A Tale of Two Blacksmiths

The traditional image of a blacksmith is that of a big brawny man, muscles bulging as he makes and fits shoes on a huge and patient cart horse.    Imagine the heat from the fiery furnace,  the smell of burning hoof and the deafening sound of the hammer on metal...

I don't know who created this wonderful image, sorry
I found it on pinterest

Meet the man who was blacksmith to this little village - a tiny man, not much over five foot tall yet he was the village smith for over seventy years, his name was John.     

He especially loved shoeing horses and would regularly make and fit over a hundred shoes a week -  as well as repairing farm machinery, etc.   although he slowed down a little when he reached his mid-sixties.    Not bad for a man who was told that he was not heavy or strong enough to be a blacksmith.

John left school at the age of nine as he could read, write, and do arithmetic by then!    (This would be back in the late nineteenth century.)   Upon leaving school he worked on a farm, with his father.   He loved horses and they responded to him, so one of his jobs was to take the farm horses to the blacksmith to be shod.     That was when he decided that he wanted to become a blacksmith. 

Another image from the internet. 
Sorry, I don't know who to credit.

At the age of fourteen he asked the blacksmith if he would take him on as an apprentice - which is when he got the refusal, based upon his diminutive stature.    He persisted and eventually the blacksmith gave him a trial and took him on for training.      After ten years of learning on the job John left to set up his own business a few miles away, this would have been around 1908.

It was then that he met the woman who was to become his wife, Alice.      They had three children and were married for over fifty years.    Alice was a founder member of the local Women's Institute and did service as president of the branch.     In later life, when he was 84,  he described her as being "80, but still getting about". 

John would tell people that he was interested only in smithying, never took an interest in anything else.    However, he was on the parish council and he was, at one time, a special constable, so he did his bit for the community.      He worked on until well into his 80's.


His son Eric, also became a blacksmith and worked alongside his father.    He continued to work the forge in this village until only a few years ago.      They worked well together, one liked working with horses, the other with machinery, making gates, fences, etc. 

This is one of the old designs he worked from, it was rescued, along with a lot of other papers, from a skip.   Eric and his wife had no family to leave the business to, everything went to a nephew, I believe.  The house was cleared, the smithy goods were auctioned, the house sold.  The end of an era.

As you can see by this photograph, Eric took after his father in stature.