James Smart, Adams and Hagen Skates

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James Smart, Adams and Hagen Skates

Jennifer Stevens • 1 March 2022

Adams Ironmongers & Hagen Skates

That stood the test of time

Harald Hagen

The Norwegian speed skate was designed and introduced by Harald Hagen, a Norwegian skating champion along with Axel Paulsen between 1887-1902. Local fenman speed skater James Smart while on a skating tour in Europe met Hagen and they became firm friends. Smart was impressed with the skates and set up business at his newly built house, Norway House below the banks of the Old Bedford River near Welney importing and selling Hagen skates.

The photo above shows a Hagen model that was sold around 1935. in this model the boot is riveted to the supporting platform, in the earlier deigns the boot was sewn on using copper wire.

The skates had metal runner blades soldered into tinned iron tubes, making the skate light weight.

The skates proved very popular with fen skaters and from the 1890s fen skaters started to race primarily in the Norwegian Hagen skates, which eventually replaced the local Fen Runners.

The design of speed skates was so good they remained more or less unaltered until the 1990s.

Skates with the mark, L.H Hagen & Co Christiana were made pre 1925, those with Oslo after this date.

James Smart passes the agency to J H Adams

In 1920 James Smart, made a business deal with Adams selling the rights to the ironmongers allowing them to become to be the sole agent for the brand in the U.K.

Adams began to import the skates setting up a distribution network across the country. The skates were also sold locally from the shop in Littleport, where upstairs there was a specialised area for the trying on and fitting of the skates. Adams also offered a follow on service including the sharpening and setting of the skate blades.

Adams Heritage Centre has examples of the Hagen skates in its collection as well as the earlier fen runners.

The centre also still has the Adams ironmongers unusual jig developed for holding the skates whilst they were being sharpened.

In its heyday many hundreds of pounds worth of skates were sold from the doors of Adams all of which are carefully documented in our archived hand written ledgers.