Rattening

[RichardB]

Perhaps the most hated man was he who drew unemployment benefit from the Union for weeks on end, but the moment he found work again, ceased paying subscriptions to maintain those who were still out of work.

[RichardB]

In at least one case one man rattened his own father, and there was even a case of a man being asked to ratten himself.

(Sheffield Outrages)

[RichardB]

What kind of business is the hat business ?

[Joseph Thompson; Secretary to the Scissor Forgers Society] He described is as having small balls in a hat and each member of the commitee drawing one; one of the balls was marked.

Each person took his own ball, put it in his pocket and walked away with it, and the one that had the marked ball was supposed either to do some act of rattening or to get it done.

[Mr Chance] In that case no man would know who do anything ?

[Thompson] Just so.

[Chance] No one would know as long as the man kept his own counsel ?

[Thompson] Nobody would know.

June 4th 1867.

[RichardB]

Quality questions and answers ...

Do you know a person of the name of Pacey ?

Yes

Do you know Bridge Street ?

Yes

Do you recollect Pacey working in Bridge Street ?

No

You do not recollect that ?

No

Do you recollect that he had some tools there ?

Yes

[i fail to see how he .... Oh, never mind ...]

[RichardB]

In at least one case one man rattened his own father, and there was even a case of a man being asked to ratten himself.

(Sheffield Outrages)

It was James Hallam (aged 29, in 1867) that rattened his own father Samuel Hallam. This occurred at the Mowbray Street premises of Joseph Taylor (saw manufacturer); James removed his father Samuel Hallam and Matthew Broadheads nuts.

Anyone caught laughing will be send to the naughty corner ....

[RichardB]

Shy Maiden

Gentlemen

In the bottom hull, turn up both the horsing, and in the trough the bands of both hulls will be found.

Apologising for the little interruption, it is satisfactory things are arranged without damage, which will make things a little more agreeable when the rough edge is worn off.

Trusting these nocturnal visits will be no longer neccessary,

I remain

The Shy Maiden

[RichardB]

Thomas Fearnehough (aged 50 in 1867)

[Chairman] Have you been in the habit of absenting yourself from your work and your family for a week at a time, drinking ?

[Fearnehough] I have done so; I ought to tell the truth, I have, I believe.

[Chairman] Have you been in the habit of stopping out from your family and passing the night in debauchery ?

[Fearnehough] I believe I have been out once of twice, but I have not been in a house of that description.

{Chairman] Has it been drinking then ?

[Fearnehough] Yes.

---------------

18th June 1867

[RichardB]

Slipper Jack ?

Not Jack Slipper ...

[RichardB]

... and there was even a case of a man being asked to ratten himself.

(Sheffield Outrages)

Initials E S, circa 1838

[vox]

Slipper Jack ?

Not Jack Slipper ...

It was rumored that Slipper Jack was the perpitrator of the "Acorn Street outrage".

[RichardB]

It was rumored that Slipper Jack was the perpitrator of the "Acorn Street outrage".

The task then, Bigears, is simple - put a real name, 150-ish years on, to Slipper Jack.

[vox]

The task then, Bigears, is simple - put a real name, 150-ish years on, to Slipper Jack.

I don't understand the "150 years on" bit Noddy.

Are you saying that someone else had the same nickname at a later date?

This is from a witness examination - 1867 - Broadhead's trial

(I can't make out for sure who said it without reading the whole thing)

"I have never been employed to do outrages by any secretaries except Broadhead and Broomhead. I was not concerned in the Acorn-street outrage, and I don't know who did it. At the time, it war

rumored that " Slipper Jack" did it. I don't know who " Slipper Jack" was, or who told me that he did it."

[RichardB]

I don't understand the "150 years on" bit Noddy.

Are you saying that someone else had the same nickname at a later date?

This is from a witness examination - 1867 - Broadhead's trial

(I can't make out for sure who said it without reading the whole thing)

"I have never been employed to do outrages by any secretaries except Broadhead and Broomhead. I was not concerned in the Acorn-street outrage, and I don't know who did it. At the time, it war

rumored that " Slipper Jack" did it. I don't know who " Slipper Jack" was, or who told me that he did it."

Well Slipper Jack hasn't been named in approximately 150 years - since he did his "stuff".

There was an infamous Jack Slipper ...

[vox]

Well Slipper Jack hasn't been named in approximately 150 years - since he did his "stuff".

There was an infamous Jack Slipper ...

Yes - In charge of the Great Train Robbery investigation.

[RichardB]

Rattening, origins of the word

A discussion (1867)

[RichardB]

I have been rattened; I had just put a new cat-gut band upon my lathe, and last night the rats have carried it off, and I suppose eaten it !

Yeah, right ... Page 191-192

(1867)

[RichardB]

National conference of trade unions (pre-TUC), July 1866, called by the Sheffield trades council.

138 delegates, representing 200,000 members.

George Austin (Railwayspring-makers) - Chairman

William Dronfield (Typographers) - Secretary

William Broadhead (Saw Grinders) - Treasurer

Further details sought.

[RichardB]

The organization formed as a result of the Shefield meeting thee United Kingdom Alliance of Organized Trades petered out after two further meetings (Manchester and Preston). It became the forerunner of the TUC - offically dated 1868 (Manchester).

[RichardB]

Master and Servant Act

Details sought, year etc.

[RichardB]

Hornby versus Close - January 1867

Court of the Queens Bench - here, it was decided that trade unions could not sue their defaulting officers for embezzlement of funds. This was bcause the Lord Chief Justice (unknown name) declared, the unions, whilst no longer criminal, were in restraint of trade and therefore illegal.

Further details sought.

[RichardB]

William Broadhead to the Commission :

"My impression is that rattening has existed in every trade before any of this assembly here were born"

[RichardB]

One for the heavyweights on here :

What made the Sheffield Outrages Commission "almost unique in British legal history" ?

[RichardB]

It is sometimes suggested that the London Companies have had an exceptional history, and that in towns in which gilds underwent a more normal development they may have given rise to the modern trade society.

So far as Great Britain is concerned we have satisfied ourselves that this suggestion rests on no better foundation than the other. Neither in Bristol nor in Preston, neither in Newcastle nor Glasgow, have we been able to trace the slightest connection between the slowly dying guilds and the upstarting Trade Unions.

At Sheffield J M Ludlow, basing himself on an account by Frank Hill, once expressly declared (1) that direct affiliation could be proved.

Diligent inquiry into the character and history of the still flourishing Cutlers' Company demonstrates that this exclusively masters' association at no time originated or engendered any of the numerous Trade Unions with which Sheffield abounds.

(1) Macmillan's Magazine (February 1861), relying on Social Science Report on Trade Societies and Strikes (1860), p. 521.

---------------------

Worth a search for Macmillan's ?? for other Sheffield stuff ?

[RichardB]

At the date of the establishment in Sheffield of the Cutlers' Company (1624) the typical craftsman was himself the owner of his "wheel" and other instruments, and a strict limitation of apprentices was maintained.

By 1791, when the masters obtained from Parliament a formal ratification of the prevalent relaxation in the customary restrictions as to apprentices, we find this system largely replaced by something very like the present order of things, in which the typical Sheffield operative works with material given out by the manufacturer, upon wheels rented either from the latter or from a landlord supplying power.

It is no mere coincidence that in the year 1790 the Sheffield employers found themselves obliged to take concerted action against the

"scissor grinders and other workmen who have entered into unlawful combinations to raise the price of labour". (1)

---------------

(1) Sheffield Iris, August 7th and September 9th 1790. The scissorsmiths' Friendly Society, cited by Dr. Brentano, was established in April 1791. Other trade friendly societies in Sheffield appear to date from a much earlier period.

----------

Something to look out for - RAB

[RichardB]

The "tacit, but constant" combination of employers to depress wages, to which Adam Smith refers, could not be reached by law. Nor was there any disposition on the part of the magistrates or the judges to find masters guilty, even in cases of flagrant or avowed combination.

No one prosecuted the master cutlers who, in 1814, openly formed the Sheffield Mercantile and Manufacturing Union, having for its main rule that no merchant or manufacturer should pay higher prices for any article of Sheffield make than were current in the preceding year, with a penalty of £100 for each contravention of this illegal agreement.

Sheffield Iris, March 23rd 1814.