The Village Smith and his Forge
One of the postcards sent from Kilsby in the
early 1900s by Phoebe Jane Haddon; she
lived at the forge, just to the left of this view
I am often contacted by people from outside Kilsby whose ancestors had links with the
village; and it was in this way that I recently received some interesting correspondence,
originally posted from Kilsby almost 100 years ago.
A gentleman named Richard Belton emailed me (via the Kilsby village website), to say
‘… going through my late father’s possessions, I came across some old postcards with
pictures of Kilsby from the early 1900s, written and posted to distant relatives’. He
generously sent the cards to me, to reunite them with the village where they originated –
and from the brief messages on them I was able to establish some details about the
writer, who was the village blacksmith’s wife.
Little can be gleaned from the text alone, as the writer ‘P.J. Haddon’ was a person of very
few words! However, from the parish registers I identified her as Phoebe Jane Haddon,
wife of the blacksmith Edward Haddon, whose forge stood beside the Green and had been
used by generations of smiths before him, back at least as far as the 1700s.
Phoebe Jane died in April 1929 aged 77 (so she
was in her 60s when she sent the postcards); her
husband Edward died in May 1914 aged 63, and
his son Albert Edward Haddon took over the
forge, where he had previously been his father's
assistant. Albert Haddon died in August 1957
aged 80 – he was born in 1877, though not
baptised in Kilsby.
I recently acquired an old photograph of the
Kilsby blacksmith, taken around 1890-1900 (see
on right) – so I could now identify the man in the
photograph as Edward Haddon, husband of the
lady who wrote the postcards.
Edward and Phoebe Jane Haddon had four other children – Caroline Jane (born 1876, one
year before her brother Albert), Dora Beatrice (bapt 1887), Christopher Frederick (bapt
1888), and Lottie May (bapt 1890). Edward Haddon (born 1851) was the son of William
Francis Haddon, the village harness-maker in late Georgian and early Victorian times –
William and his wife Temperance had three of their younger children baptised in Kilsby in
the 1860s, though Edward was born and baptised outside Kilsby. There were Haddons in
Kilsby right back to the late 1700s – John Haddon was born in 1756 (though not baptised
in Kilsby, he married Susanna Case in Kilsby in 1786 and settled here), and John and
Susannah were buried here in 1823 and 1812 respectively. Thomas Haddon (carpenter,
son of Thomas Haddon a labourer) married Eliza Ward (aged 19) in Kilsby in 1867; and
in 1903 Caroline Jane Haddon aged 27, daughter of blacksmith Edward Haddon, married
farmer David Park of Kirklinton Carlise (aged 26).
Having got this far, and uncovered the most recent chapters in the story of the village
forge, my curiosity was aroused, and I decided to see just how far back I could take its
history.
So I set to work, armed with census returns for the mid-1800s, Enclosure papers and
Militia Lists of the 1770s, Hearth Tax records of the 1660s-1670s, London Gazette
extracts from 1680-1880, and transcripts of 556 wills for the period 1500-1700 for Kilsby,
Crick, Barby, Ashby St Ledgers and Braunston which I made some years ago for another
long-term research project. I also referred to transcripts of the deeds of various old
Kilsby houses, the letters of the Read family (1790-1805), and the memoirs of Charles
Bracebridge (covering 1835-1850).
The results took my breath away – for when I had finished, I found that I had a complete
and unbroken list of Kilsby blacksmiths going right back to the late 1500s!
Here it is, with the main names underlined to make the line of succession easier to follow:
1570s-1580s:Henry Pinson and wife Agnes, plus 4 sons and 4 daughters
1590s-1600s:Richard Pinson son and heir of Henry Pinson (NB: John Pinson, Henry’s
second son, extended the family trade by setting up as a smith in Crick in
the late 1590s)
1640s-1650s:Thomas Clarke and wife Mary, plus several daughters (in his will he left his
house to Thomas Hall, as he had no son)
1660s-1670s:Thomas Hall’s son Lawrence Hall (in the cottage formerly occupied by
Thomas Clarke and willed to Thomas Hall)
1710s-1740s: William Hall (married Sarah Sabin 1717); they had 4 daughters, but no
sons
1750s-1840s: The Radford family (Joseph in 1759, John 1814-1830s, John’s son Edward
in the 1840s)
1760s-1770s: Joseph Middleton was working here as a blacksmith when he married in
1769
1777:
William Harrison was also listed as a smith – probably an apprentice or
assistant to Joseph Radford
1830s-1840s: James Whitworth, and John Coles (listed in the census as “in the railway
tunnel”) and William Harland (described as “a travelling smith” in the
census)
1850s-1880s: William Chambers and Thomas Turner were both listed as blacksmiths in
the 1850s (but the Chambers were smiths right through to the 1880s, in
the census returns)
1880s-1940s:The Haddon family (Edward 1880s-1910s, son Albert Edward up to 1940s)
1890s-1900s:George Essen (at least 1892-1900 and perhaps longer; he lived in the
cottage beside the Stocks – opposite the White House – on Barby Road,
and worked as Edward Haddon’s assistant)
This covers almost 400 years of Kilsby’s history with virtually no gaps or discontinuities –
and it seems likely that the main forge has stood in its present location since at least the
late 1700s (when the open fields were Enclosed). Possible earlier pre-Enclosure forge(s)
may have been more centrally located in the village, since they probably served a more
village-centred clientele with farm-carts and ploughs to make and mend, rather than
catering mainly to “passing trade” – however, this is just a guess.
We can see three periods during which several smiths were needed in the village:
• 1760s-1780s:
the time of the greatest prosperity of Kilsby’s weaving trade
• 1830s-1840s:
construction of the railway tunnel through Kilsby (2 portable forges)
• 1890s-1900s:
the period of Kilsby’s remount depots
It seems appropriate to end with two short extracts. The first is from the will of Kilsby
blacksmith Henry Pinson, written in 1590 (incidentally, his surname is interesting, since
‘pinson’ is the old-English term for what we know today as ‘pincers’ – in other words, this
man was named after the tools of his trade, suggesting that he came from a long line of
blacksmiths perhaps going right back to the 1300s when such surnames first came into
use):
“In the name of god amen. I Henry Pinson of Killesbie in the countie of Northampton,
blacke smith, being sicke in bodie but wholle in mynd and of perfect remembrance, doe
make this my last will and testament in manner and forme following, commiting my souile
into the hands of allmightie God, and my bodie to be buryed in the churchyard of Killesbie
aforesaid, the 18th day of July 1590.
First my will is that my wiffe Agnes Pinson shall have her fynding and keeping by my son
Richard Pinson ….
I give unto my sonne John* a paire of bellowes, the tewe iron, the stydie (ie steadying)
hammers, three pair of tonges, a buttresse, a paire of pinsors, a vice, all the settings
belonging to my harth on the east side of my shopp, and 20s, all to be paied and delivered
unto him in the fourth yeare after my deceasse.
….”
(* There is a lot more detail in the will, including lists of goods, and we learn that Henry
Pinson owned not only his own forge and house but another house called ‘Clews house’
standing nearby. Incidentally, the tools given in the will to his son John Pinson were
obviously what John used to set himself up as a smith in Crick, where we find him still
working as a blacksmith in 1621.)
Finally, a little poem written in 1911 by Stan Merritt:
Beneath a huge electric sign
the village smith now sits;
his brawny form, though plump and fat,
his easy chair just fits.
The old clay pipe is laid away,
his brow reveals no sweat;
he calmly views the cars roll up
and puffs a cigarette.
Six shining pumps adorn the spot
where once the smithy stood;
the heavy traffic daily pays
this modern Robin Hood.
Thankfully, we missed being caught in that trap! Kilsby’s village smithy still stands where
it stood for centuries; and though recently converted into accommodation, the overall
lines and shape of the buildings have changed very little since the 1700s.
Gren Hatton
January 2009