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The new works had been in successful operation little more than a year, when a flood, long after known as the "Great May-day Flood," swept away Dudley's principal works at Cradley, and otherwise inflicted much damage throughout the district.
Solid men with solid guns and halberds, armed with lawful warrants from living statesmen broke up their corporations and took away their hard cash from them. In the same way the people in Cradley Heath are no more victims of a necessary economic law than the people in Putumayo.
In Birmingham' she raised the clear voice and bent her flushed face over the crowd 'in Birmingham those same "fragile flowers" make bicycles to keep alive! At Cradley Heath we make chains. At the pit brows we sort coal. But a vote would soil our hands! You may wear out women's lives in factories, you may sweat them in the slums, you may drive them to the streets. You do.
But meanwhile do not talk to me about the poor chain-makers on Cradley Heath. I know all about them and what they are doing. They are engaged in a very wide-spread and flourishing industry of the present age. They are making chains. When I wrote a little volume on my friend Mr. Bernard Shaw, it is needless to say that he reviewed it.
I said to a Feminist once: "The question is not whether women are good enough for votes: it is whether votes are good enough for women." He only answered: "Ah, you go and say that to the women chain-makers on Cradley Heath." Now this is the attitude which I attack. It is the huge heresy of Precedent.
As it entered the hall and trade after trade, profession after profession filed past the platform on which were seated women of all nations, the enthusiasm reached its height. It would be impossible to give a list of the groups but especially notable were the chain makers from Cradley Heath, who toil for about four shillings per week of sixty hours.
How can the women of Cradley Heath engaged in wielding huge sledge-hammers, or carrying on their neck a hundredweight of chain for twelve or fourteen hours a day, in order to earn five or seven shillings a week, bear or rear healthy children? What "hope of our race" can we expect from the average London factory hand? What "home" is she capable of making for her husband and her children?
There is evidence that the sub-contract system here is sometimes carried through several stages, much to the detriment of the workman who actually executes the orders. One of the most degraded among the sweating industries in the country is chain and nail-making. The condition of the chain-makers of Cradley Heath has called forth much public attention.
Dud proceeded with the manufacture of iron at Pensnet, and also at Cradley in Staffordshire, where he erected another furnace; and a year after the patent was granted he was enabled to send up to the Tower, by the King's command, a considerable quantity of the new iron for trial. Many experiments were made with it: its qualities were fairly tested, and it was pronounced "good merchantable iron."
A few years later, he seems to have succeeded in obtaining the means of prosecuting his original invention; for in his Metallum Martis, published in 1665, he describes himself as living at Green's Lodge, in Staffordshire; and he says that near it are four forges, Green's Forge, Swin Forge, Heath Forge, and Cradley Forge, where he practises his "perfect invention."
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