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Technically a buckle consists of two parts: the
“chape” is the operative part, which acts as a bearing for the “ring”
which is the decorative part; the ring is attached to the front of the
chape to make a complete buckle. There is no date for the start of this
trade in Bilston. It may have been there from early agricultural days
and was certainly there by the middle of the 18th century. Although
buckle makers continue to appear in the records it is chape making which
predominates and in the 18th and 19th centuries Bilston was making many,
probably most, of the chapes which were turned into buckles in the
Wolverhampton buckle making industry. Why this industry should have
developed and flourished in Bilston is not clear but it may be derived
from supplying the buckles and other metal items which were need for the
harnesses of farm draught animals.
Chapes and buckles were made
in small family concerns who would have sold complete buckles to
factors; and chapes to Wolverhampton (and probably Walsall) buckle
makers. The Rev. Ames noted, in 1729, that his two nephews, who were
buckle makers, “began to work in the shop of my house at Priestfields”.
They seem to have worked on their own account and in a workshop attached
to the house – a typical arrangement. The registers kept by Ames include
many other references to bucklemakers.
It might be worth noting here that there was some
lock making in Bilston but very little of it. (The locks in question are
security locks, not canal locks). The trade seems to have been
monopolised by Wolverhampton and Willenhall. But some locksmiths seem to
have done well. When John Hawkesford died in 1712 he was able to include
in his bequests the sum of £5 for charitable distribution to poor
widows. When his wife died about 6 months later she left £7.10s. for the
same purpose. The first burial in the new burial ground, in 1727, was of
a locksmith, John Lees and this took place “in the presence of a large
company”.
There also seems to have been a trade in gun locks as
R. R. Angerstein gives a list of prices: “Bilston: gunlocks, common
‘Traidel’ 15d each. Lock in ‘rest’, 6 1/2d to 7d. Wages for filing of
above-mentioned locks, 6d. to 7d.”.
Enamelling was, and is, one of Bilston’s most
famous industries. Lawley says that it was present in Bilston “well
before 1750” and suggests that Dovey Hawkesford first used enamels as a
way of decorating, and adding value to, the boxes and other small items
he was making. How Hawkesford came to be making copper boxes and other
items in Bilston, Lawley does not say. The industry soon developed and
seems to have been given a boost when workers from the Battersea factory
moved to Bilston when that factory closed. It should be noted that the
Bilston industry was not established by these workers from Battersea,
nor is it true that the Battersea work was of higher quality than that
of Bilston.
Trade remained good until fashions changed – and some
have argued that Bilston was producing so much that enamelled wares
became commonplace and therefore unfashionable. The trade seems
gradually to have disappeared during the 19th century, though perhaps
not completely. Enamelling on larger sizes of domestic wares took place
on a large scale in Bilston in the 19th and 20th centuries, especially
after T & C Clark, the local iron founders, discovered a way of
enamelling on iron and steel. But small scale decorative enamelling may
still have been around: when Susan Benjamin revived the trade in the
late 20th century she was able to find people in Bilston who still knew
how to do it. The crafts had many local revivals in the second half of
the twentieth century.
