OCCUPATIONS
STONE WORKERS
The Stone Cracking Yards at at L'Ongree, Les Monmains, Guernsey in about 1898. Boys as young as 9 worked here after school.
I have used the term Stone Workers to cover a range of work within the stone trade including, stone masons, stone cutters, stone crackers and quarrymen.
In the mid 19th century a large influx of stone workers from Normandy and Brittany in France, Devon and Cornwall in England and some from Ireland went to Alderney, Guernsey & Jersey in the Channel Islands, including many of the Lake Family.
Many major projects were using stone from the islands including in 1840, John Mowlem, the founder of the construction firm, renewed the paving of Blackfriars Bridge in London with setts of Guernsey Granite
Every day hundreds of stone workers would set off to work dressed in jackets waistcoats and trousers mainly made of heavy moleskin or corduroy to keep out the wind and they would wear a simple neckerchief to wipe their brow, but it would also double as a bandage for slight injuries. Many would smoke pipes and they would carry a brew can and some food for the day, probably a lump of bread and some cheese.
The men worked with hand tools using sledge hammers, picks and crowbars to force the stone from the rock beds. Imagine the effort to swing a large sledge hammer or pick all day. It was often said that you would never see an overweight quarryman.
The large pieces of rock could weigh between 1 and 7 tons and these would be lifted by a manual hoist (or steam crane if they were lucky) and taken by cart to a work area where the rocks would be split again into more manageable pieces. Stone Masons would then shape the stones into the required measurements.
The constant use of their chisels would quickly blunt their tools and they would have to visit the onsite blacksmith to get them sharpened. The blacksmith was a highly skilled craftsman who not only sharpened tools but made parts as they were required for any machines on site.
An enormous rock being moved by cart in Guernsey. It took 9 rocks like this one to build the Victor Hugo Statue in Candie Gardens in St Peter Port.
Below: Stone Masons shaping rocks to size
The men would work in small teams and it was dangerous work with many men being killed or injured when large rocks fell on them. If the men were lucky enough to avoid being killed or maimed then they might end up with silicosis, a serious lung disease from the silica in the rock (depending what type of rock they were working with).
The drink of choice for the quarrymen was beer to slake the men’s thirst and wash the dust from their throats, so the Temperance Movement, which was growing at the time, would find few converts in the stone trade. My own Great Aunt Eliza Lake ran a Temperance Society group in St Peter Port, whilst many of her own family were stone workers.
Boys would start in the quarry as young as 9 working after school and then full time by 13 or 14. It is reported that as late as 1939 boys that age were still only earning 6d an hour (£1.30 in 2013) for heavy hard work. Their first jobs would be lifting and carrying and loading the wagons with “scaplings”, this was the waste from pitching the stones, which would be ground up to help make concrete products. Other youngsters might become assistants to the blacksmith carrying a cow hide bucket to collect the workers blunt tools for sharpening
There was no formal apprenticeship to become a mason, each individual would learn how to use the tools one at a time, the dressing hammer or the special chisels like pitchers and points.
Quarrymen with a steam crane
By the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century most of my Lake family had left the Channel Islands. My grandfather John William Lake, a stone mason in Guernsey and then Jersey, moved to Cardiff in Wales, which at that time was in a building boom. By 1906 he had moved to London and worked on the widening of London Bridge, which was later dismantled stone by stone and moved to Lake Havasu in Arizona. He later became a Trade Union Official of the National Society of Street Masons, Paviours & Road Makers. He was the only male member of his family to stay in the UK, his 3 brothers all moved to California.
His eldest son (my uncle) also John William Lake continued in his profession by becoming a monumental mason and in 1935 became the Officer of Works for London, looking after London’s monuments. After World War 2 he engraved the dates 1939 – 1945 in roman numerals onto the Cenotaph in Whitehall, seen every November at the armistice day parade. The Cenotaph was designed by Sir Edward Lutyens after World War 1.
My father, William Lake, also started as a mason but quickly realised that it wasn’t the job for him. So unfortunately my Uncle, John William Lake, was the last in a long line of masons on our side of the family, a tradition that had gone back 4 generations over nearly two centuries.
Stone Workers in the Lake Family Tree left the UK and went to the USA. George Henry Warley, my 1st cousin 3 times removed, emigrated to Massachusetts and started the company, G H Warley Granite Dealer in Tyngsboro, Middlesex County.
George died in 1922 but his sons and grandsons kept the business going and many family relatives in Massachusetts including members of the Roberts &
De Carteret Families (all related to the Lake family) worked in the stone trade.
Map of New England
The Riverside Cemetery Chelmsford Massachusetts where George Henry Warley is buried. No doubt a lot of the stone used in this cemetery came from his company.
My Uncle, John William Lake, on the right in the black hat, at the top of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square London.
Below: The Cenotaph in Whitehall the National Monument of Remembrance.