Scrimper's Fretworking Site

The Handicrafts Company

Information on the Hobbies Company is sparse; most having been destroyed but as far as Handicrafts is concerned there is hardly any information about them at all. I will however mention a few things that I do know about them.

As described on another page The Hobbies Company was started by John Henry Skinner, in the late 1880’s later on he was joined by his brother Frank Skinner who became a director.

In 1903 John Henry left Hobbies to concentrate on his plywood manufacturing company and Frank Skinner took over as managing director.

Sometime in 1907 Frank Skinner, another director and two employees left Hobbies to form a rival company which was initially registered as Home Handicrafts Ltd. One of the problems for the Hobbies company was that one of the four that left was the head designer at Hobbies. The reason for the four leaving Hobbies is not known but it did cause considerable problems for Hobbies who had to find a new designer and quickly!

Handicrafts No 1 magazine

Handicrafts were bitter rivals to the Hobbies company, which is understandable given that when the four left Hobbies they took with them the contents of a filing cabinet containing names and addresses of Hobbies customers who they then sent their own rival magazine in an attempt to gain orders.

Hobbies found out when their customers complained that they (Hobbies) had given their details to a third party company. Hobbies took Handicrafts to court and Handicrafts were ordered to restrain from using the details taken from Hobbies. The Judge also awarded £1500 plus cost in damages to Hobbies, £1500 does not seem a great deal today but the amount is equivalent to £219,000 in today's money.

Hobbies had the advantage that they had their own engineering works manufacturing their own products to sell as well as doing other engineering work whilst Handicrafts were more of a retailer and supplier than a manufacturer and bought most of their products from other makers.

They were originally registered as Home Handicrafts Ltd in 1907 but very soon the company name was changed to Handicrafts Ltd.

Like Hobbies, Handicrafts had their own weekly magazine entitled Home Handicrafts Arts and Pastimes. The very first issue Vol 1 No 1 was published on November 9th 1907 the magazine was supplied with a very sophisticated free design sheet No 1 featuring a Japanese Fretwork bracket.

Describing the design the editor stated that their intention was for the free design to be one of the most important features of the magazine and added that they have engaged a staff of artists whose work has been prominently before the public during the last ten or twelve years. This of course was true as they had been creating the designs for rivals Hobbies before.

As with Hobbies weekly magazine the Handicrafts version covered similar topics as well as fretwork articles. Among topics covered in issue one were the home carpenter, Jewellery making, the metal worker, the stamp collector, Chip carving, designing, curio collecting and a children’s page.

A reader of Hobbies weekly would have spotted the similarity between the two magazines, hardly surprising since Hobbies weekly was conceived by Frank Skinner (brother of the founder of Hobbies who was now the managing director of Handicrafts. An additional weekly magazine was issued to NFA members, this was simply called Fretwork. More details of this and the NFA are below.

Hobbies created a fretwork club entitled the BFS or British Society of Fretworkers but it was Handicrafts not Hobbies that started the first fretwork club entitled the NFA or National association of Fretworkers in April 1908.

There were different classes of membership and prospective members were obliged to cut out a sample pattern in order to join in one of the groups up to the most advanced group who were given star membership. Rather attractive Special badges were offered for associate and star membership groups as shown in the image below far right.

Above are the panels one had to cut to join the NFA. Once could choose a class to join from associate to star membership. The panels had to be cut out in white Maple 3/16 inch thick and 9 inches by 6 inches in size. The panels were then sent to the NFA to be judged. only the very best work would receive Star membership. A gold medal was awarded to the best work in each class, other good work would receive Silver or Bronze.

The rules of membership were quite strict and only applicants who satisfied Handicrafts of their skill or competence in fretwork by submitting a work sample from a design supplied by Handicrafts were given full membership, any work that was excellent but falls just short of perfect would be given associate membership. Applicants that passed would be presented with a handsome diploma.

As well as their weekly Home Handicrafts magazine an additional weekly magazine was published for NFA members the very first issue was published on 14th Jan 1911 it was entitled Fretwork and was described as the official organ of the NFA. The magazine was devoted entirely to fretwork, each copy being supplied with a large design sheet plus one or more smaller designs within the pages.

Many of the designs published by Handicrafts in their early years were perhaps even more elaborate than those offered by ‘senior’ company Hobbies, not only that but they had a striking resemblance to the Hobbies ones as well , perhaps not surprising since their designer was Hobbies chief designer before leaving to work for rivals Handicrafts!

To the left are three designs from the 1924 catalogue.

Of all the elaborate fretwork designs that Handicrafts published one of the strangest must be their design No 234 published in June 1912. I think it's strange and perhaps even in poor taste because it depicted the sinking of the great White Star Line Titanic which had sunk just a few weeks earlier when it struck an iceberg on the 14th April 1912.

It does seem odd that after such a disaster anyone would want to make a fretwork bracket to remind them of the dreadful event, especially one that shows the liner in 45 degree position.

Perhaps people thought differently then 112 years ago. Handicrafts described it as a "handsome wall bracket". I spent a long time recreating the pattern from a small image, but I don't think I will ever make it or think many others would - but who knows.

You can download a copy of my version of the design on the Designs page - If anyone does make a plaque from the design I would love to see it.

Handicrafts published an advanced series of designs, they were very detailed as you can see from some of these designs that I show here Like this wonderfully designed Panorama bracket from 1910,(shown Right) here you can see a picture of the item plus a small part of the design sheet which I am in the process of restoring.

Another interesting example is shown, below this beautiful fretted frame featuring a swan and small boat, I do quite fancy having a go at making this one, as with many of these old designs I am in the process of restoring them, being over 100yrs old they tend to be fragile with some parts missing. I am in the process of restoring this lovely design and allow others to download and keep this lovely plan.

Handicrafts Design No 40. Superb fretted picture and frame. Image from catalogue plus full design sheet and part of plan enlarged.

WWI ended on the 11th Nov 1918 and Handicrafts designed this Peace Overmantel to commemorate the ending of the war, it is some 40 inches wide with an equally large design sheet, it took six A3 size pages of scan to copy the whole plan.

Overmantels must have been very popular around the time as both Hobbies and Handicrafts published many intricate designs for them.

The cost of the wood and one small and one large mirror in 1918 was £1.15.3d (£1.76 Decimal) quite a large amount considering the average weekly wage in 1918 was around £3.00 per week . Taking into account the cost of living increases £1.15.3d in 1918 is equivalent today to around £118, a considerable amount!

One handicrafts design ‘caps’ them all and that has to be design No 12 the Lord’s Prayer Panel.

This famous plan was considered to be the ‘holy grail’ of fretwork designs, it holds the record for the number of exhibition awards that it has received. It was first published by Handicrafts around 1911 and was very popular in church rooms and mission halls.

This plan has a meaning for me because as a young boy I used to visit my Grandfather who had actually made one of these and had it hanging in his house, I was always amazed at the intricacy of it and how good he was at fretwork to cut it out so neatly.

I have devoted a special page to discuss this plan which you will find Here

Handicrafts published a huge amount of designs between 1907 and 1929, some simple for beginners but many others that were very detailed and intricate. Most are long gone for several reasons, some due to paper recycling during two world wars but the main reason is that in those days fretworkers had no copying facilities and normal procedure was to paste the design sheet on the wood and cut it out, thus sacrificing the pattern sheet.

For over 60 years I have been collecting these old designs but they are now very rare and hard to find. Considering the skill of the people who designed these patterns, many over 100 years ago my aim is to keep them alive for others to use. I am hoping to make them available to download. Some of the less complex smaller designs are now available to download on my Designs page.

I have also created another page showing illustrations of some of the more intricate design sheets from both Handicrafts and Hobbies Here.

As with Hobbies Handicrafts offered some very attractively packaged fretwork outfits. The outfits were numbered from outfit No1 up to No 13.

The No 1 was a very basic carded outfit with just a basic frame with a cutting table, clamp and a simple design, in 1925 the cost was 2 shillings (10pence today) however in today’s money that would be equivalent to around £7.

The contents and quality of tools supplied increased as the set numbers ascended through sets

Set numbers 9,10, 11, 12 and 13 were offered in very attractive boxes with double hinged lids. The cost of No 13 in 1925 was 35 shillings (£1.75 pence decimal) which in today’s money is equivalent to around £126. Left. Outfit No 8 Right. Outfit No 1

Handicrafts Cabinet fretwork outfits No's 11, 12 & 13

Top Left No 11 outfit, Top right No 12 outfit & Lower Left No 13

These outfits were supplied in strong boxes with double hinged lid the No 13 contained every tool and item that any fretworker would need.

Included were a quality fully adjustable hand frame, a chisel, small plane, 144 fretsaw blades and even a small vice. Also included were two designs pasted on wood ready to cut and two design pattern books. A small tin of glue was also provided.

Handicrafts did offer a few Treadle machines but they were imported rather than being manufactured in the UK. In their 1914 catalogue they listed the new Rogers and Star models neither of these were made in the UK. I can only find reference to one Handicrafts British made machine

It did not have a name or model number and was advertised as being British made throughout It does bear a remarkable similarity to the Hobbies A1 machine in design features but I cannot imagine Hobbies would have made it for them given the animosity between the two companies.

For details on all treadle Fretsaws please visit the Treadle Machines page under the Fretsaws heading.

Reginald Maidlow Thomas

There is not much more to say about the Handicrafts company, started in 1907 by Frank Skinner (brother of Hobbies found John Henry Skinner) it was taken over in 1913 by Reginald Maidlow Thomas whose father happened to be married to the sister of John Henry and Frank Skinner.

Unfortunately the Handicrafts Company did not survive as a company involved in fretwork for the length of time that Hobbies did, starting in 1907 by 1939 they were gone as a fretwork company although under new management a Handicrafts catalogue was still being published into the late 1950’s selling hobby type products but no fretwork.

Their heyday as far as fret-working was concerned was from 1907 until around 1928/1929, By 1930 they had shifted more to a do it yourself/ handyman business. This is understandable as by the 1930’s interest in Fretwork had declined and there was barely enough to keep Hobbies in business let alone two similar companies.

Although Hobbies were the dominant company involved in the fretwork Hobby and in fairness they were very well respected throughout Britain, indeed they were well known and respected all over the world, the Handicrafts company did a lot to advance the hobby at the time and they gave us some wonderful designs. Fretwork would have been 'poorer 'without the Handicrafts company.

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