Page 11 - The Long Crendon Connection

The Long Crendon Connection Redditch Heritage

Needle Making

Needles are not known to have been introduced into England until the time of Queen Elizabeth
in 1560. A quotation tells us that " in the reign of Mary I of England steel wire needles were first
made, and then by a Spanish negro, who kept his secret during his lifetime; they were afterwards
made in the reign of Elizabeth by one Elias Krause, a German. The great secret was lost after his
death, and recovered again about a hundred years later. In the year 1656 Cromwell incorporated
the Company of Needlemakers." Long Crendon in Buckinghamshire is the town where Christopher
Greening originally started the English manufacture of needles in 1650. The trade, however,
migrated to Redditch in Worcestershire, where some twenty thousand families are now supported
by this work, to which they are very steady, faithful adherents. The women, though, prove better
adapted not only to the handling of the finished needle but also to its production. The first
eye-drilling machine was invented in 1826. The wiredrawing is done in Sheffield. Among Redditch
needles should be mentioned the former sable (grain of sand) bead needles, Nos. 14 and 16, a
scant inch long, silver-eyed and of cast steel, for mounting those finest of old beads that may
never be reproduced, since the Germans in the World War destroyed the manufacturing machinery
near Venice. The needles were made by R. Hemming and Sons and are marked " Royal Improved,
Warranted not to cut in the Eye, Forge Needle Mills." These needles are of particular interest
because the passing of any instrument through the minute sable bead holes has been a moot
point. Some packages of the small Redditch needles bear a tiny picture of Queen Victoria's head
in her girlhood. A quaint, paper-lace bedecked box full of these needle papers, together with the
beads, has recently fallen into my hands. The outside box contains several lesser glass-topped
ones the glass secured by paper-lace bindings holding the lids in place. And all of the little
compartments are planned just to fit the whole.
England in modern times has been manufacturing most of the hand-sewing needles used by the
world, though the United States of America is said to have been producing most of the
sewing-machine needles — in 1900 making 1,120,532 gross, valued at $1,027,949, not including
crochet, knitting, darning, tapestry, chenille, rug, Whitechapel, hand-sewing or special trade
needles. At one time Aix-la- Chapelle weekly turned out 50,000,000 needles. Needles are generally
sold in papers of twenty-five, fifty or one hundred.
In the making of needles, wire is selected, measured, evenly coiled, cut into eight-foot lengths
by dividing the coil — each half of which makes one hundred little pieces — and cut into double
needle lengths. These are, of course, slightly curved from the preceding coiling, so they are
softened by tiring and pressed out straight. A century and a half ago the needle wire was made
more tractable by greasing it with " hog's lard," and the needles were rendered less brittle by
baking and roasting them. Thousands were laid in heaps on buckram with powder of emery and
oil, to be polished. Long rolls, squeezed tight at the ends and fastened, sausage-like, with cord,
were made of the buckram. Labourers then pushed several rows to and fro on a board for a day
and a half or two days. The needles were cleansed in warm soapy water and dried in parcels of
bran.
Both ends of the double lengths are pointed, and formerly a good workman pointed some one
hundred thousand needles a day by simultaneously rubbing them by hand over a grindstone;
but in spite of his wearing a muffler, he was bound to inhale many fine particles of stone and
steel. The modern factory is equipped with a tube into which the injurious dust is steadily sucked
away to safety. And a rubber wheel fitted into a fixed hollow stone pushes the needles in quantity
over the grinding surface, emitting brilliant showers of sparks.
At first the mechanics had to flatten the surface of the wire where the eye was to be drilled, as
the tiny thing was otherwise prone to Needle Making.
Needle-making was an important industry within the village from the early 17th century to the
mid-19th. The first documentary reference to needle making in the village dates from 1618.
There is no mention of the industry during the Civil War - transportation to market was probably

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