Sepia Saturday - Broseley Clay Pipes

Each week, Sepia Saturday, provides an opportunity for genealogy bloggers to share their family history through photographs.

 

I was puzzling over this prompt.  I dismissed the idea of focusing on military caps, as I don't know enough about the different types (and didn't have time to research them).  I also know nothing  about tortoises, though I have a vague memory that we once had one as children, but it quickly disappeared. 

Which left "Pipes" - and inspiration struck!  Why not tell the story of Broseley Clay Pipes?  

Dad as vice captain
of Broseley School Football Team, 1926.
 

My father John Percy Weston) grew up in Broseley, Shropshire, near the famous Ironbridge - the birthplace of England's Industrial Revolution.  By the beginning of the 17th Century, Broseley was a thriving settlement on the banks of the River Severn near the coalfields of Coalbrookdale.   In the 18th and 19th centuries it developed into a major centre for coal mining, iron manufacture, distinctive roof and wall bricks, decorative tiles, earthenware manufacture including clay pipes.   In the early 19th century ironstone replaced coal as the main product of the parish's mines. Many of the developments celebrated by the world heritage sites of the Ironbridge Gorge Museums started in Broseley or were connected to the town. 

 

River Severn flowing between Broseley and Ironbridge
Photograph by my brother Chris Weston

 

 

Broseley's clay tobacco heritage stretched back over 400 years.  The industry prospered  as raw materials - clay and coal for the kilns - were in plentiful supply.  The town became the centre of the British pipe-making industry and achieved a reputation for quality pipes  which came to be acknowledged worldwide. The name Broseley was synonymous with clay tobacco pipes and "Will you take a Broseley" was a phrases much in use. Broseley church warden pipes, 26" to 28" in length were supplied to inns and coffee houses in London. Millions of clay pipes were produced every year, before the industry declined as late as the 1950s.

 

Pigot's Directory of 1828-9 lists nine pipe makers in Broseley,  including Wm Southern & Co. 
 

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=22876

 

This company had been established in 1823 and by 1890 the factory employed 90 people.  It  finally closed its doors in 1957 and its  premises in King Street  are now a pipeworks museum,

 

  

http://www.mikehaywardcollection.com/category/245/broseley.htm

 

 

 

 http://www.mikehaywardcollection.com/category/245/broseley.htm

 

 

 

http://www.mikehaywardcollection.com/category/245/broseley.htm

 

 

 

Sources: 

• http://www.mikehaywardcollection.com/category/245/broseley.htm
• http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=22876
• http://www.infobritain.co.uk/Broseley_Pipe_Works.htm
• http://www.broseleypipes.co.uk/
• http://www.broseley.org.uk/historyofbros.htm#Pipes
• http://www.virtual-shropshire.co.uk/towns/broseley_town.shtml

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Furher Facts About Broseley - courtesy of Broseley Local History Society.
 

·       A  large part of the first Boulton & Watt steam engine was made at  John Wilkinson's iron works at Willey, near Broseley. John Wilkinson described himself as Ironmaster of Broseley.

·       Many of the cannon with which Admiral Nelson worn the Battle of Trafalgar were cast and machined by John's Wilkinson's. 

·       John Wilkinson built the world's first iron boat. On its launch, it surpassed sceptics, by not sinking!

·       John Guest and Peter Onions, great names in the iron industry of South Wales came from Broseley.

·       John Randall (1810-1910), painter of Coalport china and a geolgist was born in Broseley.

 

My father was very proud of his Broseley heritage -

though he never smoked a pipe!

The famous 100 feet span of the Ironbridge, linking Broseley  and Ironbridge, completed in 1779.   My grandfather Albert Ernest Weston had a 35 minute walk (one way), crossing the bridge to Coalbrookdale where he worked in the Power House.  Photograph by my brother Chris Weston.

 

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