|
|
No-one has ever come up with a cast-iron reason why the Arrow Valley became the eventual centre for English needlemaking. We know that there were originally other centres, e.g. London and Long Crendon in Buckinghamshire, and we know that a London needlemaker, William Lea brought the craft to Studley in the first half of the 17th century. But why Studley? It settled there as a cottage industry but somewhere nearer the source of wire drawing, e.g. Derbyshire, would surely have been economically easier for Lea.
Those who learned the trade from Lea spread what was called 'the mystery' to neighbouring villages, particularly Sambourne: but this took time and although one man settled in Alcester, it was not until the 18th century that the craft was taken up there in any numbers. Different families specialised in different processes, for there were many such needed to produce a needle: pointing, grinding, scouring were three such. The trade received a boost when the power of the local water mills was applied to turning the grinding stones and the scouring beds and this went hand in hand with the emergence of entrepreneurs, who acted as central points for the cottage workers: the factory system took over by the 19th century, in which most of the processes took place under one roof. By this time, the trade had widened out from Alcester and Studley to Redditch, led by a number of entrepreneurial families, of which Morrall is perhaps the most famous. In recent times the great days of needlemaking in Alcester have finished but Redditch has maintained its primacy in making needles and its allied trade of fish hooks.