A query from an Swedish historian

Huntlocks

Copied from MLA forum (UK) I have his full email if you want to reply. I think the site don’t like to show full email addresses??

From: Jeremy Franks [mailto:jeremy.franks…. ]
Sent: 08 November 2011 19:42
To: Enquiries
Subject: ‘locksmith’ as a derogatory epithet

I’m preparing to publish my translations into English of a manuscript written in Swedish in the early 1750s. Its principal subject is a voyage to Surat, India, and thence to Canton by a Swedish East India merchant ship. Its people were involved in a squabble with the Indian authorities (‘the nabob’) and some other European merchants, which gave rise to the following odd commentary: “It must have been or made to seem one who told the nabob that he wondered about those mischievous persons who tried to persuade him falsely to mistrust the newly-arrived foreigners [i.e. the writer and his fellow Swedes], although the English were but locksmiths, the Dutch fishermen; but Swedish and French traders were bold, enterprising warriors.”
Why this disparaging reference to locksmiths? Might this have something to do with the firing mechanism of flintlock muskets or the like?
I’d be most grateful for any elucidation of this puzzle and if your association can’t help, I’d appreciate it if you could forward this enquiry to someone who perhaps can.
Please let me know if there’s more that you’d like to know. I look forward in any event to hearing from you.
Best wishes
Jeremy Franks FLS

Brian Denyer

This appears to be a purely subjective interpretation.
It is quoted out of context?
What ever happened in the surrounding environment isn’t known,
and it would be shear guess work to provide an explanation.
I remember the saying the ’Sun never sets on the British Empire"

Chris Belcher

The term Gunsmith was well establised in the English language in those days

Brian Denyer

I think the Greatest Nation on the face of the Earth, as was Great Britain
at the time, and with the finest Navy naturaly brings criticism from His Majesty’s
subjects in the colonial nations.
The jab at the English is a reflection upon the person who made such a undiplomatic
slur, and lacked common social graces.
But then again he was the only person in the group who was missing most of his teeth
from previous altercations LOL
Britania rules the waves………………

Chris Belcher

It has always been common practice to cast aspersions upon those who are not present in order to gain favour of those who are

Brian Denyer

Yes, I agree…

Parautoptic

But why this particular (and very specific) description? Why not “mechanics” or “metalworkers” or some similar generic term?

When Napoleon called Britain “a nation of shopkeepers” he did not specify a particular trade.

WhiteKnight wrote
It has always been common practice to cast aspersions upon those who are not present in order to gain favour of those who are

[unknown]

Billy B Edwards Jr. CML

The only other thing that comes to mind is that it could have been a reference to the slave trade which was ful blown around that time. Slavers were known for locking up their goods.
BBE.

Parautoptic wrote
But why this particular (and very specific) description? Why not “mechanics” or “metalworkers” or some similar generic term?

When Napoleon called Britain “a nation of shopkeepers” he did not specify a particular trade.

[unknown]

Chris Belcher

I have a feeling that this may have been a misinterpretation of the term ‘Lock maker’ at the point of origin. One of the major complaints made of the British at that time, was the turn around time of the trading ships when they arrived in the UK. The problem was the ‘Locks’ that they had to pass through to get to the alloted dock.
Food for thought?

Doug MacQueen

I think the statement was purely a slam against the English and Dutch, not at all against locksmiths or fisherman in particular. More to the point, were the Swedes and French truly “bold enterprising warriors” in comparison. The mid 1700’s is considered to be the start of the English Industrial Revolution and English trade in the Orient would have been with manufactured goods and quite possibly English locks were a popular item. Doug

Richard Phillips

Reading PLOT’s history of Staffordshire, and George PRICE, the inhabitants of ‘Humpshire’ were downtrodden workers slaving long hours for little reward: ‘if he holds a fish in the market, he holds it like a file …’ Probably most fishermen were equally poor wage slaves, until the arrival of steam-powered fishing boats.
By mid-19C (and there had been little inflation for a century), a gross of cabinet locks sold for only 12/6, so after paying for material, not much return on labour for a day’s work.

Brian Denyer

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah……………………………………………………
But we haven’t heard back from the personage of Jeremy Franks FLS ??????????????
So I suppose it shall retain the title of a mystery.
Without rhyme nor reason ?
It may be interesting to
have a follow up ?
Brain ………………………………..