Mobile Blacksmiths ?

Balgarvie · Post by **Balgarvie** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 9:20 pm

I'm in the process of tracing my decendants, most of whom were blacksmiths. What I'm finding is that in the case of one branch of the family is they seem to have lived in a wide range of locations in the period 1860 to 1890 - Perthshire, Kincardineshire and Fife. I know that farm workers moved around a fair bit but I didn't expect one family to move around as much as that. Does anyone know if that was common practice for blacksmiths in that time ?

Russell · Post by **Russell** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 9:47 pm

Hi Balgarvie

Have you a definite occupational description on a census ?

We tend to think of a blacksmith as someone who shoed horses but that ws only a part of their work. they did a host of other things like making gates, repairing machinery, sharpening scythes and sickles, making and repairing hinges and gate furniture, and that's only the rural smiths who were often working on their own with a boy to work the bellows.
There were lots of small firms making farm machinery who employed several blacksmiths and a journeyman was able to move around from one firm to another.
Workshops making carts or pasenger traps needed ironshod wheels but the wheelwright needed a blacksmith to fashion the bands for a wheel.

If he shows up on a census with 'the Smiddy' as his address then he was owner and master of his own, albeit one man business. If he moved to where the work was then he would probably rent a cottage wherever he went.

Russell

Balgarvie · Post by **Balgarvie** » Wed Oct 11, 2006 8:57 am

Hi - Yes, he actually shows up on two separate census returns as a blacksmith in different parts of the country. Everything matches in terms of wife and children, ages etc so it is the same person. In at least one case the address is given as a "smiddy", in the other case it could also be smiddy but the writings not very clear. I just thought it unusual that someone at the time should travel so far.

Russell · Post by **Russell** » Wed Oct 11, 2006 10:00 am

Hi again

There was a lot more movement of people around the country than I certainly thought.
People inEdinburgh would commute by ferry going home to Fife at the weekend (Business classes of course)
Workmen would walk for miles to reach their workplace sometimes travelling out from towns where they could rent accommodation.

The ultimate long walk must have been the drovers who would collect cattle brought over from Skye (poor things had to swim most times) then follow regular drove routes all the way to Smithfield market in London.
Sometimes they stopped on the outskirts and left the cattle to be fattened up again before their next journey to the slaughterhouse.

I know that some blacksmiths in the Lothians were geared up to take a mobile smiddy out to one of the bigger estates when several horses needed shod and there was other smithing work to be done. Most of the wrought iron work on an estate was done locally.
Tinker families used to cover an enormous area sometimes pushing a handcart with their belongings and tools.
Even I, in my younger days, used to walk 40 miles a day with my Bergen on my back and pitch my tent wherever I could at the end of the day. Can be done you know!

Russell

davran · Post by **davran** » Wed Oct 11, 2006 4:34 pm

Although not Scotland, some of my ancestors were blacksmiths in Norfolk. A journeyman blacksmith appears in different villages in the censuses, so seems to have been quite itinerant, though the master blacksmith stayed in one place. The family eventually moved north to Sunderland, presumably to work in the shipyards there. There must have been quite a lot of work as my gtgrandmother was listed as a shoeing smith in 1901 with the aid of her son. I assume it was the son who actually did the shoeing, not her!

Post by **emanday** » Wed Oct 11, 2006 8:52 pm

davran wrote:Although not Scotland, some of my ancestors were blacksmiths in Norfolk. A journeyman blacksmith appears in different villages in the censuses, so seems to have been quite itinerant, though the master blacksmith stayed in one place. The family eventually moved north to Sunderland, presumably to work in the shipyards there. There must have been quite a lot of work as my gtgrandmother was listed as a shoeing smith in 1901 with the aid of her son. I assume it was the son who actually did the shoeing, not her!

Not necessarily, Davran. Women were a lot tougher back then. They had to be! Have you never seen the photographs of fishermen's wives carrying the returning men ashore on their backs?

davran · Post by **davran** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 4:55 pm

quote]

Not necessarily, Davran. Women were a lot tougher back then. They had to be! Have you never seen the photographs of fishermen's wives carrying the returning men ashore on their backs?[/quote]

Yes, I agree, but according to my father she was a tiny woman. Perhaps she shod pit ponies!

and the son shod the big carthorses. I don't suppose I'll ever find out anyway. My grandmother was very short and, although not a blacksmith, was quite a formidable woman.