The first recorded wheelwright in the village was Joseph Brocklehurst in 1849. It would have been an important trade as essentially the village was a farming community. These tradesmen made wheels for carts and wagons by first constructing the hub, the spokes and the rim segments and then assembling them all into a wheel. Most wheels were made from wood. Around the middle of the 19th century, iron strakes were replaced by a solid iron tyre, custom made by a blacksmith, who first measured each wheel to ensure proper fit.
In 1871, a master wheelwright, Joseph Heywood, was working in Dutton. By 1881, he and his family had moved to the house and workshop next to the shop in Moore. He died before 1891, when his wife was recorded as being a widow and had moved to Acton Grange, where her two sons, both wheelwrights, and two daughters, lived with her.
In 1881, Isaac Lawton was a wheelwright’s apprentice and may well have been apprenticed to Joseph Heywood. By 1901, Isaac and his family were living and working in the premises next door to the shop. Isaac also took on work of a more general nature and went on to build and repair houses in the village.
The premises were taken over by the Cartwright family, who were also builders and undertakers – William Massey, his son Royston Henry and then his grandson, David.
Charles Dutton, b1889, was also a wheelwright, with a workshop at the Warrington end of the village, where the Farm Shop was sited until recently. He started his working life as a railway porter, but is recorded on the 1939 register as being a wheelwright and smallholder. This is a picture of his workshop.
