The Button Industry in Birmingham

Many buckle fabricators applied their skills to the production of buttons after the trade in buckles declined in Birmingham at the end of the 18th century. This had resulted from the increasing popularity of shoe strings as a form of fastening shoes.

By means of Heaton's stamping machine for making button shanks, introduced in 1744, the industry in buttons flourished.

A button stamp

In the 1780s the fashion in the country was for large plated buttons, worn on all possible garments. Some of the leading industrialists were involved, such as the partnership Matthew Boulton and John Fothergill, and John Taylor. Indeed, of 21 button patents applied for between 1770 and 1800, 19 were from Birmingham. "Brummagem buttons" is a household name even today.

Traditional buttons were supplemented by cloth-covered buttons (patented 1825), silk buttons (1837) and linen buttons (1841). In Slater's Directory 1852 there are 20 major button manufacturers listed in the town. But fashions, being fashions, change. Of the 17,000 working in the buttons industry in 1830—many of them very young children—only 6,000 continued through to 1860.

Robert Peel's abolition of import duty on buttons in the 1840s led to a flood of cheap imports, putting extra strain on the market. Mechanization of the trade also meant a streamlining of the workforce. The result was over-production of buttons. The button output of the town in 1840 was 600 million. This will have increased considerably over the following years, but the prices went down at an even faster rate. By the 1860s the industry was very much in decline.

The exception was the pearl button trade, largely exempt from this trend. Due to the delicate nature of the materials, these had to be turned on hand or foot lathes. They were therefore mostly produced in smaller home-based shops which were less vulnerable to the fluctuation of wage and price changes, and production of these was hence able to continue longer.