James Sharples was a blacksmith in a large factory in Blackburn, Lancashire. He was a self-taught artist whose significance to art history and the history of the working class lies in his being a manual worker resident outside London whose artistic output attracted the notice and admiration of the London art establishment. This print was favourably reviewed in The Athenaeum and The Art Journal as well as by John Ruskin, who reviewed it in Ariadne Florentina.

This image by a worker taken of his workplace occupies a unique position among British images of labour. It was Sharples' only major print which took him ten years to complete. Sharples was not trained in the techniques of reproductive printmaking and reputedly made the tools for his printmaking himself. The practice of a craftsman making his own tools was standard in many trades. That in this instance the tools were for the making of a fine art object reflects the unique nature of this project which unitied art and manufacturing.