Home     The Cork-Cutter’s Trade In England, the cork-cutter’s trade disappeared with the industrial revolution. However, family history research may find cork-cutter ancestors. These notes give a look at their work in bygone times. A portrayal of the bustle of commercial activity in Georgian London, given in a poem titled London’s Summer Morning, written by Mary Robinson in about 1795, recognized the role of cork-cutters in the excerpted lines: (1)   Who has not waked to list the busy sounds Of summer’s morning, in the sultry smoke Of noisy London? . . . . Now begins The din of hackney-coaches, waggons, carts; While tinmen’s shops, and noisy trunk-makers, Knife-grinders, coopers, squeaking cork-cutters, Fruit-barrows, and the hunger-giving cries Of vegetable-vendors, fill the air.   In England, the first cork-cutting workshops started to operate in London at the end of the 17th century. Cork, obtained from the bark of a type of oak tree that flourishes around the Mediterranean and Portuguese coast, was valued for a variety of uses including as a bottle sealer, such as wine corks, and for the inner soles of shoes. The interest in cork-cutting spread and, during the 18th century, workshops were established in many towns throughout Britain (2). A manual, printed in London in 1753, gave a description of the cork-cutter business: The Cork he cuts is the bark of a tree we meet with in Spain, and other warm countries; few serve apprentices to this trade; women are chiefly employed in it, and will earn above a shilling a day in cutting them, at so much a dozen. Fifty pound will set up a Cork-Cutter. (3) In the above account, there is a distinction between the business manager and the labourers. In family history research, where the identity of cork-cutter is found in trade directories, electoral poll books, wills, and other records, it can be assumed that the person was the proprietor of a cork-cutter enterprise. The 1804 publication of The Book of Trades, or Library of the Useful Arts observed that for the cork-cutter’s work ‘the knives used in the operation have a peculiar construction, and they must be exceedingly sharp’ (4). Below is an illustration and description of the cork-cutter’s knife extracted from a nineteenth century reference book. ‘The knife of the cork-cutter has a very thin and sharp blade about six inches long and tapering, with a truncated end. It is constantly whetted upon the board from which rises the stake on which the cork rests during cutting’.     from Knight’s American Mechanical Dictionary, Vol. 1,     Boston, 1882, p. 623 (Internet Archive ). The cork-cutter’s workshop: an illustration of various cutting tools used in the manufacture of corks.         Detail from a print published in Paris in the 18th century.         Wellcome Collection , Reference: 37610i. Illustration of a Cork-Cutter   from The Book of Trades, or Library of the Useful Arts,   London, 1804. In the above illustration the items hanging from the ceiling are flotation devices or life jackets designed to assist a wearer to keep afloat in water. The text to accompany the illustration described: The cork waistcoat is composed of four pieces of cork; two for the breasts, and two for the back, each nearly as long as the waistcoat without flaps. The cork is covered, and adapted to fit the body. It is open before, and may be fastened either with strings, or buckles and straps. The waistcoat weighs about twelve ounces, and may be made at the expense of a few shillings. A report from 1835 stated that imports of cork to England, mainly from Portugal, amounted to about 44,000 lbs. annually. At this time, cork-cutters in England were protected from foreign competition by a duty of 7s. per lb. on manufactured corks (5). Cork-cutters did not appear to have their own trade association. By comparison, for leather workers, each leathercraft had its own trade guild, such as the saddlers, shoemakers (cordwainers, patten-makers), glove makers etc. (6). Some London cork-cutters became members of one of the City of London Livery Companies. For example, a number of cork-cutters had an association with the Clothworkers’ Company of London (7). By the end of the nineteenth century, cork products were made using machinery, rather than being entirely hand-crafted. Charles Booth’s study on working-class life in London towards the end of the 19th century, published in his multi-volume book Life and Labour of the People in London, included a description of the working conditions in a cork-cutter’s workshop, which is reproduced in the extract below. Cork Manufacturers from Life and Labour of the People in London, Volume 5: Population classified by trades, edited by Charles Booth, London, 1895, pp. 216–218 (Google eBook ). Cork bark comes principally from Spain, Portugal, and the South of France. A little is also imported from Algiers. It is sent over either in its natural state as Virgin cork (which is the first stripping of young trees); or in bundles made up of flat slabs of the later growths; or ready for use as wine and medicine corks; or, finally, in the form of dust and shavings, in which condition it is used principally by the linoleum and kamptulicon makers in the manufacture of floor cloth.     The Minories and neighbourhood form the cork-market of London and the clearing-house of the world as far as cork is concerned; for the greater part of the manufactured cork is sent here, and then re-sorted or re-shipped untouched for the colonies and other foreign markets.     As in other industries, a great many of the so-called manufacturers are merely dealers and re-sorters who, if they sell London-cut corks at all, buy them at trade prices from others who are in reality manufacturers, and who in addition may themselves be retailers in the same market as their trade customers. Character and Process of Work Manufacturers employ from forty, at most, down to two or three men, boys and women. The average cork cutter’s shop would seem to find work for about twenty persons, of whom the men would be ‘foremen,’ ‘notchers,’ and ‘machinists,’ and the boys and women mostly sorters, though some of the boys are often put to the lighter cutting machines. The term ‘foreman’ here means the cork ‘burner.’ He is the most skilled of all the men, but not necessarily the overseer of others.     The flat slabs of cork as they arrive are full of holes and cracks and bits of rough fibre, which can only be got rid of or sealed up by the process of burning. This is done at a large open fire of cork shavings, across which run iron bars in the shape of a ‘grid’. Here the slabs of cork are placed, and crackle and burn, and are turned by their cook with a pair of tongs until they are properly done, as if they were great beef-steaks. Then they are tossed off on one side to a boy who quenches the burning embers with water, and stacks them away to dry for twenty-four hours, after which they are taken down and swept with stiff brooms to remove the loose black. Then they are cut into lengths of equal thickness, and passed to the notcher, who again cuts them into squares small enough to fit conveniently into the different cutting machines.     Brewers’ bungs or ‘shives,’ corks for pickle jars, known as ‘dăfies’ in the trade, bath corks and medicine corks, and cork rings and discs used by wholesale chemists, are the sizes most usually made in London. Odd pieces are also used in the manufacture of cork fenders (for ships), and life-belts, and thin shavings are cut for helmets and to make cigarette tips. Wine-bottle corks come entirely from abroad. Wages, &c. Work is both on time and piece. Under the old system, by which corks were entirely hand-cut, piece obtained to the exclusion of time-work, but since the introduction of machinery, time-work has become more usual. On time-work notchers and machinists will make 24s to 27s per week, year in and out, and a very good man 28s; whilst on piece, with hard work, some can earn as much as 30s to 35s.     Foremen or burners, who are partly time and partly piece workers, make the highest money, and earn as much as 2s per hour when ‘burning,’ but the hot fire is very trying to the constitution, and soon finds out the weak spots in those who are either not strong or in the least unsteady in their manner of life. They do not often work more than two or three days a week at the fire; on the odd days they cut and sort the burnt cork into lengths, and prepare it for the notchers and machinists. Their takings seem to average about 45s per week.     Yearly earnings are high for all, in spite of the fact that weekly wages for most men read somewhat low, for work is very regular, and there are never, so it is said, more than a dozen cork cutters out of work in any one month of the year. It is not a season trade, and should demand temporarily slacken, fresh stuff can always be safely cut for stock.     Apprenticeship is a thing of the past, and lads are promoted to the machines from the position of errand boys.     Machine work can be learned by men in three or four months, but there is not much movement either from or into this industry. Those who are in the trade remain there because their wages are constant, whilst those who are outside are not attracted because of the comparatively small amount of the weekly wage.     Ladies’ Fashion In the eighteenth century fashionable women wore padding, called rumps, under their petticoats to give extra fullness at the back of the dress. These rumps could be made from a variety of materials including cork (8). The print below, designed as a parody, shows a shop making and selling cork rumps; two ladies are trying on the rumps while two women are carving the cork rumps at a desk with the sign "Money for Old Corks". The finished cork rumps, of different sizes, are stacked on shelves behind the lady cork-cutters.     A Satirical Print, 1777:             "Monsieur le Que Ladies Cork-Cutter from Paris             Wholesale, Retail, & for Exportation",     The British Museum collection online (museum number J,5.133). Next:   Trade Cards and Bills     and The Magnificent Cork Oak Tree Notes (1) The poem London’s Summer Morning . Biography of Mary Robinson (1757–1800), Wikipedia . (2) An informative review of the cork-cutter profession is given by Cheryl Bailey, "Bark’s Requiem: the forgotten trade of corkcutting", Family History Monthly, January 2004, pp. 22–24. (3) The General Shop Book: or, The Tradesman’s Universal Director, printed for C. Hitch and L. Hawes in Paternoster Row, London, 1753 (Google eBook). (4) The Book of Trades, or Library of the Useful Arts, Vol. 1, 1804, London, pp. 144–148. (5) "Oak-Bark Peelers", The Penny Magazine, 31 January 1835, p. 37 (Google eBook ). (6) Review of My Ancestor was a Leather Worker, the Society of Genealogists’ Newsletter, London, April 2021. (7) The Records of London’s Livery Companies (ROLLCO online database). (8) Kendra Van Cleave, Late 18th Century Skirt Supports: Bums, Rumps, & Culs , article online. Text Copyright © WhistlerHistory 2024.