DORSET-L Archives

From: Brian Tompkins <>
Subject: The Dorset Button Industry
Date: Sat, 06 Sep 1997 10:49:05 -0400

Although I subscribed to the Dorset mailing list several weeks ago I have
yet to see any activity. So on the basis that someone has to be first,
here goes. As someone who was born and raised in West Dorset. I now run a
Web Site about Dorset, (address can be found below), and thought that
readers of this list might be interested in one of the causes of emigration
from Dorset in the 1850's. So as a starter here is a short article on the
Button making industry in Dorset taken from a series of articles on the Web
Site about Moments in Dorsets History.

Regards
Brian Tompkins
--------------

Button making in Dorset had been going on in a small way here and there for
centuries but really turned into an industry and reached its peak during
the 18th and 19th centuries when during the reign of Queen Anne, Abraham
Case of Shaftesbury placed it on a more business like footing.

Initially the buttons were made from a disc of the horn of Dorset Sheep,
which as you can see from the picture of the Portland sheep provided a
plentiful source of raw materials. The disk was covered with a piece of
cloth and then overworked with a fine tracery of linen thread. The diameter
of the buttons ranging from half an inch down to an unbelievable eighth of
an inch.

Twenty years later there was a revolution in the button making industry
when Abraham Cases grandson started importing metal rings from Birmingham
to use as the base for the buttons instead of horn. They were far easier
to work with - and cheaper. Combined with the ready supply of labour the
industry now spread out in all directions, reaching as far south as Bere
Regis.

The centre of the button making industry was to move from Shaftesbury to
Blandford Forum, when, after the fire of 1731, a Mr. Robert Fisher opened a
Button Depot at his drapers shop in Market Place, Blandford. The
out-workers could bring or send their completed buttons at any time; and
the depot was regularly visited by travelers who bought them in bulk.

Cloth covered buttons were sold at between eight-pence and three shillings
a dozen, while the women workers averaged about two shillings a day for
making approximately six or seven dozen buttons, compared with the
nine-pence a day they might expect from farm-work, the only real
alternative for these women.

Although it was a major factor, it wasnt just the money that attracted so
many women to this cottage based industry. There were many other
advantages. Working indoors was always preferable to being out in the
fields in all weathers. It enabled women to be at home to look after the
family whilst still retaining an income. Apart from the direct benefits,
there was at least one indirect benefit that was very important when money
was tight. Their clothes and particularly their shoes, didnt wear out at
anything like the rate they did when worn in the fields in all weathers. It
was therefore no surprise that poorer women flocked to join in this new
cottage industry.

The industry thrived throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, still run
primarily by the Fisher family of Blandford. Many families lived in
relative comfort, and were able to survive the loss of the male
breadwinner, something that had been very difficult in previous times.

Nothing could last forever, and at the Great Exhibition of 1851, a Mr John
Ashton demonstrated a button making machine. It was a disaster for the
cottage industry of Dorset, buttons could now be made at a fraction of the
cost and at a far more rapid and reliable rate, all identical.

Near starvation hit most families, especially those with widowed
breadwinners who had depended totally on their earnings from button making.
Combined with the introduction of more mechanization on farms, which was
happening at the same time meant that there was little requirement for
unskilled labour.

Many hundreds of families were forced to emigrate to America or Australia,
whilst for others, especially the elderly, it was the workhouse, a sad end
to the lives these women who had known better days with the button-making
industry.

+-------------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Brian Tompkins | THE DORSET PAGE |
| Mahwah NJ, USA | http://home.sprynet.com/sprynet/btomp/ |
| | http://www.shogun.demon.co.uk/dorset/ |
| | http://www.cybercity.hko.net/london/btomp/ |
+-------------------+--------------------------------------------------+

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• The Dorset Button Industry by Brian Tompkins <>