INDUSTRIES 



wire, and in all probability they were made 

 within the county at one of the pin factories 

 which were established here. We are indebted 

 to Mr. J. H. Fletcher, Northampton, for the 

 following information on the subject. He 

 says — 



About half a century ago, I remember a family of 

 the name of Lever, living at Milton, next door to the 

 chapel. My father, who was living in 1904, recol- 

 lected well the Levers carrying on the manufacture 

 of brass pins at Hardingstone, Milton, and Stony 

 Stratford. At Hardingstone the manufacturers were 

 Edward Lever and his nephew William. The factory 

 was a part of the house and outbuildings still standing 

 in the main street next to the churchyard towards the 

 west. From my father's recollection the manufacture 

 was carried on in the regular and orthodox manner. 

 The brass for the pins arrived at Hardingstone m two 

 forms. The bulk of the brass wire was purchased in 

 coils, fifteen or eighteen inches in diameter, while the 

 brass for the heads was obtained in lengths of spiral 

 wire, the spiral just the diameter of the pin's head. 

 The coil of wire was dealt with first by a strong, 

 muscular workman, who, seizing it in two hands, 

 banged it several times in succession on a kind of 

 anvil, either a block of hard wood or stone. After 

 several bangs the workman dipped the coil in a kind 

 of liquid, possibly simply to cool it, then banged it 

 again on the anvil ; another dipping followed, and so 

 on. It is evident that this process was for the pur- 

 pose of softening the wire to render it more ductile, 

 and thus more suitable for the next process. This 

 was 'drawing' the wire to the requisite gauge. A 

 steel plate with a hole of the requisite size was fixed 

 in a vice. The end of the wire was filed down to 

 permit its insertion. It was then drawn through with 

 pliers and fixed on a reel, which, on being turned, 

 ' drew ' the wire of uniform size. This wire was then 

 cut in lengths of about thirty inches each. A work- 

 man sharpened each end on a small grindstone, and 

 immediately cut each end off to the exact length of 

 the pin. The ends of the length of wire were again 

 sharpened, again cut, and so on until it was reduced 

 to the length of two pins. 



The ends being sharpened, it was then cut in two. 

 These pieces of wire, sharpened at one end, were then 

 ready for the head. The heads were made by cutting 

 the spiral wire with scissors, two turns of the wire for 



each head. This cutting was done usually by a man, 

 and with remarkable rapidity. The fixing of the 

 heads was done by boys. The boy sat at a kind of 

 bench to which was fixed a mechanical hammer, a 

 leaden weight covered with tin. This suspended 

 weight was moved by a pulley worked by the foot. 



Under the weight was a little metal anvil or 

 mould, running through which was a hole large 

 enough for the shank or stem of the pin to fall 

 through, but not the head. The boy had before him 

 a box of stems and heads. Deftly inserting a stem 

 through one of the heads, he placed the pin in the 

 anvil ; by means of his foot rapped the head three 

 quick, sharp blows with the hammer, and the head 

 was fixed. Three blows was the regulation number, 

 given as quickly as one counts. They hammered out 

 the head and fastened it to the shank. The boy had 

 a leathern ' cot ' on his forefinger by which he raised 

 the pin through the anvil, and immediately placed a 

 new stem and head in its place. It is believed the 

 whole operation of heading a pin took very little over 



a second After this operation the pins were 



boiled in some acid solution to clean them and make 

 them lustrous. All that remained after they had dried 

 was to affix the pins to the strips of paper, the form 

 of which we all know so well. The ' papering ' was 

 usually done by Mr. Lever himself. The paper, 

 folded with two ridges, was fixed in a vice, the top of 

 the ridges just appearing above the top of the vice. 

 In the vice were twenty little notches : a pin was 

 placed in each notch, and then, with leather-covered 

 thumbs, the operator pressed home the whole twenty 

 pins with one movement — ten with one thumb and 

 ten with the other ; another and another row were 

 thus affixed, and then the paper was pulled out to its 

 full length with its 120 or 200 pins, all bright and 

 shining, 'papered' with mathematical accuracy. 



William Lever continued the manufacture of pins 

 at Hardingstone after his uncle Edward's death. 

 Another uncle, John Lever, manufactured pins at 

 Milton, and other members of the family at Stony 

 Stratford. First the Stony Stratford factory was given 

 up, then the Milton factory, and finally the works at 

 Hardingstone. William Lever, the last sun-ivor, left 

 Hardingstone to reside at Milton in the same house 

 in which his uncle had lived. He has been dead a 

 considerable number of years, and it is doubtful 

 whether there are any members of the family still 

 living. 



PAPER 



As early as the first quarter of the eighteenth 

 century, if not before, paper was manufactured 

 in Northamptonshire, for a paper mill at Perio 

 was burnt down,^ 23 September, 1721. During 

 the nineteeth century there were three paper 

 mills in the county. 



The most importantof these was at Rush Mills, 

 situated one mile from Northampton on the River 

 Nene in the parish of Hardingstone. Paper- 

 making was commenced here in 1833 by 

 Mr. Stacey Wise, who came from Maidstone, and 



' Bridges, Northants, ii, 474. 



who obtained a lease of the mills with option of 

 purchase, which he exercised in the following 

 year. Both water and steam were used for 

 driving the machinery. Mr. Wise produced an 

 excellent paper of high quality, and in the year 

 1840 obtained the government contract for 

 banknote paper and government stamp paper ; 

 while at a later date the paper for postage stamps 

 was also made at these mills. Mr. Stacey Wise 

 died in 1842 and the business was continued by 

 his widow. In 1847 ^ disastrous fire burnt the 

 greater part of the mills to the ground, but the 

 adjoining warehouse in which a large stock of 



339 



