The Cooper and His Trade

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01397Kenneth Kilby,

The Cooper and His Trade

(London: John Baker Publishers, 1971).

[page 134]

The Stuart Period

Following in the wake of discoveries, world trade expanded rapidly in the Stuart period, and consequentlythis period saw a very noticeable growth in the realm of coopering. Wine was being imported in considerablequantities, and in fact, prior to 1626, the tonnage of a ship was based on the carrying capacity of ships engaged inthe Bordeaux Wine Trade. The unit was a tun of wine in two butts, equalling 252 gallons, and occupying 60 cu. ft.After 1626 it was estimated empirically as 207 old,. equalling 176 new, and only in modern times has it become possible to calculate exact tonnage.Some coopers did a certain amount of business importing wines, to which the Vintners Company objected.In the legal feud which followed the coopers met with success in 1641 and again in 1667 (no doubt helpedconsiderably by the bribed Mayor, BOLTON), and in 1698 and 1697 they petitioned the government against raisingthe import duties on wines from Spain and Portugal, duties which had already reduced the sale of their wines byhalf. The coopers would appear to have had a double interest here, for wine casks were at this time being made inthis country with Memel oak from the Baltic, and shipped to Spain and Portugal, but at the turn of the century, presumably to exploit the cheaper Portuguese labour and to rationalize the trading, English coopers went toPortugal and taught the Portuguese how to make casks. In a letter of 1704, Thomas WOODMAN, a wine-importer, wrote from Portugal, 'Ye English cupers are a drunken lot, but ye natives now know how to make casks... ye heat is so great that breathing is difficult . . . the cupers are here and at work.' Some 200 years later aPortuguese cooperage was turning out 25,000 casks a year by machinery. The Methuen Treaty of 1708 reduced theduty on port wine so that it became a very popular drink. It was said that the English vessels would 'barter anigger for a pipe'.The New England settlers soon found that they could add to their incomes appreciably by felling theAmerican White Oaks and converting them into barrel staves in the forests surrounding their coastal[page 135]settlements. Many learnt from the coopers who had emigrated how to make casks, and during the long winter evenings, pipes, barrels, tubs, pails and churns were produced in large numbers. They supplied the casks for WestIndian rum, being shipped to Bristol in the notorious 'Triangular trade', although thousands of cask staves weremade in Bristol and sent across the Atlantic. From Virginia and the more Southern states planters were constantlywriting to their agents in England asking them to procure skilled coopers, and many went as indentured servants, being free to work at their trade after a few years of bound coopering for a planter. However, white craftsmen inthe South soon found themselves working in competition with slaves, and most who could save a small amount of capital became landowners and planters themselves.A tremendous variety of commodities was now being shipped by cask: water, beer and ale, wines, rum andother spirits, oils, fish of all kinds, sugar, syrup, apples, cider, tobacco, green ginger, shoes, crockery, nails, cork,gunpowder, lead, paint, grease, seeds, pearl-barley, meats, butter, vinegar, putty, money and a thousand other typesof goods, and as the amount of trade increased so coopers were able to specialize more and more, and the branchesof the trade, as outlined in Chapter 2, became more clearly defined.Today packages are made to contain specific quantities or weights by mathematical calculation. Therather quaint sizes of casks owe their origins to far more diverse and interacting intentions. The availability of timber, coopering ability, tradition, local pride, petty arbitrary decisions and downright cussedness all played their part in determining cask sizes, but despite this they came to be accepted as official units of measurement. Kingsand governments tried to standardize units. In 1428 we had the 'hogges hede' fixed at 68 old wine gallons, that is52

gallons. Richard III fixed wine barrels at 81

gallons. Henry VI stipulated 80-gallon barrels for eels, whichEdward IV changed to 42 gallons to include salmon and spruce. George III made it 88 wine gallons. Henry VIIIfixed ale barrels at 32 gallons, country ale at 84, and beer at 86; vinegar was to be in 84-gallon barrels. Oil, spirits,tar and pork were fixed at 136 gallons. Charles II decreed that barrels of plates, crockery, must hold 300 pounds.George III fixed apple barrels at 24 gallons, and gunpowder casks at 100 pounds. Casks and coopers were lawsunto themselves, and irrespective of how irrational these sizes became during the course of time, they remained aninviolable 'mistery' to confuse the layman.

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[page 136]A common sight in London during the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was the water-carrier, and even in the eighteenth century Londoners bought pailfuls of water at their doors for a penny, fromwatermen carrying churns and calling, 'Fresh and fair, New River water!' (fig. 71).Early Tudor and Stuart fire-fighting equipment consisted of a cask fitted on a cart and drawn by a horse or by men (fig. 72).John Amos COMENIUS, a Czechoslovakian, writing in 1659 a

Nomenclature of the Chief Things, andMan

s Employment in the World

Orbis Sensualium Pictus

, said of the cooper (fig. 78),The Cooper (1) having an apron (2) tied about him, maketh hoops (8) of hazel rods upon a cutting block (4) with a spokeshave (5) and lags (6) of timber. Of lags he maketh hogsheads (7) and pipes (8) with twoheads, and tubs (9) soes (10) flaskets (11) buckets (12) with one bottom, then he bindeth them with hoops(18) which he tyeth fast with small twigs (14) by means of a cramp-iron (15) and he fitteth them on with amallet (16) and a driver (17).It was evidently the hoops which caught his interest.In some parts of the country, notably Bristol, the trade of coopering was shared by two tradesmen, thecooper and the hooper. The cooper made the cask and heads while the hooper made the hoops, fitted the headsinto position and drove the hoops home. Piecework wages were shared equally. The Hoopers Company of Bristoldates from 1504, and among their forty-five rules was one which stated that every hoop brought into Bristol had to be examined to ensure that it was sound, and was then stamped C.B., Civitus Bristoliensis.The cutting of hazel branches and the making of fences, baskets, fish-traps and hoops have been specialistwoodland trades, preceding that of the cooper. Hoop-making in Sussex, the Midlands and Furness grew with thegrowth of coopering, and an export trade with Jamaica developed about this time in sugar-barrel hoops, endingearly this century. Hazel branches were cut and split with an adze, trimmed with a draw knife, as in theillustration, where it is called a spoke-shave, and coiled on a

horse

or a frame of upright pegs, after having been soaked to make them pliable. Coopers would make them to size by notching the overlapping ends and binding or nailing them. Hoop-makers also made standard-size hoops for dry work, in huge quantities, nailingthem together within an ash measuring hoop, similar to the truss hoop used for bending staves (see Part 1, Chapter 5). One man would make between 400 and 500 hoops a day. Trade diminished with the decline[page 137 - picture][page 138]in coopering in the nineteenth century, and with cheap rolled steel hoops coming on to the market, so that althoughin 1949 it was still being carried on, today it is practically extinct.Describing coopering in another way, Christof WAZEL of Regensburg, Germany, wrote in 1698, 'Thecross preserves that which would otherwise fall to pieces. The band (hoop), the precious word by God imparted for the quiet life of devotion, is that which must enclose the noble fluid of the soul securely in the heart. If it lacks, the power will flow away and man remain an empty cask.' Large casks would often have[page 139]a cross-piece of wood fitted on to the head after the cask had been tightened, to give additional support. InLUIKEN

s engraving of the cooper (fig. 74) he is using an iron driver and hitting it with a mallet, in order totighten the hoop on the cask. An iron driver of that type is at

pl. 79,

And a hoop driver, used mostly for dry work until the nineteenth century, is at fig. 75. The wooden stock driver (see Chapter 5) was already in use at this time.In the eighteenth-century illustrations of coopering by FORGEROUX, a French wine cooper is pictured using amallet on a tapered block of wood, while in thirteenth-century Italy two mallets were used, one being held on to thehoop and being struck by the other.During the seventeenth century the companies of London suffered considerable interference in their affairs by the Stuart Kings, who saw in the companies an easy means of extorting money. The Stuart Kings nominated

22003696.doc Page 2 printed 12 September 2009

their own candidates for all key posts. One can imagine the quandary of the coopers, when in 1678 both the Kingand the Lord Mayor wrote letters supporting different candidates applying for the post of clerk. Sackings andresignations were frequent, and the feud came to a head when James II suspended the charters of the companies in1685. William and Mary, upon their accession, restored the City of London to its ancient rights and privileges, but by then the medieval system of trading was beginning to give way to ideas of

laissez-faire,

and the technical natureof the companies with regard to their trades began to take secondary importance to the social and charitable side,and in line with the ethics of the day membership, involving freedom of the City, became more and more the prerogative of the wealthy.The Coopers Company raised

350 in 1643 towards

50,000 raised by the companies for theParliamentarians, and in 1664 raised

600 towards a loan to the King; they also subscribed, rather reluctantly,[page 140]towards building a frigate. The Company had contributed

140 towards a plantation in Ireland, later called theIrish Society, and established in order to colonize the country. This was in 1609, but by 1612 they asked leave todiscontinue payments, and forfeited all rights. To make these huge payments the Company sold its plate andspoons.In 1632 the Company was assessed at

7 towards the City's fine of

1,000 for the murder of Dr LAMBE.The younger warden paid this himself,

for love of the Company, and in return for not being chosen younger warden again

. Presumably he wanted to escape the onerous and costly duties associated with the work of aLondon Company Official.The Great Fire devoured the Company's Hall in 1666, together with a lot of houses owned by the coopersfor which they collected rents. Most of the treasures, books and registers were taken to the house of the Upper Warden and saved. In 1668 the coopers began the construction of another hall, and instituted compulsorysubscriptions;

1,078 17s. 5d. in 1668,

2,029 12s. in 1669,

1,082 2s. in 1670, and

998 15s. in 1671, when theHall was completed at a cost of

5,189 6s. 5d., a tremendous sum of money for those times. Whether theexpunging of five liverymen in 1672 because of poverty resulted from this sacrifice is not known; however, theCoopers still put on a brave and proud face, for in 1663 they had collected

154 10s. towards a barge which theyused for the Lord Mayor's celebrations and in 1687 were employing a bargemaster, a mate and fourteen watermen.During the plague in 1665, Francis HALL, a pluralist with the living at the local church of St Michaels,Bassishaw, left London for the safety of the country, and his other living at Market Deeping. On his return in 1670he demanded back-payment of tithes, which the coopers regarded as monstrous, and there was

bad blood

between the Church and the Company until 1675 when the coopers agreed to let the gallery of their hall to theincumbent for Sunday meetings at a rent of

20 per annum.The sealing of casks brought in considerable revenue for the London Company during the sixteenthcentury. Around the middle of the century it was yielding

187 per annum, of which the Company received

50.Informers were still being paid in 1620, and soap casks were publicly burnt in 1685, while as late as 1693a merchant was prosecuted for

ingrossing

with casks. A regulation which would realize a considerable sum of money today came into force in 1667, whereby apprentices appearing for registration were fined 6d. if they hadextra long hair. It has[page 141] been said that the apprentice during these times was in no better situation than the fourteenth-century serf. Manytrades could be learnt well within the seven years of bound apprenticeship, and for most of this time he constitutedcheap labour. If he ran away he was cried and forcibly brought back, often ill if not brutally treated as an indoor servant, with a poor diet and obliged to sleep in the workshop. This, no doubt, applied to many a young cooper

sapprentice. In the summer they were prominent in their blue cloaks with breeches and stockings of white broadcloth, and in winter, long blue gowns. They wore flat caps, for which they were often derided, but worked intall square hats which had shelves fitted to the insides, so that, for coopers at least, the saying, 'Keep it under your hat' must have meant something.An apprenticeship bond made out in Edinburgh in 1708 stated that a prentice and servant, failing him bydecease (of the master) to be bound to his relict if he shall have any, she keeping sufficient journeymen for hisinstruction in the airt and trade of coupercraft ... six years binds himself faithfully, dutifully and honestly to attendto he said master's service night and day, holyday and workday, in all things lawful and honest and shall not absent

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