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Family Elwell (Manufacturer)

A billhook is an edge tool used in hedging, coppice work and other woodland trades, and show great regional variety with each area having its own accepted pattern and shape. This billhook is of the Berkshire pattern, with a straight blade which curves at the end. It was made by Elwell of Wednesbury, Staffordshire, and is marked 'Elwell 3711'. It is missing its handle. The billhook was given to the Museum by Alfred Willis, a blacksmith and edge-tool maker from Bramley, Hampshire.

1 billhook: metal; fair condition- rust; handle missing

MERL 'Handwritten accession' form (Institute of Agricultural History) – 'Recorder: JMB // Date: 26.4.85 // Description: A billhook of Berkshire design made by ELWELL of WEDNESBURY. // Metal part only – no wooden handle. // Inscription: ELWELL 3711 // Dimensions: Length: 41.0 cm // Associated information: Collected by Dr. E. J. Collins who interviewed Mr. Willis. See attached report.’, Report of interview: Dr E. J. T. Collins with Herbert Alfred WILLIS, Old Forge, Bramley, Hampshire, 5 March 1985. Born 1901, aged 83, retired blacksmith and edge-tool maker – ‘His father, a shoeing and general smith, moved to Bramley forge in 1900 from Whitchurch, Hants. HAW began work with his father in 1914 and in the early 1920s experimented with the making of edge-tools in which he became very proficient. His father could make a hoe but not hooks. // HAW was not a full-time tool-maker. He relied, as had his father, on shoeing and general work for most of his income. He made tools mainly in the summer when the hunters were on grass and shoeing was slack. As it took two men 3–4 hours to make one tool for selling for only a few shillings it was barely profitable, and in the 20s and 30s paid only £20–30 a year. Tool-making was a not very remunerative by-employment. HAW continued to make tools until the early 1960s. // Products: A fairly wide range of edge-tools including fish-gutting knives, shaves, and spar hooks, but mostly bill hooks (chopping-down with short nose and ‘swiddin’ (making up), with long nose), slashers, reap hooks (for grass) and fag hooks. Hoes were also made, but the frame only, the blades being bought in. Father used to make large half-moon bean hoes. // Design: Most tools custom-made to individual orders and customers’ special requirements. The bill hooks and fag hooks, though, were essentially Berkshire and North Hampshire designs. Seldom ever asked to copy a tool by one of the national makers such as Brades and Elwell. // Raw materials: Used exclusively old rasps, (used for shaving horses hooves), 14–15” long, acquired from other blacksmiths or scrap dealers. Medium-hard steel, high-grade but cheap. File steel too hard, liable to break. // Method of manufacture (bill hooks) // (1) heated in fire and ‘bumped up’ – reduced to about 12’ and the weight pulled forwards to form the head. Done with small 2–3lb hammer. // (2) with HAW holding the bar with his tongs and waving it about on the anvil, his father or brother used a sledge hammer to beat out the shape. // (3) tang drawn out // (4) the tool finished with a file. // (5) the hardening: most crucial operation requiring fine judgement. Tool heated to a white-red heat and doused in warm water. In the early days, before he had mastered the art, many tools spoilt. They tended to bend when dowsed and, if the metal was too hard, to break when straightened out. // (6) edge ground on a grindstone. // The entire process took 3–4 hours. Tools were made individually or in small batches. // Output and marketing: About 125–150 tools were made each year. They enjoyed a high reputation locally and were reckoned the Tadley workmen as the best on the market, a well-made tool with a sharp, very durable edge. Most were sold within a radius of 8–10 miles of Bramley. Bill-hooks were the single most important product and there was a steady demand for them in this centre of the coppice and underwood trades – the bill hook – ‘chopping-down’ and ‘swidden’ – being the standard tool the demand for fagging hooks feel off from the 1920s. Through the agency of the Rural Industries Bureau orders were secured for reed-thatching hooks from Norfolk (used for splitting spars). // prices were approximately the same as shop prices of branded tools. Direct sales only. Did not sell through ironmongers. // HAW won several prizes for his tools: Royal Show at Kenilworth c.1960 (1st prize for slasher, 2nd prize for bill-hook); Paris exhibition 1937; Exhibition in Copenhagen; R I B ‘Certificate of Merit for hand forged tools and fag hooks’ exhibited at Royal Counties Agricultural Show, Reading 1930. He made tools for RIB which showed them all over England. // Summary: HAW was a blacksmith who developed a sideline in tool-making to supplement his income in what was, after 1920, a shrinking trade. Hand-forged tools could not pay by themselves. His market, small and declining, depended on personal service and making to customers’ requirements. // Apart from the Moss brothers at Liphook and Pike at Thatcham (who had an excellent reputation for bill hooks made in the traditional manner of forging a steel blade between plates of soft iron) – both of whom had ceased production by 1918 – Willis was the last manufacture of hand-forged agricultural edge tools in central Southern England. Few blacksmiths, it seems, were skilled in making edge-tools, and those that could were undercut by the factory firms employing mass production techniques. The hand process was very laborious. // EJTC // 6 March 1985’

Wednesbury

Collins, Edward John T. (Agent)