5 10 61 http://www.artisansinscotland.shca.ed.ac.uk/files/original/2e78ea3f3192906c3adb5e1974535349.jpg ba7c0323317982271a7b06f68add3968 Exhibition Item Category Metal Wares Image copyright Crown Copyright HES Item Location Historic Environment Scotland Description This is a photograph of the cast-iron columns supporting the platform buildings at Aviemore Station in the Scottish Highlands. Each column is topped with a cast iron capital decorated with scrolling volutes and Corinthian-style foliage. The roof’s supporting spandrels contain wheel decorations (roundels) and inserts of typically Victorian-style scrolling stems. Cast iron was a defining material in the architecture of Britain’s railways where it was used to build the essential infrastructure of footbridges and engine sheds, but also, as here, to give an ornamental flourish to otherwise basic station structures. Victorian design borrowed from a range of historicist, oriental and floral styles so cast-iron’s strength and adaptability made it the perfect material for decorating street and public architecture. Aviemore was originally built for the Inverness and Perth Junction Railway in 1863, but was updated at the end of the century when the line was extended through Carrbridge. It is the largest station, except for Inverness, on the Highland Line. Aviemore’s engineer William Roberts worked on six buildings for the Highland Railway including the remodelling of Aviemore in 1898. His other stations include Brora, Newtonmore and Kingussie, the latter in particular shares stylistic characteristics with the platform buildings seen in this photograph. Constructed of a mixture of local stone and imported materials, the stations on the Highland Railway were built with a combination of Gothic and neoclassical style features. Neoclassical style details can be seen on these columns and capitals, but gothic-style wood and glass screens to protect passengers from inclement weather were also a feature of the platforms at Aviemore, Kingussie and Grantown. Tourism was a key incentive behind investment in the Carrbridge extension and station comforts were indicative of a station’s economic importance on the railway route to the Highlands. Scotland’s railways were built with the combined skills of artisans and engineers who worked for contractors tasked with bringing together the skilled workman needed to build each line’s various structures and buildings. A photograph of Aviemore during remodelling shows the men employed by James Robertson of Forres, including carpenters or joiners. Aviemore’s nearby locomotive shed was constructed by Inverness masons, William Alexander & Co, using steel girders and ironwork made at the Rose Street Foundry. The foundry previously made agricultural implements but prospered in the wave of late nineteenth century railway building moving into new premises in Inverness in1893. The updating of railways at the end of the century mobilised artisan skills in the building trades and also supported the subsidiary large-scale industries of stone quarrying and coal-mining. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Architectural Ironwork at Aviemore Station, ca.1898 agriculture carpenters cast-iron design engineers foundry gothic Highlands joiners metal neoclassical tourist industry http://www.artisansinscotland.shca.ed.ac.uk/files/original/33ac5082f4a34ce6e93817979275f774.jpg eaed0ae64340732355ee3e53f23eb059 Exhibition Item Category Metal Wares Image copyright National Museums Scotland Item Location National Museum Scotland Description This bronze and copper weighing instrument, made using a combination of metal casting and beating, with three ornate linked chains holding each of the removable pans, was typical of the sort of equipment kept by burgh officials to ensure fair trade within the town through the periodic testing of weights and measures in markets and shops. This balance beam, designed to measure a standard seven pounds, belonged to the Royal Burgh of Dunbar in East Lothian and was made by the small firm, J. White & Sons of Auchtermuchty. Each burgh would own a range of standard weight checking devices. Apothecaries and goldsmiths employed particularly sensitive systems of measurement reflecting the value of the goods in which they traded. This one can be held by hand and was probably used for testing weights employed by grocers or butchers for sales of butter, cheese or meat. The Burgh of Dunbar purchased several balances, weights and scales from J. White & Sons in the nineteenth century. Scotland as with much of Europe used a variety of local weights and measures before the nineteenth century, with traders relying on printed guides for converting from one measure to another when trading across regions. The role of town council officials in regulating fair trade for the benefit of local communities extended to rights of inspection of weights and measures. Fair trade within localities was not however conducive to efficient long distance trade. The Highland Society of Scotland under the guidance of Sir John Sinclair was so concerned at the implications for the economy that it commissioned a report into Scottish weights and measures in 1813 and in 1814 the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce petitioned Parliament for standardization. It was the Imperial Weights and Measures Act of 1824 that marked a key point in the eradication of local variations and thereby facilitated trade within and beyond the nation. J. White & Sons, founded in 1715 as a blacksmith and iron founder, is Scotland’s oldest surviving firm, having remained in White family ownership through eight generations. In its early years, scale making was a modest extension of the blacksmithing business, but by the early nineteenth century, with a new brass foundry and diversification into lock and gun making, precision metal work became the dominant output. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Balance Beam and Weight Pans ca. 1830 Brass bronze copper engineers Fife smiths town councils trades http://www.artisansinscotland.shca.ed.ac.uk/files/original/23221bfc0ecbe0bf9badbb122df40c8b.jpg df532e784121a2dd114455ef9a052907 Exhibition Item Category Textiles Image copyright Shetland Museum and Archives Item Location Shetland Museum and Archives Description This is a photograph of the Petrie family dressing lace shawls on Shetland in the early years of the century. Shawls were hand-knitted by women of the island then shipped by merchants or middlemen to be sold on the mainland. ‘Dressing’, sometimes known as ‘blocking’, was usually the last stage of Shetland shawl production. It refers to the process of dampening the finished shawl before pinning it with gentle tension to a prepared frame and then leaving it to dry in the stretched position. This process opens the lace construction of the knitting, creating a flat, evenly-tensioned surface that shows the full beauty of the shawl and its patterning. Shawl pattern names often reflected the landscape of the Islands, for example, ‘old shale’ and ‘print o’ waves’ were frequently-used Shetland lace patterns. P.E. Petrie was listed in the Mansons’ Shetland Almanac Directory as a ‘cleaner and dresser of Shetland hosiery’ at Albany Street, Lerwick, though, as this photograph shows, several female members of the family were involved in the process of preparing shawls for selling. Historian Lyn Abrams has noted that dressers worked for either the knitter or the selling merchant, and that a hand-knitter could do business with a merchant or sell her goods directly to island visitors or travelling salesmen. When selling to merchants, shawls were often paid for in essential provisions rather than money with merchants providing the wool to island women who knitted shawls and hosiery in between their other crofting duties. Miss Algy Peterson grew up in a two-bedroom cottage in Shetland, and when interviewed in 1902 about her family life and childhood recalled that her mother knitted shawls in between other tasks of working on the croft or gutting herrings. When Queen Victoria was gifted some examples of fine knitting from Shetland in 1837 a fashion for Shetland shawl knitting followed and patterns were published in women’s magazines and sewing manuals. In 1846 W.S Orr & Co of London published Mrs J.B Gore’s pattern for ‘The Royal Shetland Shawl’, which illustrates the skill, intricacy and patience involved in Shetland-style knitting. The instructions for the shawl border alone were to cast on 600 stitches, repeat four rows of pattern to the length of half a yard, then finish with a 21 rows of edging. This photograph was taken by John David (Jack)Rattar, a Shetland-based photographer who documented the island’s landscapes, wildlife and craft traditions. Rattar’s photographs appeared in The Manchester Guardian and the Society magazine Country Life, but he also ran a thriving business in Lerwick selling framed copies of his photographs and postcards as keepsakes for tourists visiting the island. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Petrie Family, dressing shawls, Shetland, ca.1910 aristocratic patronage fashionable consumption knitters photographers shawls Shetland women’s industries http://www.artisansinscotland.shca.ed.ac.uk/files/original/e97dbd1b24c6f4ac1d133f15f58d18e7.jpg 33621ee8edbc043e6de9d708203537b7 Exhibition Item Category Textiles Image copyright University of Edinburgh Item Location Private Collection Description This detail of a 19th century christening gown is a typical example of Ayrshire work consisting of firm satin stitches on fine cotton cloth with areas of cut-out cloth which are filled with fine, needlepoint lace stitches. It has a simple design of flowers and a trailing vine worked in a combination of solid satin stitches, curved lines of ‘laddering’, and overcast eyelets that anchor two types of needlepoint fillings. Traditional whitework items included sleeves, chemisettes, baby’s robes, bonnets and trimmings, though changing trends in nineteenth-century fashion also dictated different styles and products. For example, over 200 designs for fashionable embroidered collars were copyright-registered by the firm of Sharps & Co. of Paisley between 1843 and 1844. Irish lace was expensive and worn by only the wealthiest women whereas whitework offered a pleasing, affordable alternative. The whitework industrywas introduced to Ayrshire in the 1820s, with five principal producers listed in the Ayr Post Office Directory by 1830. Its production increased steadily over the next two decades. The New Statistical Accounts of Scotland (1834-45) show that there were nineteen parishes in Ayrshire alone where women were working as muslin embroiderers or ‘flowerers’. The intricacy and delicacy of the work shows the skill of its makers, though the notion of whitework as a congenial cottage industry fails to recognise the scale and speed of its manufacture in the mid-nineteenth century. Outline designs were printed on cloth by Glasgow-based, ‘sewed muslin’ manufacturers who distributed them to Ayrshire embroiderers in a putting-out system of production. Each design was sent with information on how long the embroiderer had to complete it and what rate they would be paid. Skills were passed from mother to daughter with single households often containing more than one sewer. A single hand could complete small items like collars, whereas more complex items such as christening robes could include the work of several women. Unfinished examples suggest that outlines and edgings could be completed by less experienced sewers whereas needlepoint sections demanded the skills of highly experienced embroiderers. Despite the beauty and versatility of Ayrshire whitework changes in fashion and mechanisation led to its decline as a large-scale, home-based craft industry in the 1880s. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Whitework Christening Gown, mid-19th century Ayrshire copyright and patenting design embroiderers Glasgow home industries http://www.artisansinscotland.shca.ed.ac.uk/files/original/693100482291475a3230f58b8327905a.jpg 0a47dbae11e6beca5a83e022669bcdfd Exhibition Item Category Wood Image copyright National Museums Scotland Item Location National Museums Scotland Description This simple wooden cradle is constructed of a single piece of wood and topped with a bent wood circular hood. The end-posts cant steeply inwards and extend below the base of the cradle where they are tenoned to broad plain rockers. Simple round finials top the base end-post and the cradle has the marks of three wooden pegs on each side though two of the pegs on one side are missing. It was found in Weydale, a remote settlement in Caithness and probably dates from the late 18th or early 19th century. Weydale, where this simple cradle was found, is a remote crofting settlement in a valley to the southeast of Thurso, a coastal town known in the late 18th century for its linen production. Weydale was an area defined by its livestock grazing and flagstone quarries. The owner of this cradle may have had it made by a local joiner and it could have been passed down through generations as a family heirloom. Elements of its style and shape were common to many cradles made in the Highlands in the nineteenth century. The cradle’s circular hood, broad rockers and wooden pegs are characteristically Scottish and reflect the needs of communities living in rural dwellings. Hoods were often draped in fabric, perhaps to shut out light or to protect babies from falling ceiling thatch. In line with its humble materials and circumstances the cradle would have been lined with folded blankets or a simple mattress filled with chaff, hay or straw. Broad rockers allowed the cradle to be rocked by foot freeing hands for the knitting or sewing that formed part of the industry of women living in remote rural households. A nineteenth century Scottish cradle song called ‘O can ye sew cushions?’ mirrors the rhythms of rocking and stitching: I biggit the cradle upon the treetop, And aye as the wind blew, my cradle did rock. And hush a baw baby, O ba lil li loo, And hee and baw, birdie, my bonnie wee doo. This cradle has lost some of its pegs, but in its original form six pegs would have anchored woven or knitted tapes that were laced across the top to of the cradle to swaddle the baby and protect it from harm. Writers on Scottish folklore have noted that cradles held rich symbolism in rural communities like Weydale and that a physical criss-crossing of tapes may also have been seen as a form of symbolic protection against evil spirits and fairies. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Wooden Cradle, Caithness, late 18th or early 19th century Caithness crofting Highlands joiners linen Scottish motifs women’s industries http://www.artisansinscotland.shca.ed.ac.uk/files/original/5e69b9039b591409d0e062ef572dacf1.jpg a8e2401ce9e90e8dbabcc35c3259fa59 Exhibition Item Category Wood Image copyright Victoria and Albert Museum, London Item Location Orkney Museum Description This is a ‘hooded’ Orkney chair made of oak and oat-straw and sisal, with a drawer below the seat. The frame was made in David Kirkness’s workshop in Palace Street, Kirkwall and the chair back was made by crofting outworkers such as Robert and Lizzie Foubister of Tankerness, Orkney. Though of vernacular heritage, the Orkney chair was standardized by Kirkness to four advertised designs – the Hooded Chair; the Gentleman’s Chair; the Lady’s Chair and the Child’s Chair. They were made in white deal or pine which was stained either green or brown or in solid oak, which was fumed and oiled with brass and copper fixings and invisible castors. Rush seats were more expensive and the under seat drawers were also an optional and more expensive extra. The Orkney chair seen here is a refined development, using wood sourced in the mainland and shipped in from Aberdeen, of a local style of chair that was made in a variety of shapes and sizes from a diverse range of materials. These were fashioned at home, often using driftwood to compensate for the shortage of trees, with seats and backs made of straw or reeds or other naturally growing plants that are found on the low lying, salty and wind-swept islands. Several examples of these vernacular chairs, some of peculiar construction, along with recent versions, can be seen in the museum in Tankerness House in Kirkwall and in museums elsewhere on Orkney. The V&A also features the Kirkness-made Orkney chair in its recently re-designed furniture galleries. They are still made today using the same hand techniques in a range of classic and modern designs. The straw-based handcrafts that are also distinctive to the Orkneys and give the chair much of its aesthetic and feminine appeal are another area of modern production. Orkney plaited or woven straw was made by ordinary people in their homes throughout the islands to be used for many purposes, including mattresses for beds and baskets. The latter, known as ‘cubbies’, were fashioned in numerous sizes and structures, of varying degrees of strength, for use on farms and in fishing. Straw could also be made into strong ropes for tethering animals, tying boats or fences and for straw-roof thatching. There was a commercially organized fine plaited straw sector in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, using mainly female workers directed at home or in workshops in and around Kirkwall by local merchants to supply the fashion industry in London, where there was a demand for simple straw bonnets. David Munro Kirkness (1855–1936) was born in Westray and served an apprenticeship with Kirkwall joiner John P. Peace. He and his brother William set up as joiners and undertakers in 1880. His first order for straw-backed chairs came from Miss Maud Balfour of Berstane House to be delivered to Lady Sinclair, Bara House, Caithness. His order books are dominated by elite female customers and he regularly supplied his stock to the Scottish Home Industries Association for sale in Edinburgh and London and to Liberty & Co of Regent Street, London. He exhibited at the Edinburgh International Exhibition of Science, Art and Industry in 1890 which generated orders that took years to fulfill. The chairs found favour in Arts & Crafts circles. Sir Robert Lorimer and his sister purchased two for the family home, Kellie Castle, Fife, in 1893. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Orkney Chair, ca. 1890 Arts and Crafts Caithness chair crofting Edinburgh Fife Kirkness Kirkwall London Lorimer Orkney pine straw http://www.artisansinscotland.shca.ed.ac.uk/files/original/bdb3114481521177d12a8ebf08eda7f9.jpg b421d487a6a66ecdb24b1dd74878cd25 Exhibition Item Category Metal Wares Image copyright Aberdeen City Council Item Location Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museum Description This photograph of stonemasons at work in the Erran Granite Works in Canal Street, Aberdeen, shows them working in an open-top shed equipped with a pulley but no other machinery. The men hold various hand tools including granite picks and bush hammers used for texturing the surfaces of stone. Almost all the masons are in shirt sleeves and wear aprons, though some have hung jackets on the long hooks leaning against the left wall in an attempt to keep them clean from the dust generated from dressing the granite slabs, seen here supported on stone pedestals. Aberdeen and its districts are geologically rich in granite and were at the centre of Scottish stone quarrying and finishing in the late nineteenth century. More than 20 granite merchants are listed in the Aberdeen Post Office directory for 1890. They supplied the stone for major building works but also for subsidiary trades such as stonecutting and polishing. The Erran Works was in Canal Street to the east end of the city where at the peak of production there were more than forty-six granite firms. Proximity to the harbour was convenient for receiving stone from quarries in Scotland and England and also for dispatching finished stonework by sea. Aberdeen expanded throughout the nineteenth century though the prosperity of the granite industry was determined by the highs and lows of the building industries in Scotland, London and America. Monuments and memorials were the key areas of business until the 1880s and from mid-century there was national demand for granite to build harbours and railway bridges. After 1880 a building boom led to the establishment of numerous small firms though these struggled to survive with the collapse of the American market in the 1890s. The absence of machinery in the Erran Works photograph suggests it may have been a relatively modest concern producing smaller stones for the American market. Scotland’s masons and sett-makers were an elite workforce trained through apprenticeships of five years or more, and in Aberdeen their vocational training was supplemented with evening classes in granite carving at Grays School of Art, established in1885. Changing fortunes in the early years of the twentieth century undermined the Aberdeen granite industry’s late nineteenth-century boom. In 1906 The Scotsman reported that 300 fewer men were engaged than the previous year and that ‘the ranks of masons in this district have been reduced by between 600 and 700. The great majority of these having gone to America’ (December 22, 1906). America had long been a customer and a training ground for Scottish masons but increases in mechanisation at home and abroad led to a scaling down of the Aberdeen granite industry and its ultimate decline. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Masons in Erran Granite Works, Aberdeen, ca. 1890 Aberdeen America apprentices London masons railways schools of design stone tools http://www.artisansinscotland.shca.ed.ac.uk/files/original/46cde8fd976cf493ace494c40541dcdb.jpg 133b1da829b4eb215d6c7b7ced091844 Exhibition Item Category Glass and Ceramics Image copyright City of Edinburgh Council Item Location Museum of Edinburgh Description This workshop in the Cannongate area of Edinburgh, part of a bigger enterprise known as the Holyrood Flint Glass Company, was for the finishing of high quality glasswares using skilled cutting and engraving techniques. It shows a mixture of machine technologies for powering the cutting wheels combined with apprentice-trained handwork. The workshop is lit from above and contains about forty wheels attended by as many craftsmen. The engravers, fewer in number, can be seen in the foreground to the right, with their smaller precision engraving tools powered by hand or by a foot treadle. Much of the engraving work undertaken for the firm was done elsewhere in sub-contracting workshops in nearby Abbeyhill, mainly staffed by Bohemian glass engravers famed for their skill and innovative design. The Holyrood Glass Co. also made more pedestrian wares for a mass market in their factory premises. The output of the workshop illustrated here, which was probably drawn for use in a catalogue or some other form of promotional literature, comprised a range of predominantly domestic wares which can be seen awaiting the cutting process and also stored in baskets on the floor. Various cutting wheels can also be seen on the floor. The Holyrood Glass Co. was known for its cut glass decanters and table glasses, along with fruit bowls, vases, glass oil lamps and dressing table sets. The company also produced fine glass door handles set with cameo portraits of notable figures of the day. They made to commission and for sale through their own retail premises in central Edinburgh and were frequently attendees at the great exhibitions in Scotland. A heavy glass vessel such as a large bowl could take up to 40 hours of work for the cutting stage. In 1868, at the time the works were described for the Scotsman newspaper by David Bremner as part of his ‘Industries of Scotland’ series, the company, founded at the start of the century, employed over 200 men. The owner, John Ford, who took over from an uncle, was apprentice trained as a glass cutter, making a fruit bowl as his ‘apprentice piece’. According to Bremner, ‘The wheels are fixed in a sort of turning-lathe and are driven by steam, and the variety of patterns that may be produced on them is almost unlimited. The workman rarely makes any attempt at drawing the device on the glass before cutting it. He simply divides the circumference of the article into sections by scratching with a file, and guided so far by these marks he trusts to his eye to the rest.’ The flint glass industry was heavily unionised by mid-century, with a national union with head quarters in Birmingham. The union determined wages and defined the terms for apprenticeships, setting a ratio of one apprentice to five journeymen in an endeavour to control entry to the trade in much the same way as the old trades houses. The glass-cutters had a separate trades organization of their own with union contributions ranging from 1s to 3s6d per week, which was higher than that of the ordinary glass makers. Glass makers, who were specialists in glass blowing techniques, earned from 20s to 38s a week; cutters earned from 20s to 34s per week; and the engravers were the best paid of all earning up to 40s per week. Apprentices, who served seven years, got just 4s to 5s per week and paid from 10s to £7 entry money when progressing to journeyman status, according to their specialist skill. These were good wages and employment conditions, according to Bremner, were mostly healthy. In the later nineteenth century there were damaging conflicts between the unions and the owners of the Edinburgh flint glass making companies over wages and terms. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Cutting and Engraving Shop, Holyrood Flint Glass Co. ca. 1860 apprentices design Edinburgh engravers exhibitions glass journeymen trades organization http://www.artisansinscotland.shca.ed.ac.uk/files/original/907182e289ff4b98cda9b1b0b3f50859.jpg a120c84e714c69a6dae7680fcc45c648 Exhibition Item Category Jewellery and Silverware Image copyright Courtesy of E. Mairi MacArthur © Private Collection Item Location Private Collection Description This is a photograph of Euphemia Ritchie (1862-1941) of Iona Celtic Art with her dog Kim on the front step of her shop in Iona surrounded by jewellery and silverware. Ritchie sits in the doorway of the shop, located just inside the southern gate into Iona’s Nunnery grounds. Tucked up in a scarf and woollen cap, wearing a dark skirt and jacket with black leather boots, she perches on the front step as she holds up a biscuit for Kim. A small bag under her coat probably holds the proceeds from sales of the jewellery and silverware goods that surround her in the shop. On the back of the door is a glass display case containing brooches, pendants and buckles in Scottish-Celtic revivalist designs. A small shelf under the window displays objects in boxes and small pieces of silver jewellery are pinned to a lined board. A large brass metal plate hangs inside the window. Through the open door objects and glass display cases glint in the light. The shop’s prime position within the nunnery grounds, framed by ancient buildings within coastal landscapes, made her goods popular with visitors to the island. Euphemia and her husband Alexander Ritchie (1856-1941) met at the Glasgow School of Art in the mid-1890s. They married in 1898 and opened the nunnery shop in Alexander’s native Iona in 1900. Iona was popular with tourists seeking escape from urban life through an immersive experience in a small island embedded with ancient myths and legends of the sixth century Saint Columba and the origins of Christianity. The Ritchies drew on the carved stones and crosses of Iona and the West Highlands, along with the illuminated manuscripts of the early monasteries, to provide templates for their designs. They also made objects that harked back to a Viking and a Highland clan past. Silver brooches and clasps depict galleys – a symbol of the Vikings and a motif that appeared on the gravestones of several medieval Highland chiefs – traversing tumultuous waves executed in sea-blue enamels. The Ritchies combined craft work with entrepreneurial flair. They designed and made objects themselves, and trained younger islanders in metalwork, leather tooling and embroidery. As the business grew they outsourced some aspects of production to manufacturers in Birmingham and Glasgow. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Iona Celtic Art and Euphemia Ritchie, ca. 1900 Birmingham Celtic revival Glasgow Iona jewellers metal tourist industry http://www.artisansinscotland.shca.ed.ac.uk/files/original/e0976010d7379a0a792aed43645f6f10.jpg 3231c3097fd7a30fab43ede69f873b69 Exhibition Item Category Metal Wares Image copyright National Museums Scotland Item Location National Museums Scotland Description This image shows the ‘pattern shop’ and foundry at the agricultural implement making firm of Alexander Jack & Sons of Maybole in Ayrshire in the mid 1880s. It is one of a series of photograph of the different departments of the firm, which employed up to a 150 men at its height in the first decade of the twentieth century, many of them skilled craftsmen. In the foreground are some of the molding boxes, blocks and sand that are used for making metal castings, with a wide variety of patterns and models stored and displayed along the walls. Castings were made here in both iron and brass, with some of great weight, hence the iron rig and pulley system for lifting that is seen in the middle of the image. The rotund figure facing the camera is probably the foreman, who would have been a skilled blacksmith or iron founder and there are another eleven men at work in the image. Though this was a workshop on a large scale with some mechanisation, according to local report ‘old craft and new machines work hand-in-hand.’ The firm was founded by small-town craftsman, Alexander Jack, who started as a joiner and cabinet maker in a business that soon failed. But ever the entrepreneur, from 1852, with only limited capital, Jack began making small tools for other craftsmen and soon expanded into agricultural implements and vehicles making, taking advantage of the local demand from farming and the nearby railway line for transport to markets beyond Ayrshire. Jack’s business partner and successor was John Marshall, an engineer, who also became Provost of Maybole and served as President of the Society of Scottish Agricultural Engineers. The firm, which gained many prizes at exhibitions, survived to 1966. The craft communities that were supported in Scotland’s small towns were a significant feature of the nineteenth century. Maybole was a long-established market town at the heart of agricultural south-west Scotland, just a few miles south of the port of Ayr. Bartholomew’s 1887 Gazetteer of the British Isles gave a population of 6,623 and identified the main employments as boot and shoe making, leather tanning and agricultural implement making. The weaving trade, which had once been important, had much declined from its peak in the 1820s. However, textiles still flourished, with women in the town and in the countryside beyond extensively employed in the home-based Ayrshire whitework embroidery industry, making finely ‘flowered’ cottons mainly for use in baby christening gowns. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Alexander Jack & Sons, Agricultural Implement Maker, ca. 1885 Ayrshire blacksmiths Brass cabinet maker embroiderers engineers exhibitions foundry iron joiners patterns photographers shoemakers textiles weavers