Stannington?

[silenthunterstudios]

I bought myself a book on Christmas Eve, Firearms Traps and Tools of the Mountain Man, by Carl P Russell. Got it shipped to my PO, and it didn't arrive until last Friday. I had other more important things to do, like battling a virus, and finishing re-reading the Hobbit, before I got to this book. I just cracked Mr Russell's book open yesterday, and, small wonder, jumped ahead, over the chapters on traps, to Knives of the Mountain Man. Among the usual butcher knives and old world daggers seen among the mountain men, I came across French clasp knives, and barlows. As I had one of the Tom Sawyer barlows in my pocket at the time, I was very interested in learning more. After perusing a brief history of the Barlow knife and the Barlow company from Sheffield England, I came across a Stannington company from Sheffield, and that some trade knives and pocket knives were referred to as coming from the Stannington trade, and were therefore usually referred to as Stannington knives.

I figure that our man about Sheffield, Jack Black, would know something of Stannington. I left the book at home, for which I am definitely perturbed, although it may have to do with this virus and being at work, or I would quote directly from the book.

A good portion of the members here are walking encyclopedias of knife information, and I would like to glean some from you good gentlemen and ladies concerning Stannington.

 

[Jack Black]

Like neighbouring Wharncliffe, Stannington is an area of Sheffield, on the hill between the Loxley and Rivelin rivers, both of which were lined with small (originally water-powered) cutlery workshops. My great grandmother's sister's husband worked at one of the Rivelin wheels and they raised 6 children in a small cottage, which is still there. In the later years of his life, he contracted TB and took to sleeping in the garden shed so as not to pass it onto his wife and children. One of my earliest memories, as a child of 2 or 3, is a bank holiday trip to the Robin Hood pub, in the neighbouring Loxley Valley, and I spent many happy times at my Aunt Nellie's cottage, fishing and bilberry-picking in the rivers, dams, and on the crags nearby.



At the confluence of the Rivelin and Loxley rivers sits Malin Bridge, which at the height of water-powered industrial activity in the area would have been just a small hamlet situated about 3 miles from the centre of Sheffield. My father knew one of the old Rivelin grinders, and he told him that once a month all the local working men would trek in two or three miles from the rural workshops on the Rivelin and Loxley to get paid for their labours at Malin Bridge. There, their wives and children were waiting for them, they would hand over a portion of their wages, buy a load of steak from the butchers, and retire to the pub, where the landlord would fry up the steak, and they would drink for 2 or 3 days before returning to their work.

The wheels on the Rivelin had all closed by the time I was a kid, though evidence of them is still preserved, and their dams are still intact. The Loxley is less accessible, but there is still some industry on the river, though obviously not water-powered. I’m hoping, later this year, to walk some of the Sheffield rivers and report on their history, and I will of course take some photos.

 

[Jack Black]

Stannington has its own Wikipedia page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stannington,_Sheffield

 

[Woodrow F Call]

My copy of the book should be here today.

 

[silenthunterstudios]

Thank you Jack, very informative. I have read in Knife World of English cutlers coming over here for work, and coming into work from days long benders. Guess a steak and ale over three days might get you wheeled into the shop in a wheel barrel!

Cap'n Call , I'll be reading it right along with you.

 

[Jack Black]

Thank you Jack, very informative. I have read in Knife World of English cutlers coming over here for work, and coming into work from days long benders. Guess a steak and ale over three days might get you wheeled into the shop in a wheel barrel!

You're very welcome my friend. They say that if the British had drunk water instead of booze, they'd all have died of typhus!

After the Enclosures Acts, when the Common Land was taken from the people, many former farmers and farm labourers were driven into the towns and cities in search of work. Likewise many flocked to the 'New World' in search of a new life - while others had no choice in the matter. In the early years of the industrial revolution before the new working class had yet had the 'neccesary' industrial discipline instilled into them (the primary purpose of the 1870 Compulsory Education Act), because workers had previously worked in the fields, their approach to work was TASK orientated, rather than TIME orientated. This was very apparent in the Sheffield knife and steel tool industry, where many workers were effectively self-employed. The whole family would get the work (a parcel of knives or whatever) done as quickly as possible, get paid, and then go off to spend their earnings, in the pub or at the seaside, with new direct train lines running to the coast filled with workers and their families. None of this was very convenient for the new industrialists of course.