John was born at Ridgeacre but by 1616 he was living nine km away at Dudley where the medieval castle, with its four semi-circular towers, dominated the town. It was here that he “took Alas Wood to wyf”.

The area was rich in ironstone plus the charcoal and coal required to manufacture iron goods. John was a nail-maker or “nailer”. This was a blacksmith who specialised in nails. “Nailing” had been a local cottage industry for centuries. Nailers had small workshops either attached to or close by their house. At the workshop’s centre stood a forge which whole families gathered around to heat iron rods and hammer them into nails. In the early 1600s, iron was laboriously flattened and slit into rods manually beforehand. From the 1620s, water-powered slitting mills took care of this stage. One of the first such mills was erected at nearby Kinver which stimulated the nail trade, and for many locals, nail-making formed either part or the whole of their income. As a result, Dudley was dusty, dirty, and rang to the sound of hammers.

John owned smithy tools, bellows, and a nail shop, so it appears he hammered nails himself. However, he was a man of means and would also have supplied iron to families who produced nails for him.

John and Alice had three children. Their eldest daughter was named Margery after John’s sister and grandmother. She was followed by Mary, and then a son, John. Although infant mortality was high in these times, all their children survived infancy so Margery’s death at age 11 must have come as a shock.

John was a man of some importance: he was a member of the borough jury, inspecting various commodities along with the bailiff and constables. He and Alice lived in style in a two-storey wooden home with a hall and parlour, and they had a family pew in St Edmund’s, a privilege reserved for the lord of the manor, civic dignitaries, and churchwardens.

John died in 1648. After making provision for Alice, he left a property to each of his children along with furniture, pewter, and brass items with his inventory totalling £90. Alice survived John by at least nine years.

John and Alice had seen the reigns of Elizabeth I, James I, and Charles I. They also lived through the Civil War, but that story belongs to their son, John.

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Sources & Notes

• John possibly replaced an older brother by the same name as the Will of William of Halesowen 1617 (probate 1620), suggests Richard (bapt 1576) and William (no bapt record) were the eldest sons.
• Nailing: Edward Chitham, The Story of Dudley, The History Press, 2014, p54-6; Nail-making in Bromsgrove, Rtd 17/7/2022.
• Lifestyle etc: Chitham, p67 (jury); John’s will; St Thomas’ Churchwardens book 1618-1725, Midland Ancestors (land, family pew, Alice contributed to street paving in 1657).