- [Rotherham & Sons in 1851]
- Spon Street factory
Rotherham & Sons in 1851
In 1851, an article entitled 'Time and the Hour', about a visit to Rotherham's factory, appeared in Charles Dickens' Household Words magazine, written by the traveller Harriet Martineau:
... To receive the full impression of these wonders, we should go into the workshop where scores of men and boys are busy in making and arranging the materials -- the hard, dead, mineral materials -- which are to give out something intangible, unutterable, as real as themselves, yet purely ideal in its connection with us. That men, by putting together brass and steel, and a jewel or two, and some engraved marks, should present to us, as in a mirror, the simultaneous doings of the stars in the sky seems to raise the workroom into a place of contemplation of eloquent discourse.
Thus did it appear to us yesterday, when we entered a fine range of rooms where a great number of men and boys were occupied in the business of watch-making for the Messrs Rotherham. There was no resisting the sense of the seriousness of their work in comparison with that (though equally delicate and intently pursued) by which baubles are produced. There is something serious about the whole business. It is a serious thing that it is science and labour which gives its high value to a watch, and not the costliness of the material. A cable was put into our hands the steel of which was worth nothing that could be specified; whereas in its present form, it was worth two shillings. Each link, almost too small to be seen by the naked eye, is composed of five parts, each of which is made and placed for a purpose. The mere metal of the whole interior of a watch is worth, we are told, perhaps sixpence, whereas the skill and labour worked up in it raise its value to many pounds.
All is very quiet in these large apartments, where scores of men and boys are poring over their work. Almost every workman has a small magnifying glass, which he fits to the right eye for the finest part of his work. Of course the right eye fails sooner or later ... Besides the long rows of poring craftsmen here, we were told that there were two hundred more in their own homes, employed for the same firm ...
In 1858, Rotherham's presented a watch to Charles Dickens himself on the occasion of his visit to the factory.
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