Isaac Nash axe

[whiskywill]

Number one son, who is an axe enthusiast, gave me this little beauty on Father's day. Grace mentions that they exhibited at the British Industries Fair in 1937 but does anybody have any knowledge of how late they were making axes? Apologies for the crappy photographs.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

On the question of how late they were making axes specifically, not sure. It seems their main business was scythe and agricultural edge-tool making, and they were located in Belborough in Worcestershire. Here's a couple of links that suggest their demise may have been - by the standards of these things - fairly recent.

The National Archives hold the records of Isaac Nash (Belborough) Ltd. from 1793 - 1954.

http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.u ... /c/F183906

This thread suggests that they ceased trading in 1970 (reading the comments), and also has a link to a clip of film taken in the forge;

http://scytheassociation.org/english-sc ... -nash-ltd/

 

[AndyT]

I'm not at home to check, but I think that the Nash company - and hence the brand name - was absorbed into the Spear and Jackson group, which grew to include a lot of famous names from the black country, and kept using those names after the original factories had gone. So possibly there were still axes marked Nash as late as the 50s or 60s?

I'm sure there's no trace of them in Stourbridge now.
Nice present!

Edited to add - I said Stourbridge on the basis of a splendid catalogue from 1899 available from TATHS at http://taths.org.uk/reading/downloads#

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Correction to my original post - Nash were located in Belbroughton, not Belborough. Belbroughton is a small village in Worcestershire, close to the hamlet of Bell End, and just a few miles south of Stourbridge - I can see why they used the well-known centre of iron-working on their catalogue. (For those with a knowledge of railways, it's also quite close to the Lickey incline.)

Here's a bit more about Belbroughton, which also suggests that Nash's ceased trading about 1970.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belbroughton

 

[whiskywill]

This thread suggests that they ceased trading in 1970 (reading the comments), and also has a link to a clip of film taken in the forge;

http://scytheassociation.org/english-sc ... -nash-ltd/

Thanks for the information. Interesting to see the presenter's microphone wire trailing behind him as he walked and talked. How things have changed.