Blade from the Brades was found on a 19th century shipwreck
WILIAM Hunt & Sons, the Oldbury edge-tool maker, was once worldrenowned for the quality of its products.
Its works, known as the Brades, was featured in an Oldbury souvenir handbook of 1949, a copy of which has been loaned to us by historian and regular contributor Ian Bott. In it, alongside a potted history of the firm, is the story of an unusual find – one of its products was discovered on an abandoned ship, more than a century after the vessel was lost ...
“To most people, the export drive is something new, but William Hunt and Sons, The Brades Ltd., had an export market in the eighteenth century.
“By far the oldest firm of edge tool makers in the district, it was founded by William Hunt, a button maker from Birmingham, in 1782. Entries from the ledger and early invoices show that in the 1790s hay and chaff knives, trowels, spades, hoes and edging knives similar in pattern to those used today were being made.
“The accounts for 1796 showed the departments already included ‘converting furnace, casting shop, forge, tilt and rolling mill,’ and rent was being paid to Matthew Boulton for a steam engine which must have been one of the earliest models turned out by Boulton and James Watt.
“The steel for ramrods used in the Napoleonic Wars was rolled at the Brades, and the firm also made some of the first bayonets for the British Army, early in Queen Victoria’s reign. the Brades trowel, stamped with the initials W.H.S (known to bricklayers as ‘work hard or starve’) has a worldwide reputation, and at the end of last century was said to be used by ninety per cent of American masons.
“Today, Brades edge tools are still sent all over the world, ranging from picks for Iceland to sugar cane knives for the South Sea Islands, cocoa pruners for Africa and forks for India’s tea plantations.
“High quality edge-tool making is an industry which cannot be mechanised, and much of the work at the Brades is done by hand. On the skill of those hands, agricultural workers all over the world depend for their tools. It is doubtful if there is any country in theworld where Brades tools have not been used.”
“This hand spear, made at the Brades, was part of the equipment of the vessel ‘Fury’ lost in 1825, when searching for the North West Passage at Prince Regent Inlet, near Bellot Strait.
“The Fury was one of the vessels which accompanied Admiral Sir William Edward Parry on his thrid voyage to discover the North West Passage. The expedition sailed on May 24, and the Fury was abandoned on August 21st, 1825, after running aground in a storm. The spear was found recently.”