Box Basket-Maker Updated
Christopher Carter
August 2017
Christopher Carter
August 2017
Christopher Carter read Pam Bryant's article about William Davies, a basket-maker who lived on Box Hill in the middle of the 1800s. He gave us the following update on the story.
I'm related to Pam, through Charles Davis on my mother's side. I have a standard issue postcard, with a Bath district address on it, addressed to William Davies. Perhaps William moved due to the depressed rural economy. His son Charles then went on to Notting Hill, London, at a time of a massive population increase in towns and cities.
I'm related to Pam, through Charles Davis on my mother's side. I have a standard issue postcard, with a Bath district address on it, addressed to William Davies. Perhaps William moved due to the depressed rural economy. His son Charles then went on to Notting Hill, London, at a time of a massive population increase in towns and cities.
Christopher is absolutley right about the depression in the agricultural economy after the 1870s. Cheaper costs of transporting bulk goods from Australia and North America caused a slump in rural communities which we explored in the article Victorian Farming. The causes partly relate to the building of railways in those countries and a growth in international haulage in a period without substantial British naval conflict.
There were other reasons for the failure of William Davies' handcraft industry of basket-making. The widespread use of metal goods in the so-called Second Industrial Revolution in the late 1800s resulted in cheap factory-made goods widely available. The wood-based economy of rural areas dependent upon skilled artisans could not compete and, of course, many metal goods lasted much longer than natural products.
There were other reasons for the failure of William Davies' handcraft industry of basket-making. The widespread use of metal goods in the so-called Second Industrial Revolution in the late 1800s resulted in cheap factory-made goods widely available. The wood-based economy of rural areas dependent upon skilled artisans could not compete and, of course, many metal goods lasted much longer than natural products.
