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Some Special Interests => Occupation Interests => Topic started by: Jayson on Tuesday 14 November 06 16:42 GMT (UK)
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Does anybody know precisely what a puddler in an iron works would do?
Jayson
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I suspect he would reline the kiln with fire clay.
meles
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The Victorian Dictionary says "Puddler- One who converts cast iron onto wrought" . I'll have a rummage and see if I can find any more this evening unless anyone knows about it.
Fred
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Hi Jayson, cousin in law :)
It's a very skilled and strenuous job concerned with the making of iron for wrought iron. If you go here and scroll down to Iron Puddler:
http://rmhh.co.uk/occup/i-k.html
and click on more info. It gives you all you need to know and more.
Gadget :)
PS I think some of my Parrys did this work at Pontyblew Forge
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Hi everybody
What would I do without my friends on rootschat? ;) I have a few reference books here at home but none of them, frustratingly, mentioned what a puddler did.
Thanks very much for the links, Gadget, cousin in law ;) nice to hear from you again.
My 2X great-grandfather Israel Rowley (lovely name) was a puddler. He was born Etruria/Hanley in Staffordshire. I thought at first that it might have something to do with the Wedgwood factory.
Jayson ;)
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Do you know that he worked in the ironworks (there was one in the area)?
A puddler also worked on the canals, puddling clay (treading the cly into the canal bottom), and the area had a numer of canals.
meles
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Hi meles
I tracked him down on the 1881 census & he was described as "Puddler of Iron". At that time he was living in Biddulph, Staffordshire. He gave his children what I thought were unusual names:
Mahalah (my great gran)
Leda
Eber
I've never come across these names before.
Jayson
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OK - it's iron works, not canals, then.
meles
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My list has three entries for Puddler. The two already described in the iron works and canal but the third will confuse you even more.
He works the clay into a puddle prior to it being made into pots.
Since posting this I have checked the reference and think it may have confused the process with preparing the clay for use lining canals.
David
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I think there may be a link. To "puddle" clay, is to beat it and knock out all the air, so that it is fit for use. If clay has air in it, pots will explode in the kiln, canals will leak and - actually I don't know for certain what happens in a foundry - but I suspect the bricks that line the kiln will explode.
So I think your man was a clay expert, and moved from place to place as technology developed and we moved into the 20th century.
How interesting! :D
meles
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Hi meles
I tracked him down on the 1881 census & he was described as "Puddler of Iron". At that time he was living in Biddulph, Staffordshire. He gave his children what I thought were unusual names:
Mahalah (my great gran)
Leda
Eber
I've never come across these names before.
Jayson
Well Jayson has found that it says that he is a 'puddler of iron' so...........
Re names - Jayson, I have a Mahalah. They might be methodists or other non-conformists.
Gadget
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Hi Gadget (cousin-in-law)
Methodists! How interesting! I'm hoping that Israel or his family had something to do with the Wegdwood factory at Etruria where it was stated on the census that Israel had been born.
Thank you also to everybody else who has contributed to my post. It's been a great help.
Jayson
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Mahalah is another form of the Hebrew Mahali and means "Tenderness".
Leda is taken from Greek mythology as in Leda and the swan. Leda was the Queen of Sparta.
Eber is a tricky one as the nearest that I can find is that it could be from the Germanic name Eberhard.
old rowley
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Most certainly an iron worker. A puddler used to stir the molton pig iron (the first product of the iron making process) until as the it turned into wrought iron. there were many puddlers in the Sheffield area - and presumably many othe steel making centres.
Denn
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Hi old rowley/dennford
Very many thanks for this. I was surprised to find such lovely, unusual names in my family tree. I really regret that I didn't take the opportunity to ask my gran about her family. I suppose this is quite a common theme! and a lesson to us all!
Jayson
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This is a piece I wrote about my ancestor. I think it says it all!:
John (Evans) was a puddler in one of the greatest iron works in the world - Dowlais. By 1845 there were over 7,000 people employed in the Dowlais Works alone and 18 furnaces in blast producing a staggering amount of iron rails. They received a good wage of 35 shillings per week, the top wage being that of the rollers, £2 per week, whilst colliers in comparison received 25 shillings a week.
The puddling process or the “Welsh Method” as it was known as known in honour of its Cyfarthfa inventor, was a process whereby wrought iron, as opposed cast iron, could be produced.
“The puddling furnace made of iron plates and lined with firebricks, had two chambers. At one end was a firebox in which barrow-loads of coal were fiercely burning, the flames being carried by a draught into the second chamber [at 1500°C to 1800°C] which contained the charge of metal to be converted into wrought iron. After melting, the bath of molten metal began to 'boil', the carbon and impurities (phos[phorous, silica and carbon) being oxidised by the flame. After some time the pure iron began to form flakes [wrought iron has a higher melting point than pig iron] and the work of the puddler was to keep the bath in motion with his 'rabble' [iron pole], and gradually collect the 'sticky' flakes into three large balls, much as you make a snowball (weighing up to 300 lbs each) . When this was done the furnace door was opened, and the iron withdrawn in the form of white hot soft lumps dripping with molten cinder. These were carried to the shingling hammer and quickly reduced to short oblong blocks called 'blooms'. Needless to say this made the sparks fly [hot slag being force out of the iron by the hammering], and the shinglers were protected by armour-like leggings, a strong leather apron, and a gauze visor over their eyes, though strangely enough they always had bare arms! Nor would the puddlers protect their eyes from the glare with blue glass [blue for coal, oil or gas flames & green for electric arcs] as do furnace men today [1950]. The puddlers worked in trousers and a thick woolen vest open at the neck, but it was a hot, fatiguing job, and you could tell a furnace-man by his more than 'sunburnt' complexion. Yet they were a fine healthy lot of men….”
This was extremely dangerous work and many puddlers were maimed by the molten metal being spat out onto their legs and feet. Many puddlers were dead by the age of 50 because of the nature of the job – working close to the high heat and risking their lives and health daily. The job required great physical strength and also the mental knowledge to know when the iron was ready. Because of their skills they were quite highly paid.
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Hi Mart
Well, this certainly does cover the subject quite extensively. It's really a very fascinating piece and many thanks for posting it. This brings it all to life very vividly. I never expected the job to have been so arduous. I take my hat off to my ancestor, Isreal Rowley, who, it would seem, was one of the lucky ones as he reached his old age.
Jayson
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My pleasure. I've been family historying for over 30 years and the history of the places and occupations certainly puts meat onto bones that would otherwise be very bare.
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... and another description. This comes from an account written by a chap born in Wales who later moved to America where he was a puddler:
"I must stir my boiling mess with all the strength in my body. For now is my chance to defeat nature and wring from the loosening grip of her hand the pure iron she never intended to give us.
For twenty-five minutes while the boil goes on I stir it constantly with my long iron rabble. A cook stirring gravy to keep it from scorching in the skillet is done in two minutes and backs off blinking, sweating and choking, having finished the hardest job of getting dinner. But my hardest job lasts not two minutes but the better part of half an hour. My spoon weighs twenty-five pounds, my porridge is pasty iron, and the heat of my kitchen is so great that if my body was not hardened to it, the ordeal would drop me in my tracks.
Little spikes of pure iron like frost spars glow white-hot and stick out of the churning slag. These must be stirred under at once; the long stream of flame from the grate plays over the puddle, and the pure iron if lapped by these gases would be oxidized and burned up.
Pasty masses of iron form at the bottom of the puddle. There they would stick and become chilled if they were not constantly stirred. The whole charge must be mixed and mixed as it steadily thickens so that it will be uniform throughout. I am like some frantic baker in the inferno kneading a batch of iron bread for the devil's breakfast. "
The last sentence really catches what the job must have been like.
from: http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/hst/biography/TheIronPuddler/chap17.html
Cheers
Koromo
:)
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Wow, Koromo - that's amazing. Gives a real feeling what this dreadful job was like.
meles
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Brilliant! Thanks Koromo.
Jayson
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Koromo -
Many thanks for the fantastic response. I could almost feel the heat from the cauldron.
yn9man
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https://youtu.be/1gXtFZix_r0
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Here's a photo.
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A puddler's career was of short duration although the money was considered good, "The work of the puddler is probably considered to be the severest kind of work undertaken voluntarily by men!" David Bremner, an industrial journalist of the 1860's. Blindness was an occupational hazard also.
Skoosh.
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Eber was the great great grandson of Noah via Shem and is referred to in both Old (as Eber) and New (as Heber) Testaments. He refused to help build the tower of Babel.
2 names from the bible and one from Greek mythology - looks like he was a reader. :)
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youngtug -
Thanks for sharing the PeriscopeFilm video... and today we consider ourselves mechanized. We thoroughly enjoyed.
yn9man