CovSoc founder member, Paul Maddocks, reviews a book by one of Coventry’s best known history writers. Paul writes…..
I am very happy to have received from Dave McGrory a copy of his latest Coventry book which has come out this week. It is called ‘Coventry at Work’ with a subtitle ‘people and industries through the years’.
Coventry has been a major centre of trade and industry since the Middle Ages. Medieval Coventry was known for making tiles, cloth, buckles, statues and stained glass.
The book features the famous John Thornton who undertook the glazing of the massive east window of York Minster, which contained 311 panels, described as a masterpiece of European Renaissance art, started in 1405.
Coventry’s early prosperity was founded upon production of wool and cloth. It was famous for the dyeing of cloth with the famous Coventry true blue. The different cloth trades became noted guilds.
Later there was the production of silk ribbons, with thousands of engine and hand looms, employing over 20,000 people. In the twentieth century, Coventry became a pioneer of synthetic fibre manufacturing.
Clock-making grew from the sixteenth century in the city, with famous clock makers like Samuel Watson’s whose clock of ‘Wonder’ was made for the King. Later watch-making became a big important industry for the city – Charles Dickens carried his Coventry watch until he died.
In the nineteenth century Coventry also became known for bicycle invention and manufacture. The city was the home of all the mayor inventions and developments of the cycle as we know it today, starting with the classic Rover safety-cycle created by John Kemp Starley. But Harry Lawson had created a similar cycle around the same time!
This also led to Coventry becoming the hub of car manufacturing and the first city in Great Britain to manufacture cars but who was first? Over the century there has been something like 140 different car manufacturers. It was Coventry’s expertise in this area of manufacturing, as well as aircraft, military vehicle and armaments, that led to it being targeted by enemy bombing in the Second World War.
David McGrory is well known as the writer of more books on the city than anyone else. This is his 29th! The book explores Coventry’s history through previously unknown source material and covers industries from medieval weaving to modern car-building etc.
‘Coventry at Work’ explores the working life of this city in the West Midlands and its people and the industries that have characterised it through the ages. This book will appeal to all those with an interest in the history of Coventry.
The book can be found at most book shops soon or contact – www.amberley-books.com
ISBN 978-1-3981-1895-9
