1
Steel and toy trade between England and France :
the Huntsmans’ correspondence with the Blakeys (Sheffield-Paris, 1765-1769)
Liliane Pérez,
Centre d’histoire des techniques et de l’environnement,
Conservatoire national des arts et métiers (Paris)
Although Benjamin Huntsman is a mythical character of the industrial revolution, few
business records were left. Besides visitors’ reports since the 1760’s and descriptions of the
new process based on later developments, historians mainly relied on the correspondence and
orders between William Huntsman and Matthew Boulton, mostly for 1786-1802. As K. C.
Barraclough stated, “These exchanges between the foremost steelmaker of this time and his
famous engineering customer serve to show how they both contributed to the development of
the technology which put Britain ahead of the Industrial Revolution”1. We would like to cast
light on less pre-eminent actors, at least not so heroic, and on a more diffuse innovating
process, involving French customers since the 1760’s. The connection with the Blakeys reveal
how much Hunstman’s steel relied on the growth of commercial networks, on the burst of
“consumer industry”,2 and on the reshaping of luxury trades. Industrial revolution,
engineering and British superiority were not at stake. Hunstman’s steel was a “European
achievement”,3 and an outcome of enlightened European.
This approach is based on the massive amount of letters exchanged between the
Huntsmans (father, son, and Asline) and the Blakeys. William Blakey , of English origin, and
his wife, Elisabeth Aumerle, were manufacturers, toydealers and shopkeepers, based in Paris
since the 1730’s and involved in a European (and colonial) trade for steel ware, from watch
spring wire to trusses, razors, jewels and tableware. Their trade with the Huntsmans began in
1765 and lasted ten years, but most records cover the 1766-1769 period, when Mrs. Blakey
set up her toyshop, “Le Magazin Anglois”, close to the fashionable rue Saint-Honoré,
profiting of the anglomania revival after the Seven Years War4. In 1772, she was bankrupted
1
K. C. Barraclough, Steel making before Bessemer, vol. 2, Crucible steel. The growth of technology, London,
The Metals Society, 1984, p. 18.
2
M. Berg, “Inventors of the world of goods”, in P. K. O’Brien and K. Bruland eds., From Family to Corporate
Capitalism. Essays in Business and Industrial History in Honour of Peter Mathias, Oxford, Clarendon Press,
1998, pp. 21-50.
3
C. MacLeod, « The European origins of British technological predominance », in L. Prados de la Escosura ed.,
Exceptionalism and Industrialism. Britain and its European Rivals, 1688-1815, Cambridge, CUP, pp. 111-126.
4
C. Sargentson, Merchants and Luxury Markets. The Marchands Merciers of Eighteenth-Century Paris,
London,Victoria and Albert Museum, 1996, p. 114.
2
and had to find new partners. Her ledgers, bills, orders were seized. Among Mrs. Blakey’s
papers, were numerous invoices and letters from the Hunstmans, revealing their marketing
strategies, their routes and networks, their products and prices.
The Hunstmans were part of a global economy of steel, as much as Crowley Hallett or
Graffin Prankard in iron trade at the same time5. Their records shed light on their efforts to
promote a foreign market for cast steel, along with blister steel and with a wide range of
artefacts, toys and tools, some made in Sheffield, others in Birmingham and more often, in
Lancashire. Lancashire and Sheffield were integrated into a European trade ; cast steel was
worked out in France since the 1760’s. Far from specializing in the sole production of steel,
the Huntsmans coordinated multiple tasks and multiple spheres, rural proto-industry, urban
craftsmanship, manufactures, middlemen and bankers, international trade, retailing and
shopkeeping, luxury markets. Their profile was exemplifying the intensity of connections
which characterised Enlightened economy, based on the growth of exchanges, local and
worldwide, and on the spread of consumption for sophisticated artefacts, ranging in multiple
qualities, materials, models, prices, according to fashion and to changing perceptions of
necessity. Huntsmans’ steel(s) were part of an integrated economy, of a Smithian economy
where consumption was the sole aim of production, where the different stages of activities,
moved by demand, were springs for growth, echoing the functionalist metaphors of economy
promoted all through Europe by Enlightened elite.6
We would like to precise the part played by Hunstman’s trade in the material culture
of the XVIIIth century, not only in the “world of goods”, in patterns of consumption, but in
the technological culture of the Enlightenment, inside the workshops and within the wider
public sphere, involving taste for ingenuity, aesthetics of utility and praise for functionality.
By combining toy-trade and markets for tools, the Hunstmans were at the forefront of the
culture of artificiality and composition, which echoed the growing division of labour, the
economy of tasks and pieces that was developing at a European level, far beyond crafts and
guilds inheritance.7 Huntsman’s steel trade was emblematic of the modern culture of
5
C. Evans and G. Rydén, Baltic Iron in the Atlantic World in the Eighteenth Century, Leiden-Boston, Brill,
2007, pp. 12, 54-56.
6
S. Meyssonnier, La balance et l'horloge. La genèse de la pensée libérale en France au XVIIIe siècle,
Montreuil, Editions de la Passion, 1989 ; J.-C. Perrot, Une histoire intellectuelle de l'économie politique (XVIIeXVIIIe siècle), Paris, EHESS, 1992 ; C. Evans and G. Rydén, op. cit., pp. 9-13.
7
M. Berg, The age of manufactures 1700-1820, London, Fontana, 1985 ; id., Luxury & pleasure in eighteenthcentury Britain, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005 ; H. Clifford, “The myth of the maker: manufacturing
networks in the London goldsmiths’ trade 1750-1790”, in K. Quickenden and N.A. Quickenden eds., Silver and
jewellery. Production and consumption since 1750, Birmingham, 1995, p. 5-12.; G. Riello, “Strategies and
boundaries. Subcontracting and the London trades in the long eighteenth century”, Enterprise & society,
3
functionality, of “fitness of purpose” in Adam Smith’s words,8 a culture fostered by the
“civilisation of commerce”, by exchanges, connections and cosmopolitanism.9
I – From Blakey to Huntsman : the records of a steel trade in Enlightened Europe
Blakey and Huntsman belonged to the same world. Not only did they share English origins,
but they were representative of the enlargement of activities and rearrangement of skills
fostered by the growth of consumption in the metal trades. They were involved in merchant
venture, in manufacturing process, in shopkeeping and in artisanal enterprise. They were
actors of an integrated economy, at a European scale.
In the case of Blakey, multi-tasking, cross skills and hybrid identities were part of a
familial tradition. Blakey was the son of an English watchmaker, also called William Blakey,
who came over to France in 1718, as one of the main protagonists of the massive transfer of
skills organised by John Law.10 Blakey senior was in charge of steelworks in Normandy
(Harfleur, near Le Havre) to provide springs for a watchmaking factory run in Versailles by
another watchmaker, Henry Sully.11 Blakey senior and Sully were Catholic and Jacobite,
although Sully was of Huguenot extraction. They also were the main protagonists of the
creation of the Paris Society of Arts circa 1718,12 a society open to artisans and artists, mixing
scientific and technical cultures, until the Paris Academy out an end in 1736 to this innovative
creation. Hybrid identities (national and professional) characterised these highly skilled
artisan-entrepreneurs.
forthcoming ; C. Lanoë, La poudre et le fard. Une histoire des cosmétiques de la Renaissance aux Lumières, Seyssel,
Champ Vallon, forthcoming.
8
A. Smith The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), D. D. Raphael, A. L. Macfie eds., Glasgow Edition of the
Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith, Indianapolis, Liberty Fund, 1982, vol. 1., p. 179.
9
D. Roche, Humeurs vagabondes, de la circulation des hommes et de l’utilité des voyages, Paris, Fayard, 2003.
10
J. R. Harris, Industrial Espionage and Technology Transfer. Britain and France in the 18th-Century,
Aldershot, Ashgate, 1998.
11
After Law’s failure, he settled a watch spring factory in Paris in 1727 (provided with Styrian steel plates from
1729). In 1733, he set up steelwork mills on a river outside Paris to forge and polish springs, using his devise of
a tilt forge with four hammers. Cf. L’art de faire les ressorts de montres suivi de la manière de faire les petits
ressorts de répétition & les ressorts spiraux, par Mr. W. Blakey, Ingénieur Hydraulique &c, Amsterdam, chez
Marc-Michel Rey, 1780, p.viii.
12
J. R. Harris, op. cit. ; R. Hahn, The Anatomy of a Scientific Institution. The Paris Academy of Sciences, 16661803, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1971. ; I. Passeron, « La Société des Arts, espace provisoire de
reformulation des rapports entre théories scientifiques et pratiques instrumentales », in E. Brian, C.
Demeulenaere-Douyere eds., Règlement, usages et science dans la France de l’absolutisme, Paris, Tec & Doc.
Lavoisier, 2002, pp. 109-132 ; L. Hilaire-Pérez, L’invention technique au siècle des Lumières, Paris, Albin
Michel, 2000.
4
Blakey junior followed the same path. He was born in London in 1711 (Saint Martin in
the Fields) and was naturalised in France in 1758. Meanwhile, as a Catholic, he was allowed
to enter the Parisian guild of surgeons in 1742 and then the guild of watchmakers in 1750. At
the same time, he took over his father’s steelwork mills, were he made watch pinion wires and
springs. The mill was set up near Paris, at Crécy en Brie (east of Paris), on a river called the
Morin. Blakey’s wire drawing device was considered as a useful invention by the Paris
Academy of science and he was granted an exclusive privilege (patent) from government in
1744.13 There is no clue to understanding which steel he worked out ; experts only said it was
good quality steel, ductile, able to pass 5 times through the draw bench and that it was one
third cheaper than English steel. The steelworks might have been quite large. A notary private
act gives us information on the mill he used (formerly one for oil) and on the riverside
transformations he realised when he became proprietor of the 7/11th of the river site in
1750.14 The mill was called a “fabrique d’acier”, a steelwork. In 1755, he acquired a second
mill and requested the use of other banks and islands on the river Morin. Blakey also
produced steel reeds for looms, a new product in textile manufacture, and he launched “elastic
steel trusses” with steel springs, a product he was proud to advertise as a surgeon. Thanks to
his wife, Margaret Elisabeth Aumerle, he set up a shop in Paris, right in the centre, in the rue
de l’Eperon (parish of St André des Arts) and used prints intensively to promote his shop and
factory. The Blakeys were famous as steelwork specialists and as businessmen.
In 1759, William Blakey was called upon to take the lead of the great manufacture of
Essonnes, on the river Etampes, not far from the Morin. Essonnes was one of the first sites in
France where iron was rolled, although no coal was used at any stage of the production. The
production was mainly of iron plates (plates-bandes) and rods (tringles). The 1759 act of
cession of Essonnes to the Blakeys allowed them to become managers without bringing any
assets, only their skills and their equipment from Crécy. According to their ledgers, it seems
that the Blakeys mainly worked for the clock and watch making trade, providing wire and
springs and also repairing and mending clocks and watches, chains, boxes and all kind of
toyware.
Their manufacture was supported by the dynamism of Mrs. Blakey’s toyshop which
moved from the centre of Paris close to rue Saint-Honoré (rue des Prouvaires). In “Le
Magazin Anglois”, Mrs. Blakey, a privileged mercer appointed to the court, developed a
Machines et inventions approuvées par l’Académie royale des sciences, Jean-Gaffin Gallon ed., Paris, 17351777, vol. 7 ; Archives nationales (hereafter AN) : E/2692.
14
AN : F/12/1325A.
13
5
commerce in fashionable toyware and in tools for the Parisian artisanal markets. As such, she
set up a very original trade. Not only did she advertise her business thanks to steel trusses,
enhancing connections between watchmaking and surgery based on the elasticity of the
material. On a wider scale, by combining toys and tools, she was emblematic of the
“technological convergences” that were setting anew work practices and technological culture
in the Enlightenment, as an echo of the openness promoted by the Paris Society of Arts. Steel
was the main component of this revolution.
Which steel ? Mainly English. The mill in Essonnes was not sufficient to support this
“toys and tools” trade. Most of Mrs. Blakey’s stock in trade was imported. Moreover, watch
springs and steel trusses, produced in the manufacture, were made of steel coming from
Sheffield.
In 1765, the Blakeys entered business with Benjamin Huntsman, and they soon
developed a network of English retailers in London, Birmingham and Sheffield. The London
connection was the origin of the Blakeys’ interest in steel. In the preface to his treaty on
watch spring making, and in his printed memoir on steel, Blakey recorded his fathers’
networks with the watchmakers’ improving steel for springs”.15 But in the 1760’s, the
Blakeys’ network with steel was based in Sheffield and Birmingham. Blakey spent more and
more time in England, in London and in Newcastle where he tried to exploit his new invented
fire engines16. On his way to the East, he would regularly visit the Huntsmans in Sheffield,
but he would also head to Lancashire, to Prescot. Mrs. Blakey used to cross the Channel once
a year to negotiate orders with the Hunstmans. The Blakey-Huntsman connection was typical
of the merchant culture in Enlightened Europe : the confidence between the partners relied on
private contacts, on visits and codes of sociability favouring friendship, twinning familial
story with business matters. It was a “speech community”, as their massive correspondence
was revealing.
The records of Hunstman’s trade with the Blakeys are numerous, because their
multiple activities led them to bankrupt in 1772, to several changes in partnerships for
Réflexions sur les progrès de la fabrique du fer et de l’acier dans la Grande-Bretagne… Par Mr. B. *****,
Londres, 1783. Blakey enhanced the skills of a French refugee who taught his art to one Mr. Vernon, who then
transmitted it to his apprentices called Sadler, Maberley and Blakey (senior). He himself recorded that he had
been acquainted by his father with London skilled artisans, namely Mr. Horn, “a famous manufacturer in watch
and clock springs. According to Blakey, London spring makers initiated a demand to Ambrose Crowley in the
last century, for being supplied with more flexible and tough steel, a request that was only met 40 years later,
when the English imitated German steel (“l’acier artificiel en barres à la mode d‘Allemagne”), by using coal.
16
L. Roberts, “Full steam ahead: failed inventors and entrepreneurial networks in eighteenth-century Europe”,
unpublished paper..We thank Lissa Roberts for kindly sending us her paper.
15
6
backing their business and to difficulties with Parisian authorities. Their trade to West Indies
also explain that part of their archives are held in Bordeaux.17 Besides, printed works by
Blakey give information on his former networks and on his understanding of cast steel as a
progress in metallurgy, a statement that was not shared by all practitioners.18
The archives related to Hunstman are of two sorts, indirect and direct. Mrs. Blakey’s
ledgers and commercial correspondence are full of references to her exchanges with the
Hunstmans. English wares, mainly Hunstman’s but not only, were listed in four ledgers, held
in the Archives of Paris : Mrs. Blakey’s daybook 1766-1768 (“Journal commencé le 24 juin
1766”), which included invoices and two records of the stock in trade19, her book of sales,
“Journal de vente” , for 1766-176920, where customers, like artisans buying tools or
middlemen retailing tools, were noted, and a double-entry ledger recording expenses and
receipts for the business and home life21. A fourth bundle was gathering the depositions
during the bankrupt procedure in 1772 : it contains Mrs. Blakey’s narrative about her travels
to England, goods seized by customs, and the list of debtors and creditors, hence her network
of customers (Parisian artisans, Swiss watchmakers, French merchants for West Indies) and of
suppliers, mainly Hunstman & Asline (77 844 livres tournois, 3118 £), watchmakers in
London (Solomon Isaac, Jean Marie), in Geneva (including Argand), middlemen, bankers and
merchants, in London (John and Jacob Baumgarten, John
17
Motteux, all belonging to
Archives départementales de la Gironde : 7B1108 : privilege, tract ; 7B1109-7B1110 : letters with
Baumgartner, Llagostera, Hunstman ; 7B1111 : ledger for 1775, inventory for 1776 (transactions with Llagostera
and Baumgartner, in London, travels to Sheffield, of the new partner of the Blakeys, D’Epineville) ; 7B1112 :
inventory 1776, orders from Sheffield 1767-1768, colonial trade 1776 ; 7B1113 to 7B1116 : accounts ; 7B1117 :
creditors’ accounts; 7B1118 : inventories of the toyshop and acts for new partnerships 1771-1774 ; 7B1120 :
about the mill in Essonnes ; 7B1121 : private papers like baptism certificate, and business in steel trusses ;
7B1122 : transaction with Bournisien d’Epineville, owner of the « Magazin anglois », 1770-1779. Information
about these archives in Bordeaux were generously provided by François-Joseph Ruggiu. In complement to these
archives, others in Paris are related to their mill in Essonnes and to the procedures to get the privilege of
invention and permissions for using the riverside : AN : F/12/1325A.
18
In Bibliothèque nationale de France : Instructions pour prévenir les descentes ou hernies …, Paris, impr. de G.
Desprez, 1758, 23 p. ; Réflexions sur la préférence que l’on peut donner à quelques arts des anciens et des
modernes, 1778, p. 1-28 ; Réflexions sur les progrès de la fabrique du fer et de l’acier dans la Grande-Bretagne
… Par Mr. B. *****, Londres, 1783, 38 p. ; Lettre à Monsieur Mauduit, lecteur et professeur royal en
mathématiques …sur la machine à feu pour la ville d’Amsterdam ..., 1778 ; L’art de faire les ressorts de
montres, …Amsterdam, M.M. Rey, 1780, in fol., 32 p. et 2 pl. In British library : William, Blakey, College of
Surgeons of Paris, On the Manner of Preserving Children and Grown Persons from Ruptures, London, 1792.
19
Archives de Paris (hereafter AP) : D5B6 3120. “Etat général des marchandises dans les magasins et le prix de
ce qu’elles reviennent en place” and “Inventaire général”. Other inventories are held in the notaries’ archives,
and were used by Carolyn Sargentson, Merchants and luxury markets, op.cit. : the partnership with the merchant
Bournisien d’Epineville who also run a “magasin anglais”, in 1773 (AN : MC/LXXVIII/786), and the 1776
transaction transferring the toyshop to Jousset de Lizy (AN : MC/LXXVIII/817).
20
AP : D5B6 2813.
21
AP : D5B6 2281.
7
Boulton’s network too, and Llagostera, Maubué, Desgranges), in Sevilla, in Lyon, Caen,
Calais, Bayeux, Versailles22.
But the most interesting archives for the Hunstmans’ concern are held in the records of
a Parisian law court, the Châtelet. They contain the “Book of foreign goods” (“Livre des
marchandises étrangères”), beginning in April 1798 and running until the end of 1769 23, a
large amount of orders and invoices, and the correspondence with the Huntsmans24. The book
of foreign goods (all English) is an in-folio ledger of 65 pages, organised by names of
suppliers and quite chronological. Addresses of creditors are not often mentioned, but some
appear in the invoices (only 1769) held in the other bundle25. As expressed in its title, the
book is written in French. Not only does it provide a translation of some loose orders kept in
the other bundle, and then an access to the taxonomy of toys and tools, of materials, including
the different sorts of steel ornaments, but it suggests the intensity of translation practice
(including changing moneys) in the Blakeys business, as Mr. Blakey lived in London and his
wife, running the shop in Paris, was not speaking English.
The loose archives bundles are the richest one26. The Hunstmans’s papers are of two
sorts, invoices on one side, letters on the other side. The first group of is made of 77 pages,
written in English, running from 1766 to 1769, and ranged in a file called “Factures
d’Huntsman & Asline de Sheffield depuis le treize may 1766 jusque et compris celle du 27
8bre 1768 ainsi que leurs lettres de change et billets sur moy dument acquittés”. Actually, the
chronology is running until October 1769. These invoices are important for three reasons at
least. First, they are business records providing a direct access to the Hunstmans’ management
of steel trade. Headings, and letters added below the invoices, bore information on inland
circuits as well as on traffic from England to France, on factors, on prices of freight, on the
amounts of bills of exchange drawn on Mrs. Blakey’s commissioners, and on the credit terms,
and so on. Second, these invoices start earlier than the “book of foreign goods”, so they give
access to the beginning of the trade with Benjamin Hunstman, with the further advantage to
have an overall scope of the orders during a four years period. This does not exist for any
other English suppliers of Mrs. Blakey. Third, these invoices are listing more wares than the
“Book of foreign goods” : only here do we have information on Hunstmans’ trade of cast
steel, blister steel, including weights, shapes (bars, plates, wire), prices. As steel was intended
22
AP : D4B6 2490.
AN : Y/ 13701.
24
AN : Y /13702.
25
AN : Y /13701 : « Factures diverses de Londres 1769 ». The file is containing 28 invoices and a descriptive
inventory of English goods ordered for the toyshop.
26
AN : Y /13701.
23
8
for the Essonnes factory, it was not recorded in the imports of the toyshop, and it may suggest
that English blister and cast steel were worked out the mill as soon as 1766.
The second group of Hunstmans’ papers is the correspondence with Mrs. Blakey,
containing 102 pages, beginning in December 1765, with a letter from Benjamin Hunstman
listing the goods he can supply, especially tools, with detailed sizes and prices, assorted with
comments on the qualities of steel for tools, particularly enhancing “his steel”. Some letters
are directly translated from the one accompanying invoices. Others are written, in French, by
Mrs. Blakey and they provide information on her requests to the Sheffield firm, on the way
English toyware and tools met (or not) the demand of the French market, as well as on her
efforts to preserve her exclusivity as first and only retailer of Hunstman’s steel in France. A
last group of letters is coming from the Hunstmans themselves and provide further
information to the invoices, explaining delays in sending their goods, requesting to be paid in
time, negotiating technical points like the sizes of steel plates, the patterns and the qualities of
files and razors, etc.
The business records from the Hunstmans-Blakeys’ connection provide a valuable
insight into the European steel and toy-trade, and more precisely, on the part played by the
Sheffield firm to built up markets for steel on the Continent.
II – The Huntsmans’s trade and the English steel connection
On the contrary with Carolyn Sargentson, who listed Mrs. Blakey’s suppliers as a
homogeneous group, mostly based in London and providing mainly toyware,27 we would like
to stress the specificity of the Huntsmans. They were massive exporters of goods, and they ran
complex exchanges, based on semi-products, luxury goods and equipment. No other suppliers
were so much involved in a global steel trade, gathering steel, toys and tools. Their “threefold
trade” was relying on a sophisticated commercial organisation.
Whereas the Huntsmans’ trade with Mrs. Blakey was part of a whole English network
of suppliers, they were pre-eminent in the group. The records of the “Book of foreign goods”
(1768-1769), together with the English invoices of 1769,28 show a major difference between
the Hunstmans and the other retailers, in terms of the value of the goods exchanged.
27
28
C. Sargentson, op. cit., pp. 115-118.
AN : Y/ 13701.
9
Mrs. BLAKEY'S ENGLISH SUPPLIERS 1768-176929
Names
£
%£
Town
Articles
Hunstmans
1458,85 36% Sheff.
Toy&tools
Oppenheim
679,1 17% Birm.
Toy
Glover & Chamot
476,5 12% Birm.
Toy
Jq. Monbray
377,6
9% Ld.
Toy
Jq. Desgranges
198,1
5% Ld.
Toy,furn&textile
Fred. Dutens
174,5
4% Ld.
Textile
Duhamel
124,8
3% x
Textile
Lieutaud & cy
93
2% x
Toy
Rich. Snow
83,8
2% Ld.
Saddles
Goddard & Wms.
82,5
2% Ld.
Saddles
x
80,7
2% Ld.
Glassware
Phillips & Holmes
64,1
2% Ld.
Textile
Wm. Hanscombe
48,4
1% Ld.
Saddles
Tho. Dix
34,6
1% Ld.
Textile
Edouard Ford
28,9
1% Ld.
Fans
Gregory
24,5
1% Ld.
Fish tackle
P. Dollond
8,1
0% Ld.
Optics
Clark & son
8,1
0% Edinburg Leather goods
Dickinson&Graham
5,3
0% Ld.
Gloves
J. Christian
3,5
0% Ld.
Wax dolls
Wm. Brott
3,3
0% Ld.
Buckles
Rich.Dunford
3,2
0% Ld.
Pins
Abraham Isaac
1,6
0% Ld.
Leather goods
Tho. Mitchelson
1,3
0% Ld.
Leather goods
Jacob Levy
1
0% Ld.
Pencils
4065,35 100%
The Hunstmans’ share was 36% of the total of invoices recorded. The London part
was quite important, as 19 at least out of 25 suppliers were based in the metropolis, and they
accounted for 1225 £, or 30% of the total. But the share of the provinces, with Sheffield and
Birmingham, was overwhelming, with three suppliers accounting for 65% of total value. The
profiles of Londoner and provincial orders was also different. The range of goods coming
from the metropolis was wide ; leather wares, saddles and textile were pre-eminent, along
with toyware and diversified luxury goods, like mahogany tables, flowered gauze and ribbons,
squirrel skin, swan skin saddle cloth, silver plated bits, a production that could compete with
French taste, or at least find its way in Continental fashionable markets30. The provinces
29
Table based upon the Book of foreign goods (1768-1769) and the English invoices (1769). If we take in
account of Hunstmans’ invoices before 1768, their share is 3107 £, or 54% of the total. But this can be quite
distorted as there’s nearly no record from other suppliers before 1768.
30
C. Sargentson, op. cit., p. 114.
10
supplied toyware exclusively and dominated this traffic.
31
The supplies were in the hands of
three firms, the Huntsmans in Sheffield, Oppenheim and Glover & Chamot in Birmingham.
Oppenheim and Glover & Chamot were well connected with France, and with local
manufacturers, including Boulton. At the time when Boulton was building up his networks for
toyware,32 he was by no mean the forehead of Birmingham European trade. Mayer
Oppenheim was part of a European network, coming form Germany, and also based in
London and in Paris33. He was specialised in coloured transparent crystal glass, for which that
he got a patent in 1755 (he took out another one in 1774, from Birmingham).
traded toyware to Moses Oppenheim in Paris,
35
34
Boulton
but Mayer, based in Birmingham (but no
appearing in Boultons’ papers) would also retail novelties on the Continent, to Mrs. Blakey.
Glover & Chamot, a merchant firm based in Cannon street, are more well-known because
their letters, from a copy-book, were printed in the Birmingham Weekly Post in 187736. The
letters were called “Observations of the Tour Mr. Peter Chamot made in the year 1763 on
account of Mr. Joshua Glover, Dealer in ye Hardware Trade”. Just after the Seven Years War,
Peter Chamot toured one whole year in Europe, from Amsterdam to Vienna and Lyon,
Bordeaux, Paris to find customers. When he came back to Birmingham in 1764, he had set up
a network of retailers in European capitals, including Mrs. Blakey.
The goods sent from Birmingham were mainly toyware. Quite no tools appeared. It
was high luxury goods and mainly of steel, the best way to face French competition in
toyware.37
31
A few Londoners were providing toys, like Jacques Monbray, Jacques Desgranges (Granges), Lieutaud & Co.
Not surprisingly their names bore French origins as Huguenots were so much involved in this trade. But they
rather were middlemen, retailing others’ goods, at least in the case of Desgranges, one of Mrs. Blakey’s
important commissioners. The same for William Hanscombe (whipmaker) and Frederick Dutens (mercer), the
former one forwarding part of the Hunstmans’ orders in 1769. Some other London intermediaries were the
watchmaker Solomon Isaac who forwarded Abraham Isaac’s leather straps for razors.
L.
L. Hilaire-Pérez, « Les échanges techniques dans la métallurgie légère entre la France et l'Angleterre au
XVIIIe siècle », in J.-P. Genet, F.-R. Ruggiu eds., Les idées passent-elles la Manche ? Savoirs, représentations,
pratiques (France-Angleterre, Xe-XXe siècles), Paris, Presses de la Sorbonne, 2007, pp. 161-183.
33
The London branch, “hardware dealers” selling “foreign & English toys”, remained there all through the
century, with warehouses in Fenchurch street, then also in Bevis Market street and Mary Axe when they entered
partnership with Samuel Wolf, a habersdasher and retailer of articles for perfumers. Guildhall Manuscripts
Room (London) : Sun Fire Insurance : 404879 Ms 11936/26 ; BM : Banks 119.9.
34
In the 1780’s, Mayer Oppenheim settled glassworks in Rouen and Le Havre, with exclusive privileges, and
backed by merchant partnership. AN : F/12/2425 ; E/30.
35
Birmingham Central Library : Matthew Boulton Papers (MBP) 134, 137. N. Goodison, Ormolu: The Work of
Mathew Boulton, Phaidon Press Ltd., London, 1974, pp. 98, 152.
36
Sh. Mason, Jewellery making in Birmingham 1750-1995, Chichester, Phillimore, 1998, pp. 16-18 (“A
‘Commercial’ on the Continent a Hundred Years Ago”, Birmingham Weekly Post, series of letters re-printed
from 28 April 1877).
37
As Chamot stated in Lyon, the competition with the French was tough : “I find there are great Quantity of
Buttons made in this Country, and realy many not to be distinguished from ours, and are sold very low, as they
11
Toyware in Oppenheim's invoice (out of marcasite jewels) - 1768 (126 £, upon 679 £)38
Materials indicated
Steel
Silvered
Pinchbeck (gilt)
Tombac
Silver
Enamel
Pearl
x
nb.
24%
3%
1%
2%
0%
0%
0%
70%
100%
£
53%
4%
2%
0%
1%
1%
0%
39%
100%
Articles namely in steel
Eggs
Buckles
Squares (noses)
Buttons
Spurs
boxes
Chains
Hooks
Seals
Candst.,snuffers
Pens
French taxonomy for steel
Uni
Façonné
Acier doré
nb.
£
29% 14%
24% 10%
14%
4%
7% 17%
7%
6%
5%
3%
4% 13%
4%
8%
2%
2%
2% 22%
2%
1%
100% 100%
Related articles
Buckles
Buckes, boxes
Seal
Glover & Chamot’s invoice 1768 (476£)39
Material indicated
Steel
Gilt
Enamelled
Silver
Brass
x
nb.
48%
2%
7%
3%
1%
39%
100%
£
38%
9%
2%
1%
2%
48%
100%
Articles namely in steel
Rings (for chains)
Buttons
Buckles
Hooks for swords
Chains
Corkscrews
Thimbles
Jewels (breloques)
Rules
Seals
Keys
Snuffers
Candst.
Bouquets
Springs for purses
Penknives
nb.
60%
12%
11%
3%
3%
3%
3%
1%
1%
1%
1%
1%
0%
0%
0%
0%
100%
improve every day am afraid, we shall not do much more in the Article, and as to Buckles they make really many
sorts that exceed ours for the Prices, …”. Ibid., p. 18.
38
AN : Y /13702.
39
AN : Y/ 13702.
12
French taxonomy for steel
Acier diamanté
Acierà filets
Acier lapidé
Aacier lapidé
Acier plat
Acier lapidé en jaune
Doré à pierre d'acier
Related articles
Buckles
Snuffers
Snuffers
Rings
Candlst.
Buttons
Seals
The value of steel wares from Oppenheim was quite high, 109 £ for 508 items (53% of
the value, 24% of the goods) and, at first sight, Glover & Chamot were less involved in
quality, and more in massive orders (5804, 48%). This was due to the numerous rings for
chains they sold, more than three thousands, in “flat steel”, “acier plat”, and to their large
stock of buttons and buckles, more than a thousand, whereas Oppenheim retailed bigger
objects, like candlesticks, chains and decorative eggs. But, close analysis shows that on a
qualitative point of view, Glover & Chamot were managing a more sophisticated trade in steel
toyware. According to the French taxonomy used in the “Book of foreign goods”,
Oppenheim’s goods were only termed as “uni” (plain), “façonné” (fashioned) or “acier doré”
(gilt steel), while Glover & Chamot provided a wide range of steel novelties : “acier
diamanté” (cult steel, diamond steel), “acier lapidé en jaune”, “doré à pierre d’acier” (gilt and
steel stone), “acier à filets” (threaded steel), “acier plat” (flat steel). Cut steel, either looking
like diamond or stone, also of yellow colour, was pre-eminent in Glover & Chamot steel
wares sent to France, a country where English cut steel jewellery was highly praised.40 It
probably came from Birmingham itself, one of the sites for cut steel, where it was so much
linked to the success of toys and jewels. Oppenheim preferred the imitation of cut steel,
marcasite jewels, “iron pyrites cut and polished like stones”,41 accounting for 268 £, 39% of
their invoice value in 1768. In both cases, Mrs. Blakey’s Birmingham suppliers were
specialised in luxury steel toyware, and even in one high status novelty, cut steel, imitating
diamonds and so fashionable that it was itself devised in different colours and patterns, and
imitated. None of these appeared in the Huntsmans’ records. In Sheffield, the uses of steel
belonged to another world.
The invoices held in the Châtelet series help to appraise the trade that Benjamin and
William Huntsman set up with Mrs. Blakey in 1766. Whereas the “Book of foreign goods”
H. Clifford, “English ingenuity, French imitation and Spanish desire. The intriguing case of cut steel jewellery
from Woodstock, Birmingham and Wolverhampton c.1700 -c.1800” , in Ph. Dillmann, L. Pérez, C. Verna eds.,
L’acier avant Bessemer, Toulouse, CNRS/Université Toulouse le Mirail, Méridiennes, Histoire & techniques,
forthcoming.
41
Ibid.
40
13
gives a first overview of this trade for 1768-1769, the invoices and letters provide a wider
scope for a period of four years.42
Huntsmans' invoices (with freight)43
13 May 1766
24 June 1766-casks 3&4
16 July 1766-casks 3&4
16 July 1766-cask 5
16 July1766-casks 6&7
26 July 1766
27 October 1766
1766 TOTAL
April 1767
11 May 1767-cask 9
30 May 1767-cask10
17 June 1767-cask 11
17 June 1767-cask 12
4 October 1767-cask 12
4 October 1767-cask 13
1767 TOTAL
8 February 1768
17 March 1768
12 April 1768
23 April 1768
27 October 1768
21 November 1768
28 November 1768
1768 TOTAL
24 June 1769
8 July 1769
15 July 1769
26 August 1769
25 September 1769
30 September 1769
1769 TOTAL
1766-1769 TOTAL
£
40
123
192,8
175,5
35,3
25,7
105,6
697,9
80
139,4
9,7
200,6
56,5
134
102,4
722,6
38,8
189,6
133,7
122,1
240
100
17
841,2
84,45
455
14,7
41
217,7
33,2
846,05
3107,75
This global appraisal of invoices suggests a steady and regular flood of Sheffield
goods to Paris during the period when Mrs. Blakey was assorting her workshop (it opened in
1767). She regularly insisted to have whole assortments of tools, knives and scissors, that is
the full range of patterns and sizes. Her business might have been a sort of wholesale trade
(and she said she could store a lot of goods in her premises), although it was a shop in a very
As they are loose papers, it does not mean that this is the exhaustive records of the Hunstmans’ trade with the
Parisian mercer. But the “Book of foreign goods” for 1768-1769, showing the same amounts and lists of wares
as in the invoices and letters, it might be possible that all these records provide quite a reliable picture of the
Hunstmans’ trade with France
43
AN : Y /13701. Invoices have been confronted to the « Book of foreign goods », in Y/13702 (1768-1769).
42
14
aristocratic and fashionable area. It revealed the originality of the Blakey-Hunstman trade,
instauring new connections between utility and curiosity, at the very heart of the capital of
taste and fashion.
The Huntsmans’ wares sent abroad ranged in three categories ; steel, toys and tools.
Not only the Sheffield firm represented the greatest share of Mrs. Blakey’s orders (36% of
value in 1768), but it was also supplying products of the whole steel trade, from materials to a
wide range of finished goods. Tools were representing the greatest share of items sent abroad
and they made the major content of 16 invoices out of 27.
Huntsmans' exports 1766-1769
Materials
Tools
Toyware
Invoices
13 May 1766
24 Jn. 1766
16 Jl. 1766
16 July 1766
16 Jl.1766
26 July 1766
27 Oct. 1766
April 1767
11 May 1767
30 May 1767
17 June 1767
17 June 1767
4 Oct. 1767
4 Oct.1767
8 Feb. 1768
17 Mch 1768
12 Apr. 1768
23 Apr.1768
27 Oct. 1768
21 Nov. 1768
28 Nov.1768
24 June 1769
8 July 1769
15 July 1769
26 Aug. 1769
25 Sept.1769
30 Sept.1769
£
40
123
192,8
175,5
35,3
25,7
105,6
80
139,4
9,7
200,6
56,5
134
102,4
38,8
189,6
133,7
122,1
240
100
17
84,45
455
14,7
41
217,7
33,2
Steel
£
79%
0%
3%
0%
100%
100%
14%
0%
0%
100%
5%
0%
0%
0%
100%
0%
0%
0%
0%
2%
0%
0%
0%
41%
0%
0%
%£
13%
45%
42%
100%
Steel
cast,blister,wire
wire
bar
cast plates
wire
blister
wire
cast, bar
wire
emery
Huntsmans' exports
Tools
Toyware
Tools Toy
£
£
0% 21%
0%
100%
2% 95%
4%
96%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0% 86%
0%
100%
0% 100%
0%
0%
0% 95%
79% 21%
0%
100%
72% 28%
0%
0%
0%
100%
18% 82%
37% 63%
0%
100%
8% 90%
0%
100%
0%
100%
25% 75%
59%
0%
24%
76%
0% 100%
0%
100%
% nb.
67%
33%
100%
Tools Toy
nb.
nb.
Main items
2% 98% Scissors
100%
0% Files
1% 99% Knives,scis.,raz.
99%
1% Files,vices
0%
0%
0%
0%
100%
0% Diverse tools
100%
0% Files
100%
0% Diverse toy
100%
0% Diverse tools
53% 47% Files,saws-spurs,cases
100%
0% Files
94%
6% Files
0%
0%
100%
0% Diverse tools
35% 65% Diverse toy-Files
85% 15% Buckles,candlst-Files
100%
0% Files
28% 72% Sciss.,knives-chisels
100%
0% Chisels,irons
100%
0% Files
27% 73% Diverse toy
100%
0% Saws
94%
6% Snuffers
0% 100% Pans,inkstands
100%
0% Files
15
The repartition throughout the four years shows three distinctive patterns of orders
either steel, or toys, or tools. Whereas some casks could contain both toyware and tools, this
was not frequent (once in 1767, 1768 and 1769). The Huntsman were coordinating three
trades which each had its own logic and expressed different uses of steel in the XVIIIth
century.
The toyware was mainly relying on articles made with blades, such as razors, scissors,
and knives of different sorts. They exemplified the specialisation of Sheffield and of its rural
environment in the polishing trades.44
Toyware with blades
/ total
Razors
Scissors
Knives
Penknives
Lancets
Pocket knives
Pruning knives
nb.
£
66% 60%
nb.
£
31% 37%
24% 25%
19% 23%
18%
7%
4%
2%
3%
5%
1%
1%
100% 100%
Tools were of a very different kind on a technical point of view, with no blades (apart
from saws, plain-irons, and a few knives), and they mainly came from Lancashire. They were
mainly files and rasps, of very small sizes, along with other surfacing tools like chisels,
gravers, gouges, piercing tools, such as broaches and drills, and for clasping tools, plyers,
nippers, tweezers, in short the so-called Lancashire tools”. 45
Tools
Surfacing tools
Surfacing tools
Filing tools
Non-filing tools
Turn benches
44
Nb.
£
82039 875,3
% nb.
89%
10%
1%
100%
% nb.
%£
88% 63%
%£
88%
9%
3%
100%
V. Beauchamp and Joan Unwin, The Historical Archaeology of the Sheffield Cutlery and Tableware Industry,
1750-1900, Stroud, Arcus, 2002 ; C. Binfield and D. Hey eds.,Mesters to masters : a history of the Company of
Cutlers in Hallamshire, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997.
45
C. Evans &G. Rydén, op. cit., p. 139.
16
This threefold trade (blades, files, steel) relied on a complex organisation, involving
several routes and networks that the firm tried to coordinate.46 There were two main routes,
from Hull, by sea, and from Liverpool, by land, while land carriage also was used from
Sheffield to London. 47
In the first months of 1766, all the goods were sent from Sheffield via Hull, where they
were received by Thomas Haworth, a friend to Benjamin Huntsman. From Sheffield
(Attercliff is never mentioned) to Hull, the goods were carried out through to Tinsley (the
highway had just been improved in 1758),48 and then shipped by the river Don, which was
made navigable since the second quarter of the century.49 Navigability was one main concern
for the Huntsmans. In 1767, they could not send fulfil the orders: “the steel we adviced you is
stoped until next week by our river being stop’d that goods can not be sent up or down the
locks that raise the water being out of repair” (letter, 10 July 1767). Then, goods and steel
were shipped to London to the care of Josiah Turner (called “brother”). Haworth and Turner
remained the main commissioners of the Huntsmans throughout the four years.50 According to
one invoice (24 June 1766), Turner was based in Ralph Key, a wharf situated between
Billingsgate and the Customs Houses, close to the City, where were also situated most of Mrs.
Blakey’s London suppliers. The merchandize was then sent to Dunkerque.51
From August 1766, Lancashire goods (mentioned as such in invoices) were mainly
sent from Liverpool to London, via inland carriage. The invoice of August 1766 was full of
information about the costs of freight from this double traffic, from Hull and from Liverpool
to London, including “porterage”, “wharfage”, “waterage”, “bills of loading”. Huntsmans’
trade was clearly double-sided, based in Sheffield and in Liverpool. In 1767, Benjamin
46
Only at the top of the trade, was the organisation quite simple. Benjamin Hunstman wrote the first letters to
Mrs. Blakey, in December 1765, to advertise the whole range of goods he could provide, especially tools at that
stage, but when he send letters again, twice in 1766, once in 1767, he dealt exclusively with steel orders, bulk or
goods (24 June 1766 for the size of steel plates, 3 August 1766 for scissors, for “rowled cast steel” and for
praising his steel, 20 Februray 1767 about making files and razors with “thin rowled steel”, and again enhancing
his steel). Only once, on 26 October 1766, did Benjamin Huntsman wrote about the drafting of a bill of
exchange. The day to day relationship and most of all, the commercial business, was handed by William
Huntsman, who would either wrote in his own name or Huntsman & Asline. Hunstman & Asline business far
extended beyond the buttonmaking trade which is usually associated to their firm.
47
In the invoice of 30 May 1767, some tools were expected in Sheffield to be sent “by land” to London (while 6
hundred weights of blister steel were sent toTinsley, and then to Hull).
48
D. Hey, The Fiery Blades of Hallamshire. Sheffield and its neighbourhood, 1660-1740, Leicester, Leicester
university Press, 1991, p. 165 ; S. Pollard, “Early economic ventures of the Company”, in C. Binfield and D.
Hey, op. cit., pp. 50-62, cf. pp.56, 59.
49
D. Hey, op. cit., p.147
50
Other names appeared in the London circuit, instead of Turner, like Hanscombe who also filled leather orders,
or Desgranges as we saw, but this was quite exceptional. Haworth and Turner were pivotal in the Huntsmans’
trade.
51
It happened that they were sometimes shipped to Rouen, to other English businessmen, Garvey & Co..,
members of John Holker’s powerful (Jacobite) network.
17
Huntsman informer Mrs. Blakey that he had sent the patterns for Lancashire tools “and the
others are making here as fast as possible” (letter, 20 February 1767). 52
Huntsmans’ commissioners in Liverpool duly appeared in the letters and invoices.
Daniel Mather, a famous Liverpool manufacturer and the author of one of the first catalogues
of tools,53 was mentioned in the first letter of Benjamin Huntsman to Blakey, at the bottom of
the list of tools he was proposing to supply. But more pivotal were James Creswick and James
Crookes to whom the Huntsmans were buying out files and tools. In August 1766, William
Huntsman wrote Mrs. Blakey that “Mr James Creswick who marks his files with R possibly
may write to you as we have not paid him for the files sent you in answer to his letter he (?)
should write you may tell him that you will order us for (?) him”. An invoice by Creswick in
April 1767 confirmed this traffic, as well as several letters concerning his payments. The
same existed for James Crookes, fulfilling an order of files for Hunstman & Asline on 24 June
1769. Other names appeared in the correspondence, as the quality of files was harshly
negotiated by Mrs. Blakey, as we shall see. Mrs. Blakey asked for “files marked JP Amos
Betts, from their true author” and designed his brand on her letter (January 1767). Hunstman
& Asline promised they would send Mrs. Blakey “ the small files all made after the
Lancashire fashion & marked Tippen” (invoice, 25 April 1767). Tippen and Betts might have
been file-makers but their status is not clear in the archives.
The Liverpool connection might have been demanding. Although files were usually
sold with bills of exchanges payable in 6 months,54 Creswick required 2 months credit.55
Benjamin Hunstman complained that “Creswick and the people of Lancashire” were pressing
him “for much payment” (letter, 20 February 1767). There were still other difficulties with
Lancashire goods, sometimes very practical ones. Mrs. Blakey complained that files were
damaged with rust by the water (letter, 8 November 1766). The same was true for razors.
56
The water would also blur writings on the casks, making very difficult the checking of the
numerous packs of files ; hence, Mrs. Blakey requested that all packs bear a number (letter, 17
January 1767). This question of packing and identifying files was also linked to customs.
Whereas steel could be imported to France, provide custom taxes, finished goods and
52
The trade might have been even more even complex as toyware could come from outside Sheffield, probably
Birmingham. Huntsman explained that “Iron candlst are made here but not giblets or buckles cheaps and tongs
but can procure them articles if your desirous that we should (20 February 1767). In another letter, Birmingham
was quoted (“gun hammers & screws are Birmingham wares and not made her”) (25 April 1767).
53
C. Evans &G. Rydén, op. cit., pp. 146, 308.
54
E. S. Dane, Peter Stubbs and the Lancashire Hand Tool Industry, Altrincham, Sherratt and Son, 1973, p. 79.
55
“we have drawn on you for 50£ at two months after payable to James Creswick …” (invoice, 17 mars 1768)
56
Mrs. Blakey said that they should but be stored on board inside their leather cases but carefully wrapped
outside (letter, 20 August 1767).
18
especially tools were forbidden. Mrs. Blakey regularly advised the Hunstmans to write down
numbers, not words, on the packs : “I have several times desired you to forbid those who pack
the goods for me not to put a word on English on the paper ; nevertheless there are English
words on all the packet of files that arrived last ; & I am just informed by a letter from
Dunkirk that the two casks which are just arrived at Dunkirk were very near being seazed in
account of the English writing upon the packets, let there be nothing but the n° corresponding
to the invoices. If a seizure should be at any time be made on that acct, the fault is wholly
yours as I have advertised you of it, & consequently the loss which according to the quantity
of goods must be more or less considerable” (letter, 20 July 1767). 57
For different reasons, files, along with razors, were the most fragile goods shipped to
France among Mrs. Blakey’s imports. They were also the most numerous articles traded by
Huntsmans, and the most harshly negotiated ones by Mrs. Blakey, for their prices and their
qualities. Files and blades were not only high status goods. They expressed the status of steel
in the XVIIIth-century, as a symbol of the Enlightened praise for ingenuity and artificiality.
III – Steels, toys and tools : steel as an artifice
On the contrary with other suppliers, the Huntsmans with their threefold trade, promoted steel
as a material fit for different purposes, according to the needs of the consumers, Parisian elite
and luxury trades artisans. Their steel was not only an innovative metal. Or, it was innovative
because it gained the status of a material, defined by its conformity to users’ needs, by its
“fitness of purpose”. It conveyed the beauty that “the appearance of utility bestows upon all
the productions of art”, in Adam Smith’s words.
The steel that the Huntsmans were selling to Mrs. Blakey was by no mean limited to
one sort.
Sorts of steel
Barr steel
Blister steel
Cast steel
% lb
27%
44%
29%
100%
Sorts of steel
Barr steel
Blister steel
Cast steel
x («wire » only -no wght.)
%£
12%
19%
62%
7%
100%
Wire & plates % £
Wire
9%
Sheets
91%
100%
William Huntsman formerly wrote : “it was a mistake in our packer putting the box in the cask without being
opend after it came from Lancasterhire that we should have opend it numbered the goods and unlapd (?) the
papers that was wrote upon on English since which time I have wrote to my friend in Lancastershire never to
pack any goods for us but to number them and write no English upon them” (letter, 29 August 1766).
57
19
Dates of orders &
letters
Sorts
Steel prices in orders & letters
6C “common blister steel tilted or
30 May 1767
blister steel forged”
16 July1766
barr steel 20C “barr steel 2 stars & crown”
8 Feb. 1768
barr steel 8C “steel in bars”-"barres d'acier"
19 avril 1767 - letter barr steel “common steel sort barrs” 31sh/112lb
1C “cast steel for razors scissors
8 Feb. 1768
cast steel penknives”
4C “cast steel to the thickness of the
8 Feb. 1768
cast steel pattern”
5C fine cast steel plates 4i broad et
26 July 1766
cast steel 11i/24i (rowled/letter) ; 11d/lb
15 March 1767 Steel 11 lines/3lines : 4£ 4s / 112 lb –
letter
cast steel “superfine cast steel”
27 Oct. 1768
cast steel 13lb “cast steel sorted for watchmak”
27 Oct. 1768
cast steel 16lb “ cast steel wire ”
Lb.
£
d/lb
672 9,3 3,3
2240 34 3,6
896 13,6 3,6
3,3
112
4,2
9
448 20,5 10,9
560 25,7
13
16
11
9
1,1 20,3
2,5 37,5
The Huntsmans’ retailed different steels, ranging from 3d/lb to 37,5d/lb, from blister to cast,
and in different qualities : “common blister”, “best blister steel”, “super fine cast steel”. Some
steel was called “barr steel”, which price was similar to blister. Prices were also function of
the shape of the semi-products : plates, “thin rolled plates”, bars and wire, “strong steel wire,
“small steel wire”. Cast steel itself was not restricted to one generic quality, or price, on the
contrary. In December 1765, Benjamin Huntsman advertised different sorts of cast steel he
could send according to the different uses one could make of. The uses determined the
qualities, and hence, the prices. Even units of weights were heterogeneous. Huntsman listed
“cast steel for razors and penknives 81sh/C”, “rowled steel 93sh4d/C”, “small square
112sh/C”, “small round & square for watch & clockmakers’ use the very best sort 20d/lb”.
Further on, after listing the many files, rasps, razors he could provide, he would finish by :
“My steel drawn into wire for watch spring makers”. Huntsman summarized all this as “the
above sorted sorts of my steel”.
Sort
cast steel
cast steel
cast steel
cast steel
cast steel
Steel in the 16 Dec. 1765 list of goods
for razors penknives 81s/C
Rowled 93s4d/C
Small sqr. 112s/C
Small round & sq for watch&clockmk best sort 20d/lb
My steel drawn into wire for watch spring mkrs.
Pinion 6 to 12 - 3d to 6d/foot
d/foot
d/lb
8,67
10
12
20
3 to 6
These “sorts” were repeated in the invoices and in the letters during the four years trade ;
“cast steel sorted for watchmakers”, translated by “fil d’acier pour horlogers”, was sent in
20
October 1768, and “cast steel for razors, cisors pr penknives” was shipped in February 1768.
The taxonomy of steels in the Huntsman-Blakey correspondence was based upon uses, and it
was a codified language, easily translated, quite a stable one. The sorts of cast steel, their
prices and their qualities, were matching the articles they were fit for.
In this sense, “cast steel”, although its name was based upon a process of production,
still belonged to the world trade. Its production was not massive (8 tons per year), and these
archives suggest it could be highly differenciated : Huntsman sent to France 5 hdw of plates
in 1766 and in 1768, but only 13 pounds of “cast steel sorted for watchmakers”, which was
the average weight of his ingot. 58 Quality requirements and diversity were at stake, not any
standardize production.
This commercial logic could be seen in payments too. The Huntsmans’ trade was
based on orders, on short credit terms for quality goods and on privileged relationships with
their customers. It belonged to the world of trade, not to industry. Steel, made by Huntsman or
bought from others, was to be paid with “ready money”, whatever the qualities. In May 1767,
Hunstman & Asline insisted to be paid for steel : “it’s very hard upon us to be so long out of
cash as our post? is very small and will scarcely pay us, the better we can serve you as I do
assure you that our workmen must be paid ready money”. It was the same for lower qualities :
“for common barr steel, will send any quantity only this is to be observe it is bought with
ready money & must be sold for ready money” (invoice, 25 April 1767). In 1768, they wrote
they had to sell the steel that was intended to be shipped to France : “we should have sent the
steel but want of money obliged us to sell it as we have always bills in hand for that article at
one month after date payable in London & if we had not sold the steel we should have been
greatly hurt …” (invoice, 21 November 1768).
Quality was also the core of Huntsman’s rhetoric. Not invention. In these papers,
Hunstman never claimed to have invented cast steel, although he was keen on promoting his
steel, always called “my steel” in letters and invoices. “The more you buy my cast steel the
better you would like it as my steel is both hard and tough for example have enclosed a piece
of wire of my steel”, did he claimed in his first letter. Huntsman was eager to secure his fame
and his business as the unrivalled maker of cast steel, not as an inventor. Cast steel was a
specific sort of steel, on which he would have liked to put his brand. That was also the ground
on which the Cutlers’ Company stood. In 1768, right at the moment when his trade with Mrs.
Blakey expanded, the Company ordered that “Cast steel in English, French, or any language,
shall never be granted to any one person, but shall be at liberty for all Freemen to use upon
58
K. C. Barraclough, op. cit., pp. 10, 41-42.
21
Cast Steel only”.
59
Cast steel, as a product and as an appellation, was belonging to the
community.
In echo, Huntsman’s strategy for privatising cast steel, was commercial: quality fame
and exclusive retailing abroad where competition with blister and shear steel makers was not
harsh as in Sheffield. In December 1765, as he was entering trade with the Blakeys,
Huntsman based his argument upon opposing “bad” and “good” cast steel for making files : “I
do assure you that there is no good cast steel files go from this place but what must come from
me tho’ people are told that when they come to buy files that they are made of cast steel tho’
in truth the files would be much better made of common steel than of bad cast steel. Very
little of my steel I sell at Sheffield only to such workmen as I buy goods from myself” (letter,
16 December 1765). In the same way, he would discredit other sorts of steel because they
were not fit (“good”) for making tools : « Agreeable to your order have here sent you a list of
the common steel tools and price which I believe to be as good as any made of the kind and
one tool worth 4 German steel tool as I do assure you that none of that steel is made use of
now here it’s being too much of the iron having veins of iron which make the tools only hard
by places that no tool can be good unless of equal temper” (letter, 9 December 1765). The
same for “common blister steel”.
In this economy of variety, the customer was ruling the trade, more than the producer.
Privileged relationship, based on the quality of the exchanges, on facilities (like discounts or
arrangements for drawing bills), on mutual trust, and gentle rhetoric, would secure exclusivity
in the market. Mrs. Blakey was the sole retailer of Hunstman’s steel in Paris, and both had
interest in that. Huntsman promised her he would “not endeavour to sell any of my steel other
people in Paris; unless they shall apply to me I will not apply to them as I think you will sell
almost as much as I can make likewise I hope you’ll sell as many of my gravers as possible you may depend upon my best endeavour to serve you well and in due time as I shall be better
acquainted with other sorts of goods that will answer your trade” (letter, 3 August 1766). As
she was ordering some sorts of files, she advised him : “let’s keep the secret on these marks
and we shall realise a good benefit from them” (letter, 15 January 1767). The secrecy about
origins could be reinforced by changing the appellations of products. In the same letter, Mrs.
Blakey required that cast steel razors would be only marked “acier fondu” and that the blades
of a high luxury set of knives, with silver handles, be marked “London acier fondu”. Whereas
such taxonomies were not infrequent in Sheffield, where Cutlers’ Company was forbidding
J. Unwin, “The marks of the Freemen of the Cutlers’ Company, 1624-1791”, in C. Binfield & D. Hey, op. cit.,
pp.40-49, cf. p.45.
59
22
producers to make use of French words for privatising their cast steel,60 on the French side it
was also a means to blur the identity of the products and to hide their Sheffield origin.
But the intervention of the customer could go further. To some extent, Mrs. Blakey
was shaping English steel. Cast steel was made “to the pattern”. Benjamin Huntsman wrote
Mr. Blakey in 1766 that he had sent him “3C to the pattern you left when at Sheffield and 1C
of each n°1&2 which are in plates at 11 inch broad & 24 inch long. Since the forward have
recvd a letter from Mrs. Blakey with pattern of 4C of steel rowled and should be glad you’ll
inform me the best length & bredth ; the same should be rowled in that it be no disadvantage
to the customer abroad” (invoice, 28 July 1766). Again, in 1768, one invoice mentioned “4 C
cast steel to the thickness of the pattern 20 £” (8 February 1768). The “pattern” was intended
to be fit for using steel in the manufacture of Essonnes, to be worked out in clock springwire.61 The thinness of the plates that would be slit into rods to go into draw-benches, was a
determinant prescription. In a further order in 1768, Mrs. Blakey was requiring “plates 5 to 6
feet long on the greatest breadth, and that the edges be cut off (cisaillés) that is raised by
shears (dressés aux ciseaux), and that thickness be conform to the sample that Mr. Blakey
gave you …, neither thin nor thick but roughly ¼ of line thick” (letter, 18 July 1768).
62
Precision, conditioning and conformity of material to samples were part of the mercer’s
culture. The economy of quality, based upon consumers’ needs, was opening the way to the
conformity of materials to uses, of matter to function, to the “fitness of purpose”. Huntsman’s
steels were at the crossroads of the “civilisation of commerce” and of the “age of
manufactures”.
Whereas Mrs. Blakey was sometimes helped by her husband for ordering steel plates,
as he kept on eye on the steelwork mill, and called himself a “hydraulic engineer”, she was
the main actor in the original process enhancing steel as an artifice. As a Parisian mercer, she
was aware of the multiple uses of steel in the growing luxury trades, of its ability to fit fashion
and tastes, as well as high skilled artisans’ needs. In her toyshop, toys and tools were both
exhibited in the show cases. They were at the forefront of new codes of curiosity, echoing the
emergence of an operative culture in the workshop economy. In her letters, toys and tools
were one and unique merchandise, united by the same aesthetics of composition and
60
Ibid.
Mrs. Blakey explicitely wrote : «Do not forget the plates I am waiting for the manufactory of clock springs.
These plates must be 5, 6 and 7 feet long and the largest width as possible. I need them urgently” (letter, 15
March 1768).
62
In 1767, Mrs. Blakey had to correct a mistake ; she had confused inches and lines for ordering cast steel bars
of 11 inches wide and 3 lines thick.
61
23
artificiality. The segmented nature of the market economy, with growing division of labour, at
European scale, was reflected in the praise for combining, adapting, substituting and
transferring shapes, pieces and materials in the “world of goods”. Steel, as a transversal
material, was at the core of this process.
Combining and assembling was the heart of the mercers’ trade. 63 In this way, the
French mercer shaped the English goods. Like for steel orders, there was an intense traffic of
patterns between Paris and Sheffield. Not only Mrs. Blakey did design drawings and sketches
of scissors, saws and curling irons in her letters, but she had wood patterns made for her by
Parisian artisans and sent to the Huntsmans who then, transferred them to workers, including
file-makers in Lancashire. Mrs. Blakey would ask the patterns back, as she did not own
them.64 Best quality patterns, for toys and for tools, were in Paris, echoing French skills in
drawing.65 In this complex manufacturing process, the English were replicating French luxury
wares, transposing the models into substituted materials.66 The Huntsmans were urging Mrs.
Blakey to “advice the price of the two blades knife you sent one blade is silver, and the price
of the two pairs of scissors that we may have them as cheap as possible” (invoice, 4 October
1767).67 Steel was considered as a substitute to precious metals : “Also make me small knives
for women like the drawing and that the ends of the handle be adorned with gold but as you
cannot tell me how much this gold ornament could cost, just adorn them with steel well
polished and silver studs along the handle” (letter, 9 March 1767).
This coordination of tasks, from modelling to making goods, at a European level, was
not easy.68 But the result, nevertheless, was composite artefacts, combining not only French
shapes and English materials, but also pieces of different origins. Mrs. Blakey would order
wooden cases for tableware, with their knives and forks (in steel) but she provided the spoons,
from Paris (15 January 1767). The Huntsman-Blakey connection was immerged in an
63
C. Sargentson, op. cit., p. 70
“I beg you to send my back exactly all the patterns of knives, scissors and pocket knives that I have sent you
and which do not belong to me and I hope that you are sending me the ones that you will have ordered on these
patterns” (letter, 15 March 1768). Patterns also entered commercial practices, such as comparing goods ordered
and goods delivered by factors when these were not reliable. Facing problems with the commissioner Reynard,
Mrs. Blakey asked : “send me as soon as you possible can patterns of all the cisors you sent to him that I may
compare them with what I have got” (letter, 20 July 1767).
65
H. Clifford, “In defence of the toyshop: the intriguing case of George Willdey and the Huguenots”,
Proceedings of the Huguenot Society, 27, 1999, pp.171-188.
66
Nevertheless, it happened that English wares could be more expensive : Mrs. Blakey complained that knives
were « too expensive as workers in Paris make them at a very much lower cost » (letter, 9 March 1767).
67
The Hunstmans were urging Mrs. Blakey to send them patterns : “shall be desirous to receive wood patterns or
drawings of such uncommon articles as may come in your course of trade, ... shall obliged to you to send us
patterns of best fashioned razors scissors & penknives & table knives & forks which we don’t doubt but to make
them to answer of my cast steel ...” (letter, 20 February 1767).
68
Patterns sent to Lancashire were sometimes not understood by the makers : “enclosed we send you a drawing
for explanation as we don’t understand neither do the workmen in Lancastershire” (letter, 15 March 1767).
64
24
economy of tasks and pieces, of combination and imitation, that was developing at a
European level.69 All sorts of materials were assembled by the Hunstmans and their workers.
Mrs. Blakey taught them how to match steel with other materials, according to tastes (and
gender) : silver, pearl (for women),70 also wood, tortoishell and ivory, which colours were
prescribed too.71
This combining logic was the same for steel tools. Mrs. Blakey would order them into
pieces, to be fit to other parts in Paris, or in whole. The saws were specifically adapted to a
piecing out market. Some were ordered without frames (Janurary 1767), others with their iron
frames and wooden handles (15 March 1768), as it also appeared in the lists of tools in
invoices. The same for “polished gimlets” : “a sort of gimblet (I don’t know the proper word
in English) with 40 different pieces of different sizes which all fit the same handle, the handle
is made of a sort of a bow & when they are used, one end is clasped to the breast” (letter, 20
July 1767).
There was a common feature emerging from this insistence on fitting pieces. Toys and
tools were devised for being assembled by manipulation. They were part of an operative
culture enhancing manual skills, either in the manipulating of trinkets, cases, razors, scissors,
knives, or in the artisans’ work. This material culture included surgery, which was
emancipating from barbers thanks to the valorisation of instrumentation and hand skills.72
Mrs. Blakey (selling steel trusses), was provided in steel lancets from the Huntsmans and
asked them information about surgical instruments. Social status, riches and knowledge rested
on the hands. Steel wares, light, polished, fit, served the skilfulness of the hands. They
allowed the precision of actions, either on self (like shaving), or in the workshop. For this
reason, steel was at the core of the utilitarian aesthetics so much praised by burgeoning neoclassic French taste.
Usefulness and functionality were recurrent themes in Mrs. Blakey’s orders. Pocketknives and razors were the main focus of her prescriptions for design. Their shapes had to
answer handiness. English design was harshly opposed as inelegant because not functional.
Razors should be “of the first quality and beauty without ornament, only a nice polish,
69
R. Smith, « The Swiss connection. International networks in some eighteenth-century luxury trades », Journal
of Design History, vol.17, no.2, 2004, pp. 123-139 ; D. Mitchell ed., Goldsmiths, Silversmiths and Bankers:
Innovation and the Transfer of Skill, 1550-1750, Stroud, Alan Sutton Publishing, 1995.
70
When ordering the “small knives for women”, she requested that handles “would fit in pearl; if you have some
make the handles, the women will prefer them in pearl” (letter, 9 March 1767).
71
When ivory was not white enough, better to have it in red or black ; black handles razors being much in praise.
72
C. Rabier, « L’invention du geste chirurgical. France et Grande-Bretagne (1760–1820) », Ph.D. dissertation,
Sorbonne University, forthcoming.
25
observing that the blade of it should not be too much curb so that the cutting edge do not run
further than the handle when the razor is closing to avoid that one would cut his hand while
handling it” (letter, 20 August 1767). At a time when shaving was becoming a practice more
private,73 when markets for razors were expanding,74 and when treatises to teach the right
gestures were edited,
75
the secure use of blades was a requirement to meet the consumers’
needs.76 In any case, these technical requests, to ease the manipulation, were matched with
aesthetics prescriptions, for simplicity of the shapes. To the English, still fond of rococo, Mrs.
Blakey opposed French light and functional taste. The expression “à la française” was
overwhelming in the letters. Whereas the articles were hybrids, their French aesthetic identity
was clearly claimed. They were only English made. The fiercest prescriptions were for
pocket-knives, a steel specialty emblematic of Sheffield.77 The Huntsmans had sent shut
knives not matching Mrs. Blakey’s patterns ; the workers had not cared about the “beautiful
shapes (belles formes)”, they had made them “too cumbersome (trop matériels)”, and difficult
to open because of stiff springs (letter, 9 march 1767).78 In the functional aesthetics of steel
toys, handiness was also a matter of fixtures between the pieces. Springs (eventually of steel),
as well as “steel hinges” for razors cases, were not trifle ; they exemplified the mercers’ skills
of fitting and assembling. Not only handiness, but the technical contrivance of curiosities,
were at stake in the quality of steel toyware. The difference between toy and tool was fading.
Tools, Mrs. Blakey’s massive imports, had to fit exactly the skills of Parisian artisans.
Technology as a purposive action was shaping the design of tools.79 Not only tools had to fit
the movements of the hands, even the position of the fingers,80 but work practices had to be
matched : “the tools … are not done conveniently enough for our workers, the turns for
instance cannot be fixed in the vices, they must be done upon the design marked with two
73
C. Lanoë, op. cit.
The Huntsmans were preoccupied by “jews and hawkers” retailing their wares in Paris.
75
L. Hilaire-Pérez, M. Thébaud-Sorger, « Les techniques dans l’espace public. Publicités des inventions et
littérature d’usage en France et en Angleterre au XVIIIe siècle », Revue de Synthèse, 2006, 2, pp. 393-428.
76
Mrs. Blakey also asked that the “end of the cutting edge blades be a little bit smoothed (arrondie), this is more
handy (commode)” (letter, 9 March 1767).
77
Joan Unwin and K. Hawley, A cut above the rest. The heritage of Sheffield’s blade manufacture, Sheffield,
Hawley Collection Trust, 2003.
78
Mrs. Blakey also ordered small pocket knives in cases (gaines) “which handle be straight without this big
round fixture (gros bouton rond) that is usually fit on the ordinary English knives for tableware”. She added :
“Do observe my design of two blades knife, make the shape of the handle thinner at the middle so that blades
can be easily grasped to open them”.
79
E. T. Layton, “Technology as knowledge”, Technology and culture, XV, 1974, pp. 31-4 ; J. Mertens,
“Technology as the science of the industrial arts: Louis-Sébastien Lenormand (1757-1837) and the
popularization of technology”, History and technology, XVIII (2002), 203 – 231 ; J. Guillerme and J. Sebestick,
“Les commencements de la technologie", Thalès, XII , 1968, pp. 1-72 ; H. Vérin, La gloire des ingénieurs.
L’intelligence technique du XVI e au XVIII e siècle, Paris, 1993.
80
“I ask you hand saws from 12 to 8 inches upon this design observing that the hole for the hand be wide enough
to put the 4 fingers” (letter, 15 March 1768).
74
26
crosses + at the ends and it is the place marked O-O which is grasped into the vice and which
is hold by means of a heel that you can see” (letter, January 1767). Skills, purpose, actions
were coming first, tools were only second, as determined by the operations.81 Within the
artisanal economy intensified by the growth of the markets, actions were setting anew the
organisation of work, along transversal operations, like filing, polishing, cutting, piercing,
flattening, and so on. This language of action was to structure the first attempts to rationalize
technology as a science (on the Continent), in the wake of Beckmann’s Technologie.82 But,
before it became a theory, this language was forged out by artisanal practices.
Steel tools from Sheffield and retailed in France did not aim to answer the needs of
one specific craft. The range of tools was devised for a host luxury trades (cf. annexe 2),
watch and clockmakers, casemakers, but also jewellers, joiners, chasers, locksmiths, filemakers, wheelwrights. Steel was a “convergent material”, adapted to the needs of workers,
beyond the status of their crafts, beyond the products their made, hence their artisanal
identities. Files were the most symbolical artefacts (cf. annexe 3); they run across the trades,
from casemakers (joint files, broad files) to locksmiths (warding files), to jewellers (needle
files). Some were fit for a group of trades : Mrs. Blakey ordered “all the files proper for those
that work upon brass & copper which I sent you models of it, of all sizes” (letter, 20 July
1767). Most were of use in all trades. This was specified in invoices for riffles (“for all
crafts”). This was also echoed in the high proportion of orders for medium quality files
(“bastards”) and for medium sizes (though small) (cf. annexe 3).
In the market place, crafts were reorganised along main processes, adapted to the
specific purposes of fabrication. It was not surprising that in 1765, when Huntsman advertised
his tools to Mrs. Blakey, he listed them in a very similar way as the Wyke’s Catalogue, and
that he followed a rational classification in orders too, ranging tools by families, whole
assortments of files, ½ inch by ½ inch, according to shapes, profiles, roughness, and then
surfacing tools (formers, gouges, chisels, plain-irons), cutting tools (saws, knives), clasping
devices (benches, tongs, plyers, nippers), measuring instruments (callipers, compasses,
deviders), and so on. Steel, as an artifice, adapting to a wide range of uses and functions, was
reshaping the world of crafts into convergent hand skills, well before machine-tools and cut
steels reshaped workers’ tasks and identities.
81
F. Sigaut, “Les outils et le corps”, Communications, 81, 2007, p p. 9-30.
H. Vérin, “ La technologie : science autonome ou science intermédiaire”, Documents pour l’Histoire des
Techniques, new serie, 14, 2007, pp. 134-143.
82
27
Conclusion
The business records of the Hunstmans hold in the Blakeys’ papers shed light on the activities
of the firm from 1765 to 1769. Far from specializing in production process, or in
buttonmaking with Huntsman & Asline, the firm was part of a wide trade in steel. The
Hunstmans sold abroad the steel material, in different shapes and qualities, toyware based on
cast steel like razors and knives, but combined with wood, ivory, tortoishell, and a massive
amount a steel tools, mainly files, made by workers in Lancashire. They were running
production and commercialization, and their products, steels, toys and tools, were devised to
answer the growing pressure of consumers’ demands, Parisian elite as well as luxury trades
artisans. Beyond the inherited divide between otium and negotium, they were revealing the
connections between utility, taste and curiosity, at the very heart of the Enlightened praise for
artificiality. There were two consequences.
Economic classifications, cultural boundaries, but also national identities, were being
set anew. The Huntsmans and the Blakeys belonged to the cosmopolitan merchant culture; 83
and their products were also hybrids. Huntsmans’ steels were fashioned by the specifications
of the Parisian mercer, an advocate of French taste. In this economy of quality, English
superiority was not at stake, even if William Blakey would state (in the 1780’s) that English
steel was the road to progress. At the mid-century, English steel(s) were fashionable, well
suited for specific uses, and cheaper than precious metals. Merchant culture was shaping the
expertise of steel.
It was a path to modernity. The trade economy of the XVIIIth century, based upon
consumers’ needs, was opening the way to the conformity of materials to uses, of matter to
function, in tune with Smithian aesthetics. The Hunstman-Blakey network was enhancing
steel as an artifice and a “convergent material”. As such, steel was part of the reshaping of
artisanal practices in an economy of tasks and pieces. Assembling, fitting, manipulating toys
and tools expressed the emergence of a technological culture, before the time of the
machinery question.
F. Angiolini and D. Roche, Cultures et formations négociantes dans l’Europe moderne, Paris, EHESS, 1995.
Mrs. Blakey’s letters were translated by the abbé Corn, from the Jacobite convent of Augustines, based in the
faubourg Saint-Antoine, right at the heart of the artisanal Paris.
83
28
ANNEXES
1. Freights : invoice, 21 August 1766, William Huntsman to Mrs. Blakey
- Haworth account of Hull :
5 June 1766 2 casks B sent to J Turner London River freight 0 16 commission 0 6
29 June 1766 WB 5 casks J Turner .London River freight 7 8 commission 15
9 Aug 1766 d°
- J Turner account of London
24 June 1766 a letter from Sheff 4d
5 July 1766 d° & bill of loading from Hull 8d
Freight from Hull to London 12s
Wharfage a porterage landing 2 s
Entering searchers 3s
Porterage & wharfage shipping (?) 2s
Waterage to the ship 3s
Two stampd bills of loading 9d
- My brother 21 aug as sent to Mr Blakey 3 £ 5s
- Cask ship on board The Britannia capt Standbank for Dunkirk
- N°17 Paid land carridge from Lpool to London a cask WB 2£ 4s 10d
To cart to the water side 0 1 6
Custom houses 0 3 0
To wharfage to the ship 1s
To waterage ot the ship 2s
For policy 6s
2 bills of loading 9d
Commission : 1£ 18 s 7d
2. TOOLS IN BLAKEYS-HUNTSMANS ORDERS
Tools
Surfacing tools
Piercing tools
Clasping tools
Hammering tools
Cutting tools
Assemblg.tools
Measurg.tools
Drawing plates
Diverse tools
Nb.
82039
5364
2195
1344
1156
642
559
267
48
93614
£
875,3
85,75
219,7
43,5
80,8
15,3
42,1
29,2
2,6
1394
% nb.
%£
88% 63%
6%
6%
2% 16%
1%
3%
1%
6%
1%
1%
1%
3%
0%
2%
0%
0%
100% 100%
29
Filing
tools
Files
Rasps
% nb.
91%
9%
100%
%£
Non-filing surf. tools
Chisels,formers,gravers
Gouges
Filemk. tools
Burnishers
Stamping tools
Plain-irons
Mortice-chisels
86%
14%
100%
3. FILES IN BLAKEYS-HUNTSMANS ORDERS
Files: fineness
Bastard
Smooth
Ruff
x
Ruff bastard
Middle cut
2nd cut
Superfine
smooth
Common cut
Smooth bastard
Superfine
smooth bastard
%
nb. % £
41% 28%
19% 34%
16% 15%
12% 15%
6%
4%
2%
2%
2%
1%
1%
1%
0%
1%
0%
0%
0%
0%
100% 100%
Sizes
1 inch
2 inches
3 inches
4 inches
%
nb. % £
1%
0%
4%
2%
9%
5%
10%
6%
5 inches
6 inches
7 inches
8 inches
11%
18%
15%
7%
7%
15%
14%
10%
9 inches
10 inches
11 inches
12 inches
3%
2%
1%
1%
5%
4%
2%
3%
Sorts of files
Hand
3 square
Round
Flat
Equalling
2 square
Pottence
Rifflers (all
crafts)
Joint (casem.)
Needle (jew.)
% nb. % £
11% 15%
10%
8%
7%
6%
3%
7%
3%
3%
3%
1%
2%
2%
2%
2%
2%
2%
2%
1%
Half round
Square
Verge
2%
1%
1%
2%
1%
1%
Round off
Pinion
Nicking
Pillar
Cross
Warding
(locksm.)
Shouldering
Pevit (pivot)
Barrelhole
Broad point
(casem.)
Dovetails
Endless screw
x
1%
1%
1%
1%
1%
1%
1%
1%
1%
1%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
46%
0%
0%
0%
44%
% nb.
82%
2%
9%
1%
2%
3%
1%
100%
%£
75%
3%
7%
4%
5%
5%
1%
100%
30
13 inches
14 inches
15 inches
16 inches
x
1%
0%
0%
0%
1%
17% 23%
100% 100%
53% < 7i.
50 patterns combining
fineness and sorts,
16 sizes :
800 files
(+ rasps)
2%
1%
0%
100% 100%
Files / orders
% nb. % £
1766-16 juillet
1766
17% 21%
1766-24 juin 1766
23% 19%
1767-17 juin 1767
1%
1%
1767-4 octobre
1767
15% 18%
1767-avril 1767
9%
8%
1768-17 mars
1768
2%
2%
1768-21
novembre 1768
1%
1%
1768-23 avril
1768
15% 13%
1769-24 juin 1769
6%
4%
1769-26 août 176
5%
4%
1769-30
septembre 1769
5%
5%
1769-8 juillet
17691%
4%
100% 100%
Files / orders :
typology
1769-30
septembre 1769
1769-24 juin 1769
1767-4 octobre
1767
1766-24 juin 1766
1766-16 juillet
1766
Ruff
nb.
Ruff
Smooth
£
Bast.nb. Bast.£
nb.
10%
28%
5%
23%
66%
31%
68%
26%
22%
13%
12%
28%
10%
32%
51%
50%
44%
35%
25%
17%
25%
34%
40%
23%
21%