Whitesmith

Whitesmith

In 1800s England, a whitesmith was a metalworker who specialised in finishing and working light iron, tin or steel, rather than forging heavy items. Unlike a blacksmith, who shaped hot iron at the forge, a whitesmith usually worked with cold or lightly heated metal, producing items that required precision and a smooth finish.

Read on to learn more about the whitesmith and the lives of three St Ives whitesmiths.

Whitesmith or blacksmith?

The difference lay in how the metal was worked. A blacksmith shaped heavy iron by heating it until red hot and hammering it on an anvil. This process left a dark scale on the surface, giving rise to the name.

A whitesmith, by contrast, worked mainly with cold or lightly heated iron and steel. Their focus was not on shaping large pieces but on finishing, refining and assembling metal components. The finished metal emerged bright and smooth, without the blackened surface associated with heavy forging.

In many workshops, the blacksmith and whitesmith worked side by side, with the blacksmith producing the rough form and the whitesmith completing the final work.

Typical work of a whitesmith

A whitesmith focused on precision and attention to detail. Much of it demanded skill rather than brute force. Common tasks included filing, grinding and polishing metal surfaces.

Whitesmiths made smaller domestic goods such as lanterns, kettles and pans. They also made and repaired locks, keys and hinges; produced bolts, screws, springs and latches; manufactured tools and fittings for agriculture and industry; assembled metal components made by other craftsmen. Because their work required accuracy, they were often called upon to repair items needing careful adjustment rather than heavy reshaping.

The trade sometimes overlapped with other skilled crafts. A whitesmith might also act as a gunsmith, working on firing mechanisms rather than barrels, or a clock or watch repairer.

Training and skill 

Training was through a formal apprenticeship, typically lasting seven years. The work demanded a steady hand, patience and precision, along with an understanding of mechanics and the ability to work to fine tolerances.

Decline of the trade 

By the mid to late 1800s, industrialisation began to erode the whitesmith’s role. Factory-made components, standardised screws and mass-produced locks reduced the demand for individual craftsmanship. As a result, the clear distinction between blacksmith and whitesmith gradually faded.

St Ives whitesmiths
Edward Harvey was born in St Ives in 1803 and apprenticed to his father as a whitesmith. When his father died in 1838, Edward took over the business.

By 1841 Edward was living in Croft’s Yard with his wife Elizabeth and their four children, aged between ten and two. Also living with the family was Henry Hammond, an apprentice whitesmith.

During the forty years to 1841, the population of St Ives increased by 67 per cent, from 2,099 to 3,514. Croft’s Yard was one of 49 yards  into which much of the town’s poorer population was crowded. John Skeeles wrote of the yards as follows.

Scores of houses faced only little narrow yards, frequently with no ventilation at the back or at most a small sash with one or two small squares. Two bed rooms were rare, frequently only one and an open landing. One pump and one convenience for a whole row of cottages. There was no water supply otherwise than the river or surface wells, themselves polluted by leakage from brick or common clay pipe drains and cesspools. In each yard was a convenience with its cesspool under and in some cases a pig sty too. His majesty “Pig” walked through the house to live or die and the contents of cesspool and dung pit alike were also carried through. The heat of a July or August day rendered the atmosphere unbearable (almost).

Peter Croft had his printer’s shop on Crown Street. In the small yard behind, he built four ‘cottages’ housing twenty-two people, seven of whom were Edward Harvey’s family and apprentice.

The apprentice, Henry Hammond, was thirteen years old. Indentured for seven years, he was bound to his master whitesmith. Any attempt to escape could result in an appearance before the local court and possible imprisonment with hard labour. Apprentices received bed and board but no wages. Poor families often sold their children into effective slavery. Workhouse orphans were particularly vulnerable.

Croft died in 1848 and the residents of Croft’s Yard were forced to move out. Henry Allden, a bricklayer, crowded seventeen cottages and seventy-seven people into the yard behind his premises on the Waits. Edward moved to Allden’s Yard without his wife, who had died. Living there with his son and daughter, Edward had more space than most. The ‘cosiest’ cottage was that of John Dean, a cordwainer, with his wife and eight children aged between sixteen and two.

By 1861 Edward was living with his son of the same name and daughter-in-law in Gaunt’s Passage, a narrow lane running south of Market Hill. Both men were described as blacksmiths. A further move followed by 1871, to Bell Yard just off Back Street (now East Street), where Edward lived with his son and grandson. Aged sixty-nine, Edward was again recorded as a whitesmith, but unemployed. His son remained a blacksmith. Edward Harvey died in 1875, aged seventy-two.

James Stubbing was born in 1824 and, like Edward Harvey, was apprenticed to his father. The family lived in Great Wilbraham, Cambridgeshire. In 1851 his father was farming twelve acres, employing no labourers, and running a general shop. By that time James, aged twenty-seven, had moved to St Ives. He lodged with Elizabeth Howard and her daughter in Allden’s Yard, having completed his apprenticeship and now working as a whitesmith.

In 1861 James was living in Merryland with his wife Elizabeth, who was twelve years his senior. He continued to work as a whitesmith. Elizabeth died in 1871.

By 1881 James’s father, now eighty-three and widowed, was still farming the same small acreage, but his grocery business had prospered. James returned to Great Wilbraham to live above the shop with his father and younger sister. He described his occupation as whitesmith and bell hanger.

When James' father died in 1885, he appointed another grocer and James’ sister as executors. His sister was a spinster and her father sought to ensure her future. She took over the shop. James returned to St Ives. In 1891, aged sixty-seven, he was boarding at the Chequers Inn on Ramsey Road, still working as a whitesmith.

By 1901 James was in St Ives Union Workhouse, described as formerly a whitesmith, working on own account. He died in 1903.

Shadrach Adams was born in 1825 in Trumpington, near Cambridge. His father had a biblical turn of phrase when naming his sons. Shadrach’s brothers were called Elijah and Meshack. 

By 1851 Shadrach lodged at the Queen Victoria in the Bullock Market, now the Broadway, working as a whitesmith. In 1853 he married Ann Green at Ely. Both Shadrach and Ann were able to sign their own names. Of the eight signatures of grooms, brides and witnesses on the register page, only one other person could sign. The remaining five marked with a cross.

The family’s whereabouts in 1861 remain a mystery. By 1871 they were living in Newnham, Ely, with seven of their children still at home, aged between sixteen and one. In total they had ten children. Two died in infancy and, as was sometimes the custom, later children were given the same names. When Charles died in 1863 aged one, a baby boy born later that year was also named Charles. The same occurred with Shadrach, named after his father. He died in infancy in 1865, and the last son born to the family was also called Shadrach.

Shadrach Adams, whitesmith, died in 1874 aged fifty and is buried at Ely.