Page 24 - Thrapston Life June 2022

GLANCE
AT THE
PAST
Eric Franklin looks back
Rush Plaiting and Horse Collar
making in Islip dates back to
about 1650, an industry which,
along with the iron furnaces
and mines/ quarries nearby, defined Islip’s major employers.
Richard Loveday, born in 1811, was a matting and horse collar maker in Islip. His son Thomas was born in 1853 and when of age, went to Walsall, the then major horse collar
making town, to learn the trade. He
returned to Islip in 1873 and two
years later built his factory in Islip.
(The pictures above were taken from a document given to Islip Parish Council
by the company and loaned to me by
Richard Horrell.) One major order won
by the business was to produce all the
horse collars for the dray horses owned
by the London and North-Western
Railway (LNWR). With the introduction of motorised railway vehicles, new contracts were sought and found with the coal board for 16- inch pit pony collars and the Newcastle Co-op which retained dray horses for its milk rounds. Even in 1960, collars were in demand on the Isle
of Man for the horse drawn trams.
There were a great variety of collars nationally,
each area having their own preferred style. The advertisement shows 19 such variations with sizes ranging from 14 inches for a pony up to 25
Even in 1960, collars were in demand on the Isle of Man for the horse drawn trams
inches for a large working horse.
One of the last collar makers in Islip was Jack Steward, born in 1898 in Islip,
a pupil at the village school until he was 13 who then worked with his father
on the Drayton Estate as a bricklayer and mason. Conscripted into the
Army aged 18, he became one of many victims of the conflict, suffering major hearing loss and consequent problems with balance. He started work for
Loveday’s in the 1920’s, remaining there until retirement in about 1960. He is shown at work in the factory in circa 1956.
An advertisement in the 1936 issue of Leayton’s Thrapston Almanack and Directory is shown on the next page.
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