This new edition of the classic reference British Planemakers from 1700 has been completely rewritten, with over 200 pages of new information. Online research tools haven enabled much greater insight into family connections of planemakers, family and business continuities, and the discovery of previously unknown planemakers. Confirmation that planemakers were working in the late 1600s, in fact, inspired the new edition's title, Goodman's British Planemakers.

The biographic directory covers more than 2400 planemakers and includes 2250 maker's mark illustrations. Like its predecessors, the new edition traces the development of British planemaking, but far more extensively, now confirming that planemakers moved around the country to a much greater extent than previously realized, and identifying several new family planemaking dynasties.

The book includes chapters on the planemaking trade and its practices, descriptions and illustrations of the many types of planes and their evolution, and provincial planemaking, as well as sections on apprentice records, trade marks, and a complete index. An absolutely invaluable reference.
About the Author: Jane Rees has had a long-term interest in the history of tools and trades. She trained as an architect and ran her own practice specializing in the restoration and renovation of historic buildings. This developed an interest in traditional construction techniques and tools used in centuries past. After retiring as an architect in 1991, this interest became the main focus of her life, and she researched and wrote about numerous aspects of historic tools and trades. With her late husband, Mark, she wrote a number of books including the third edition of British Planemakers; Tools, A Guide for Collectors; Christopher Gabriel and the Tool Trade in 18th Century London; and The Rule Book, as well as reprints of the 1787 Sheffield Directory and the nineteenth-century Catalogue of James, Isaac and John Fussell. She is president of the Tools and Trades History Society in Britain and for many years was editor of its newsletter and journal, as well as editor of The Tool Chest of Benjamin Seaton, 1797. She is a long-time member of the Early American Industries Association and in 2006, wrote A Pattern Book of Tools and Household Goods, a reprint of an 1820 pattern book. She has been a regular presenter at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation's annual symposium Working Wood in the 18th Century. When not writing and researching the history of tools and technology, she is a successful wildlife photographer and is an Associate of The Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain. She lives in Bath, UK, and her website can be found at www.reestools.co.uk