Blandford is well-known today for brewing beer. Yet in the
past, it was probably better known for the making of buttons – a trade known as
‘buttony’. All these buttons were
hand- made.
It is reckoned early in the 19th century, there
was an estimated 3,000 people around Blandford engaged in the button trade. The
town was particularly known for the making of shirt buttons and a button known
as the Blandford cartwheel. Robert Fisher opened a button depot in the 1830s in
his draper’s shop in the Market Place. Travelling salesmen would visit the
depot and buy buttons in bulk. Smallest buttons were known as mites and were
made popular when Queen Victoria bought dozens for just a single dress. At its
peak the town could boast of six button merchants.
The making of buttons in Dorset had begun in Shaftesbury in
1650 by a man named Abraham Case. It is said a waistcoat that King Charles I
wore to his execution had locally made buttons. The earliest buttons were made
from the horns of the Dorset horned sheep. An experienced button maker could
make up to twelve dozen buttons in a day many of which were exported to the
USA, Canada & Australia as well as Continental Europe. The finest quality
buttons were sold on pink cards.
Many women were attracted to buttony as it paid better than farm
work. Working at home, young women could also look after their children better.
While working indoors their clothes and footwear lasted longer. It was reckoned the dawn to dust toil of a man and three sons in the fields together with his wife making buttons might bring in around 13 shillings & four pence (67p) each week. In the villages
around Blandford, outworkers would make buttons although payment could be in
goods rather than in cash to discourage competitors from setting up. On ‘button day’, the outworkers would walk
into Blandford to hand in their work and collect materials for the next batch
of buttons to be made. Working long hours, and often under just candle light,
buttony was hard on the eyesight. Children would also frequently help with the
work. From the time their fingers were steady enough until their eyesight failed, girls and women filled in the wire button rings with intricate stitched patterns.
Sadly, the invention of a button making machine in the 1840s
led to the demise of the town’s button industry. As a result, the centre of
button making in Britain moved to Birmingham. This had an adverse effect on Dorset
family incomes although some women were able to change to glove making. The disappearance of the grinding work of buttony would have been a terrible blow were it not for home glove making.
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