Thread: Calling on the historical experts, I'm stumped! An unassuming mystery razor.

I now may well be the only one who cares about any of this. I think I've now tracked down more genealogy on James Stodart than anyone else has put together.

In searching, I kept coming across another famous Stodart family. Out of Edinburgh, Robert and William Stodart were makers of fine pianos. These Stodarts had a shop about half a kilometer from James' shop on the Strand. The biographies I can find are really unsure what the relationship between Robert and William was. Nephew. Brother. Son. No one is quite certain. But Robert definitely made pianos, famously being the first to use the term 'Grand Piano' in a patent.

And according to Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 14 James Stodart died September 11th, 1823 in the house of his uncle, Robert Stodart. The same Robert. There is a plaque for James in the Old Calton Cemetary. His son David is listed on the plaque, but with no dates, so David is possibly not buried there.

Robert Stodart had a son named George who seems to have married James' daughter, Janet. From there the records become too tangled and contradictory. In any event, Faraday continued to correspond with George Stodart (who is listed as James' son-in-law in the 5 volume Correspondence of Michael Faraday.

In short, the Stodarts have six million individuals all with the same given names. This is difficult to sort out, but I've got some of it nailed down now.

So. James did indeed have a daughter named Janet and that's who George married. The source for this, Anthony Stoddard of Boston, Mass (a genealogy published in 1878), claims Janet was James' only child. I have to assume this means David and Samuel come from a different marriage. There's no doubt this is the correct James Stodart, since he lives at Russel Square and is James Stodart, ESQ, F.R.S.L. No confusing that.

What's interesting is that George Stodart appears to have been a distiller. Confusingly, his brother was also named James.

Originally Posted by Charles MacLean: Whiskey, page 147

Old Smuggler was first developed by James and George Stodart in 1835, when they launched their whisky business, taking a name that acknowledged the superior quality of illicitly distilled whisky prior to the 1823 Excise Act. The Stodart name is also recorded in whisky history as being, reputedly, the first to marry their whisky in sherry butts.

Now I just need to find a vintage bottle of Old Smuggler to go with my Stodart razor...

Originally Posted by CSquare

The picture of the Pickslay you found does have something in common with the Stodard "twins".

I do have a Pickslay in Peruvian steel, but that looks very different.

A bit more info concerning Peruvian Steel - Green, Pickslay & Co started as ironmongers in the High Street. Green left the company in 1823 and a partnership was formed with Adam Padley in 1828. 1829 Pickslay, Appleby & Bertram of the High Street were the sole manufacturers of Peruvian Steel Cutlery. Adam Padley was a shoe, butcher knife and fender maker from Rockingham Place whose company was absorbed by Charles Pickslay. In 1834 he registered the PERUVIAN mark and proclaimed himself as the only maker of Peruvian Steel, made by a process "only known to Himself" until he died of apoplexy in 1844. In 1824 Green Pickslay & Co., having experimented with the alloys recommended by Faraday, sent him a steel specimen alloyed with silver, iridium and rhodium . . . “furnished by Mr.Johnson, No 79 Hatton Garden”.

Johnson's in Hatton Garden was began by Percival Johnson in 1817 (NB: some sources quote 1822 as the move to Hatton Garden), an "Assayer and Practical Mineralogist" valuing gold bars by assaying the exact quantities of the metal in a bar, guaranteeing quality by offering to buy back them back. Johnson had his own smelting yard in London and it was he who alloyed the rhodium-iridium-silver steel for Pickslay's - out of this specimen two razors were made and presented to Faraday.

Regards,
Neil

Originally Posted by Neil Miller

Johnson's in Hatton Garden was began by Percival Johnson in 1817 (NB: some sources quote 1822 as the move to Hatton Garden), an "Assayer and Practical Mineralogist" valuing gold bars by assaying the exact quantities of the metal in a bar, guaranteeing quality by offering to buy back them back. Johnson had his own smelting yard in London and it was he who alloyed the rhodium-iridium-silver steel for Pickslay's - out of this specimen two razors were made and presented to Faraday.

Aha! That's who made the two razors Faraday offered to John Wilson Croker when Croker came knocking about the experiments with Stodart.

I think is amazing that all of this information still exists to be rediscovered, and fascinating that people across the globe can come together to correlate and collaborate on it!
One day I would dearly love to hold a bit of this history in my hands. Cherish these items gents, and treat them "gent"ly

Originally Posted by Neil Miller

So, as cited above, the business ceased trading in 1836 or in the last two months of 1835 and I suppose the dates given by the London Knife Book are the birth/death dates for David. The only thing that worries me is that the Sun Insurance archive for May 1836 shows that the occupant of 401 Strand was David Stodart, but that may be because the insurance did not expire until then?

Curiously, I came across a walking tour of the Strand from 1836 which says the address was occupied by Stodart, cutler. I wonder if David struck some sort of deal with his creditors to sell remaining stocks? I really don't know anything about the mechanisms of failing business in the time and place, so I'm just wildly guessing. It seems clear the shop was occupied past the date he officially ceased trading.

I'm also kind of amused to own another razor from a nearby firm, Nortzell & Sons.

wow, what a read. Sorry I am lazy, but this is the same Farady as in "Farady Cage" the direct lineage to the anti-static bag most electronics come in?

Originally Posted by LameBMX

wow, what a read. Sorry I am lazy, but this is the same Farady as in "Farady Cage" the direct lineage to the anti-static bag most electronics come in?

The very same. And on top of all that, he seems by all accounts to have been a really genuinely good guy.

(Also, the 'farad' as a unit of capacitance is named for Faraday.)

Stoddard, a variation of Stodart is my mothers maiden name.. wonder if my geneology lies with some old razor makers. Would be cool, I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for a Stodart

Originally Posted by JordanM

Stoddard, a variation of Stodart is my mothers maiden name.. wonder if my geneology lies with some old razor makers. Would be cool, I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for a Stodart

This might be of interest to you then.