Archival history
MERL miscellaneous note - 'Noticed missing, presumed stolen, from exhibition on 17th Dec. 2008.', MERL miscellaneous note – ‘Account of Interview with Mrs. Dorothea Flower, 77 Whiteknights Road, Reading, concerning George Lailey.’ // … // She first started to visit Lailey about 1930, being aware of the publicity given him in H. V. Morton’s “In search of England” (1927). She had a car before the war and used to take all her friends to see him, including Americans. She purchased the bowls, candlesticks, etc. (now donated to the MERL collection, see recording form) on different occasions. Her visits were usually brief, of twenty minutes to half and hour, but she claimed to have got to know Lailey as a friend. // Lailey’s wood was cut from large elm blocks which were delivered to him. His method of working necessarily involved the turning of a progressively smaller size of bowl, the latter taking only a few minutes to make. The small block of wood left over at the end was used to make Ladies’ hat stands. Lailey, although using both his arms and legs, was able to talk freely to all his visitors. // There was a continuing flow of these following the publicity according him in Morton’s book and eventually someone gave him a visitors book (whose whereabouts is now lost). He was apparently visited by Queen Mary’s friends, who said that they had told the Queen about him. He was in consequence always hoping for a visit from her, which never materialised. // He had no love of money. Mrs. Flower, suggested that with people coming and going all day long he could well have charged, say 6d., for entrance (and thus making more than from the sale of his bowls). Lailey said he liked to see the people. He charged 6d. for small bowls and 1s.6d. for larger ones and 1s.6d. – 2s. for candlestick holders. Mrs Flower had no knowledge of any accounts kept by Lailey – he merely pocketed any money received for bowls. She believed somebody came to collect the bowls for sale (other than those sold to visitors). She had little knowledge of Lailey beyond his work. He lived in a cottage close by and formerly with his mother. // Lailey was born in Bucklebury and probably never moved far from the village – it is unlikely that he ever took a holiday and she doubted if he had often been to Reading. His conception of the world outside was vague. Mrs. Flower once told him she’d seen his bowls in South Africa and he replied “Yes and I know they’re in Southampton too.” She didn’t see him after about 1939 as she no longer had a car… // J.S. Creasy January 1978’, MERL miscellaneous note – ‘The Craftsman. One of the most famous craftsmen in England was George William Lailey of Bucklebury Common, Berkshire, who for nearly eighty years practiced his craft in a small isolated hut on the common. George Lailey, the eldest of eleven children, started work with his father, William Lailey, who, like his father, was also a bowl-turner, when he was no more than nine years old. William Lailey was a renowned craftsman, who employed others in his workshop. Although many of his bowls were sold locally, in the Reading and Newbury markets, great quantities were also taken to the London stores, a cart-load being taken up at frequent intervals. When his father died, George Lailey took over the family business. During the First World War, all the employees left him and for a while Lailey worked along, but with his mother helping him to saw up elm blocks. After the war he was helped for a short time by a war-wounded brother –in-law who soon gave it up as the work was very hard. Ever since then Lailey worked on his own for he failed to induce any young man to learn the trade. Lailey died in December, 1958, and with him died a tradition that went back for hundreds of years. During his lifetime, the fame of the Bucklebury bowls had spread far and wide; scores of bowls had been sold to London stores and many had gone overseas, especially to America. Lailey’s hut, tools and equipment were presented by his niece to the University of Reading’s Museum of English Rural Life. //Location. George Lailey was the last of a long line of Bucklebury turners, but at one time the unenclosed common with it’s dells and dips, was a great centre of woodland crafts. There were other bowl-turners, there were rake-makers, beesom-makers and many others who drew on the profuse timber growth of the common to make a great variety of products for farm and household use. Indeed the small hamlet where Lailey lived and worked bears the name Turners Green, which is surely an indication of the past importance of wood-turning in the life of the locality. // Raw Materials. Although a great variety of timber may be used for bowl-turning, Lailey was primarily a craftsman in elm. Not only does elm occur widely on Bucklebury Common, and there was therefore a plentiful supply close at hand, but it had another advantage in that elm is a particularly tough wood which does not crack or split easily. Unlike north country turners who use poplar, or Welsh turners who use sycamore, Lailey could cut a number of bowls out of a single block of wood. A succession of bowls are thus cut from one block, one inside the other, with hardly any wastage. In the past, turners were responsible for producing a great variety of turned ware ranging from bowls and trenchers for domestic use, to cheese moulds, cream skimmers, and milking stools. Others were primarily concerned with turning tool-handles, mop-handles, rake-handles, axe-handles and many others. Indeed, until quite recently, there was another turner at Bucklebury who specialised in this category of work. Lailey was, however, a make of decorative turned ware; his main products were bowls and platters, candlesticks and bellows, egg cups and trays, and he never produced and utensils for dairy or farm use. For this reason he used elm, a timber with an attractive and warm rosy-brown colour, whose beauty of grain could be brought out very effectively with polishing. In recent years, most of the elm was obtained from the Hermitage district. // Processes. // 1. The elm after seasoning for five or six years, was sawn up into blocks in the timber store at the back of the workshop. Tools – cross-cut saw, chopping block. // 2. The blocks were next trimmed to a rough half-round shape. Tools – Axe, chopping block, // 3. Turning the bowls. Tools – Mallet, pole-lathe, inside & outside chisels, callipers. // 4. Finishing. Tools & equipment – Draw knife, spoke shave, files, trimming horse, turmeric for dying. // 5. The finished bowls were then stacked in the open air to dry out before selling. // Marketing. Lailey’s workshop was very well-known and scores of visitors from all parts of the country used to visit it during the course of the year. Like his father before him, he was not dependent on this casual trade and for many years some large London stores provided a market for all the bowls he could turn out. // Until the 1930s Lailey had a horse and trap which he used for fetching timber and for taking his bowls to the nearest railway station. During the First World War, when he was exempted from military service, his bowls were much used as ladles in munition factories.’, MERL 'Handwritten catalogue' form – ‘This hut was the workshop of George William Lailey (1869-1958), bowl turner. It stood on the Common in the hamlet of Turner’s Green at Bucklebury, Berkshire (5/432). // The structure consisted of a very rough wooden framework covered on the outside with weather-boarding and patched with corrugated iron. The roof was tiled and the floor appeared to be other earth beneath the deep layer of wood shavings which covered it. // A wooden lean-to with corrugated roof was built against the rear of the hut (5/434). A door on the front of the hut facing west led into the interior and a shuttered window to the right of it provided light for the principal pole lathe inside (5/). Two more shuttered windows in the south wall provided additional light for this lathe and also light for a second lathe which hade been disused for a long period. There was also a door on this side of the lean-to. There were no openings in the north wall the interior if which is shown in 5/. // The hut measured 20’0” x 13’0” in plan and was 12’9” from the ground to the apex of the roof.’
