Comments on: Brian Barrett, Foundry Foreman

By: Helen Banham

Helen Banham — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 16:40:06 +0000

Thank you so much for writing such a great piece and the photos are super. My husbands ancestor was Sarah Ann Banham who married James Hoyle in 1872. All these past years my husband, who works in property in London, has admired and loved the work of the iron founders. To find out he had a connection to such a great factory made his day!

By: Felicity Kilpatrick

Felicity Kilpatrick — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 21:09:58 +0000

GA, you have touched my heart. My father’s family were iron founders in the nineteenth century, and the men in the family worked with metal from the 1830s to the 1990s. My father measured a man by the oil on his fingertips and callouses on his hands. It wasn’t until I began to know more of Swansea’s copper industry, the industry in which my family were later employed, that I began to understood why my father reserved his greatest respect for the men with whom he worked, men whose hands bore the scars of their craft. Gentle author, like you I am immensely proud that my father undertook his apprenticehip – the fifth generation of his family to do so. Your writing brings the magic to life. Thank you.

By: Alan Ryan hall

Alan Ryan hall — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 06:36:44 +0000

Hey… I just love people and places that have a long tradition of doing things right. The pictures are equal to any that I have seen in any social history article or book. My question is, do you do bronze casting there as well? Best wishes Alan

By: Rowena

Rowena — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 16:07:01 +0000

I love Brian’s boots. Really cool.

By: Ash

Ash — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 20:53:56 +0000

Great, thanks a lot GA: I’ve burnt me chips AGAIN!

By: John F.

John F. — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 20:14:31 +0000

I had the privilege of walking past some of Mr Hoyle’s masterpieces on a regular basis for the past 34 years as I used to work at the Natural History Museum (dear GA – please excuse the gentle correction…you’re in good company as Auntie Beeb’s editors often utter this heresy…)

There’s a very familiar ‘feel’ about the workshop environment you’ve depicted as we used to have our own locksmiths workshop. It was of course very much smaller, but nonetheless I can sense through your words and pictures the same magical aura which surrounds such collections of craftsmanship.

By: Charlie

Charlie — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 11:56:15 +0000

Another great article, GA. I work on Andrews Road and was passing the foundry when Hackney Council were putting up the security cordon, fences, barbaric spikes and enormous remote controlled gates to protect, not a nuclear power station or air force facility, but the new parking pound! Foundry staff were all out in the street lamenting the change to the character of that part of the street.

By: Kavey

Kavey — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 09:42:13 +0000

Another lovely post/ portrait.
There is sadness you never went inside the foundry/foundries where your father worked. Did he refuse to take you or it just wasn’t done?

By: Herry Lawford

Herry Lawford — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 08:02:22 +0000

Absolutely fascinating – and your father apprenticed to a foundry as well. Nice to hear a few more details from the Gentle Author’s life. Beautiful photos as well; superb light. Sarah Ainslie’s or your own?

PS My step-grandfather was apprenticed to a firm of engineers in Leicester and spent some of the happiest years of his life there. He welcomed his old apprentice ‘shop-mates’ back to a reunion at his own works annually for almost 50 years afterwards, such was the bond created. It’s good that the apprentice system is again being encouraged today.

http://alfredherbert.blogspot.com/2009/07/sir-alfred-herberts-apprenticeship-with.html