bellows-maker

1) Occupational term for a maker of bellows.

It is uncertain just where the Hallamshire cutlers obtained their bellows in the early days of the trade but a local family named Osborne supplied them from the latter part of the seventeenth century: 1699 Joshua Osborne, bellows maker, Sheffield. Sheffield had a flourishing tanning industry so leather was readily available. Elsewhere in Yorkshire the word is on record in York from the fourteenth century and at least one early tradesman was an immigrant: 1356 Johannes Bous, belimaker

1372 Nicholas le yhonge de Flandre, belowmaker.

places Sheffield
dates 1356 1699

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Photo by Kreuzschnabel CC BY-SA 3.0