APPENDIX.
THE BLACKSMITHS’ COMPANY.
The advance of technical education, the inauguration of another trades exhibition promoted by a City Company, and that Company the ancient Blacksmiths’ Guild, must be our excuse for placing upon record some account of its history from the earliest date known about it as a fraternity.
Of the origin of Guilds we have already had occasion to speak in our history of the Ironmongers. Mr. Nicholl, the historian of that Company, gives us some interesting facts in his notes, and we cannot do better than quote his preliminary words:—
The art of working in metals was more highly esteemed than any other by the Anglo-Saxons. Their best artisans were the clergy. Edgar established a law that every priest, to increase knowledge, should diligently learn some handicraft. Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, to the arts of music, engraving, painting, and writing, added the craft of a smith, and was an expert workman. Stigand and Ethelwold, both bishops, were celebrated for their mechanical skill. The chief smith was a man of considerable distinction in the courts of the Anglo-Saxon kings and his privileges and weregild exceeded those of any other craftsman. Towards the period of the Conquest the manufacture of iron had considerably increased, and the art of working it was better understood. Steel and iron armour were common. At the time of the Domesday Survey the City of Hereford had six smiths, who paid each one penny for his forge, and made 120 pieces of iron from the king’s ore, receiving in return a customary payment of three pence, and being free from all other service. The City of Gloucester paid to the king 36 dicras of iron and 100 ductile rods to make nails for the king’s ships. Iron had now become the principal manufacture of Gloucestershire, and in the reign of Edward I. there is stated to have been no less than 72 furnaces in the Forest of Dean for smelting it. The largest establishments of the Romans for the manufacture of iron in Britain were in this county, but the method, whatever it may have been, which they employed was imperfect and the cinders of their numerous forges, wherever they are discovered, are found to contain a very considerable portion of unsmelted metal. The first smelting-furnace, and that which in all probability was used by the Romans for the manufacture of iron, is supposed to be the air-bloomery; it is described as a low conical structure, with small openings at the bottom for the admission of air and a large orifice at top for carrying off the gaseous products of combustion. It was filled with charcoal and ore in alternate layers, and the fire applied to the lowest part. How long this simple contrivance continued in use we have no means of ascertaining, the period to which it belongs being so very remote; there is no doubt, however, that the next era of improvement in the manufacture of iron was the introduction of bellows, and the construction of the blast-bloomery, which greatly facilitated the process of smelting, and, by allowing the construction of larger furnaces, considerably increased the manufacture. The blast-bloomery, in process of time and the constant progression of the arts, was superseded by what is denominated the blast-furnace. This last improvement is supposed to have been introduced during the early part of the sixteenth century; for in the seventeenth century the art of casting in metal had arrived at a great degree of perfection, and in the reign of Elizabeth there was a considerable export trade of cast-iron ordnance to the Continent.
As “by hammer and hand all arts do stand,” so was the origin of the Blacksmiths’ Guild in the nineteenth year of the reign of Edward III., 1325. Like many others it is a fraternity by prescription, subsequently incorporated by Royal Charter. “The Articles of the Blacksmiths,” dated the 46th of Edward III., A.D. 1372, are enrolled in Letter-book G, fo. 285, preserved among the Guildhall records, and a most interesting and concise translation will be found in Mr. Riley’s “Memorials of London,” 1868, p. 361. The Articles specially provide against the introduction into the City of inferior foreign-made work, and the forging of trademarks was, of course, a serious matter. “Every master in the said trade shall put his own mark upon his work, such as heads of lances, knives and axes, and other large work, that people may know who made them in case default shall be found in the same.” Forgers of such mark were dealt with without delay, and it is interesting to know that one of the earliest of the overseers appointed resided near Holborn Bridge (now the Viaduct), close to the Charity Trust Estate of the present Company. No one was to be made free of the Guild unless he was skilled in his work as an apprentice should be, so that we may be sure the early blacksmiths truly represented their “art and mystery.”
“The Ordinances of the Blacksmiths” are enrolled in the Guildhall “Letter-book” H., fo. 292, and will be found translated in Mr. Riley’s “Memorials,” p. 537. They are dated the 18 Richard 2nd, 1394. No smith was to work throughout the night, or to annoy his neighbours, and the hours of work were to be from 6 o’clock in the morning to 8 o’clock in the evening in winter, and from the beginning of daylight to 9 o’clock at night in summer. None to work in his shop on a Saturday, or on the eve of a feast or holy day after the first stroke of the vesper bell, under heavy fines and penalties. Two wardens to be annually elected for their government, and strict search to be made in the City and suburbs for the detection of false wares. No one to make a key for a lock unless he have the lock to make it by, and nothing to be exposed for sale at any fair until the wardens have certified it “good and lawful.”
Forty years afterwards we find another enrolment, and among records where such an entry would never be looked for—the Register Book of the Commissary of London, labelled “Liber 3 More, 1418-1438,” folio 455, now preserved in the Probate Registry, Somerset House. We are indebted to Mr. J. R. Daniel-Tyssen for the discovery in 1852, and to Mr. H. C. Coote for editing and printing them in the “Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archæological Society,” Vol. IV., pp. 32-35. They are entitled—
Ordynances articulis, and constituciones ordeyned and grarnted by the Worshypfull Maistres and Wardeynes in the Worship of the Bretherhed of Saynt Loye, att the Fest of Ester, with alle the hole company of the crafte of blaksmythes, who assemble in Seynt Thomas of Acres and thence to the Grey Freres of London. Founded and ordeyned atte the Fest of Ester, 1434, 12 Henry VI.
These ordinances provide—that every servant (brother) pay 2d. quarterly, and every sister 1d. Strangers “for yncomyng,” pay 2s. A beadle of the Yeomanry to be appointed who was to receive from every brother “for his salari” one-halfpenny quarterly. “And whaune eny brother other sisster be passed to God the seyd bedell to have for his traveyle ijd.” Any member disobeying the orders “to be corrected be the Oversseer,” and disobeying the second time he “schalbe put oute of the crafte for evere.” New masters were to be chosen at the feast of St. Loy. “If therbe eny brother that telleth the Counseyle of the seyd Brethered to his master prentis or to eny other man he shall paye to the box ijs.” Any brother scandalising another to be fined 12d. “Also at the quarter dai we will have baken conys as hit was be gonne.” Any master breaking the rule to pay 6s. 8d. All fines were halved—a moiety each to “the Mastres box,” and the Yeomen’s box. After some other orders follow a list of the fellowship members, sixty-seven in number, headed by John Lamborn, who was then, or had been, “Master of the Yomen.” Two of those signing the rules were the wives of two of the brethren, Stephen Manne and William Mapull.
Although the Blacksmiths’ Guild was not in existence when St. Dunstan played his harp, and worked at his forge and anvil, we cannot forbear saying something about a prelate who has, more than any other, raised the reputation of the “art and mystery,” which after 500 years still flourishes within the boundaries of great London City, and at the time we are writing this gives a splendid proof that it is not wanting in will or way to attempt the improvement of the trade by advocating and supporting technical education.