UPDATED JULY 2024
If you took a wander down Dean Street in Great Marlow, early in the morning in the first half of the 1800s, you would have seen a stream of men and donkeys heading out of town. Their mission was to gather hazel or privet wood known as "prickwood" from hedgerows for the making of skewers. The skewers these men fashioned supplied much of the London meat industry although they were also used by butcher's shops throughout the South. So associated with skewer making were these men with their donkeys that anyone in Buckinghamshire who saw a passing man and donkey presumed that there went a Marlow "skewerter." They then proceeded to lock up their hedgerows so to speak! More on that below. Dean Street was colloquially known in town as Skewer Street. The skewer makers sat in their doorways on Sundays making their skewers, having spent the rest of the week gathering the wood. Some women as well as the children learning the trade sat making them too. The family donkey would be in the passage of the house looking on.
Skewer making was a major industry for the town but one that doesn't get the attention of the lace, thimble or paper industries for which Marlow is well known.
Late Victorian references to the by then mostly vanished trade said many of those involved had been of gipsy origin. It is certainly the case that a number of Dean Street families had gipsy roots. Even though most were living a settled lifestyle as early as the beginning of Victoria's reign their descendants could still recall their origins and would define themselves as gipsy into the modern day.
Not all families involved were gipsy however, not by any means.
Some of the gathering of wood ("prick wood") from hedgerows around Marlow itself rather than further afield, was also done by the women of skewer making families travelling on foot.
One of the problems the skewer makers always had was getting the wood both in the Marlow area and further away. The hedgerows belonged to the landowners and taking any amount of wood from them was theft. Many convictions for such were accrued by the Dean Street men. However considering the scale of operations even those levels of prosecutions suggest that some tolerance may have been exercised by some landowners. Either that or the skewerters were good at a speedy getaway!
Prosecutions often involved wood stolen from the richest local landowners. Marlow skewerters sometimes expressed in their defence at those times that they did not regard their taking of skewer wood to be a crime. They were pursuing a traditional occupation complicated by no fault of their own and without them having any power to prevent it by Enclosure acts which cut the poor off from traditional common land. Some of the wood taken was from coverts which the landowners themselves maintained purely for leisure game shooting. Popular opinion amongst the poorer people in Marlow was firmly with the skewerters and their right to gather.
The first conviction we have found for wood theft by skewer makers was in 1829. Then "Todd and Robinson" skewer makers of Great Marlow received 2 months in Aylesbury Gaol for stealing prick wood at Burnham.
Most thefts were small but in 1839 three Marlow men were convicted of stealing EIGHT THOUSAND sprigs from the undergrowth of a hedgerow at Gray's Court near Henley. Charles Bowles aka Guinea Bean was committed to Oxford Castle for 12 months and was ordered to be whipped twice in addition. Thomas Bowles was fined £8, and Thomas Frith the same but in default of payment was also imprisoned.
A probable relative of the two Bowles men above was John Bowles who was fined 9 shillings including costs for cutting wood for skewers in 1846.
The youngest skewer maker I have seen so far is aged 16 on the 1851 census, Joseph Perry (later of the Fighting Cocks Pub). His 19 year old brother James and dad also James followed the same trade. The mum in this family Ellen [correctly Eleanor] was a lace maker like a high percentage of other women in Dean Street both married and unmarried. That women like Ellen also worked for pay, outside of the socially preferred model of family life at the time which would have them be full time housewives, is a sign that skewer making was not a high income occupation for their husbands. That is likely also why such a high number of Dean Street skewer makers were also convicted poachers.
In the opinion of many being of a thieving disposition and being a skewer maker went hand in hand. The London Daily News for instance in 1848 thought that because the profession was built upon the habitual use of stolen wood something like a moral infection crept into the souls of these families and they couldn't resist poaching or other stealing. It was too much like second nature for them. The paper more or less labelled theft in the town as being down to the malign influence of these skewerters. Why the country courts throughout England were perpetually full of poaching or other larceny cases despite the absence of the skewer trade they didn't say.
Skewer making was seasonal, as suitable wood could not be found all year. Thus although many defined themselves predominately as skewer makers, none could follow this occupation year round. In between times most men were day labourers (which could get little work in winter and were always very poorly paid) while other men and some women became hawkers of fruit and veg, especially cherries. The transitory nature of skewer making work didn't seem to be understood by the powers that be.
Investigations by the government into the poor laws in 1834 heard evidence from Marlow officials. These said that the part time skewer makers were often on poor relief and committing fraud by working at the same time for good wages. This makes little sense as by the officials own admission those on poor relief were required to work from 6 am to 6pm for the parish. This would be the hardest work in all weathers. No one would do this if they were, as alleged, making a good wage from just a few hours work of an evening skewer making. One Marlow poor relief officer a Mr Gibbons said the guilty skewerters of Dean Street could "live very extravagantly in reference to their station in life" and be "excellent customers to the public houses for beer". These would be the tiny beer houses in the street which made so little money most families who ran them needed to have an additional occupation and take in lodgers in order to survive. And by living extravagantly he must have meant living in overcrowded conditions in poorly maintained houses as that is what the skewerters did. Many went to gaol as they couldn't pay the fines given to them upon their conviction for taking the prick wood. They may have been seen at certain times of the year buying multiple articles, such as new clothes, but that was because those were the good times when skewer making season was on again, and the involved families finally had money to spend on essentials after often months of hardship.
The skewer trade began to fade in the 1860s but it took a while to die. Edward James Mortimer Collins writing in 1869 still said that Marlow was famous for skewers without putting that fact in the past tense. There were still skewerters in the early 1880s too and as late as 1889 John Bowles skewer maker of Marlow was fined for letting his donkey stray onto the highway.
Researched and written by Charlotte Day.
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Some Sources:
Newspapers at the British Library, accessed via the BNA:
Bucks Gazette December 12th 1829.
Bucks Herald 13th April 1833 and 8th June 1889.
Oxford University and City Herald and also the Bucks Gazette 13th April 1839.
Oxford Chronicle 31st Jan 1846. As above.
Above copies held at the British Library and digitized by the BNA. Accessed by us April 2021.
London Daily News. London Daily News 30th November 1848.
Windsor & Eton Express 19 July 1831, as above.
1851 census Charlotte's transcriptions from microfilm.
Two Reports Addressed To His Majesties Commissioners Appointed To Inquire Into The Poor Laws. 1834.
The Ivory Gate Volume One by Edward James Mortimer Collins. Published by Hurst and Blackett 1869. Oxford University Library. Digitized by Google.
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