A Contribution to the Metallurgy of 18th- and 19th-Century Brass Pins

Abstract

The production of brass wire for wool cards I was a problem for the British economy throughout medieval times. Before the middle of the 16th century the copper industry of Britain was not in a very healthy state but by Elizabethan times, through the efforts of the Society of Mines Royal, the Mineral and Battery Co. and German specialists, this was to some extent remedied. But there seems to have been something wrong with the brass wire industry in the 17th century; either the quality was bad or the quantity insufficient and a considerable amount of wire and even made-up wool-cards were imported. In 1662 an act was passed prohibiting the import of wire (probably both brass and iron) and wool-cards. By 1665, a considerable export trade in brass pins had developed although there were difficulties with other brass and copper products. For the rest of the century there were many ups and downs, and it was not until about 1712 that one can say that the brass industry was in a healthy condition; by this time the centre of the British pin industry was in the Bristol-Gloucester region. It was one of the earliest mass production industries and even before 1700 a single specialized worker could deal with as many as 24,000 pins a day.2 According to Phillips3 the brass pin was not introduced to England until 1543; before this, bone, boxwood and ivory were used. But iron (or steel) pins were in use between 1404 and 1455, and they occasionally turn up after the introduction of brass pins, e.g. in 1691-2. If the introduction of brass pins is to be dated from 1543, then it would seem that the idea of the spiral-wound globular head was introduced about this time from elsewhere-probably from the continent, for all the brass pins dating from 1548 to the mid-eighteenth century in the Gloucester museum collection are of this type.