Passage, Broad Street, tells of the site of another smelting place, the last chimney of which was demolished on January 27, 1866. The Waterworks Co. bought the site for offices. Stamped brass came in through Richard Ford in 1769, and the process at first was confined to the manufacture of small basins and pans, but in a very few years it was adapted to the production of an infinitude of articles. Pressed brass rack pulleys for window blinds were the invention of Thomas Horne, in 1823, who applied the process of pressure to many other articles. Picture frames, nicely moulded in brass, were made here in 1825, by a modeller named Maurice Garvey. In 1865 it was estimated that the quantities of metal used here in the manufacture of brass were 19,000 tons of copper, 8,000 tons of old metal, 11,000 tons of zinc or spelter, 200 tons of tin, and 100 tons of lead, the total value being £2,371,658. Nearly double this quantity is now used every year. The number of hands employed in the brass trade is about 18,000.
Buckles were first worn as shoe fastenings in the reign of Charles II. When in fashion they were made of all sizes and all prices, from the tiny half-inch on the hatband to the huge shoebuckle for the foot, and varying from a few pence in price to many guineas the pair. The extent of the manufactures at one time may be guessed from the fact of there being over 20,000 buckle makers out of employ in 1791-2, when vain petitions were made to the royal princes to stem the change then taking place in the "fashions." Sir Edward Thomason said his father in 1780 made 1,000 pair per day, mostly of white metal, but some few plated; by one pattern, known as the "silver penny," he cleared a profit of £1,000. The introduction of shoestrings, and naturally so, was much ridiculed in our local papers, and on one occasion was made the pretext for a disgraceful riot, the pickpockets mobbing the gentlemen going to and from one of the Musical Festivals, the wearers of shoestrings being hustled about and robbed of their purses and watches.
Buttons.—The earliest record of button-making we have is dated 1689, but Mr. Baddeley (inventor of the oval chuck), who retired from business about 1739, is the earliest local manufacturer we read of as doing largely in the trade, though sixty or seventy years ago there were four or five times as many in the business as at present, blue coats and gilt buttons being in fashion. By an Act passed in the 4th of William and Mary foreign buttons made of hair were forbidden to be imported. By another Act in the 8th of Queen Anne it was decreed that "any taylor or other person convicted of making, covering, selling, using, or setting on to a garment any buttons covered with cloth, or other stuff of which garments are made, shall forfeit five pounds for every dozen of such buttons, or in proportion for any lesser quantity;" by an Act of the seventh of George the First, "any wearer of such unlawful buttons is liable to the penalty of forty shillings per dozen, and in proportion for any leaser quantity." Several cases are on record in which tradesmen have been heavily fined under these strange laws, and before they were repealed it is related by Dr. Doran (in 1855) that one individual not only got out of paying for a suit of clothes because of the illegality of the tailor in using covered buttons, but actually sued the unfortunate "snip" for the informer's share of the penalties, the funniest part of the tale being that the judge who decided the case, the barrister who pleaded the statute, and the client who gained the clothes he ought to have paid for, were all of them buttoned contrary to law. These Acts were originally enforced to protect the many thousands who at the time were employed in making buttons of silk, thread, &c., by hand, and not, as is generally supposed, in favour of the metal button manu-
