From: tickettyboo@mail2oops.com   
      
   On 2018-04-24 18:19:17 +0000, BobC said:   
      
   > In article ,   
   > hayesstw@telkomsa.net says...   
   >>   
   >> On Mon, 23 Apr 2018 10:00:00 +0100, Chris Pitt Lewis   
   >>  wrote:   
   >>   
   >   
   >>   
   >> That is certainly what I pictured a striker doing.   
   >>   
   >> In my youth I often took horses to have shoes fitted (though not   
   >> underground), and the blacksmith wououd hold the shoes with tongs on   
   >> the anvil with one had while striking them with a hammer to shape them   
   >> with the other. I imagine that a general blacksmith (as opposed to a   
   >> farrier) might deal with things bigger and more awkward to hold than a   
   >> horseshoe, and would use both hands to place them on the anvil while   
   >> an assistant did the striking.   
   >   
   > I looked into a neighbour's family and came across one of their   
   > ancestors who was shown as a "Striker", a "Striker Smith" and also   
   > "Striker Smith Railway Works".   His son was a "Hammer Boy" and later a   
   > "Railway Spring Smith's Assistant", another son is shown as a   
   > "Blacksmith's Striker.   
   >   
   > They all seem to work either at a Shipyard or at a Railway Works, so   
   > definitely heavy engineeering rather than what we usually think of as   
   > the traditional blacksmith shoeing horses.   
      
   The popular scenario of the village blacksmith, though valid, is only a   
   tiny part of what happened in the industrialised areas.   
   I have anchorsmiths hanging off the family tree back in the early   
   1800s, on Tyneside. A sprinkling of the younger ones are described as   
   'hammerman' or 'striker'   
   The anchors they made could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be   
   made entirely by one man. It was a team effort. The smith was the   
   brains who knew where the metal should be struck at any given stage,   
   the strikers were the brawn, it took quite some effort in the very high   
   temperatures in the area of the furnaces to swing the hammer with   
   enough force to do the job.   
   From what I have read the young strikers were often apprentices and   
   'may' become smiths in the fullness of time.   
      
   --   
   Tickettyboo   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)