Hidden history of York: luxury comb factories of yesteryear

FOR many York residents and visitors, Rougier Street is associated with buses. Not so long ago it was the site of the local bus inquiry office. But go back several decades and Rougier Street was well-known for its comb-making factory owned by Joseph Rougier. The factory was located on the corner of Rougier Street and Tanner Row.

The Rougiers left France around the year 1686, following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes when Protestants, known as Huguenots, were persecuted on account of their religious beliefs. The family landed at Liverpool where they set up a hairdressing and wig business, and were subsequently in Newcastle and then Sunderland. In about 1794 Joseph Rougier opened a horn factory in York to make drinking horns, combs and lanterns, while other members of his family made soap and pomade.

In her article The Rougier Family: Comb-Making in York: an Insight Report, Nicola Rogers writes that an excavation on Tanner Row in 1981 by the York Archaeological Trust produced a collection of horn and horn items dating from the 13th century.

For centuries there had been a number of horn-breaking and comb-making businesses in York, much of it located around Hornpot Lane (originally Horn Pit Lane) off Petergate.

In Yorkshire dialect, the name 'pot' means pit and Hornpot Lane would originally have been Horn Pit Lane. The 1861 Directory of York also listed T. Thompson in Dale Street, and W. Wingfield at 115 Walmgate.

Example of Victorian combs in York Castle Museum

George Steward & Sons worked in tortoiseshell and India rubber at 37 Blossom Street. Records show that by 1784 there were 65 freemen, journeymen and apprentices engaged in horn-breaking and comb-making. Previously, horn had been used to cover books and manuscripts; crockery was also often made of horn and there is still a horn window at Barley Hall. An Insight Report: Comb-making industry in York during the 19th century by Zoe Durrant-Walker tells how the comb-making industry at that time involved the cutting of horn material and shaping it into a comb. The process from start to finish would take approximately two months for horn, three months for buffalo and four months for a tortoiseshell-style comb.

Of the many comb-making manufacturers in York, the Rougier family business was, however, one of the most prosperous. During its lifetime, the Rougier factory had supplied the royal household, having obtained a royal warrant from Queen Adelaide. And the whole of Rougier Street as well as the short street Rougier Terrace, had once been owned by the Rougiers. In the 1830 York Directory Street Lists is the following entry for Tanner Row:

Rougier, Jpg. mfr. of white ad colored broad horn shavings, powder flasks and drinking & shoe horns & combs 13, Tanner Row.

In the period 1846-1853, Joseph Rougier is recorded as employing five apprentices. By 1861 Joseph Rougier is employing 16 men, five women and four boys. And by 1881, Joseph’s son, John William was employing 14 men and five girls.

Hornpot Lane sign

In her article, Nicola Rogers notes that archaeological deposits from the 18th and 19th centuries produced a considerable amount of tortoiseshell from the Rougier factory. In the Rougier company records the frequency of the word 'tortoiseshell', and tortoiseshell was used extensively in comb-making throughout the Victorian period. She goes on to reveal something that is quite shocking for 21st century sensibilities. She explains that this raw material came from marine turtles (from either the Hawkshill or Green Turtle) both of whom live in tropical or sub-tropical seas. So the material would have had to be imported across long distances.

Back in 1987 Sydney Martin, a local man famous for his railway stories, wrote that it was possible at that time to see the remains of old crafts including comb-making at the Castle Museum in York where prisoner cells had been used for the reconstructed comb-making workshop displays. The contents of the Rougier factory had been donated to the museum when the family factory was demolished.

Joseph Rougier died in 1842 and the factory passed from Joseph to son Joseph William and eventually to grandson John Henry, recorded as being a comb manufacturer in the 1911 census. The factory continued to prosper, especially when bobs came into fashion for ladies´ hairstyles right after the First World War. But in just over a decade later the comb industry declined rapidly because of changing fashions. The introduction of celluloid combs and the fashion for shorter hair hastened the factory’s demise. The business closed its doors for the last time in 1931 when the owners were said to be John Henry and Frederick Joseph Rougier.

The weather-beaten gravestone that marks the Rougier family tomb in the graveyard of St Mary Bishophill Senior, now a community garden. Photo by David Wilson

So what happened to the Rougier family? John W Rougier (born 1888) was an artist one of whose paintings (1961) showed an impression of the Hornpressers´ workshop in Rougier Street from 1900 to 1920. Hector Rougier (born 1900) joined the railway engineers´ department and eventually became a supervisor over a stretch of main line between York and Selby. He was tragically killed by a train while inspecting points at Joan Croft Junction near Shaftholme Junction. His son Douglas subsequently lived with his step-grandmother at Temple Hirst and later emigrated to Australia.

Although all traces of the Rougier factory have disappeared, you can still see the weather-beaten gravestone that marks the family tomb in the graveyard of St Mary Bishophill Senior, now a community garden.

David Wilson is a Community Writer with The Press