LESSON IN A SMITHY

Evening Star, Issue 19197, 13 March 1926, Page 19

LESSON IN A SMITHY

SCHOOLBOYS SHOWN THE CRAFT Practical steps are being taken by the Hertfordshire County Council to interest boys in tbo craft of the blacksmith. A dozen boys selected from tho elementary schools at Hatfield and Now Town were recently given the opportunity of seeing at close quarters how horseshoes and chain links are fashioned in one of the local forges. This demonstration is the first of a series which will take place at St. Albans, Ware, and other places in tho county, and will play, it is hoped, a useful part in tho movement to revive a languishing industry. At any rate, the first group of boys had been happily chosen. They yielded at once to tho fascination which the village smithy, even in its decline, has never failed to exercise. Made to feel that, far from being in the way, they were for once an important part of tho proceedings, they closely watched tho blacksmith and his assistant transforming into horseshoes, which hissed as they were plunged into water, straight cold bars of metal. While tbo work was going forward each process was explained to the boys by a member of the Worshipful Company of Farriers. These demonstrations (says a writer in ‘ The Times ’) are supplementary to other efforts which have been made to set the industry on a sound footing. Tho decline of village smithies in Hertfordshire has for some time given concern to the county council, Much of the work that used to be done in the forge now goes to the motor garage, and farmers, who must still employ horses, feel that either the blacksmith must have other work in addition to his farriery or the village garage must include a shoeing forgo. The Rural Industries Sub-committee of the Hertfordshire County Council took the view that there were ways in which the blacksmith and his plant could be kept fully occupied throughout the year. Accordingly, an exhibition was organised last year, portly to encourage rural blacksmiths to take up fancy work and skilled, scientific labor on motor cars and tractors, and partly to bring to the j notice of the public the number of! things which blacksmitlis could produce more -satisfactorily than factories. This exhibition enjoyed a fair measure of and it is in pursuance of the same aims that tho County Education Committee is seeking to ensure for the industry an adequate supply of appren-: tices.