Willenhall is “the town of locks and keys”; its staple industry has been described in such graceful and felicitous terms by Elihu Burritt (see his “Walks in the Black Country,” pp. 206–214, written in 1868) that the present writer at once confesses the inadequacy of his poor pen to say anything new on the subject, engaging as it is. The great American writer, be it noted, does not fail at the very outset to pay a well-deserved tribute to James Carpenter Tildesley, as the foremost authority on the subject, and compliments him on the versatility displayed in his article on Locks and Keys, contributed to that co-operative literary work, “Birmingham and the Midland Hardware District,” which was specially issued for the British Association meeting at Birmingham in 1865. The lockmakers of antiquity worked in wood and not in metal, a key consisting of hard wood pegs being made to turn in a wooden lock of loose pegs. The Romans first introduced the iron key with wards instead of pegs. The subject is full of interest; for lock-making is among the most ancient of the mechanical crafts, and has for centuries afforded a wide and ample scope as one of the branches of industrial art. As in many other industrial crafts the religious enthusiasm of the Middle Ages impelled the artist-mechanic to throw his whole soul into the manipulation and adornment of his keys, key-hole escutcheons, and other parts of door-fastening furniture. With his steel pencil and gravers, his chisels and his drills, the craftsman of olden times produced an article of utility which was at the same time a work of art. Will the Art Classes of modern Willenhall be able to achieve as much for the staple industry of the town as did the whole-souled enthusiasm of the Middle Ages? The Gothic key, usually of iron or of bronze, was generally plain; but after the Renaissance the best efforts of the locksmiths’ art were directed to the decoration of the bow and the shaft, and On the utilitarian side of our subject, industrial history records that we are indebted to the Chinese for unpickable locks of the lever and tumbler principle; and to the Dutch for the combination or letter-lock. The latter ingenious contrivance contained four revolving rings, on which were engraved the letters of the alphabet, and they had to be turned in such a way as to spell some pre-arranged word of four letters, as O P E N, or A M E N, before the lock could be opened. Allusion to this complex contrivance is made by the poet Carew in some verses written in the year 1620—
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. 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, passable 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:—
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:—
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, 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.”
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 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:—
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). 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 Association in 1885, and again in 1907. With these few biographical details of Willenhall’s chief inventor we pass 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. 10611—15th April, 1845.—George Carter, of Willenhall, jobbing smith. “Locks and latches. No. 12604—8th May, 1849.—Samuel Wilkes, of Wednesfield Heath, brass founder. “Knobs, 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, brass 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 Tradition forbids that we should omit here the two stock illustrations 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:—
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 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 brass 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. |