Glovers in North Devon

[Trees]

Hello Everyone,
I have no less that 36 people in my data base who were employed making gloves in the Beaford/St Giles in the Wood  /Ashreighney area.
Does anyone Know who was the principle employer around 1851 in that area?
Does any one know how big an area would be covered by out workers?
How can I tell if these women were factory workers or home workers?
thank you for your interest
Trees

[MarMnkly]

Hi Trees
have a look at this snippet in google books. It looks like Great Torrington's chief business used to be glove making employing outworkers, and Torrington is only 3 miles from St Giles in the Wood and 5 miles from Beaford.
http://books.google.com/books?id=UcoIKv-YBskC&pg=PA362-IA11&ots=kXg_t7IdIL&dq=glove++Beaford&ie=ISO-8859-1&sig=Dev98J0sqK9oyvJ8dPc61Kgn8Ro

A further google of gloves and Great Torrington brings up the following useful information
http://www.championfh.net/cfh/docs/glove%20makers%20v1.0.pdf

regards
Margaret

[Trees]

Many thanks for the links Margaret I have found that the Torrington factory was Vaughan Tapscott's. William Vaughan was a Bible Christian and had the factory built in the style of a Methodist Chapel He went on to be Mayor of Torrington on several occasions and was instrumental in having a Cottage Hospital built  http://www.great-torrington.com/history/index.html  Also have found an interview with a glovess which appeared in a Canadian newspaper which may be of interest
 http://www.angelfire.com/ct2/beharu/mgt_smale.htm

Its building up a very interesting picture
Trees

[Cher4]

Hi if you email the great torrington museum they will help you they have about the glove making factory as one of the displays. The factory is boarded up but still standing i,m sure it was still for sale when we went past when on hols in June. My hubbys rellies also worked in the glove making jobs.

Cher

[Trees]

Many thanks for that Cher its a good idea I didn't know Great Torrington had a museum
Trees

[slightlyfoxed]

you could try here also

http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/DevonMisc/NDJchronology.html

http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/DEVON/2000-03/0952065686

and this from notes I made for a booklet I wrote on the Devon wool trade....

' The Glovers and the worker in leather traded in wool as a by-product of their craft. They purchased wool fells, sheepskins. Before they could process the pelts, the fleece had to be removed. This done, they sold the wool to dealers and other manufactures. Almost everyone wore gloves and glove makers were great dealers in wool. In small towns the glove trade supplied a large source of employment for centuries.
The trade in Great Torrington, for instance, can be traced from the 1500’s right up until the immediate past, where the glove factory there closed in 2000. '
There is an image of  the factory, I think, in the Great Torrington website.The town also has a reinactment attraction called 1646.

 Great Torrington has transcribed it's Parish records and they can be found in Genuki.

[Trees]

Sorry not to have replied before just back from a break in the midlands Many thanks for this information.
Trees

[Geordie daughter]

Does anyone know anything about J.W. Tapscott and Sons, glove makers, of Calf Street, Torrington, and when they came into existence? There is a fair bit of information on the Vaughn family's glove factory, but very little on J.W. Tapscott. I am helping a friend with his family tree and we have found that his father's maternal grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Gould, was a gloveress. She lived in Calf Street between 1901 and 1911, and was an "errand woman at a glove factory" in 1901, though in the years prior to that she had been employed making gloves from home. It would be good to establish, if that's possible, whether she was working for the Tapscotts or the Vaughns by 1901.

[Trees]

I expect you have found these both are informative.;
http://www.highgen.com/html/places/greattorrington.html

Thementioned book "Strong's Industries of North Devon 1889".can still be found in Torbay library and on sale on line

http://www.devonheritage.org/stentiford/Issue_29/Article1/4May1art2.htm

Did you see the Greg wallace who Do You Think You Are he was stood right in front of the building talking about his glover ancestor its still on the i player.

I thought there was only the one enterprise Vaughan Tapscott, so did two firms merge?
Vaughan was a prominent Methodist and his factory shows the influence in its architecture.
Tapscott specialised in Chamois leather gloves if that helps. Chamois is leather of sheep and goats . Torrington had been a wool town and the chamois gloves developed from that industry. The WDYTYA program talked of the ancestor sewing silk gloves too so may be each firmworked with different materials and eventually merged It would be worth contacting the museum in Torrington to find out if they can tell you more.
Please let us know what you find  anyone with North Devon ancestors is bound to have glovers involved.