Ancestors At Work
Mike Sharpe looks at the lives of our relations in the brass industry
Were any of your relatives involved in the brass trade?
Brass is a wonder material. It is highly malleable, can be cast into any shape, does not rust when exposed to air, and polishes to a high lustre. Little surprise then that brass has attracted the attentions of craftsmen and artisans through the ages. Known in Britain since Roman times, early examples include monumental brasses and church ornaments from the Middle Ages.
An alloy of copper and zinc, brass was traditionally made by heating copper, calamine (zinc ore) and charcoal in a crucible until they were red-hot. Brass was formed when the spelter (zinc metal) and copper combined at the bottom of the crucible, leaving a heavy slag. Later innovations allowed the two metals to be fused together in the crucible directly.
Bristol gained an early dominance in the English brass trade because of its proximity to the raw materials – calamine from the Mendips and copper from Cornwall. By 1790 Bristol was the biggest brass producer in Europe, with works strewn along the River Avon. Cheadle in Cheshire, which was close
to a Derbyshire calamine mine, was another early centre.
During the 19th century, brass making spread across the country, including the Royal Brass Foundry at Woolwich, which made weapons for the Army and Navy. Increases in the price of copper in the 1780s and 1790s caused industrialists in Birmingham to set up their own mines in Cornwall and South Wales. The price of brass dropped considerably and, together with technical innovations introduced by Midlands entrepreneurs, gave the Birmingham manufacturers the advantage. Despite the city’s inland location, the canal network made it easy to transport raw materials and finished goods.
Near-Ubiquity
The scope of manufactured brass goods was vast. From generalpurpose items such as tacks, tubes and wire, to components such as gas fittings, and horse and carriage fittings, to finished products such as lamps, chandeliers and bedsteads, brass makers supplied them all. In
Birmingham, the so-called ‘toy trade’ produced not children’s playthings but domestic items such as buttons, buckles, letterracks, hearth sets and fireguards. The railway revolution brought demand for brass in steam trains, from whistles, cocks, taps and gauges on the footplate to polished fittings for the passenger carriages.
New markets emerged in the most unexpected of settings. The Victorian preoccupation with death led to a rise in the manufacture of coffin furniture, while the Penny Post required scales for weighing letters and brass letterboxes. As demand in one area declined there was usually another to take its place. When electricity began to replace gas as the main form of lighting from the 1880s, the brass manufacturers moved to ensure that their products were used there too. Later they did the same to ensure that their products also had a role in the nascent motor industry.
Large profits were to be made from brass, and the numbers of foundries, factories and manufactories grew at a rapid rate. In 1851 approximately 11,000 people were employed in brass manufacture, and this had almost doubled to 21,000 by 1871. By the mid-19th century, the typical workshop employed 20–30 men, although the larger Birmingham brass houses had over 100 men each.
Workers had various roles. The most highly skilled were foundrymen, who cast molten brass into moulds requiring dexterity and a fair degree of know-how. The production of an eagle for a church lectern, for example, involved a mould made up of 25 pieces. Tubemaking was another specialised job. Braziers, who worked with sheet brass, wrought intricate patterns on many of the goods they produced. Less skilled roles included dippers, lacquerers and finishers who tended to be women.
In the foundries, the workforce was divided into gangs of eight to ten men under a head brasscaster or chargehand. They subcontracted work from the foundry owner, and produced castings at an agreed price per hundredweight. As power lathes and other machines replaced foot-lathes and hand tools, the owner would make deductions to cover the cost of the power used. Occasionally, the master fixed the total price for the work and not just the parts being carried
New markets emerged in the most unexpected of settings
out by a particular group of workers, which could result in the chargehand being out of pocket. This system, known as blind piecework, was outlawed in 1901, but was not eradicated from the brass trade for some years.
Workers’ Power
Being relatively well paid and their skills highly sought after led some brass workers to take liberties not afforded to other 19th-century workers. It was not uncommon for workers to take Mondays off, and make up the hours during the rest of the week. A Birmingham employer in 1905 complained of “the sizzling of bacon and the boiling of tea for half an hour” on many a soldering hearth. Then as one o’clock approached “the aroma changed to one of chops”. He turned a blind eye as long as it did not interfere with production.
From the mid-19th century mechanisation began to be introduced. In place of skilled braziers, women and girls were employed to operate stamping and piercing presses used in the manufacture of buttons, medals and ornamental work. These unskilled jobs were generally paid at much lower rates.
Brass making was a hazardous business. Carrying molten metal in iron moulds, foundry workers were exposed not only to the heat but also toxic fumes, known as ‘philosopher’s wool’, from a dense white cloud of zinc oxide. Pulmonary and respiratory diseases were rife. Those making ‘yellow’ brass were particularly prone to lung diseases. For example, in the 1850s Henry Peel, aged 27, a brass caster at Timothy Smith & Sons in Birmingham, told an inspector that he hoped “to live over 40”, which was considered old for the trade. An industrial historian in 1866 commented, “Brass casters are unanimously shortlived.”
In brass, as in other trades, the workforce began to organise, starting with the formation of the Brass Workers Union in 1872. Other organisations followed and in 1912 several unions came together as the Amalgamated Association of Brassfounders, Turners, Fitters, Finishers and Coppersmiths (‘AAB’ for short).
High energy costs, changing consumer tastes and new materials such as plastics and stainless steel led to the demise of Britain’s brass industry. However, its impact lives on. We talk of having a ‘brass neck’, of getting down to ‘brass tacks’, and of bosses being the ‘top brass’. These sayings are testament to an ingenious industry whose products were at the centre of our forebears’ everyday life.