A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



and every autumn, advertisements of the Finedon 

 dried apples, for which Mr. J. Abel was the 

 chief Northampton agent, used to appear regularly 

 in the local paper.^ Dried applies were also 

 prepared by Mr. E. Chapman at Kettering about 

 the same time. Mr. William Butlin, of Finedon, 

 is said to have been one of the last to manu- 

 facture these delicacies for sale, but Mr. Chap- 

 man, of Finedon, also prepared apples in this 

 way till about twenty-three years ago. 



Another curious local industry with a history 

 of at least two hundred years — which however, 

 still exists, though sadly diminished — is the wood- 

 turning of King's Cliffe. In the opening years 

 of the eighteenth century there were more than 

 twenty craftsmen engaged in ' turning dishes 

 and spoons.' 



' The latter,' says Morton,' ' is a distinct trade of 

 itself, and tools they have appropriate to it. There 

 is scarce any town in England wherein this sort of 

 handicraft is so much professed or is managed with so 

 great dexterity as here.' 



At the beginning of the last century turner's 

 ware, with cheese, and linen furnished the staple 

 of the King's ClifFe Fair on 29 October.^ In 

 the sixties * there were some forty or fifty wood- 

 turners at work at King's ClifFe, but at the 

 present time hardly more than ten. The 

 organization of trade is quite primitive, and, 

 except when two in the same family work 

 together, there is no partnership or employment 

 of others. Amongst the articles made may be 

 mentioned butter-prints, spice-boxes, mouse-traps, 

 bread-plates, egg-cups and spoons, rattles and 

 tops. For the turning a rough lathe is used, 

 which is worked by the foot, but any special 

 carving, as in the case of the butter-prints, is 

 done by hand. In more prosperous days, some 

 twenty years ago, a few lathes were worked by 

 steam-power. The woods generally used are 

 maple, sycamore, alder, birch, lime, chestnut, 

 beech, ash, and white thorn. So great is the 

 dexterity acquired and inherited in the trade that 

 one worker turned 417 egg-cups in eight hours 

 for a wager, and during one of these hours 

 actually made sixty-three, taking a trifle less 

 than a minute for each egg-cup. Unfortu- 

 nately the competition of cheap foreign wood- 

 ware is seriously affecting this ancient local 

 industry. 



In respect to the history of printing at the 

 county town it may be noted that as early as 

 1720 a weekly paper was established, printed, as 

 the first number of the Northampton Mercury 

 informs us, by R. Raikes and W. Dicey, near 



' Northants N. and Q. vi, 16, 17. 



■^ Op. cit. 488. 



' Pitt, op. cit. (1809), 238. 



* We are indebted to the courtesy of G. K. 

 Papillon, Esq., for the information here given as to 

 the present state of the industry. 



All Saints' Church. They thankfully acknow- 

 ledge the unanimous approval ' given to their 

 project by the mayor and the city fathers 

 generally, and express their surprise that ' this 

 famous, this beautiful, this polite corporation has 

 not longer ago ' been the object of those many 

 printers who have established printing offices in 

 towns of less note.' Just two weeks before their 

 Northampton venture the same proprietors had 

 apparently started the St. Ives Mercury. The 

 Northampton Mercury was a fine example of the 

 ' new journalism ' of the time. In the fifth 

 number, after naming nineteen counties to which 

 its humanizing influence reached, the Editor 

 pleasantly adds : — 



' But we will not say it goes into Cheshire, Lanca- 

 shire, Somersetshire, Yorkshire, for fear we should 

 romance like our St.imford neighbour, who gives out 

 that no other country paper extends itself into half 

 the counties that his does.' 



The London papers were largely drawn upon, 

 and trade returns summarized, while a really 

 satisfying horror or sensational murder sometimes 

 received fuller treatment.' 



After this brief allusion to the early history of 

 printing in the county town, it is necessary to 

 mention that Northampton possesses one of the 

 oldest book-binding establishments in England, 

 that of Messrs. Birdsall & Son." There is good 

 reason to believe that the trade was existent in 

 the town early in the eighteenth century, but the 

 proved continuity of the firm dates from 1757, 

 when John Lacy, who had recently acquired the 

 business, carried it on in the Drapery. After a 

 while he took his son into partnership, and they 

 ultimately sold the business in 1792 to William 

 Birdsall, a member of an old Yorkshire family 

 who had settled in Northampton, and who is now 

 represented by Richard Birdsall, the grandson of 

 William Birdsall's nephew. 



In the Middle Ages brewing was a general 

 and necessary industry. Although at the pre- 

 sent time, owing to the introduction of other 

 beverages, the quantity of malt liquor consumed 

 is relatively much less than it was, yet the 

 malting and brewing carried on in the shire is 

 still extensive, and among the oldest firms 

 may be mentioned Messrs. Phipps & Co., of 

 Northampton, formerly of Towcester. Other 

 Northampton firms of repute are the Northampton 



^ Northampton Mercury, z M.iy, 1720. No. i. It 

 may be noted that Dicey of the Northampton Mercury 

 was one of the most successful producers of the 

 Chapbooks which formed such a striking feature of 

 the eighteenth centurj-. Some are advertised in the 

 early numbers of the Mercury. 



'It will he remembered that over 130 years 

 before, the secret Marprelate Press had been for a 

 short time at Fawsley. Plomer, English Printing, 139. 



' Northampton Mercury, i, 171, 499. 



* The British Bookmaker, iv, 5, et seq. (Dec. 1890). 



292 



