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| Trade card for Billinge & Edwards on Snow Hill, c. 1810. Engraved by Cottrell. Held at Yale Center for British Art. B1978.43.956. |
A trade card advertising tools for clock and watch makers, jewellers, and silversmiths made by Billinge and Edwards on Snow Hill. Snow Hill was, at this time, the heart of the toy (decorative adornments, not children's toys in the 1700s) and jewellery making district in Birmingham, so the perfect place for selling tools of the trade. On the left is a drawplate used in wire making, on the right a saw, with compasses and other tools dotted above and below. A drawplate marked Billinge is held at the British Museum (see below).
Yale state that the card is from about 1770 but reference to toolmakers with the names Billinge and/or Edwards in Birmingham directories is not found till 1815 when a William Billinge was listed as a tool maker and general ironmonger on Snow Hill in Wrightson's Directory. This William Billinge was born in about 1776, and was also born in Liverpool which helps to explain why the manufactory was called 'Lancashire'.* Another trade card of the same design includes only William's name and gives the address of Snow Hill as well as Bull Street, the latter being where William is recorded at until the 1840s (images below).
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Trade card for Wm Billinge, c. 1826. Held at Birmingham Archive - MS 4834/51. |
William Billinge moved his manufactory from Snow Hill to Bull Street in 1826, when he advertised in Aris's Birmingham Gazette that 'Removed from the top of Snow-hill to four Doors higher in Bull-street, on the same side. WILLIAM BILLINGE returns his sincere thanks to his Friends and the Public for the decided preference conferred upon him for the last twenty years, and begs to inform them he has this day opened his new Shop for their better accommodation'.**
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| W. Billinge advert from 1842. From Grace's Guide. |
In 1842, William was called 'the celebrated Press, Lathe, and Tool Manufacturer'.***
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| Drawplate marked Billinge, held at the British Museum. |
See all Paper Remnants.
Notes
*Birth place and date taken from the 1851 census.
**Aris's Birmingham Gazette, Monday 27 March 1826, p. 3.
**Aris's Birmingham Gazette, Monday 12 September 1842, p. 2.
~ William Billinge on WikiTree.
~ William Billinge in select directories, here.