Recently I picked Early Planemakers of London
from my bookshelf for a re-read. Written by Don & Anne Wing and published in 2005, the book is sub-titled "Recent Discoveries in the Tallow Chandlers and the Joiners Companies". This book spoiled me. This is how books should be written. Particularly books that cover an historical subject. From the get-go, the authors state that this is a work in progress, that the material held within the volume is the result of their personal research and that, to the best of their ability, they are relating what they have discovered and will note what questions remain unanswered.
Upon reading, you'll find that the authors stick to their promises. At no time do they state as a fact what is or may be a guess, references to prior works are supplied throughout and new avenues of exploration are proposed with the intent of exciting the imagination of other researchers. This is clearly a work stemming from their personal passions as well as a work intended to spark interest in the history of wooden planes.
The authors have succeeded in taking what could have been a dry, scholarly work and turning it into a page-turner that introduces us to the peculiar and complex world of the British Trade Guilds of around 1680 through 1750. In particular, just how did plane-makers end up as members of the Tallow Chandlers Guild? How did this Guild relate to the Joiners Guild? What prompted apprentice plane-makers to enter the trade, or to leave it?
There are more leads, more open-ended questions and more suberb photographs in this book than can be tolerated. While reading this at work, I wanted to ditch my schedule and hurry home to check on my wooden plane collection. Was there some missing link in there? Some gem I hadn't realized was one?
A comment or two in Early Planemakers of London about the Dutch plane-makers connection intrigued me. British - Dutch trade flourished in the 17th Century. Consider that there are more documented 17th C Dutch planemakers than there are British, it would seem logical to assume that early British tradesmen and ironmongers bought planes and other tools from Dutch makers. There are a few early Dutch made planes in collections that show British characteristics, despite their Dutch origins. Even into the turn of the 20th Century, Dutch tool mongers offered designs of British, United States, French and Dutch origins. This trade catalog in my personal collection, Album Van Schaven En Gereedschappen: Rabots et Outils, Planes and Different Tools: Jos. Harm, Vijzelstraat , Amsterdam, c1900, seems made for an international market of craftsmen. Even this late, we have a Dutch firm offering a variety of tool styles, unlike the more regionally conservative British and US firms who tended to focus only on their own borders when it came to styles and designs.
I had to pull Four Centuries of Dutch Planes and Planemakers
from my shelf and re-read that one too. It seems there is, in all liklihood, a direct connection between the early Dutch plane-makers and the British trade. There are similarities in designs... heels look the same although toes differ, wedges may or may not resemble each other, etc. The problem is, in both books there are hints but as of yet, no hard evidence has surfaced. Perhaps in some nearly forgotten archival box, on a shelf in a dimly lit British or Dutch Archives, there sits a toolmongers ledger or an invoice that sheds light on this question.
Or perhaps there is a wooden plane bearing the stamps of both Dutch and British makers/toolmongers? Next time you drool over your collection, take a look to see if there is a connection or two to this particular mystery.
Till next
Gary
