James COX, Ruardean blacksmith (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Friday, January 06, 2012, 14:52 (4777 days ago) @ unknown

Searching the various "likely" reference / photo websites (including this one of course) only gives the following brief mention within the "official" history of Ruardean village;

"Ruardean, where 67 of the 187 families resident in 1831 depended chiefly on trades or crafts and 60 on agriculture, was generally impoverished in the 19th century and the early 20th. Few professional people apart from a surgeon at Bishopswood in 1851 and another in the village in 1876 lived there. In the mid 19th century building trades and haulage provided some employment. The village had several shops, mostly grocery and drapery stores, and in the later 19th century outlying places such as Waterscross and the Morse also had shops. The Cinderford co-operative society had opened branches at the Morse and in the village by 1894 and 1906 respectively. In the 1920s and 1930s many traditional trades and crafts disappeared. One of the last blacksmiths worked a smithy, built by the Lydbrook-Ross road in the mid 19th century (fn. 85) and occupied by a joiner and furniture maker in 1990. A bacon-curing factory in the centre of Ruardean closed in 1928, and the parish, which continued to depend heavily on the mining industry, suffered much unemployment in the early 1930s. Mining jobs were lost with the gradual cessation of deep mining in the Forest coalfield, completed in 1965. In 1990 the village had half a dozen small shops."

From: 'Ruardean', A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 5: Bledisloe Hundred, St. Briavels Hundred, The Forest of Dean (1996), pp. 231-247.
URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=23261&strquery=smithy Date accessed: 06 January 2012.

The relevant Footnote 85 states Public Record Office, MR 129; F 17/7. (?)

It's possible there is an old photo of the smithy in one of Humphrey Phelps' books, albeit not in "The Second Selection" which I've just checked; I really do need to write an index for this otherwise excellent series !

(ps sorry I couldnt highlight in "bold" the relevant line, I seem to have broken this part of the "reply" page !)

PPS Have you looked up the various Trade Directories online, such as from
http://www.historicaldirectories.org/hd/b1.asp
Be "gentle" searching though, like many search engines this site's doesn't like getting too much info in one hit !

PPPS Searching the National Archives and Gloucestershire Archives sites for "Ruardean blacksmith" etc only seems to produce these much earlier references.

Ref D1677/GG/1017
26 February, 1 James II
Counterpart of lease for 3 lives at £5. a year.
1. HENRY BENEDICT HALL of High Meadow, esq.
2. HENRY WALDEN of Ruardean, blacksmith
Messuage called the Smith's Forge in Ruardean, and garden (¼ a.) and land (2a. field names).
Date 1685

Ref D1677/GG/593

26 Feb., 1 Jas. II
Lease by HENRY BENEDICT HALL of Highmeadow [...] to, esq., to HENRY WALDEN of Ruardeane, blacksmith, of a messuage called the Smith's forge in Ruardene, bounded by the highway from Ruardene church to Windrell's Well, S. and by a house and land of the said H, B, Hall in the possession of William Matloe and the Synderhill there, W. Signature, Hen. Ben. Hall.

Both these documents are held at Gloucestershire Archives.

http://ww3.gloucestershire.gov.uk/DServe/dserve.exe?
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/records.aspx?cat=040-d1677_1&cid=1-292#1-292

National Archives: