Genealogists'Magazine

JUNE 1990

Some Observations on the Ancestry andConnections of Thomas Hardy Rupert Willoughby

Nelson's Memorial Rings George A. Goulty

Genealogical Research in Canada Althea Douglas

The -Blacksmith's CraftBy RAYMOND J. SKINNER

On a chill winter's day .the blacksmith'sforge, with its roaring fire, would alwayshave been an attractive place in which tostop for a chat and to hear the latest items of

. village news and gossip. The smithy was ameeting place as much frequented as the innor the church and a centre ofcommunication for the local inhabitants.The smith himself was also once lookedupon as the community's adviser, sometimeseven its oracle; and such traditional respectaccorded to the craftsman in iron washeightened by a certain awe of the mightyman who could shape the highly-resistantsubstance of iron into decorative, as well ashighly practical, objects. More than just" afarrier, the blacksmith was, once upon atime, an essential figure in a communitywhich depended on the horse for transportas well as to provide the motive power forfarming.

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Nowadays, however, the smith is perhapsmost significant for his contribution to anexpanding leisure industry: shoeing horsesfor the many local riding schools and for theexpanding world of show-jumping. He is nolonger confined only to a single town orvillage but frequently uses a mobileworkshop to cover a wide area.

During the reign of the first Elizabeth,Thirsk in North Yorkshire was theworkplace of Lancelot Whitelocke, ablacksmith who died just over four hundredyears ago. In the large contiguous parish ofTopcliffe there are several townships such asBaldersby, Rainton, and Skipton-on-Swale,which, in the sixteenth century, each had itsown smith, also surnamed Whitelocke. InT opcliffe village was Richard Whitelocke; atBaldersby, George Whitelocke; at Rainton,Henry Whitelocke; and by the bridge overthe River Swale at Skipton the blacksmithwas a John Whitelocke. The two last named,Henry and John, were each described as'Smith' in the Topcliffe register; in thepreceding cases the occupation is as given inthe respective wills of Georg~ and Richard.Seemingly the family had a monopoly of thetrade in this small area.

That George and Richard were brothers isevidenced by the former's will of 3rd May,1602, in which he asks to be buried 'in thechurchyard at Topcliffe as nere the placewhere my brother Richard [is buried]conveniently may be'. Richard had diedleaving no male children, consequently hiswill of 1595 left his son-in-law, ThomasPorter 'my cognisance or badge and all theright title and term of yeres that I have of myshoppe'. Richard had been mostunfortunate in the fates of his children, alldaughters: Katherine and Ann both died ininfancy and Sibbie was drowned in thenearby Swale in June, 1585. She was not yetten years of age.

It is fascinating to imagine the events thatRichard and his contemporaries may haveseen, or even been a part of, at Topcliffe,during their lifetimes. This now peaceful anduneventful village was once a strategic centreof power and influence associated with the

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great northern family of Percy. SinceWilliam the Conqueror first grantedTopcliffe and other manors to William dePercy after the Conquest the family had heldland and a manor house there. Many werethe pageants and tournaments which took

place nearby and in the meadows by theSwale. On the darker side Henry Percy, the4th Earl of Northumberiand, was murderedhere whilst endeavouring to collect taxes onbehalf of Henry VII in 1489. The onlyremains today of the Percies' castellatedmansion is the mound upon which it stood,now called Maiden's Bower, and stillencompassed by a moat.

Richard Whitelocke, blacksmith, did not,however, live long enough to witness afurther infamous episode in Topcliffe'shistory when, in 1646, Charles I was handedover by the Scots at the Moot Hall in thevillage in return for half the sum of £400,000paid as the price of their treachery.

A mile or so westwards across the fields

from Topcliffe worked Henry, the Raintonblacksmith. He was buried on the 3rdFebruary, 1591, and may also have been abrother of Richard and George. It seemsprobable that the fourth member of thequartet, John, of Skipton-on-Swale was yetanother brother, and that all fourblacksmiths were descendants of an earlier

John of Baldersby who is recorded asholding land there in 1521 during the reignof Henry VIII.

In that year a lease of Fountains Abbeylands was granted by Marmaduke, theabbot, to Thomas Exilby, gent., who lived inthe Manor House at Baldersby. The leasementions 'all his closes and divers lands inBaldersby, in the tenure of John Newsom,John Whitlocke and others, paying yearly£13.8s.8d.' (dated 13 Henry VIII; fo. 69 ofDods MSS. vol. 129, p.44). The Exilbyfamily had apparently lived at the Manorfrom as early as 1455.

It seems reasonable to suppose that therewas some family relationship between thesefour blacksmiths and the LancelotWhitelocke of Thirsk mentioned earlier.Lancelot's will of 1st April, 1589 was

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witnessed by a Richard White lockepossibly the smith of Topcliffe. Lancelot wasburied within the week following his will andleft three sons, Christopher, Francis andLancelot. His first bequest to his wife,Jennet (nee Jeffreyson), left 'my house whichI now dwell in and two acres of land duringher natura II life'. To his second son, Francis,recently married, he bequeathed 'the lease ofmy shoppe with all my interest therin to himand his assigns'. To his eldest, butunmarried, son Christopher, he left thehouse 'after the death of his mother to enterto the same'. To Francis he also left the leaseof Clark Close at Bagby, and 'thre acres ofland in the west fields of Thirsk'. Youngestson, Lancelot, also received a small parcel ofland at Bagby. Three daughters were alsomentioned in the will: Dorothy, Catherineand Anne; the last-named received 'two kineover and besides her childes portion'. Theexecutors of Lancelot's will were Richard

Wrighte and Rafe Husthwait, both of theneighbouring village of Sowerby; and eachreceived 3sAd. 'for their paines'.

Some three centuries later - a brief

period in the long history of the blacksmith'sart - Flora Thompson in her trilogy ofbooks on country life, Lark Rise toCandleford. describes the blacksmiths whoworked in the forge owned and supervisedby her employer, Miss Dorcas Lane, atCandleford Green, as follows:'Most of the horses were very patient; but a fewwould plunge and kick and rear whenapproached. These Mathew himself shod, andunder his skilful handling, they would quiet downimmediately. He had only to put his hands on themane and whisper a few words in the ear. It wasprobably the hand and voice which soothed them;but it was generally believed that he whisperedsome charm which had power over them, and herather encouraged this idea by saying whenquestioned: 'I only speaks to 'em in their ownlanguage' ....

'Secure in the knowledge of their own

importance in the existing scheme of things, theblacksmiths boasted: "Come what may, a goodsmith' II never want for a job, for whatever maycome of this new cast-iron muck in other ways, thehorses'll always have to be shod, and they can't dothat in a foundry!" ,

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Only a generation after Flora Thompsonwrote this description, many smiths weretentatively becoming the first motormechanics, learning by trial and error howto repair the new-fangled horselesscarriages, and proving that they themselvesWere no less cap,able of being shaped bycicumstances as the very material in whichthey worked.

The blacksmith's art and his artefacts

have a long history, stretching backcenturies before even the Elizabethantradesmen of Thirsk and Topcliffe, backeven into the dark days of pre-Christianhistory. Their continuing tradition of magicand power was associated with the mostpotent of charms - fire, iron andhorseshoes, and was also the servant of thesacred and powerful horse. The many whitehorses so conspicuously carved on our highhills, and particularly the Uffington WhiteHorse in Berkshire, inspired ThomasTaylor, a schoolmaster of Kilburn, nearThirsk, to carve his nineteenth centuryexample on Roulston Scar above the village.

The megalithic long barrow, known asWayland's Smithy, on the Ridgeway path,also exemplifies this tradition of magic;here, so the legend tells, if a passing riderplaced sixpence on the stone lintel of thetomb and waited he could have his horse

magically shod by Wayland, a Scandinaviangod. The sacred significance of the smithyand its principal symbol, the anvil, is alsomanifest in the celebration of runawaymarriages which took place in forges such asGretna Green in past years.

Such a continuing and widespread beliefin the associations of magic and pOWer withthe blacksmith's art can perhaps best besummed up in the tradition that smiths oncerefused to work on Good Fridays. Thecommon reason given was that nails mustnot be handled on the anniversary of theiruse for the awful purpose of the Crucifixion.[Raymond J. Skinner lives at 'Whitnal', PostOffice Lane, Broad Hinton, Swindon, Wilts SN4

9PB].

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