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Brass Finisher in 1800's
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My great grandfather was listed in documents as an apprentice brass finisher and then brass finisher in documents of the last quarter of the 1800's. Could someone give me a rough idea what a brass finisher at that time would do? Thank you for any help you can provide.
Ann Terry
+++Great enquiry. Firstly, electricity was not readily available at that time so, depending on whether it was a large factory or a cottage industry , motive power would have been steam engine via overhead shafts and pulleys to a lathe, in the first instance. Or a treadle powered lathe. Either way ,such work is basically the same now, as then. Stock removal of flash, burrs and marks, using a variety of sanding, finishing buffing and polishing,belts and wheels. Working from the coarsest grits, slowly, finer and finer . Usually three or four stages, until complete. Very rewarding on different pieces. Very boring on repetitive pieces. Tapware etc. Suggest you visit a co-operative Metal polisher ,with a camera.
Mark Gunn
- NSW, Australia
++++I called the Public Library with an almost exact duplicate question that you had asked and they gave me this web site. I just discovered that an ancestor's occupation listed in the 1890 Cincinnati City Directory was Finisher Works. I thought they were tailors. However, I just discovered them in the Covington, Ky. City Directory 1890 & 1892 as brass finisher. I know very little about their early history in Cinti & Covington and so hope you might have found out more about this occupation and what they probably polished and how and where your family worked (maybe the same place or places.
Thank you in advance for any information you can give me.
Rosalind Sommer
- Cincinnati, Ohio
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What is a Brass Finisher? The answer given does not really answer the question. What is a fisherman? Is he at the seaside with a small net or is he in a large sea going trawler or factory ship catching tons of cod?
Peter Johnstonprivate family tree research - Morchard Bishop, Devon, UK
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I was interested about the enquiry re the occupation of brass finisher in the 19th c. My great grandfather was a brass finisher in London and dies aged 54 in 1901, from 'Phthisis Exhaustion' (TB). Does anyone know whether this was an occupational hazard? - I seem to remember reading that the trade was associated with pulmonary diseases.
Lottie Alexander- York, Yorkshire, England
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With regard to my former question I should perhaps add that my ^greatgrandfather lived in London, England, between 1847 (when he was born) and 1902, when he died. During his working life he was stated as being a gas fitter at 1871 then a brass finisher from 1881 - certainly on his marriage and death certificates he was down as a brass finisher and in the censuses 1881-1901. He can't have worked much in the 1900s owing to his illness. I would very much like to know Is there anybody out there who might have the answer to these questions? Thank you Lottie Alexander (returning)- York, Yorkshire, England
+++++++ A brass finisher would start the morning with an assignment from the supervisor, there would be a few different departments and the department where your
^greatgrandfather would work would depend on his expertise. Since he was Ill, I am thinking this may have been sit-down work. The departments would be raw casting/punch press cleaning of parts, then the next would be grinding/filing/chipping. The next could be dressing/smoothing and even scraping. The last would be final finishing, lapping/polishing. His day would most likely be sitting near a window, on a stool at a work bench with a device to hold the part. Each part would have specific areas that would need to be dressed, the extent of the dressing would vary from product to product and could involve some assembly. Brazing would not normally be a finishing step but bolting and press fit would be. - Lake in the Hills, Illinois |
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October 5, 2008
My ancestor was also a brass finisher. He lived in Chancery Lane in the City of London and died in 1845 also of a respiratory illness. I was wondering where he is likely to have worked given where he lived. Are there and known foundries in this area of London?
PHILIP BACON- Worthing, West Sussex, England
December 9, 2008
My great grandfather was a brass finisher in the railway works in Perth Scotland.He died of pneumonia in 1893 aged 60.
Alan Petrie- Gosport, Hampshire, UK
June 30, 2009
My Great Great Maternal Grandfather was listed as a Brass Finisher on his sons marriage certificate, 1894. Making his birth date probably 1845 ish. Have read above qualifications of a Brass Finisher, my Gt Gt Grandfather surname was Thomas, I guess quite a few industrial processes at that time would require his employment. I'm still trying to trace him in the archives
Regards,
- Norfolk England
July 16, 2009
There seems to have been a lot of brass finishers around in the
1800s! My Great Grandfather was a gas fitter and brass fitter. He died of Tuberculosis at the age of 43 in the Bethnal Green Workhouse.He seems to have been there because of his illness as his wife continued to support their family with her dressmaking business.
My GG Grandfather was a "rouger". Can anyone tell me what this sort of work entailed. the only pewter that I am familiar with is the stuff used to make beer mugs!
- Wakkerstroom,Mpumalanga, South Africa
Hi, Jessie. Yes, pewter is used for mugs and drinking vessels, and possibly was used for figurines and knobs & handles and so on. Rouge is a polishing compound. (jeweler's rouge [linked by editor to product info at Amazon]). So I would assume that your great grandfather polished the rough pewter objects to a smooth shine.
I would assume that the buffing wheels were powered by belts, driven by a water wheel or steam engine, and your great grandfather would dress the wheels with the compound, and then hold the mugs against them, until all areas were sufficiently smooth.
Regards,
Ted Mooney, P.E.
finishing.com
Brick, New Jersey
August 7, 2009
My Grandfather worked in a Brass Foundry between the years of 1885 - 1925 approximately, I don't know in what capacity, but I do know he died at about 55 years of age from a lung complaint. His workplace would have been in or near Hackney, as that is where the family lived. His surname was Haviland, and if anyone knows where I can find out more, ie: the company name and address, a list of staff members etc., I would be very grateful.
Jo-anne Ackrill- Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
December 18, 2009
My Great-Great Grandfather was a 'Brass Dresser Journeyman' in the late 1800's. He died at only 27 years of 'Phthisis' His father was a 'Fender Moulder' but I don't have any details about his death. Their surname is LYNDON and would have worked in the Birmingham area of England.
R. TURNER- Toowoomba, QLD, AUSTRALIA
April 5, 2010
Mt GGG Grandfather was also a brass finisher in Glasgow and died of Phthesitis Pulmonaris, which I gather is TB. This seems to have been an occupational hazard given the other responses.
David Mason- Glasgow, Scotland
December 24, 2010
My father was a brass finisher- he served an apprenticeship from the age of 14- he was born 1907.
His father was a brass finisher and ran his own workshop in the East End of London and finised his working life as a manager of a brass works in east London. He worked until he was about 68 ( He lived 1878- 1952). My father lived 1907-1984. We have apprentices sampler pieces - candlesticks, eggcups, wine bottles.
My father was unemployed for 12 months in 1933-34 and then joined the ship repairers Green and Siley Wier Ltd based in the Royal Albert Docks east London. It was a substantial operation several hundred employees.
There were many brass fittings on passenger liners of the time- my father used to have schedules of hundreds of on board items that needed repair when a ship docked- porthole liners comes to mind- stainless steel was either not available or prohibitively expensive.
- Essex UK
February 10, 2011
My Grandfather and his Grandfather were Brass Finishers in Hackney London, in the early and late 1800's the family name was Fryer. Grandfather was George; his father was Charles it would appear.
Mile End /Haggerston/Hackney / Tower Hamlets/Shoreditch an extremely poor but industrious neighbourhood
For those of you seeking names of companies in that area who were brass finishers, the Trade Directories of the time should list them. As people were desperately poor, one would have to walk to work at 5-6 am finishing at 8-9 PM Mon- Saturday Good luck folks, in your endeavours to find out about Brass Finishers.
George Blewbury, England
Private - United Kingdom
April 23, 2011
I've read the contents of this page with great interest. I have lately found a great-great grandfather, David Jones, who was a native of Denbighshire in Wales. For some years around 1840 he seems to have lived and worked in Liverpool, and then settled in Mold in Flintshire where his younger children, including my great-grandmother, were born. In the 1851 census, when he was 44, he seems to be described as a 'metal busher^washer ' but when his widow was recorded thirty years later in the census she called herself 'brass finisher's widow'. Are these two occupational terms a reasonable match?
On the subject of early death, I have not yet found David Jones's death record (try finding records of people called David Jones in Wales) - but he was evidently dead by 1861^1871, so he did not get much past his fiftieth birthday. I would much like to know whether he too succumbed to respiratory disease.
- Madistone, Kent, England
April 26, 2011Stop-press modifying my last. I've fallen victim to the handwriting of the census and now having read other entries I think the term is brass/metal 'washer', not 'busher'. Does that make better sense? Also, David J was dead not by 1861 but by 1871,- still he would not have passed 60 by much if anything. In 1861, interestingly, he seems to have migrated temporarily from Wales to Bury in Lancashire, presumably to work.
Diana Webb
- Maidstone, Kent, England