Tinkers & tinmen
Q My husband’s family include those recorded as tinmen, tinkers and braziers. It would be interesting to know how they knew where to go to for work? Did they go door-to-door to obtain work, or did local people go to them with their pots and pans? It would be great to understand how they operated and what exactly their job entailed.
Lynne Lindsay
A By calling himself a ‘brazier, tinsmith, tinman and tinker’, your ancestors were affirming they mended virtually anything metal. Braziers made kettles, pans, candlesticks etc from brass whilst tinsmiths did the same with tin. ‘Tinker’ was (still is today) a pejorative term for tinsmiths/tinmen who travelled the country using as their raw material plates of iron covered in tin to prevent rusting. However, tinker was also a generic euphemism for anyone nomadic; gypsies, Roma and Irish, Scottish travellers were all tarred with a dishonest reputation for earning an income any way they could – including mending pans.
Arguably the most famous tinker is preacher and author of A Pilgrim’s Progress John Bunyan (1628-1688). His family (John’s father was also a tinker) owned a house in Elstow, Bedfordshire. Itinerant families who owned property or land generally overwintered there, sharpening and mending tools, restocking for their next journey and refurbishing van or cart if they had one–- John Bunyan carried his tools and raw material in a backpack.
For those without property or land, families overwintered wherever they could. I have fairground relatives who wintered in an Oxfordshire pub yard and the neighbours’ field. Several distant cousins were born in a caravan behind that pub! Once the weather improved, travellers returned to the road to follow a regular route through village, town and neighbouring counties to ply their trade. For my travelling relatives, this equated roughly from St Valentine’s Day (14 February) to Guy Fawkes (5 November). Their ‘boundary’ straddled Northamptonshire, Devonshire and Oxfordshire. Bunyan’s patch ranged as far north as the Wash near Spalding/lynn down to the estuaries of the Stour and Orwell to the east.
Because they followed a familiar route, travellers knew the distance between destinations and where to shelter: under road, canal and railway bridges, barns, even hollow trees preferably wherever they encountered congeniality. Without the wherewithal to overnight in inns (even if permitted) those who had a cart might sleep under it; others had tents. Generally, travellers had their families in tow hence why children were baptised in different places.
Their customers? Unlike today’s throwaway society, housewives set aside broken utensils until a tinsmith arrived in their village. Potential customers might flock to a weekly market, hiring fair or country show; haunts of tinkers, gypsies and fairground showmen. A common tinker’s job was re-tinning cooking utensils. Copper, when corroded by acid and fat, formed poisonous verdigris so was protectively coated by a thick layer of tin worn down by constant cooking. The Book of Trades, 1827, describes how a tinsmith or brazier repaired a copper pan rubbing it with sal-ammoniac, or an acid; the tin or a composition of tin and lead, is then melted in the vessel, and rubbed well about it with old rags doubled up.
Published posthumously, William Wordsworth’s (1770-1850) poem ‘The Tinker’, was inspired (as described by his sister, Dorothy, in her Journal 23 May 1800) by the appearance of a tinker’s wife accompanied by a barefooted child. The tinkers hailed from Scotland and the full description can be read at https://familytr.ee/tinkers. (Key ‘tinker’ in the search bar). For the poem, see www.poetrynook.com/poem/tinker.
Why was this tinker’s wife so keen to avoid the accusation of begging? Because vagrancy and begging were heavily penalised crimes.
Under the Pedlars Act 1871 (still in force today) hawkers, mongers and peddlers could not trade without a licence. In 1871, the licence was only binding in the geographical area of the police force issuing it. By 1881 it was valid countrywide. The Act defined a pedlar as any hawker, pedlar, petty chapman, tinker, caster of metals, or other person who, without any horse or other beast bearing or drawing burden, travels and trades on foot and goes from town to town or to other men’s houses, carrying to sell or exposing for sale any goods, wares, or merchandise, or procuring orders for goods, wares, or merchandise immediately to be delivered.
In other words, your travelling ancestors required a licence from 1871 unless they travelled by horseback or cart. Valid for a year, they cost 5s in 1871 (most pedlars couldn’t afford that) and in order to ensure the licence related to the peddler carrying it (ie it wasn’t stolen) included a written description; see https://familytr.ee/pedlar. Contemporary newspapers reported anyone convicted of trading without one. Unfortunately, most licences haven’t survived; try The National Archives and county record offices etc.
There’s much debate about the origin of Roma and other travellers and it may be worth contacting the Romany and Traveller Family History Society http://rtfhs.org.uk and Sheffield University’s National Fairground and Circus Archive www.sheffield.ac.uk/ nfca who might shed light on the lifestyle and background of your ancestors. As Lindsay/lindsey is registered with the Guild of One Name Studies, you may also wish to contact them at https://onename.org/name_profile/lindsay. AE