The collecting and study of old woodworking planes is one of those abstruse subjects that are incomprehensible to the outsider, but followed passionately by its practitioners. One reason is that it has been so well served by specialist publications, pioneered by W.A. Goodman in his first British Planemakers from 1700 as long ago as 1968. The interest of collectors prompted the book, and the book (and its successors) have prompted the further interest of collectors ever since.

How many collecting subjects are there in which you can pick up for a pound or two, at a boot fair or a country auction, an 18th-century artefact with a maker’s mark, whose date and place of origin can so easily be checked in British Planemakers? And there is always the possibility that a box of scruffy-looking old tools may contain a really early plane – one by Robert Hemings or Francis Purdew, perhaps.

The seasoned collector, on finding such a plane, will rush home to consult British Planemakers, to see how the new acquisition fits in with the known details (is it an early or late name stamp, or perhaps a previously unrecorded one?). The tyro may not realise that he has discovered a ‘gem’, until Planemakers reveals all. Even if Planemakers shows that a plane is actually quite common, the information provided about the maker and his family and trade connections (or hers – some plane-making businesses were carried on by widows) will be fascinating.

Goodman’s second edition was greatly enlarged, and the third edition, by Mark and Jane Rees, advanced the subject by several stages. This new version takes us even further, and includes makers who were in business before 1700. That date has accordingly been removed from the title. This is no minor revision; one of several statistics thoughtfully provided by the author is that there are 2417 planemakers who have now been identified (there were 1325 in the third edition). Thus a collector armed with the new edition will have 1,092 more names to look out for. This is a book no plane collector, tyro or seasoned, can be without.

– Christopher Proudfoot

This new fourth edition by Jane Rees is greatly enlarged from the previous edition. The first part has been expanded and largely rewritten and gives a clear explanation of the use and development of plane types. There is much information on how they were made and the plane making industry over three centuries.
The directory section is now almost double the size of the previous edition. It shows a huge amount of new thorough and accurate research carried out over a number of years.
This book is an essential guide for all tool dealers and auctioneers, assisting them in preparation of sale catalogues and inventories. Plane collectors, students and researchers of woodworking, together with social historians, will all find this book invaluable.

– David Stanley

Congratulations to Jane Rees. The long-awaited Goodman’s British Planemakers4th Edition is finally at hand.

With all the new tools for research, Jane Rees has almost doubled the number of entries. You must remember that when the third edition was written there was no Internet or the many search engines now available.

Even more significant is the knowledge of the regional working clusters of planemaker and apprentices. No longer are we looking at the individual but the significant interconnection between these craftsman. It brings the trade of planemaking in England alive.

– Tom Elliott, author of The Guide to the Makers of American Wooden Planes

To the uninitiated, the oddly shaped pieces of wood, fitted with wedges and blades, that are found in the corners of nearly every antique shop or outdoor market are simply that—two dimensional, uninteresting artifacts from long, long ago; but to those who have developed an interest and have this superb publication and other references at hand, the very same objects will become a door of discovery into the lives of the people who made them, those who worked with them and the buildings and furniture they were used to create. The knowledge contained in these pages will bring old things to life and provide those who hold them with a sense of understanding that makes such old things infinitely more interesting. For everyone who has evinced an interest in old woodworking tools, this essential reference book is one of the keys to unlocking that door of discovery.

– Martin J. Donnelly