Basket making (General)

by braillemaker, Tuesday, February 28, 2006, 06:38 (6843 days ago)

My great-great grandfather, Charles Barnard lived at Lining Wood - on the edge of the hill above Mitcheldean. in 1855 he was an iron miner. In 1861 Charles is listed as a ‘former iron miner’. Ten years later he is described as having been a cripple for 13 years – maybe as the result of a mining accident? However, at the time of his death (June 1889) his daughter Rhoda said he was a Basket maker.

I wonder if anyone could flesh this out a bit.
Might we assume that a family member would have taken the baskets down to a market at Mitcheldean? From where, and how, would he have obtained his raw materials?