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Some Special Interests => Occupation Interests => Topic started by: tonepad on Tuesday 27 October 15 09:02 GMT (UK)
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I have a family of Hoop Makers in Faversham, Kent.
Assume they are making metal hoops to keep wooden barrels together.
The barrels were used in the local gunpowder and brewing industries.
Is this a correct assumption or are there other types of hoop makers?
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I suppose someone made the hoops for hooped skirts and ther are sure to be other types of hoop usage.
More research called for I'm afraid.
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My first thought was corsets.
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Looks like you are right. More research needed.
When I have seen film of Coopers, the wooden parts and iron hoops are made on the same site and then assembled into barrels.
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The Hoop Makers are on the 1851 & 1881 census.
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Looks like you are right. More research needed.
When I have seen film of Coopers, the wooden parts and iron hoops are made on the same site and then assembled into barrels.
According to this list they were called Hoopers or Hoop Shavers:
http://rmhh.co.uk/occup/h.html
Carol
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Thanks Treetotal
Looks like my original assumption could be right.
Huge numbers of barrels were needed for shipping gunpowder and importing the ingredients.
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Hoop Maker, wood hoop maker, aka hoop shaver, splitter; splits saplings of hazel, chestnut, or ash, and makes them into wood hoops for coopers. "A Dictionary of Occupational Terms"
Stan
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Further to which; http://www.gander-name.info/misc/hoopbenders.shtml
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Thanks stanmapstone & youngtug
So hoops can be either wood or metal depending on the requirement.
I guess Hoop Makers produce wooden items, metal hoops probably require smithy skills.
Tony
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Don't forget bowling hoops was a great pastime for children in the days before they became kids.
A
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Most barrels in the early days used wooden hoops, Steel came much later, The barrel was the most common method for transporting goods of all types around the world, The making of wooden hoops was big business,
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SOURCE: http://doot.spub.co.uk/code.php?value=477
Description:
hoop maker, wood hoop maker ; hooper (Westmorland), hoop shaver, splitter
splits saplings of hazel, chestnut or ash and makes them into wood hoops for coopers; see hoop bender.
Related:
cooper ; barrel and cask maker, tubber, tubbie, tub thumper (slang)
(i) makes barrels or casks by hand, using cooper's hammer, adze, etc.; takes staves, prepared by band sawyer (481) q.v., and hollows them on one side, with a two-handled hollowing knife; rounds or backs with backing knife; joints, i.e. bevels edges, by pushing over upturned blade of jointer tool; assembles a number of staves in a circular forming frame, passes a temporary wooden hoop over them, and hammers, forcing staves close together; repeats process with smaller hoops, putting half completed cask over a brazier to make wood warm and pliable; finally hammers on permanent hoops; scrapes surfaces of cask, inside and outside, smooth with steel scraper; takes component parts of heads, i.e. ends of cask, prepared by head cutter (481) q.v., outlines circular shapes thereon with dividers, and cuts to shape with a cooper's adze; cuts a croze, i.e. groove, near top of staves inside, to receive head, with a crozing tool, i.e. a kind of plane; chimes staves, i.e. bevels inner edge, at top, with a spokeshave; hammers on final hoop round top; often employed in repairing casks or barrels, e.g. taking out defective staves, heads, etc., and replacing with new;
(ii) assembles staves, which have been hollowed, backed and jointed by cooper's machinist (486) q.v.; passes hoops over assembled staves, and inserts and hammers in heads, but leaves hoops to be hammered tightly by machine barrel driver (499) q.v.