© Tom Ryan, FWCF
The meaning of the term "farrier" has changed dramatically over the centuries from a horse doctor to a person who shoes horses. How the change of usage came about isn't clear, and the reason is probably lost in the mists of time. The few remaining sources of information come mostly from old books. Many people are often surprised by the volume of treatments and remedies found in old farriery books and the lack of information on horseshoeing. This is because, historically, a farrier was a horse doctor. It is only in the last hundred years that people who shod horses began calling themselves farriers.
There are differing opinions on where the word "farrier" originated. It is said that the term "farrier" has two possible sources: From the Latin, faber ferrarius (faber meaning craftsman and ferrarius meaning metal), together literally means blacksmith.
The second possible source is Norman nobleman or possibly horse doctor, Henry de Farrariis, who came to England with William the Conqueror in 1066. Unfortunately - and adding to the confusion - the "Farrariis" name may have been taken from the French town of Ferrieres, situated southeast of Paris. The area around the town had many iron mines, and Henry was possibly connected to the iron trade. Therefore, both sources for the term farrier are probably derived from the Latin ferrarius.
In Dollar & Wheatley's "Horse Shoeing and The Horse's Foot," the authors state that Henry de Farrariis was instructed by William the Conqueror to superintend and encourage the art of farriery. Probably the people he employed as animal doctors were only later called farriers after their overmaster, and this could be the most likely source of the term farrier.
The next reference to a farrier is in 1356, when the mayor of the City of London called together the farriers of London to form the "Marshalls of the Citty of London" because of the "many offences and dangers" committed by the farriers in and around London. The term "marshall" comes from Old Frankish marhshelk, literally horse servant. A marechal was a man who had charge of the horses in Norman France. The Normans brought their marechals to England with them and the name soon became Anglicized to marshall (1).
The Great Fire of London in 1666 caused great confusion to the livery companies and was the reason that a new charter was sought from Charles II. It was granted in 1674, setting up the "Brotherhood of Farryers within our citties of London and Westminster." The charter said there should be a master, three wardens and not above twenty nor under ten assistants. The charter named 49 persons as "farryers" practicing within seven miles of the City of London. One of the first three assistants was Andrew Snape who was farrier to Charles II and author of the book, "The Anatomy of the Horse." One key section of the charter describes the power of the master, wardens and assistants to search "with a constable or other lawfull officer in the day time onely to enter into any shopps, cellars, stables, other suspected places within the said citties, liberties, precincts, and places aforesaid, there to search for, and finde out all and every misdemeanor and defective workes and medicines to the intent that due legall prosecution may be had and taken against all and every such offenders." It is important to note that the charter makes no direct mention of horseshoeing.
In a testimonial by George Daggett made in 1691 to the Company of Farriers, Daggett said that three books were given to him by the outgoing clerk named Strugnell, who surrendered the books to him when he became clerk in 1679. The first two books recorded accounts and apprentices going back some forty years before the fire, while the third, a small old book held "some few things of little concern." These three surviving books of records, which may have belonged to the original Marshalls of the City of London, were all that survived the Great Fire of London. The three surviving books were not at the house of a Mr. Nicholls or his son's, which were both destroyed by the fire but in some other place.
The documents which were lost in the three days of the fire may well have illuminated past centuries in the dark history of farriery.
The turning point for the old practitioner farriers came about in the year of 1796 when on the 3rd of March the Adjutant General of the Army, instructed by His Royal Highness the Duke of York, asked the president of a standing committee of officers which met in London to report on various matters concerning the cavalry, including "the veterinary collage and whether its instruction should furnish the means to improve the present practice of farriery," i.e., the treatment of diseases in horses.
In April, 1796, the committee reported the following: "The Board having taken into consideration the heavy loss of horses continually accruing to the Cavalry from the total ignorance of those who have at present the medical care of them, as well as from the very inadequate allowance for that Department, which precludes all possibility of procuring persons better skilled in the knowledge of farriery, are of the opinion that a veterinary college may afford the greater improvement in this essential part of the service...." Finally, on 24 May, 1796, colonels of cavalry regiments were informed by the committee on their plans to improve the practice of farriery in the corps of cavalry, that "A person properly educated and having received a certificate from the medical committee of the Veterinary College shall be attached to each regiment having the name of Veterinary Surgeon, that the appointment is by warrant for not less than seven years, and that the Veterinary Surgeon shall have the same pay as a Quarter Master of Cavalry viz. 5s 6d per diem."
The committee was puzzled by what name to give these novel recruits and wished to differentiate between surgeons of men and surgeons of horses. Being well grounded in the classics, they chose to call them "Veterinary Surgeons." The term "veterinary" comes from the Roman name for a hospital for sick and wounded horses, called a veterinarium. This is believed to be the original formation of the title, "Veterinary Surgeon" (2).
In "The Horse," by W. Youatt, New Edition 1843, Chapter XXI, "Shoeing," all references to the person shoeing the horse are to the "smith," e.g., (page 418): "The old shoe must first be taken off. We have something to observe even here. The shoe was retained on the foot by the ends of the nails being twisted off, turned down, and clenched. These clenches should be first raised, which the smith seldom takes the trouble thoroughly to do...." Later the author states, "The shoe having been removed, the smith proceeds to rasp the edges of the crust." In the next chapter, "Operations," the author starts with the words, "These being more to the veterinary-surgeon than the proprietor of the horse, but a short account of the manner of conducting the principal ones (operations) should not be omitted." During a discussion of the practice of bleeding, the author states, "In cases of inflammation, and in the hands of a skilful practitioner, bleeding is the sheet-anchor of the veterinarian; yet few things are more to be reprobated than the indiscriminate bleeding of (sic.) the groom or the farrier." It would seem that the author differentiates between smith, veterinarian and farrier, the latter being less skillful at bleeding the horse.
A book published in 1852, "Every Man His Own Farrier," gives a graphic description of the work of a farrier from this age. In the first chapter the author states that he has little knowledge of horseshoeing except to say that all shoeing smiths differ in their ways of working. The remaining chapters make terrifying reading, covering the topics of bleeding and purging of horses, seemingly to inflict only pain upon the poor horse.
One of the first references to horseshoeing in the Court Minutes of The Worshipful Company of Farriers was on 11 January 1887, 213 years after its charter was granted, and stated: "That a committee be now appointed to consider and report whether it is desirable that the Company should open a registry for the entry therein of the names, addresses and ages of any Master and Journeymen Farriers who shall pass a practical examination in the art of making shoes and shoeing horses...." The Worshipful Company's interest in horseshoeing was shown by the offering of the freedom of the Company to prize winners at horseshoeing competitions held in Nottingham on 10 July 1888, and with the introduction of the RSS examination for shoeing smiths, first organized in 1891, followed by the Associateship in 1907 and the Fellowship in 1923. By this time a farrier was recognized as one who solely shod horses.
All the "treatments" used by the early horse doctor/farriers seemed to hold little scientific value and inflicted only misery upon the horse. The practices described in the old farriery books would have caused many secondary infections and it is these practices which brought farriery into such disrepute time and time again through the ages. It was the founding of the veterinary college which signalled the end of this old and cruel farriery. Perhaps as the demand for medical advice shifted to the veterinary surgeon, farriers turned to shoeing horses or horseshoers offered remedies to the horse owners, calling themselves smiths and farriers. It is even feasible that the Worshipful Company of Farriers of a hundred years ago, which had neglected its duty to its profession for decades, concentrated only on its own court and dinners - and woke up too late to help the animal practitioner.
How the transition from "horse doctor" to "shoeing smith" to "farrier" really took place, I'm not sure, but took place it surely did.
REFERENCES
I would like to thank Col. John Hickman, FRCVS, for his help on the history of the veterinary surgeon.
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