England Woodworking Occupations, Plant Products, Joiners, Cabinet Makers, Baskets, Straw Work - International Institute

Cabinet Making
A joiner is one who makes furniture, house fittings and other woodwork, lighter than a carpenter’s, and a skilled one is termed acabinet maker. Prior to the Tudor era furniture was rather primitive and consisted of trestle tables, benches and the occasional chair for the most important personage, hence the term chairman.

Early cabinet makers made chests, multi-functional pieces serving storage, seating and removal needs. Tudor cabinet makers advanced to making tables with solid oak legs and top, panelled chests, more graceful chairs, four-poster beds and a variety of settles (benches and storage chests with backs), sideboards etc. with much decorative carving.

The Restoration brought an invigoration of cabinet making with padded chairs courtesy of upholsterers, writing tables, and chests of drawers, together with the development of the arts of veneering and marquetry using more precious woods. The Golden Age of cabinet making was the late 18th century, followed by the Victorian era of ugliness in design, although not craftmanship (Wymer 1946).

The cabinet maker’s craft is described by Hurley (The Book of Trades or Library of the Useful Arts. Vol II. Wiltshire Family History Society, 1991), Wymer (English Country Crafts. A Survey of Their Development from Early Times to Present Day. Batsford, London, 1946 and English Town Crafts. A Survey of Their Development from Early Times to the Present Day. Batsford, London, 1949) and Filbee (Cottage Industries. David and Charles, Newton Abbot, Devon, 1982), and Hey (The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History. Oxford University Press, 1996) has a select bibliography of major works. Bebb (Welsh Country Furniture. Shire Publications.) has written on Welsh country furniture, and the 20th century furniture making industry is covered by Hudson (Where We Used to Work. J. Baker, London., 1980).

The making of chairs, for which Buckinghamshire is renowned, is addressed by Arnold (The Shell Book of Country Crafts. John Baker, 1968 and All Made by Hand. John Baker, London, 1970), and Sparkes (English Windsor Chairs. Shire Publications). Chair bodging is a particular kind of chair making whereby the men (bodgers) make all the components of the Windsor chair in the Chiltern beech plantations, including the turned portions made with the ancient foot-powered pole-lathe (Arnold 1968, 1970), Bailey (The Industrial Heritage of Britain. Ebury Press/Book Club Associates, 1982), Carter (Old Occupations: An Old Country Craft: Chair Bodging. Family Tree Magazine Vol 9 #4, 1993), Wymer (English Country Crafts. A Survey of Their Development from Early Times to Present Day. Batsford, London, 1946).

Cabinet and furniture makers as well as upholsterers are listed in Beard and Gilbert, and Kelly and Company. Upholsterers along with dealers in old clothes, furniture and pawnbrokers belonged to the Upholders’ Company, formed in 1360. Only one register of their apprenticeships (1704-1772) survives but has been indexed by Webb (London Apprentices Volume 19. Upholders’ Company 1704-1772. Society of Genealogists, 1998). He notes that the freedom admissions of the company 1698-1803 have been indexed by Walton and the list of masters is on their website at Upholders

Baskets
Working with willows or osiers and other wood was typically a male occupation, and could employ those disabled by blindness or poor legs. Basket making was one of the oldest crafts in England and the range of products included:


 * Fishermen’s eel traps, lobster baskets, salmon traps, swill and cran baskets (Manners).


 * Sussex trug baskets or trugs only date from 1851, their boat-shaped body being of willow and the handle and rim of cleft chestnut or ash (Filbee, Manners, Wymer (1946).


 * Spale baskets, also known as spelks, speels, swills, skips or wiskets are made of interwoven rent oak strips. They were used for potatoes, coal, feeding cattle etc. (Manners, Filbee, Arnold 1970).


 * Household clothes baskets, plate and china storage baskets, coal scuttles, cradles, bird cages, and fowl cages (to hold a bird until it was ready for the pot) (Filbee, Wymer 1946).


 * Buckinghamshire was the traditional site for making cane chairs, also known as wicker or wander chairs. Chair cane comes from rattan which grows in the East Indies, thus it isn’t surprising that it was the Dutch who introduced the cane seat and chair back into England nearly 300 years ago. Rushes are also used as a cheaper alternative, and Manners (Country Crafts Today. Gale Research Company, Detroit, Michigan, 1974), Wymer (English Country Crafts. A Survey of Their Development from Early Times to Present Day. Batsford, London, 1946), and Filbee (Cottage Industries. David and Charles, Newton Abbot, Devon, 1982) describe both crafts.


 * On the farm wheat was sown from basket seedlips, riddles separated chaff from grain, various sieves and even woven fencing were made of osiers. Baskets were also used as measures for bushels and half-bushels and for carrying fruit, vegetables, and fodder (Filbee, Wyman 1946).


 * Rush baskets were mostly made by East Anglian women who also used reeds for making hats and mats (Manners).
 * Pottery crates of cleft and woven hazel are made in the potteries (Arnold 1970).

Basketmaking methods are described by Filbee (Cottage Industries. David and Charles, Newton Abbot, Devon, 1982), Hurley (The Book of Trades or Library of the Useful Arts. Vol I. Wiltshire Family History Society, 1991), Dixon (A Heritage of Anglian Crafts. Minimax Books, Peterborough, Northamptonshire, 1981), Arnold (The Shell Book of Country Crafts. John Baker, 1968 and All Made by Hand. John Baker, London, 1970), Wymer (English Country Crafts. A Survey of Their Development from Early Times to Present Day. Batsford, London, 1946), and 20th century work by Sones (A Changing Landscape and a Dying Trade. Family Tree Magazine Vol 5 #9, page 9-10, 1989). The apprenticeships of the Basketmakers’ Company 1639-1824 have been indexed by Webb (London Apprentices Volume 10. Basketmakers’ Company 1639-1824. Society of Genealogists, 1997).

Straw Work
The straw portion of cereal crops was a most important commodity with several uses (Staniforth)


 * Animal feed and bedding, with the products being used to manure the land.


 * Straw mattresses and palliasses for humans.


 * Buffers, for example between ships and the quay, and latterly as barriers on race tracks.


 * Stuffing, for example in horse collars.


 * In thatching and thatch finials, the ‘signature decorations’ of individual thatchers.


 * Straw plait for making hats and other items. The straw plait industry was concentrated in the area around Luton and Dunstable, Bedfordshire and lasted from the mid-17th century until about 1920. Groves (The Horwoods and the Pecks. Two Families Involved in the Straw-Plaiting Industry in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire in The Family and Local History Handbook. 5th edition., page 62-64. Genealogical Services Directory) writes about her plaiting ancestors’s trade, and Pearl (Old Occupations: Was Your Ancestor a Strawplaiter? Family Tree Magazine Vol 5 #12, page 4-5) describes the trade and the plait schools.


 * Decorative uses such as wall coverings, delicate marquetry, corn dollies.
 * Making bricks.


 * Lip work, whereby well-prepared straw was passed through a short length of cow horn to form a continuous roll. This was coiled and bound together with split bramble etc. to form circular containers such as bee skeps, bushel skeps, baskets, and archery targets (Filbee, Wymer 1946).


 * Mixed with clay to make cob for building.


 * Horticultural beds for mushrooms, cucumbers, strawberries etc.


 * Packing of cutlery and other fragile goods.


 * Making straw rope.


 * Containers, for example bottle envelopes.


 * Matting for floors, table mats and cheese displays.

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