Wheelwrighting is an endangered craft the number of those working in the trade declined from more than 20,000 at the turn of the twentieth century to about 25 in 1980.

Before the First World War, nearly every village had its own wheelwright, a man skilled in his trade who would probably be assisted by his son or a boy serving a five-year apprenticeship. He would be able to judge the quality of timber in a standing tree, and able to assess from stored timber in the yard those pieces that would make a good shaft, spoke or felloe. During the Nineteenth Century, increased use of iron in the building of a wagon meant that the wheelwright became more dependent on the services of a blacksmith.

In the 1920s, a decline in the volume of work for the business meant that wheelwrights diversified into other trades in which they could use their skills of carpentry - motor-body building; manufacture of gates, hurdles, tool handles; even coffin-making. Spare spokes would be employed as rungs in the making of ladders.

Only 40–50 people are estimated to be in business as wheelwrights in England today. This number is falling all the time, and many carry on this craft only as part of a wider range of woodworking activity.

Strakes were lengths of iron that were nailed to the outside of wheels to hold wooden wheels together. Strakes were replaced around the mid-1800s by more dependable iron tires that were fastened to the wooden wheel by both the tight fit of the tire/band as well as tire-bolts. Tire-bolts were less likely than tire-nails to break off because they were flush with the wheel's outer surface. During the second half of the 19th century the use of pre-manufactured iron hubs, and other factory-made wood, iron and rubber wheel parts became increasingly common.

George Sturt (1863-1927) who also wrote under the pseudonym George Bourne, was a writer on rural crafts and affairs. He was born and grew up in Farnham, Surrey, only a few miles from the Ridgers family wheelwrights at Crondall, Long Sutton, Farnborough, Aldershot and Bagshot.

He was a grammar schoolteacher until 1894 when his father died, after which he took over and ran the family wheelwright shop in Farnham, where he continued to live for the rest of his life.

He wrote numerous books and articles under the name George Bourne, including a novel.

George Sturt’s frank and moving account of his trade as a wheelwright in the late nineteenth century offers us a unique glimpse into the working lives of craftsmen in a world since banished by technology.

“There was nothing for it but practice and experience of every difficulty. Reasoned science for us did not exist. What the wheelwright had to do was live up to the wisdom passed down, to follow the customs, and work to the measurements, which had been tested and corrected long before our time, in every village shop, all across the country. A wheelwright's brain had to fit itself to this by growing into it, just as his hands had to grow into the movements that would plane a felloe `true out `o wind'."

"So the work was more of an art - a very fascinating art - than a science. A good wheelwright knew by art, and not by reasoning; the proportion to keep between spokes and felloes; and so too a good smith knew how tight a two-and-a-half inch tyre should be for a five foot wheel. He felt it in his bones. It was a perception with him, but there was no science, no reasoning. Every detail stood by itself, and had to be learnt either by trial and error or by tradition". 

A cart built by the Sturt family loaded with hops near Farnham, Surrey

For shoeing, the wheel was then set up over a pit of water. The wheelwright took out the strip of iron, already curved by heat and punched with nail-holes, and laid it red hot on top of the wheel rim. As the hot iron burned into the wood, the wheelwright punched in big rose-headed nails, and then turned the wheel round into the pit of water. While the newly fastened strake was cooling, the operation was repeated on the opposite side of the wheel, until the six strakes completed the job of tyring. Shoeing a wheel in this manner continued until the latter part of the nineteenth century.

Tyre-fitting

Hoop tyres were not introduced into Britain until the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Solid bars of iron bent into a full circle and welded, were put on hot and nailed into position on the wheel rim. As the tyre cooled and shrank, it pulled the spokes into exactly the right amount of dish. The nave bonds were also heated and driven into place on each side of the spokes.

Finally, the wheel had to be boxed. This meant that the centre of the nave had to be hollowed out and a cast iron box inserted and fixed with wedges. Into this box the axle arm was fitted. Under the first Bylaws of the Worshipful Company it was a punishable offence to sell wheels before they had been boxed and shod.

"And yet, there in my old-fashioned shop the new machinery had almost forced its way in-the thin end of the wedge of scientific engineering. And from the first day the machines began running, the use of axes and adzes disappeared from the well-known place, the saws and saw-pit became obsolete. We forgot what chips were like. There, in that one little spot, the ancient provincial life of England was put into a back seat. 

It made a difference to me personally, little as I dreamt of such a thing. "The Men," though still my friends, as I fancied, became machine "hands." Unintentionally, I had made them servants waiting upon gas combustion. No longer was the power of horses the only force they had to consider. Rather, they were under the power of molecular forces. But to this day the few survivors of them do not know it. They think " Unrest" most wicked."    George Sturt,  “Wheelwright's Shop”

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