Page:Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham.djvu/337

Rh and Finnamore (James Street), G. W. Hughes (St. Paul's Square), Leonardt and Co. (Charlotte Street), Myers and Sou (Charlotte Street), Perry and Co. (Lancaster Street), Ryland and Co. (St. Paul's Square). Sansum and Co. (Tenby Street), &c. , the gross aggregate output of the trade at large being estimated at 20 tons per week.

Stirrups.—According to the Directory, there are but four stirrup makers here, though it is said there are 4,000 different patterns of the article.

Swords.—Some writers aver that Birmingham was the centre of the metal works of the ancient Britons, where the swords and the scythe-blades were made to meet Julius Caesar. During the Commonwealth, over 15,000 swords were said to have been made in Birmingham for the Parliamentary soldiers, but if they thus helped to overthrow the Stuarts at that period, the Brummagem boys in 1745 were willing to make out for it by supplying Prince Charlie with as many as ever he could pay for, and the basket-hilts were at a premium. Disloyalty did not always prosper though, for on one occasion over 2,000 cutlasses intended for the Prince, were seized en route and found their way into the hands of his enemies. Not many swords are made in Birmingham at the present time, unless matchets and case knives used in the plantations can be included under that head.

Thimbles, or thumbells, from being originally worn on the thumb, are said by the Dutch to have been the invention of Mynheer van Banschoten for the protection of his lady-love's fingers when employed at the embroidery-frame; but though the good people of Amsterdam last year (1884) celebrated the bicentenary of their gallant thimble-making goldsmith, it is more than probable that he filched the idea from a Birmingham man, for Shakespeare had been dead sixty-eight years prior to 1684, and he made mention of thimbles as quite a common possession of all ladies in his time:

""For your own ladies, and pale-visag'd maids, Like Amazons, come tripping after drums. Their thimbles into armed gauntlets change; Their needles to lances.""

King John, Act v. sc. 3.

""Thou liest, thou thread, thou thimble."

"And that I'll prove upon thee, though thy little finger be armed in a thimble,""

Taming of the Shrew, Act iv., sc. 3.

The earliest note we really have of thimbles being manufactured in Birmingham dates as 1695. A very large trade is now done in steel, brass, gold, and silver.

Thread.—Strange are the mutations of trade. The first thread of cotton spun by rollers, long before Arkwright's time, was made near this town in the year 1700, and a little factory was at work in the Upper Priory (the motive power being two donkeys), in 1740, under the ingenious John Wyatt, with whom were other two well-remembered local worthies—Lewis Paul and Thomas Warren. Many improvements were made in the simple machinery, but fate did not intend Birmingham to rival Bradford, and the thread making came to an end in 1792.

Tinderboxes, with the accompanying "fire steels," are still made here for certain foreign markets, where lucifers are not procurable.

Tinning.—Iron pots were first tinned in 1779, under Jonathan Taylor's patent. Tinning wire is one of the branches of trade rapidly going out, partly through the introduction of the galvanising process, but latterly in consequence of the invention of "screw," "ball," and other bottle stoppers. There were but five or six firms engaged in it ten years back, but the then demand for bottling-wire may be gathered from the fact that one individual, with the aid of two helpers, covered with the lighter-coloured metal about 2cwt. of slender iron wire per day. This would give a total length of about 6,500 miles per annum, enough to tie up 25,718,784 bottles of pop, &c.

Tools.—The making of tools for the workers in our almost countless trades