Blacksmith's miniature tools

Hazel Wooller

As members of the Yorkshire Branch of the Historic Houses Association, my husband and I were privileged to experience a verbal and visual presentation given by Don Barker after a meeting at Kiplin Hall in Richmond, North Yorkshire, in March 2006.
After my father died in June 2005 I discovered among his effects a collection of miniature tools in a small (Pears soap) cardboard box. My two sisters, Diane Henderson and Valerie Talbot, and I remembered having seen them once or twice as children but it was always impressed upon us that they were not toys and should be treated with respect. I seem to recall my father telling me the tools were given to him by a bachelor uncle who, like all my father’s family, had worked on the Great South Western Railway. My only reminiscence of Great Uncle Arthur was the way he wiggled his false teeth at me – his way of entertaining a very scared little girl!
Although my father came from a ‘railway’ family, having been to a grammar school he trained and worked first as a draughtsman and then became a lecturer in Mechanical Engineering. He retired as Head of the Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Department of what is now West Thames College (formerly Isleworth Polytechnic).
On my husband’s suggestion, I contacted Don who agreed to come and look at these curiosities. I must admit to a feeling of great relief when he showed such interest in them. It had been rather frustrating that, as a family, we knew so little about these delightful artefacts. Why had they been made, for what purpose and for whom? Had they been made by a working blacksmith or maybe his apprentice? Was a retired blacksmith setting himself a challenge or were they made by someone for whom such intricate work was a hobby, and did they have any connection at all with the railway industry?
Sometime after loaning the tools to Don I discovered that none of my father’s seven grandchildren, or my two brothers-in-law, could ever recall having seen them.
My two sisters and I were subsequently invited to make a presentation of the tools, now displayed in a beautiful case made by Don, to The Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths at its Epiphany Court. We were then informed that the Company had been asked by the City Chamberlain if it would be prepared to loan an artefact, reflecting the Company’s craft, for display in the Chamberlains’ Court Room at Guildhall. Much to our delight, we were informed that the Court had proposed that the miniature tools be loaned to the City Chamberlain’s Court where it would be on permanent display and my sisters’ husbands and all our children will be able to see the family heirlooms.

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