Besides its traffic in ship-building, alum, and stone, Whitby has a trade in works of art which makes at least its name known to fashionable society; and for this, as for its fossils, it depends on the neighbouring cliffs. For many miles along the shore, and at places inland, jet is found embedded with other formations. Drayton makes mention of it:
“The rocks by Moulgrave too, my glories forth to set,
Out of their crany’d cleves can give you perfect jet.”
And the shaping of this remarkable substance into articles for ornament and use gives employment to five hundred men, women, and children in Whitby. I was favoured with a sight of Mr. Greenbury’s manufactory, and saw the processes from beginning to end. There is nothing mysterious about them. The pattern of the desired object, a scroll, leaf, flower, or whatever else, is scratched with a steel point on a piece of jet sawn to the required dimensions; the workman then with a knife cuts away the waste portions, brings out the rude form, and by using various knives and chisels, according to the delicacy of the design, he in no long time has the article ready for the polisher. The work looks very easy, as you watch the men cutting, apparently with less concern than some folk bestow on the whittling of a stick, and making the chips fly in little heaps. The nature of the jet favours rapidity of hand. It has somewhat the appearance of compressed pitch, and when under the knife sends off a shower of chips and splinters as hard pitch does. Some specimens have been found with fossils so embedded therein, as to confirm the opinion of those who hold jet to be a species of petroleum, contrary to the common belief that it is wood partly converted into coal.
After the knives, the grindstones come into play, to work up and smooth all the accessible surfaces; and next swift-whirling wheels encircled with list, which give the polish. The deep incisions and hollows which cannot be touched by the wheel are polished on narrow slips of list. This is the work of boys: the slips of list are made fast by one end to the bench, and taking hold of the other, and shifting or tightening as the work may require, the boys rub the deep parts of the ornaments backwards and forwards till the polish is complete. The finishing touch, which imparts the brilliance, is given by a sprinkling of rouge, and a light hand with the rubber.
Armlets and bracelets composed of several pieces are cemented together, forming a complete hoop, while in course of manufacture, to ensure accuracy of workmanship, and are separated at last for the drilling of the holes for the elastic cord whereby they are held together in the finished state. The drilling of these holes through each separate piece is a nice operation, for any departure from the true line would appear as an imperfection in the ornament.
What with the drilling lathes, the rapid grindstones and polishing-wheels, and the busy artificers, from those who cut up the jet, to the roughers-out, the carvers, the polishers in their order, to the boys with their list rubbers, and the finishers, the factory presented a busy scene. The boys earn from three-and-sixpence to five shillings a week; the men from three to four times as much. I made an inquiry as to their economical habits, and heard in reply that the landlord of the Jetmen’s Arms could give the surest information.
No means have yet been discovered of working up the chips and splinters produced in cutting the jet, so as to form solid available blocks, as can be done with black-lead for pencils; there is, therefore, a considerable amount of waste. The value of jet varies with the quality; from ten to eighteen shillings a pound. According to the report on mineral products, by Mr. Robert Hunt, the value of the jet dug and manufactured in England is twenty thousand pounds a year. Some of the best shops in Whitby and Scarborough are those where jet is sold; and not the least attractive of the displays in Regent-street, is that labelled Finest Whitby Jet, and exhibited as vases, chains, rings, seals, brooches, taper-stands, and obelisks. Here in Whitby you may buy a small ammonite set in jet.
Jet is not a new object of luxury. It was used for ornamental purposes by the ancient Britons, and by their conquerors, as proved by articles found in their tombs. A trade in jet is known to have existed in Whitby in 1598. Camden, translating from an old Treatise of Jewels, has
“Jeat-stone almost a gemm, the Lybians find,
But fruitful Britain sends a wondrous kind;
’Tis black and shining, smooth, and ever light,
’Twill draw up straws if rubb’d till hot and bright,
Oyl makes it cold, but water gives it heat.”
The amber mines of Prussia yield a species of jet which is burnt as a coal.