There was plenty of iron and charcoal around in this area which are needed in the development of needles so that would have helped this area develop. There was also a vast demand for needles in this area as there were nearby glove makers, carpet makers, saddle makers, weavers and tapestry makers which all required needle. There were also some button making stores and if you buy a button you also need to buy a needle to attach it. So there was a demand for needles locally which helped to build up the needle industry and there was also a demand for needles worldwide.
The development of the needle industry was aided by the industrial revolution as needles could be produced quicker and to a higher standard. The Needle industry started off as a small domestic business with families skilled in each section of needle making, from scouring to pointing. They would pass it on to next family in order and over time they lived in ordered houses next to each and some businesses had letterboxes between the walls in the houses so the needles could easily be passed on and be made and sold fairly quickly. In 1838 (ref: ‘The growth of factory systems’) Milwards created a needle mill, were everyone worked in the same building, this was about the same time most needle mill were built. Later on big factories were produced and by 1847 almost 50 million needles were being produced each week in Redditch (ref: ‘Forge Mill guide book’).
In 1866 (ref: Forge Mill guide book) the needle industry reached its peak and was producing about 100 million needles a week. This is partly due to the use of machinery in needle making which meant that needles could be produced quicker and to a higher standard. However, some machines were rejected, one of which was the extractor fan which removed the dust from the pointers and making their job less dangerous. It was rejected because pointers got paid so much because their job was so dangerous but the extractor fan reduced the risk so it would also reduce the pointers wages. One piece of equipment which was widely used was the scouring bed which was water or steam powered and saved a lot of time, but it still took over 24 hour’s for needles to be scoured. In the 1900’s the needle industry started to decline in Redditch and in 1990 only about 10 million needles were being produced each week (ref: Forge Mill guide book).
The hand workers were the ones that worked at home doing a certain section of the needle and passing it along to the house next door until they were finished. The picture on the right (ref: chapter 5 from the ‘A history of Redditch’ by J.G.Rollins) has wide windows to let in lots of light this is because pointers needed lots of light so they could see what they were doing and create high quality needles.
However, because the houses were bunched up and quite small this meant that disease could spread quickly, so the pointers working from home often caught diseases and got ill. Another reason why pointers got ill was because of their poor diet. This is because food was very expensive at the time and they didn’t make much money from making the needles by hand because they couldn’t produce needles quickly or create many needles to a high standard. This means that they could only afford rotten or bad food that was not good for them.
The mill working pointers, like the one on the left, (ref: Forge Mill guide book ‘Needle Pointing’) pointed from 50 – 100 flips in his hand against the grindstone. The average pointer could point roughly 10 000 flips per hour, which is quite a lot because it was a skilled job to use a grindstone. Pointers who worked in mills didn’t get as much light as the hand workers. This probably because loads of spark flew off the flips which created quite a lot of light so they didn’t need large windows.
The grindstone moved at a very quick speed even compared to modern day standard. However, this caused a lot of dust to come off the flips which was inhaled by the pointer and caused what was known as pointers rot. Pointers rot meant that most pointers in mills didn’t get to live beyond 30 years old. To prevent pointers rot the extractor fan was invented but this was rejected by many pointers as it would reduce their pay if their jobs were less dangerous. It was rejected until 1845 when the pointer gave in so they could live longer. Another danger to the pointers because the stone moved so quickly is that the grindstone could sometimes explode and kill them, there was no way of predicted when this would happen or preventing it from happening. At the Forge Mill needle museum there is and exploded grindstone with the name ‘Edward Mathews’ engraved on it to remember that he died in August 1816 after a grindstone exploded and killed him.
