Trades and occupations

The nature of a community can be identified through the occupations pursued by those who work in it but these change with the times. A good example is the transition of blacksmith to motor mechanic because the forge often became the garage as the motor car became popular during the early part of the 20th century. Bourne has had a busy commercial life since mediaeval times but the trades in which its people were involved in centuries past bear little recognition to those we find today and even with those that are similar, their businesses are conducted in a very different fashion.

But what were the main trades carried on here in times past? Agriculture has always been prevalent because the black fen soil is richly productive and so there has always been a predominance of farmers in the locality and this has also attracted the various associated activities through the centuries. The parish registers also indicate that leather workers were prominent during the 16th century, a common feature in Lincolnshire that testifies to the importance of pasture farming for the raising of cattle that provided the hides for the production of leather. Butchers and fellmongers would supply the raw material to the various craftsmen and of the many leather workers in Bourne, the most numerous were the tanners who cleaned and treated the hides, principally those of cattle, but also those of horses, deer, pigs, goats, kids, calves and sheep, before they were passed on to the various craftsmen as leather. 

The leading tanners in Bourne in 1560 were John Tomson, Richard Holmes and Robert Prat while a century later the trade was carried on by Robert Fracey, John Harbye and Robert Shorte. It must have been a reasonably lucrative occupation at that time because when Shorte died in 1649, he left goods worth more than £52, a house with a hall, parlour, two chambers and a shop in which there were "five hundred of leather, drest and undrest" worth £9 10s. 0d. and "six and twenty dozen of made wear" worth £6 3s. 0d. Like many tradesmen, he also dealt in other goods and his estate included a quantity of wool worth £15.

Glovers were another branch of the leather trade in Bourne and during the first half of the 17th century, those engaged in the business included William Marsh, John Homes, John and William White and later Thomas White. When William White died in 1607, he left an estate worth £269, including his farm stock and a large store of leather stacked in his parlour comprising nine dozen various grades of calf leather, 2½ dozen "grained doe skins", 3½ dozen "grained fawn skins", 2 stag skins, 5 hind skins, 3½ dozen "yellow lamb skins", 106 skins of sheep leather and various others including 14 dog skins. There was also a store of wool, this time a considerable stock amounting to 164 tods [a tod being about 28lb.] which was valued at a much higher figure than the leather.

Shoemakers and cobblers were also prominent among the Bourne craftsmen of this period. In the mid 16th century, William Tayleforthe and John Baker were engaged in this trade and a little later John Rowlinson and William Foster. By 1620, the town's shoemakers included John Taylor, John Bradley and William Fracey who is also described as a butcher in the parish registers and so no doubt diversified his business activities with the materials at his disposal. Leather working also extended to saddlery, a trade carried out by Thomas Trollope who died in 1581.

Many other trades in Bourne were evident at this time such as tailors, butchers and blacksmiths, including one by the name of John Bull who died in 1642. The parish registers of the time also reveal a wide variety of occupations such as bakers, furbishers, watermen, dryers, carpenters, fullers, milliners, fishmongers and clothiers, potters and even a tallow chandler, John Beacham, who was quite a wealthy man. When he died in 1676, an inventory of his estate indicated that his shop contained stocks of salt as well as candles and that his premises known as the Candlehouse were situated either in or near the market place, an extensive establishment with a warehouse, barn, stable, yard and garden, but by 1770, records indicate that it was being used as a haberdasher's shop by Isaac Halford although it is difficult to determine its exact location in modern Bourne.

The trades and crafts associated with the rural life are amply illustrated in the records of the 18th century. Many people lived and worked in the town such as Thomas Harby, a miller, who in 1729 took over a windmill that stood in East Field. Thomas Dawkins and William Mason were both tanners at this time but there was also a weaver, John Barker, and a carpenter, John Bunning, who lived in Westgate, the old name for West Street where Luke Brown, a wheelwright, also worked. There was another wheelwright in Eastgate, Thomas Chambers, and John Brabrook was a mason who worked in Holme End, an area just south of the Abbey Church. 

Richard Woulds worked as a currier in Northgate, now North Road, while "in a certain place called the Watergang" [now South Street] stood the premises of William Shippey, a whitawer, the name given to someone whose trade was to treat skins and turn them into the fine white leather used for gloves and other fancy items. By the mid-18th century, there was an indication that the Bourne Eau was providing employment because Richard Eldred was working as a boatman. Several inhabitants described themselves as merchants such as Thomas Winpenny and Jeremiah Ives and Daniel Twining who were married to two sisters. John Pare was working as a mercer and draper, John Swift as a glover and Charles Watts as a watchmaker.

Later in the century we find references to John Smith, a cordwainer in North Gate and William Wyer, a shoemaker in the Watergang. Also working in the town were Robert Osborn, an ironmonger, Thomas Brown, a malster and Edward Rainey, a plumber and glazier while John Gordge was a thatcher and Benjamin Crofts a slater. Thomas Rawnsley was a wool stapler with premises in South Street opposite what is now the Wellhead Gardens, Augustin Manby, an apothecary and Thomas Middleton, a surgeon. William Arnold was a flax dresser in Westgate while John Walker, a woodman, worked from premises in Northgate. There were many others but these varied occupations give us a glimpse of the working life in Bourne apart from the farmers or yeomen upon whom the major part of the local economy depended.

One of the earliest indications of the trades pursued in early 19th century Bourne appears in Pigot's 1835 Directory for Lincolnshire that records a large number of businesses devoted to the sale of clothing, listing ten boot and shoe makers, six tailors and drapers, two milliners and dress makers, a glover, a hat maker and three straw hat makers. The town was also supporting eleven grocers, some of them also drapers and tallow chandlers, seven butchers, three millers, five plumbers and glaziers, three surgeons [doctors], four watch and clock makers, four blacksmiths, three saddlers, two wheelwrights, two stone masons and a professor of music.

Victorian England was a place of ingenuity and enterprise and small trades and businesses flourished. We are also able to record this divergence from the various trade and business directories that survive to give us fascinating details of their occupations. For a great part of the 19th century, Bourne provided a wide variety of goods and services in those days when transport was often inadequate and mass production only just emerging and therefore local craftsmen and producers were able to benefit.

Slater's Directory for Lincolnshire 1857 tells us that in Bourne and Eastgate together, there were 15 boot and shoe makers, 12 bakers and flour dealers, five blacksmiths, seven carpenters and joiners, two wheelwrights and 17 grocers, some of whom were also drapers. A further ten people are listed as tailors and drapers along with ten milliners and dress-makers, five saddlers and harness makers, five hatters, six bricklayers and builders with a further five men described as stone masons, five maltsters and brewers, six butchers, three millers, three ironmongers and two agricultural implement makers. In addition, there was an entire gallery of other occupations and crafts that have now largely died out in small towns such as Bourne. These included two brick and tile makers, two coopers, two leather cutters, two lime-burners (both at Dyke), two rope and sacking makers, two slaters, two stay-makers, and five straw bonnet makers. Among others listed were a brazier and tinman, a basket maker, a bird and animal preserver (who in another directory four years later appears as a bird-stuffer and entomologist), a tobacco pipe maker, a leather breeches maker and glover, and a town crier, an office that survived until well into the 20th century when he was still being called out to make public announcements. 

In later directories we find references to such occupations as horse-breaker, whitesmith, bell hanger and higgler, an itinerant trader who toured the countryside selling household wares in exchange for poultry and other dairy products. The term was also frequently used to describe a man who did carting for hire, the description used in a short story by A E Coppard and this may well have been the occupation of Seth Brown who is listed as a higgler of Eastgate by Kelly's Directory of Lincolnshire in 1885. There were also several bakehouses in the town including one in "the Watergang, otherwise Southgate" in 1820 and two others in Eastgate. Later in the century, bakehouses are mentioned in the Austerby [the Old Bakehouse], at the bottom end of West Street and in North Street. 

There was also a thriving brick industry locally during the 19th and 20th centuries because stone was not readily available for house building. Several brickyards were active during this period, employing large numbers of people in the manufacturing process while another local industry is referred to in the manorial documents of 1836 that mention a bleaching ground in Eastgate.

New inventions and the demand for a wider range of goods and services during the 19th century enabled some local tradesmen develop multi-sided businesses offering a variety of wares to the customer. Kelly's in 1905 records that Ernest Foley of Meadow Gate was in business as an agricultural engineer and ironmonger. He was also a cycle, agricultural implement, and stack elevator manufacturer, owner of a threshing machine and traction engine and finally, he was a "shoeing and general smith, and machinery broker". One of his contemporaries was John Morris, who was running a business in West Street that had begun in 1864 and was now housed in a large double-fronted shop with a printing works and show-rooms in the rear, and also comprised a "saloon" for the sale of pianos, organs, and harmoniums.

Kelly's describes Morris's business as ". . . printer, bookseller, bookbinder and stationer, news agent; music seller and circulating library; pianoforte, harmonium and paper-hanging warehouse; and patent medicine vendor and sub-distributor of stamps; and agent for sewing-machines and shipping agent. Post Office". The son of the family, Thomas Morris, not content with merely pursuing the father's many business interests, added photography to the list of services offered by the firm. Unusual occupations were still evident and in 1885, William Redshaw of North Street is listed as a manufacturer of rustic furniture and studio accessories for halls, libraries, drawing and dining rooms, offices, lawns and gardens while William Hodgkin of West Street is described as the vaccination officer for the workhouse and the school attendance officer.

The 19th century, with its rising population and trade, also brought an increase in the number of inns and taverns in Bourne and by the early 20th century, businesses in Bourne were beginning to take on a form more easily recognisable today and included such trades and professions as solicitors, grocers, hairdressers, coal merchants, dentists, boot repairers, gents' outfitters, bakers, fishmongers, painters and milliners although there were still the unusual occupations by today's standards.

In 1913, Kelly's recorded that William Adams of the Austerby was working as a cowkeeper, Mrs Eliza Blades of Eastgate earned a living as a wardrobe dealer, the Misses Mary and Rose Browning were running a Berlin wool repository in North Street and William Richardson of West Street was described as a tinman. There was also a horse slaughterer, shoeing smith, basket maker, monumental mason, rope manufacturer and costumier while Richard Lloyd of Eastgate was employed as the Town Crier, an office that was to become defunct later in the century.

There was also an emerging industry in the sale and servicing of motor cycles and motor cars and one of the forerunners in this was Station Garage run by Tuck Brothers in South Street where the photograph above was taken circa 1930. It shows the garage staff with a Clynomaster motor cycle model CT 3509 with Saville Turner on the extreme left. The garage premises were on the site of the stone gateway leading into the grounds of the Red Hall which was demolished in 1918 by German prisoners of war from camps in the locality to make way for the new development.

Tuck Brothers described themselves as "Motor and Electrical Engineers" and agents for Austin and Morris cars. A  contemporary advertisement advised: "Repairs a speciality, tyres and spare parts always in stock, welding plant and accumulators charged", the latter service being devoted to the wet batteries used for the wireless sets of the day which needed regular recharging. The garage also had a showroom for motor cycles, cycles and accessories in North Street.

REVISED FEBRUARY 2015

See also

Early closing in Bourne     Trade notices     The loss of our small shops

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