[271]. Since writing the above I find my latter conjecture to be confirmed. Miss Meteyard, in her interesting life of Josiah Wedgwood, says: ‘The surname of ‘Tellwright,’ or ‘Tilewright,’ which, variously spelt, fills a considerable portion of the parish register of Burslem down to a late period of the eighteenth century, and is still common, is curious evidence of the antiquity of the tilewright’s craft in this locality.... Every worker in its clays became a tilewright, whether he moulded tiles or formed the homely pipkin or porringer, the slab-like dish or ale-vat for the hall.’ (Vol. i. p. 93.)
[272]. In an inventory of household furniture, dated 1559, we have amongst other articles, ‘One trussin bed with a teaster of yealow and chamlet, one old arke, old hangyers of wull grene and red, 6s. 8d.’ (Richmondshire Wills, p. 135.) Another writer, twenty years earlier, relating the contents of the ‘mylke howse,’ includes ‘an arke, a tube (tub), a stande, a chyrne.’ (P. 42, do.) The earliest instance of the surname I have yet met with is found in the same book, where, in a will dated 1556, the testator bequeaths a sheep to ‘Henry Arkwright.’ (Do. p. 155, note.) Both the ark itself and the trade are of North English origin.
[273]. ‘Shuxsmith’ seems but a corruption of this. The intermediate form is found in Wills and Inventories (Ch. Soc.), in the names of ‘Margerie Shughsmythe’ and ‘Henry Shughsmythe.’
[274]. ‘Buckler’ may be mentioned here. ‘John le Bockeler’ (A.), ‘Richard Bokeler’ (Z).
[275]. With our ‘Locksmiths’ we must, of course, ally our ‘Lockmans,’ ‘Lockyers,’ and ‘Lockers,’ and perchance ‘Lookers.’ We find a ‘Henry le Lokier’ set down in the Hundred Rolls, and in an old Oxford record, dated 1443, there occurs the name of ‘Robert Harward, loker,’ who doubtless found plenty of employment in providing for the security of the various rooms attached to the different colleges and halls. (Mun. Acad. Oxon., p. 535.)
[276]. There are several single representatives of occupations connected with the smith which I have not mentioned in the text, not having met with any trace of their continued existence amongst us. Thus, in the London Memorials we find a ‘John Chietesmyth,’ which, so far, I have found to be wholly unintelligible. I must say the same in regard to ‘Cokesmyth,’ occurring in the Boldon Book. ‘John Rodesmith,’ if not a scribe’s error for ‘Redesmith,’ would be the manufacturer of the then familiar ‘rood’ or ‘rode,’ the cross which we occasionally may see still standing beside our old turnpikes. ‘William Watersmith,’ it is quite reasonable, may have spent his energies on water-wheels and such other machinery as helped to turn the mill. All these are now, and probably were then, almost immediately obsolete. On the other hand, we have ‘Wildsmith’ existing in our midst, only one representative of which am I able to discover in our olden records. It is just possible that, like the obsolete ‘Youngsmith,’ it originally referred to the characteristics of the man as well as of his trade.
[277]. The roads between Cumberland and Northumberland were of the roughest and most dangerous character till the seventeenth century, when General Wade, in the course of his progress against the rebels, laid down some of a better kind. The following couplet has been handed down as the effort of some local poet:—
‘If you’d ever been here
When these roads were not made,
You would lift up your hands