Little Eaton Smithy.

Blacksmiths have existed since the Bronze Age when people first started using metal for hunting and cooking implements. But it was in mediaeval times that it became common for a blacksmith to be needed for shoeing horses and making and mending farm implements.

In Little Eaton, there would be at least one resident blacksmith, using whatever handy building he could find as his workshop. Since early in the 18th century, there have been four families of blacksmiths in Little Eaton: the Walls, the Pooles, the Bates and the Oldknows.

The Wall Family

The Court Rolls record that John Wall was a blacksmith in Allestree in the 18th century. He had two sons, Jacob (born 1729) and John (born 1742). Both were blacksmiths. John junior is recorded as the copyholder of land in Little Eaton. He married Elizabeth Hawkins, daughter of John and Judith Hawkins who were farmers in Little Eaton. In Judith’s Will, Elizabeth was left the “copyhold” of land in Chapel Fields (south of Vicarage Lane), a cottage (probably what is now the Stone House) and fields that are now the Hatherings and Hieron’s woods. Two of her sisters both married Tempests who later went on to own a Bleach Mill and two large paper mills. John Wall was, by the standards of the day, a wealthy man, and very well connected.

John and Elizabeth Wall had four children, John, Thomas, Jacob and Judith. John and Jacob were both blacksmiths. John married his cousin Dorothy and they had one daughter, Sarah, who married Moses Harvey, a cotton spinner. Their son, Robert Harvey, married Sarah Tempest and their daughter, Selina, married Sarah’s brother John Tempest. The Tempest-Harvey families went on to become managing directors of the entire paper manufacturing business in Little Eaton.

During the 17th century the Chapel at Little Eaton had become derelict. A Chapel had been built on the site in the tenth Century when Edward the Confessor gave some land in Little Eaton to St. Alkmund’s Church in Derby so they could send out priests to minister to the village people. But in 1548, Edward the Sixth confiscated the land and the Little Eaton Chapel suffered.

In 1735, the Vicar of St. Alkmund’s, the Rev. Cantrell, reported that the Chapel was in a decaying condition and “profaned”. Joseph Wright painted a blacksmith’s shop in 1771. One version of this painting is in the Derby Museum and Art gallery; another is in the Center for British Art at Yale University. (Other paintings of blacksmith forges by Wright are in the Hermitage in St Petersburg and in the Tate Gallery in London). Little Eaton Chapel was in the parish of St. Alkmund’s, where Joseph Wright worshipped and knew the Vicar (he records buying a horse from him). It is reasonable to conclude that the setting for the pictures was the Chapel in Little Eaton.

It is also reasonable to conclude that the blacksmiths in the picture were based on the Wall family, the only blacksmiths in the area at the time.

The Blacksmith’s Shop by Joseph Wright (Derby Museums Trust) — The Blacksmith’s Shop by Joseph Wright
(Derby Museums Trust)

Shortly after this, in 1791, the chapel was rebuilt and later was extended and re-consecrated as St Paul’s Church. The Walls had to move their workshop. John Wall senior died as a result of an accident in the canal.

The Poole Family

William Poole was born in 1779. By the turn of the Century he was established as the blacksmith for Little Eaton, living in a cottage between the Alfreton Road (then Turnpike road) and the recently constructed tramway. He married Elizabeth Stone in 1806 and they had three sons, Joseph, William and Richard. Joseph and William joined William senior in the Smithy. Joseph and his wife, Mary, and William with his wife, Elizabeth, lived in nearby cottages, which became known as “Poole’s Row”. Richard Poole and his family lived opposite in “Cotterswood” and later lived in New Street.

For most of this time the shop and 6 adjoining houses and gardens were owned by the Radford family – as shown in the attached map from 1821. Elms Farm, where the Radfords were based, is shown at No1 on the map and the six houses and shop are across the brook, shown as number 23. Later in the century, the estate passed to the Strutts.

By 1861, one of Joseph’s sons and one of William’s, both called William, had joined the business which continued to thrive. The Pooles employed another blacksmith called John Wildsmith, who lived with his family in one of the adjoining cottages. There was a considerable demand for blacksmith services. There were two large farms, Elms Farm, owned by the Strutts and farmed by the Tatums; and Park Farm, owned by the Dean of Lincoln but farmed by a branch of the Tempest family. In addition, there were some small farmers, including John Vickers, Benjamin Sneap, Thomas Stone and Thomas Law. All of these farms would have had horses to be regularly shod, and with harness to be repaired and ploughs and other implements to be renewed.

The principal demand for work, however, would come from the Tramway opened in 1795. Teams of horses would pull chains of wagons from the head of the new Derby/Little Eaton canal to and from coalmines in Kilburn and quarries in Little Eaton and Coxbench. There would have been dozens of horses to be shod and wagons to be repaired.

The arrival of the Midland railway in the village, together with a decline in the quarries, led to a drastic reduction in the number of horses and wagons using the tramway. Indeed, the tramway closed in 1908 and the Poole family had to find new occupations. Two of them, William and Charles became railway clerks. Charles was killed in the first World War and his name is commemorated on the war memorial. Edith became a school mistress, pictured here with colleagues from Little Eaton school. Her husband, Sam Downing, was killed in an accident in Derby and by 1939 she lived on Morley Lane with her mother, Edith, and her two daughters, Gwen (Tatum) and Audrey (Barker).

The Bates Family

George Bates lived with his wife, Hannah, and his family as a tenant farmer at The Riddings (now 64 Eaton Bank). Hannah died in 1865. In 1867, the Duke of Devonshire put the farm up for sale - see advertisement below. George had to move and went to live in Morley with most of his family and by 1881 he was a butcher/farmer in Coxbench. That farm is now under the A38, though the well survives and can be found by the junction.

The eldest son, Thomas, became a pupil teacher at the National School situated in the Parish room; he later moved to London, prospered and became a major benefactor for the village. His brother George took over the business from his father in Coxbench - his great, great granddaughter Lynne Siddons now lives in Little Eaton. The third son, Robert, became a joiner and by 1901 was living in Little Eaton when he tragically died at the age of 44.

The youngest son was called William (born 1862). By 1881, William had become apprenticed to a blacksmith in Nottinghamshire, living with John Martin (a blacksmith and publican) and his family. He married Margaret Chapman in 1882 and by 1891 had moved back to Little Eaton to occupy the Smithy and live in Blacksmith Row (formerly Poole’s Row). The couple had five children who attended Little Eaton school, which was based in the present school building on Alfreton Road.

By 1901, William was joined in the blacksmith business by his 18-year- old eldest son, also called William. He also had an apprentice, Francis Kettle, working for him. William the younger lived next door with his wife Sarah and two of their three children. William and Sarah had other children in 1911, 1914 and 1921. By 1911, William’s brother George had joined the business, so father and two sons ran it together. There was also another blacksmith, Albert Wildsmith (nephew of John Wildsmith who worked for the Pooles), living in the cottages: he joined the army as a blacksmith during the First World War and did not return to Little Eaton. The youngest Bates brother, John (known as Jack) ran the blacksmith shop in Breadsall.

William the younger prospered. By 1939, his son George, age 19, was apprenticed to the business.

William the elder died in 1938 aged 88. William the younger carried on as blacksmith in the village until 1948 when he retired and his son George took over. William was interviewed in 1953 about his experiences as a blacksmith between the wars. “It was much harder work then than it is now”, he said. “I used to start work at three or five in the morning and go on until nine at night without a break”. In later years, George still worked with horses but spent more time repairing farm implements. George retired in 1970 and died in 1977. The shop and cottages were bought by Bill Pykett who developed the cottages but the shop was left unused for a decade.

The Oldknow Family

The Oldknows are an old Derbyshire family which included Samuel Oldknow, a prominent Mill owner and industrialist at the start of the industrial revolution.

Samuel Oldknow (1756 to1828) by Joseph Wright
(Derby Museums Trust)

Stephen Glover, the Derbyshire historian, noted in a letter in 1826 “The Oldknows of Burley were murdered”. He did not elaborate on this.

Peter Oldknow came from Derby. Born in 1936, he took up an apprenticeship with the locomotive works in Derby at the age of 16. During National Service in 1952-3 he was asked to train as a farrier and worked in Germany with army horses. Returning to Derbyshire he re-joined the locomotive works as a blacksmith but continued his interest in horses at weekends, working with Jack Bates at his blacksmith shop in Breadsall. In 1980, the opportunity arose to set up his own business in Little Eaton and he settled here, living in one of the cottages next to the Smithy.

Peter Oldknow’s work included a range of blacksmith’s tasks for local industries and Councils but his preference was always work with horses. He did not use ready-made horse shoes. Rather, he made his own shoes to fit the feet of the horses brought to him, so his skills were sought by owners from across the County. Later he worked with his son, Stephen, and trained him in the work.

Stephen Oldknow has taken over the business in recent years. He has not inherited his father’s interest in horses but developed the artistic, decorative aspects of blacksmith work. He now designs and creates garden and household artifacts, commissioned by a wide range of customers, locally and further afield. Examples of his work are shown below.

Philip and Ruth Hunter

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Lynne Siddons for information on the Bates family and to Peter Oldknow for information on his family. We are also grateful to Matt Edwards, Curator of Visual Art at the Joseph Wright room, Derby Museums Trust, for his advice on the Joseph Wright painting.

We would welcome comments addressed to Philip Hunter here.