Shotley Bridge swordmakers

[urbanspaceman]

I'm abandoning Bertram, as he could not possibly have been here before 1685 in any capacity that might attract the Hounslow and Solingen pilgrims.
Back to the drawing board and look for Vinting, who was definitely first generation local; and I still think his ancestors were involved in the lead mines at Ryton but we'll have to find out for sure somehow.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

ah I was just looking at that...i picked up the scent at ~

https://www.google.com/search?q=Has+...hrome&ie=UTF-8

The letter goes on to say....

Hello all

Has anyone done any research into the VINTON family?

I am particularly interested in John VINTON who was a chainmaker.
Born in about 1802, he was probably the son of William VINTON of Winlaton
Mill.
However I have been unable to find a baptism for him.

William VINTON [son of Samuel] married Elizabeth FENWICK in July 1797 at
Newcastle All Saints
I believe they had the following children - baptism locations given.
Samuel 1798 Newcastle All Saints
Elizabeth 1800 Newcastle All Saints
John???? 1802???
possibly another child in 1804
Mary Ann 1806 Gateshead
Eleanor 1808 Newcastle All Saints
William 1811 Gateshead

My family history notes tell me that
"The VINTONs were one of the families who went to the Derwent
valley at quite an early time, to participate in the iron industry.
They may indeed have been one of the Shotley Bridge Sword-making
families. If not then they would have been associated with the early
iron foundry at Blackhall Mill or else the one at Derwent Cote. In any
case the original Vintons were of German extraction and many of them
ended up working for Crowleys at Winlaton, Winlaton Mill and Swalwell."

Any help finding John's baptism record in about 1802 - [or William's burial
before 1838] - would be appreciated

see also http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.co...-07/0900255787

[urbanspaceman]

Hello Ibrahiim. Thank-you, very well done. Jim said you were an expert searcher, and he was right: you must have some secrets I am sure.
I have emailed the genealogy researcher (Heather) on both her email addresses, one of which bounced right back, giving her the entry from Richardson's book, in the slight hope she worked her way back further herself after all this time.
It's beginning to look like the Derwent Valley was known within the German steel/iron/mining industry. I won't venture any further speculations at this point.
Instead, I put Vinton into Google and up popped Vinton Metals/Batteries down in Kent who specialise is the safe salvage of lead/acid batteries.
I've sent them an email as well.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by urbanspaceman

Hello Ibrahiim. Thank-you, very well done. Jim said you were an expert searcher, and he was right: you must have some secrets I am sure.
I have emailed the genealogy researcher (Heather) on both her email addresses, one of which bounced right back, giving her the entry from Richardson's book, in the slight hope she worked her way back further herself after all this time.
It's beginning to look like the Derwent Valley was known within the German steel/iron/mining industry. I won't venture any further speculations at this point.
Instead, I put Vinton into Google and up popped Vinton Metals/Batteries down in Kent who specialise is the safe salvage of lead/acid batteries.
I've sent them an email as well.

Good work Keith... Its just dogged hard work at this end and no secrets ....Luckily you are on the ground there... I think a lot of these names fuse together as a group of operators that essentially faded away dispersed to other centres like Birmingham and back to Europe...as the natural decline enveloped the region. I suspect the failure of the Colichemarde because of lack of machinery and the end of the Napolionic wars etc were ultimately responsible.

[urbanspaceman]

I suspect you may be right about the fusion of operators, but I don't believe the lack of a Colichemarde was ever a factor in their decline: I think they could have fabricated a grinding machine without difficulty; there has to be a reason they didn't.
There is another possibility could account for the choice of SB, and that is Thomas Carnforth the Newcastle cutler, who was certainly involved here and there, and to a greater or lesser degree. He was one of the people who testified on Mohll's behalf at his trial.
He wasn't one of the original four businessmen, but Johannes Dell was; along with a chap called John Sandford from Newcastle - who dropped out relatively quickly when the company began to deviate into fiscal areas; I haven't been able to find anything about him.
It may well be that the forge activity at Allensford (Vinting perhaps?) was known to Thomas Carnforth or John Sandford or both; and if Carnforth - who must have been buying Solingen blades - had trade connections with Johannes Dell (who became John Bell: one of the four businessmen starting the company) then that may have been all that was necessary to entice the two Hounslow men (Henkells and Hoppe) up here to team up with John Bell in 1685. Then Bell would return to Solingen to bring the main immigrants over when demand looked promising in 1687.
It may have been as simple as that. Let's face it: back in those days, German immigrants would almost certainly know about each other in a place as small as Newcastle (population in 1600s c.10,000) especially as the local cutler was dealing with them all.
On a separate note:
If they were turning out thousands of blades for the Crown/Government, then London cutlers would have finished them. If they were selling to the Jacobites, then Scotland's cutlers must have been involved. Who was in a position to finish thousands of blades? Trouble is, at best, SB may have stamped the tang, so who today knows where the blades came from?
Ever forwards, it's beginning to take shape I feel. Thanks again Ibrahiim.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by urbanspaceman

I suspect you may be right about the fusion of operators, but I don't believe the lack of a Colichemarde was ever a factor in their decline: I think they could have fabricated a grinding machine without difficulty; there has to be a reason they didn't.
There is another possibility could account for the choice of SB, and that is Thomas Carnforth the Newcastle cutler, who was certainly involved here and there, and to a greater or lesser degree. He was one of the people who testified on Mohll's behalf at his trial.
He wasn't one of the original four businessmen, but Johannes Dell was; along with a chap called John Sandford from Newcastle - who dropped out relatively quickly when the company began to deviate into fiscal areas; I haven't been able to find anything about him.
It may well be that the forge activity at Allensford (Vinting perhaps?) was known to Thomas Carnforth or John Sandford or both; and if Carnforth - who must have been buying Solingen blades - had trade connections with Johannes Dell (who became John Bell: one of the four businessmen starting the company) then that may have been all that was necessary to entice the two Hounslow men (Henkells and Hoppe) up here to team up with John Bell in 1685. Then Bell would return to Solingen to bring the main immigrants over when demand looked promising in 1687.
It may have been as simple as that. Let's face it: back in those days, German immigrants would almost certainly know about each other in a place as small as Newcastle (population in 1600s c.10,000) especially as the local cutler was dealing with them all.
On a separate note:
If they were turning out thousands of blades for the Crown/Government, then London cutlers would have finished them. If they were selling to the Jacobites, then Scotland's cutlers must have been involved. Who was in a position to finish thousands of blades? Trouble is, at best, SB may have stamped the tang, so who today knows where the blades came from?
Ever forwards, it's beginning to take shape I feel. Thanks again Ibrahiim.

PLEASE SEE http://helensteadman.com/blog/4592669121/Literature-Review-4-Thread-of-Iron-by-Douglas-Vernon-(A-Definitive-History-of-Shotley)/10983141

Which digs deep into the problem at Chapter 9.
One thing I note is that it is quoted as one of the reasons why the sword ,makers came to the area was fast flowing water... That is interesting for except on the occasion of heavy flooding the Derwent is not fast flowing except at about two places according to photographs ...One is at Shotley Bridge and the other is at The Rush adjacent the Paper Mill a mile up river at Shotley Grove, The Mill now vanished but where the entire river in both cases passes through rocks and only about 5 feet wide. So it is quite specific. I think also that water for tempering steel was also important. The document also mentions grit from the river bed.

[kronckew]

let's not get our terms mixed up.

annealing is heating the metal to the critical point then cooling it slowly to make it softer and more workable. sometimes the hot steel is covered in an insulate and allowed to cool overnight of for a couple of days...

hardening is done by heating to the critical temp, at which point the steel is no longer magnetic, then cooling it rapidly in oil or water. too quickly can cause excess stress and cracks. modern steels rarely are hardened by full immersion in cool water. hardening produces a steel that can be brittle, so this hardness is then tempered to reduce internal stresses producing a more shock resistant material.

tempering is done by reheating the hardened steel to well below the critical, holding it there for a controlled time to relieve the stresses then allowing it to cool in air. tempering reduced the hardness as well as the fragility. hard edges last longer but can flake off bits or even shatter like glass, a tad too soft is better than a tad too hard. you can bend a bent knife back to shape, but not one that has snapped.

specialty alloys can have variations in the heat treatment cycles including using liquified gases for sub-cooling to produce known properties and crystal formations. morden steels have fairly strict time and temperature regimes for annealing, hardening, and tempering that are digitally controlled with little room for deviation.

heck, asian smiths have been known to produce repeatable differential heat treatments, differential hardening, and tempering in one step by pouring boiling water from a teapot onto the edge of a weapon that has been heated to the correct color as judged by the master smith. this produces a softer less fragile spine graduating to a harder edge supported by the tougher spine. only takes a few decades of training and practice.

it's all a balancing game, you must be hard enough to hold an edge thru a reasonable amount of use before it must be resharpened, but not so hard it snaps or loses chunks of the edge. the blade must be also tough enogh to flex and return to shape without either getting permanent set, or snapping. again, like in japanese swords, a bend can be field corrected by a swordsman, a fracture cannot.

p.s. - don't take 'forged in fire' as an instruction manual in how to
produce or test, or use a good knife or sword.

[urbanspaceman]

Thank-you yet again Ibrahiim, well done indeed. I noted mention of her blog in your earlier post (15) but I didn't read beyond that chapter on Bygate.
She is hosting an event on the 17th in Gateshead: it's for her latest book but I think I will go and talk to her anyway. She appears to be mining the same seams as us in many places. Her intent is fiction based on the SB swordmakers so I'm sure she will welcome an opportunity to swap notes.
I wondered what had happened to Jim - he was conspicuous by his absence - but he return emailed me to say he will be back soon.
I'm going to – hopefully – talk to Jenny Morrison tomorrow (head of archaeology for Newcastle county) if she emerges from the pile-up of work during her vacation.
I've had no response from the Royal Armouries, or the two Vintons I emailed at the weekend; still, patience prospers.