The expansion of the metalware trades from the seventeenth century resulted in an increasing number of producers. Firms of different size and types of production were part of the metalware trades, ranging from those who worked independently, to those who managed networks of subcontracted workers, small workshops of producers, or larger manufactories that employed hundreds of people.30 Many producers had
workshops and shop spaces that were connected to their living space, but as the trade expanded in the eighteenth century the most successful manufacturers, such as Matthew Boulton, opened showrooms and employed agents to retail their goods. Whilst similar systems of workshops and manufactories existed across different trades, for example the numerous workshops of shoemakers, coopers and tanners, and ceramics manufactories and showrooms, the diversity of production and retail spaces was particularly prominent within the metalware trade.31
30 Sheilagh Ogilvie, “The European Economy in the Eighteenth Century,” in The Eighteenth
Century, ed. T.C.W Blanning (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 119.
31 Maxine Berg, The Age of Manufactures 1700-1820: Industry, Innovation and Work in
Britain (London: Routledge, 1994), especially 262; and Maxine Berg, “Small Producer Capitalism in Eighteenth-Century England,” Business History 35/1 (1993): 17-39.
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The expansion of the trade, and the increasing number of producers meant that there was increased competition. Although regional clusters of producers co-operated, shared tools and workers, there was competition within each region. More importantly, there was competition between regions. The Birmingham and Sheffield producers, in particular, were keen to challenge the traditional dominance of London. In doing so, they sought to prove to national and international consumers that they had the skills and expertise to produce desirable, quality metalware. Boulton recognised that Birmingham had once held the reputation for the production of poor-quality ‘Brummagem ware’, and aimed to reverse this reputation and successfully compete with the London producers.32 Because of this sense of competition, entrepreneurs and ‘gentleman manufacturers’ strove to differentiate themselves in an increasingly crowded market by innovating and developing new technology, products and materials.33
Therefore, it was a number of key individuals in Birmingham and Sheffield who influenced the expansion of the trade. There were three manufacturers who had large workshops in Birmingham: John Taylor, who employed 500 people by 1755 in his button and toy manufactory; John Baskerville, who by 1745 employed 300 workers in his japanning trade; and Matthew Boulton, who inherited the toy trade from his father, Matthew Boulton senior, on his death in 1759, and expanded the trade, eventually employing a large number of people at his Soho Manufactory, especially during his partnership with John Fothergill.34 Five producers from Birmingham
32 Maxine Berg, Luxury and Pleasure in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2005), 166; and Delieb, The Great Silver Manufactory, 40. This will be discussed in more detail in chapter 5.
33 Rowlands, Masters and Men, 154. 34 Ibid,155.
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entered their marks at Goldsmiths’ Hall in London: Gimblett and Vale, Thomas Green, Mark Homer, John Smith and James Wright.35 So too did five producers in Sheffield: Fenton and Creswick, William Hancock, John Robotham, Henry Tudor and John Winter.36 In total, they ‘wrought up near 1000 ounces per month in solid’ silver.37 There were hundreds of other producers who worked in the regional manufacturing towns on a smaller scale, and there were those who undertook work in their own homes. Larger manufacturers were reliant upon this workshop economy for their flexible organisation of production, as it meant they could have access to a large number of workers and subcontract specific tasks when they were needed.38 However, it was the larger manufacturers and key individuals who dominated the market in the regional manufacturing towns.39 They mobilised the regional producers, encouraged a high standard of production, and supported innovation.
The Birmingham and Sheffield producers were known for diversifying their skills and working with a variety of materials. Few producers in the regional manufacturing towns worked with one type of metal alone, and produced goods in a variety of materials, including metalware, but also precious stones, glass and textiles. There was not one producer in Sheffield ‘that carrys on the business of a Silversmith
35 Birmingham City Archives, MS 3782/12/88/15, ‘Committee of Sheffield Assay
Petitioners’, 26 February 1773, f. 4.
36 Birmingham City Archives, MS 3782/12/88/12, ‘Committee on Petitions Relating to
Assaying Plate’, 18 February 1773, f. 2.
37 Ibid, f. 7.
38 Berg, “Small Producer Capitalism,” 25. The flexible organisation of production in the
regional manufacturing towns will be explored further in chapter 4 of this thesis.
39 Maxine Berg, “Commerce and Creativity in Eighteenth-Century Birmingham,” in Markets
and Manufacture in Early Industrial Europe, ed. Maxine Berg (London: Routledge, 1991), 184.
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only’.40 Instead, ‘these are people who have been brought up to other trades who now
follow the business of plate workers and silversmiths’.41 For example, Garbett was
described as a ‘refiner of Gold and Silver a considerable manufacturer of iron ordinance & has a fine chymical work’.42 This reputation spread into popular culture,
for example in the popular ballad ‘Birmingham Jack of all Trades’. It was sung:
To Birmingham I did set out, To seek a situation,
I’d often heard folks say it was The toyshop of the nation. I’m a roving jack of all trades Of every trade and all trades And if you want to know my name They call me Jack of all trades... 43
The ballad continued to list numerous trades, both in the metalware trade but also with other products and services, such as a pastry cook, coffin maker and porter. In this case, it clearly refers to an individual worker, who circulated between different places of work and possessed a range of different skills.
40 Birmingham City Archives, MS 3782/12/88/14, ‘Minutes on the Sheffield Assay Petition’,
24 February 1773, f. 6.
41 Birmingham City Archives, MS 3782/12/89/12, ‘Copy Report on Sheffield and
Birmingham Assay Office Petitions’, f. 3.
42 Birmingham City Archives, MS 3782/12/88/13, ‘Committee on the Sheffield Assay
Petitions’, 19 February 1773, f. 1.
43 Recording of the ballad Birmingham Jack of All Trades, Birmingham Museums,
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This varied experience gave the regional producers an advantage compared to some of their competitors, including producers in London. Birmingham and Sheffield producers argued that London producers did not have the skills to develop, or excel at, these new products. This was ‘because they neither have such tools, and if they had they could not use them to proper advantage for want of experience which is acquired by making immense quantities of toys in Bath metal, white metal, pinchbeck metal, steel, &c.’.44 In opposition, the London goldsmiths argued that it resulted in a lack of
expertise because producers had not focused upon a single trade for the duration of the lifetime. Nevertheless, it meant that many of the new producers and successful entrepreneurs and manufacturers had the transferable skills to produce an increasing variety of goods in different materials and designs.