A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE 



was much finer than our English wheat-straw, 

 our home manufacture could not successfully com- 

 pete, in quality, with that which was imported 

 from Italy. The English wheat-straws used are 

 those of the Red Lammas and of the Chittim ; 

 and the Italian straw is that of a variety of 

 wheat cultivated on purpose, known among agri- 

 culturists as Triticum vulgare {turgidum), and 

 called by the Italians grano marzuolo or marzolano. 

 This latter is sown very thick in March and 

 pulled before the grain is formed, when the 

 haulm is only eighteen inches high. Early in 

 the nineteenth century, a Greenock firm (Messrs. 

 J. and A. Muir) introduced the grano marzuolo 

 into Britain for the purpose of competing with 

 the Italian straw plait ; but after a number of 

 trials they substituted for the Italian straw the 

 straw of rye, and were thus enabled to carry on 

 an establishment in the Orkneys for the produc- 

 tion of imitation Leghorn hats. 



But in the plait districts of Bedfordshire and 

 adjoining counties a successful competition with 

 the fine plaits of Italy was rendered possible by 

 the invention of a simple machine for splitting 

 straws more expeditiously than it could be done 

 with an ordinary knife. Who invented this 

 simple tool, or ' machine ' as it is called, is a 

 disputed question : we have come upon two 

 equally circumstantial but contradictory accounts. 

 The writer of a carefully compiled article on 

 'Straw-Plait Manufacture' in the Penny Cyclo- 

 paedia (1842), who derives his information from 

 a correspondent at Watford, says : — 



Our informant states that his father, Thomas Sim- 

 mons (now deceased), was residing when a boy, about 

 the year 1785, at Chalfont St. Peter's, Buckingham- 

 shire, and that, when amusing himself one evening by 

 cutting pieces of wood, he made an article upon 

 which he put a straw, and found that it divided it 

 into several pieces. A female who was present asked 

 him to give it to her, observing, that if he could 

 not make money of it she could . . . He was 

 subsequently apprenticed to a blacksmith ; and, on 

 visiting his friends, he found them engaged in 

 splitting straws with a penknife. Perceiving that 

 the operation might be much better performed by an 

 apparatus similar to that which he had made some 

 time before, he then made some machines of iron 

 on the same principle. 



The writer of the article here quoted admits 

 that ' the inconvenience of the process as 

 performed by hand may possibly have led more 

 than one individual to devise similar means for 

 overcoming the difficulty.' 



The other account of the invention we derive 

 from an essay read before the Society of Arts in 

 i860, by the late Mr. Alfred John Tansley, 

 well known in Luton. After stating that the 

 inconvenience of splitting straws with a knife 

 did not lead to the discovery of a more suitable 

 instrument at Dunstable, he says that the inventor 

 of the straw splitters ' cannot be traced.' Mr. 



Tansley does not appear to have seen the article 

 above quoted. He goes on : — 



But it IS generally supposed that the French 

 prisoners at Yaxley Barracks, near Stilton, first made 

 it in bone, between the years 1 803 and 1806. It 

 was about two inches long, brought to a point, 

 behind which a set of cutters was arranged in a circle. 

 The point entered the straw pipe, separating it into 

 so many equal-sized splints. Some were arranged to 

 cut a straw into four parts, others five, and so on up 

 to nine. This instrument was soon imitated, and 

 being of such surprising utility, numbers were speedily 

 made, and fetched as much as from one to two guineas 

 each. A blacksmith at Dunstable, named James, 

 made them in iron and turned the end downwards 

 at right angles with the stem, the cutters being placed 

 immediately above the point. ... A few years 

 afterwards, about 1815, others were made like wheels 

 and inserted in a frame, the points projecting in front 

 of each. By this arrangement four or five splitters 

 could be fixed in one frame. ... To this invention 

 may be attributed the success which, in after times, 

 had attended the manufacture of straw plait in 

 England. 



The part of the straw stem used for plaiting 

 is that between the last knot and the ear. The 

 straws to be utilized are drawn from the sheaves 

 before threshing, and the ears are cut off with a 

 knife. What is known as ' straw-cutting ' is 

 a distinct industry, and there is still a sufficient 

 demand for English plait to employ a number 

 of ' straw-cutters ' in the villages, as for example 

 at Stotfold. Mr. Tansley calculated that i cwt. 

 of agricultural straw would produce an average 

 of 40 lb. of plaiting straws, which could be con- 

 verted, after waste and subtraction of defective 

 straws, into 1 7 lb. or 18 lb, of straw plait. The 

 fixing of the straw-plait industry in South 

 Bedfordshire and the adjoining districts was 

 largely due to the suitableness of the soil for the 

 production of the quality of straw best adapted 

 in colour and texture to the needs of the 

 industry. 



The art of plaiting was taught, until late in 

 the nineteenth century, in what were called 

 ' plaiting schools,' which were generally kept by 

 elderly women who charged a weekly fee of 

 2d. or 3^. for each learner. The children were 

 put to the work very young and were kept at it 

 daily for many hours. When they had been 

 learning a year or two, they might be able to 

 earn from bd. to is. 6d. a week ; and when they 

 were eight or nine years old their earnings were 

 2s. or 31. a week. After leaving school, they 

 could earn, according to their skill, from 4^. to Js. 

 a week. The schools were often insanitary, and 

 little attention was in many places paid to the 

 welfere of the children. Boys as well as girls 

 were taught plaiting. In a village where plaiting 

 is now an extinct art, an old man told us that he 

 had made many a plait in the days when the 

 art was taught by ' some old woman or other,' 

 and when a good plaiter, who, he said, was a 

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