Brushing Up on the Family Trade

As my great grandfather Robert Edwin Shorrocks, my great great grandfather Walter Shorrocks and my great, great, great grandfather James Shorrocks (bca 1794) were all members of a dynasty of craft Brush Manufacturers in Salford, Lancashire, I have developed an interest in their trade.

And in the possibility of actually seeing how the brushes were made by viewing the film made by Sam Hanna in 1968 of the operations of a small company (similar one assumes to that of my family) - Baldwin's of Burnley in this case, rather than Shorrocks' of Salford.

One day, I hope to get to see the film or even buy a copy - in the meantime, I'll just provide the background and the sequence notes.

BACKGROUND

Sam Hanna was a Burnley born amateur film maker whose collection of 587 reels of mostly 16mm film was acquired by the North West Film Archive at the Manchester Metropolitan University in November 2005.

Sam, who has been dubbed 'the Lowry of film making', had a lifelong passion for cinematography. Born in 1903, he became a teacher of handicrafts and, against strong opposition from the education authorities, pioneered the use of film in the classroom.

Self taught Hanna had a film-making spanning six decades, from the 1930s to the 1980s. He is perhaps best known for the Old Crafts Series which forms a unique record of such long-forgotten crafts as brush-making, coopering, clog-making, and charcoal burning.

Also of great interest are his films of local events and customs, notably colour footage of the 'Busby Babes' in 1957, records of children's street games from the 1950s and footage of training exercises performed by his local Home Guard battalion during World War Two.

In 2009/10, the legacy of Sam Hanna will be brought to life again through online access, exhibitions, screenings and workshops. This new project links the North West Film Archive with partners in Lancashire Museums, Libraries and Record Offices, Towneley Hall Museum, and the MMU History Department.

Film No. 5100
OLD ENGLISH CRAFTS; BALDWINS BRUSH MAKERS ESTABLISHED 1854
Producer: Sam Hanna
1968
colour , sound (sep), 12 min. 21 sec:

Depicts the dying craft of making yard and paint brushes by hand at Baldwin's Brush Makers, (established 1854) at Cog Lane, Burnley. It includes footage of a yard brush head being created by a stock knife, holes being bored using a treadle machine and bristles inserted skilfully using pitch and twine, before the brush is trimmed.

Also features the different process of applying bristles to a paintbrush, as they are strapped, levelled up, tacked and sealed to the handle. Other brush-making skills such as combing fibres, cutting bristles and wiring brushes are also shown.

SEQUENCES:

Shot of a man inserting bristles into a red hand brush. "Mr Baldwin is the last of a family that have made brushes for over a century in this workshop".

Cut to shot of second man doing the same job in the same location. The man is shown dipping the ends of bristles into tar-like substance (pitch), winding twine around the dipped area, re-dipping the ends and inserting the bristles into the brush.

Cut to shot of a worker operating a stock knife (that is associated with clog-making) to cut and shape the heads of hand-made yard brushes. The knife is held on the workbench by a hook on the knife and an eye that is fixed to the bench.

Cut to shot of a worker inspecting wooden cones that are topped with curved drill bits. "The holes to receive the bristles in the brush head are made by means of a spoon bit, fixed into a wooden cone, which screws onto the head of a treadle boring machine."

Close up shot of one of the drill bits on a cone. Spoon bits vary in size from small to large diameters depending on the bristles to be received. A treadle machine (operated by a pedal) is shown. The operator stands on one leg, operating machine with other foot, as holes are drilled into the brush head. The drilling process is shown and a yard brush head with the requisite number of drilled holes is shown to the camera.

Cut to whitewashed walls, the brush maker's workshop. A vat of boiling pitch (tar-like substance) is in the middle of the workspace, the brush maker works with the brush head and bristles next to him. He judges the correct clump of bristles, dips the ends in the pitch and wraps some twine (or "thrum") around the end of the bristles. The twine is pulled tight on a steel rod that is fixed to the bench. He dips the ends in the pitch once more before inserting the bristles into one of the holes in the brush head.

In a different location, the brush is then shown to be trimmed by hand-operated bench shears to ensure that the bristles are the same length.

Fibres are then shown being cut by guillotine. A length gauge is set so that bristles are cut to required length.

New close up shot from a different angle showing bristles being inserted into a yard brush.

Good view of the bench-fixed steel rod that has become worn down from twine being pulled tight against it.

Explanation of the different types of materials used to make bristles and which countries they come from.

The inspection of the brush head after shearing is the final operation, the worker is seen passing his hand over the bristles to check for irregularities.

Cut to shot of a 'comb' device that is fixed to a bench. This is used if a mixture of fibres is required, for example animal hair and bristle. The mixture is drawn through the teeth of the comb to produce "hackled" or "combed" bristle. This action cleans the materials before dividing or multiplying the rows of differing components, until uniformity is obtained. The device also helps to remove small or extraneous lengths of bristle as the sample is "dragged" through the comb by hand.

New shot showing bristles laid out on a bench, narrator explains that the bristle materials are naturally bent and the craftsman ensures that the bends lie in the same direction.

Cut to bristles being put onto a paintbrush. The bristles are spread out on the brush handle - a narrow thong of leather is nailed on to hold them in place.

From a different angle, the same process begins. Once the thong has been nailed down once, the bristles are levelled up with a knife. The centre of the brush is marked with a knife which helps to stagger the placing of tacks on both sides of the brush and avoid them meeting in the middle.

Cut to the finishing process, where the ends of the bristles are welded and sealed on to the brush handle using a hot iron powered by a gas-fired heater.

The final scene shows the skill of a female worker wiring bristles on to a brush head, to produce a brush that will be used to groom horses. The narrator claims the action had to be "filmed in slow motion" as the woman was working so quickly. Once the bristles are wired, the woman is shown trimming the brush with shears that are attached to her work bench.