall patent was taken out in this branch of trade, and thus specified: "No. 3,800. 7th April, 1814. Isaac Mason, Willenhall, tea tray maker. Making stamped front for register stoves and other stoves, fenders, tea trays, and other trays, mouldings, and other articles, in bra.s.s and other metals."

In the stamping trades at the present time are Messrs. Armstrong, Stevens and Co., Vaughan Brothers, Alexander Lloyd and Sons, Baxter, Vaughan, and Co., and J. B. Brooks and Co. At the works of Messrs. John Harper and Co., by far the largest in the town, a variety of hardware articles are produced, besides locks, but the bulk of their trade is in the production of castings, especially in the form of gas and oil stoves and lamps. New developments continue to bring in fresh industries.

[Picture: Decorative design]

XXVIII.-Willenhall in Fiction.