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A VISIT TO THE BRITISH NEEDLE MILLS, RED DITCH. 
Why are needles made at Redditch 1 Why should a beautiful and 
secluded part of the county of Worcester, many miles distant from what 
are termed the " manufacturing districts," contain a village, whose in- 
habitants, one and all, live directly or indirectly by making these little 
steel implements ? The fact is demonstrable, but the reason is not. 
The good housewife who mends her child's pinafore, the milliner who 
decks out a lady in her delicate attire, the hard-working sempstress who 
supplies " make up goods " to the shops, the school girl who works her 
sampler — all, however little they may be aware of the fact, are depend- 
ent principally on a Worcestershire village for the supply of their needles. 
Their " Whitechapel needles" are no longer made at Whitechapel, even 
if they ever were ; and though they may in some cases seem to emanate 
from London manufacturers, the chances are that they were made at 
Redditch. Not that other towns are without indications of this branch 
of manufacture ; but in them it is merely an isolated feature, while at 
Redditch, as we shall presently see, needle-making is the staple, the 
all-in-all, without which, almost every house in the place would probably 
be shut up ; for although there is a fair sprinkling of the usual kind of 
workmen, shopkeepers, dealers, &c, these are only such as are necessary 
for supplying the wants of the needle-making population. It is a strange 
thing that the Redditch njanufacturers themselves seem scarcely able to 
assign a reason why this branch of industry has centred there, or to 
name the period of its commencement. Indeed, the early history of the 
needle- trade is very indistinctly recorded. Stow tells us while speaking 
of the kind of shops found in Cheapside and other busy streets of 
London, that needles were not sold in Cheapside until the reign of 
Queen Mary, and that they were at that time made by a Spanish negro, 
who refused to discover the secret of his art. Another authority states 
that " needles were first made in England by a native of India, in 1545, 
but the art was lost at his death ; it was, however, recovered in 1650, 
by Christopher Greening, who settled with his three children at Long 
Crenden, in Buckinghamshire." Whether the negro in one of these 
accounts is the same individual as the native of India mentioned in the 
other, cannot now be determined, nor is it more clear at what period 
Redditch became the centre of the manufacture. There are slight in- 
dications of Redditch needle-making for a period of two centuries, but 
beyond that all is blank. 
A reader, who associates the potteries with the clay districts of North 
Staffordshire, and the smelting works with the coal and iron districts of 
South Staffordshire, will naturally seek to know whether any features 
distinguish Redditch which will enable us to assign a probable origin 
for the needle manufacture there. A visitor, in any degree accustomed 
to watch the progress of manufactures, looks around him to seek for any 
