Broseley in Shropshire 1600-1820
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INDUSTRIALISATION AND AN EARLY MODERN TOWN: BROSELEY IN SHROPSHIRE 1600-1820 by STEPHEN CHARLES HUDSON A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of MASTER OF PHILOSOPHY School of History and Culture College of Arts and Law University of Birmingham June 2017 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ABSTRACT This work is the first attempt to analyse, assess and evaluate the broad process of industrialisation in Broseley, Shropshire between 1600 and c.1820. The thesis is a study of historical processes of growth, development and, ultimately the beginning of decline of a small industrial urban settlement above the Severn Gorge on the southern margins of the east Shropshire coalfield. These historical processes, socio-economic in character, are shown to interact and produce an early industrial town, possessing certain characteristics, features and traditions, unusual if not unique in a settlement of this nature. A variety of source material – primary documentary, archaeological/field and secondary – is used to examine the origins and growth of three groups of industries - mining, iron and ceramics - and the social fabric and stratification that were both the cause and consequence of their development. Collateral aspects of industrialisation - the land market, proto-industry and the transport and communications infrastructure - are also assessed for their significance in Broseley’s industrial past. Broseley has not received as much focus from historians as other industrial townships on the east Shropshire coalfield. This thesis establishes the township’s distinctive contribution to the economic development of the district derived from its diverse industrial experience. i DEDICATION This work is dedicated to the beloved memory of the writer’s son, Richard, who passed away at the time when the thesis was entering its initial stages of preparation. Also, to the people of Broseley, whose ancestors dug the coal, smelted and forged the iron and moulded and fired the pipes, pots, bricks and tiles and without whose back-breaking toil and incredible fortitude this work would have had little meaning or purpose. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Jennifer Hudson for unstinting support in all the practical aspects of thesis preparation; Dr Malcolm Dick for his advice and counselling, particularly concerning the structure, sourcing and referencing of the work; the late Dr Leonard Schwarz, University of Birmingham, for consistent support and advice on the academic aspects of the work; Professor Peter Jones, co-supervisor, for a second opinion concerning particular chapters of the thesis; The late Lord Brooke Weld- Forester and the Dowager Lady Forester for allowing access to their collection of seventeenth and eighteenth century documents held at the Shropshire Archives; the staff at Shropshire Archives, Castlegates, Shrewsbury for providing support and seeking out obscure but relevant source material; the staff of Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust Library and Birmingham Archives; Derek Farlow and Martyn Johnson for proof reading and critical appraisal of the work. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Chapter 1 Introduction 1 (i) Industrialisation in Broseley (ii) Broseley’s industrial development – existing historiography (iii) Methodology and sources (iv) Conclusion Chapter 2 Broseley – an industrial town? 40 (i) Introduction (ii) Broseley and the process of industrial urbanisation (iii) Population patterns and trends (iv) Transport infrastructure and communications (v) Conclusion Chapter 3 The nature of the land market in Broseley and district 87 (i) Introduction – the land market in Broseley after the Dissolution (ii) The nature of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century land holdings in Broseley and their importance for the developing economy of the town (iii) Multi-faceted estates in the early-nineteenth century (iv) Conclusion Chapter 4 Proto-industry in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Broseley 108 (i) Introduction (ii) Broseley as a proto-industrial settlement (iii) The concept of proto-industry and its relevance to Broseley in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (iv) Local proto-industrial elites (v) Other industrial elites (vi) Conclusion Chapter 5 Industrialisation in Broseley from the early-seventeenth century 165 to the early nineteenth century – coal mining (i) Introduction – mining in Broseley and district in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (ii) The significance of coal in the developing micro-economy of Broseley (iii) The management of coal resources: the labour structure and the Chartermaster system iv (iv) The sixteenth, seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries – coal mining in the south bank parishes (v) The importance of coal in the developing industrial base of Broseley and district from the mid-eighteenth century (vi) Conclusion Chapter 6 Industrialisation in Broseley from the early-seventeenth century 224 to the early-nineteenth century – ferrous metal industries (i) Introduction – the iron industry in Broseley and district before 1760 (ii) Limestone quarrying and iron ore mining – their significance for the iron industry in Broseley (iii) The Old and New Willey Ironworks and John Wilkinson’s significance for the late-eighteenth century iron industry on the East Shropshire coalfield (iv) The Calcutts Ironworks (v) The Benthall Ironworks (vi) The lesser ironworks of Broseley and district (vii) Conclusion Chapter 7 Industrialisation in Broseley from the early-seventeenth century 293 to the early-nineteenth century – the ceramics industries (i) Introduction – an overview of ceramic manufacture from the early seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century (ii) The clay tobacco pipe industry (iii) Earthenware (iv) The brick and roof tile industries of Broseley and Jackfield (v) The Caughley China Works – the origins of the East Shropshire porcelain industry (vi) Conclusion Chapter 8 Conclusion 340 Appendices Bibliography v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Broseley in 1620 (between pages 40 and 41) Figure 2 The Plott of Broseley – Samuel Parsons’ Map of c.1621 (between pages 87 and 88) vi LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix I Broseley and District Ordnance Survey Pathfinder 890 (SJ60/70)(original2.5” to 1 mile, 1:25,000) Appendix II Glossary of Mine Workings Appendix III The ironworks of Broseley and district, their locations and sites Appendix IV The Ceramic Manufactories of Broseley and District and their locations Appendix V Late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century road and turnpike system Appendix VI Rail and Plateways in Broseley and District between 1600 and 1820 Appendix VII Broseley Estates, Landholdings and significant Landowners 1600-1820 Appendix VIII Landform in Broseley – Geology and Topography vii ABBREVIATIONS BA Birmingham Archives BL British Library CUP Cambridge University Press GA Gloucestershire Archives HDR Hereford Diocese Records HRO Hereford Records Office IGMT Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust IGMTAA Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust Archaeological Archives IGSGS of GB Institute of Geological Sciences Geological Survey of Great Britain MUP Manchester University Press MW Much Wenlock NA National Archives NCB National Coal Board NRS National Records of Scotland OS Ordnance Survey OUP Oxford University Press PRO Public Records Office SA Shropshire Archives SCRO Staffordshire County Records Office SHA Shackerley Collection viii SM Science Museum SRO Scottish Records Office SRRC Shropshire Records and Research Centre STAC Court of Star Chamber SWSHAS South West Shropshire Historical and Archaeological Society TSAS Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological Society VCH Victoria County History WA Warrington Archives ix x Chapter 1 Introduction 1(i) Industrialisation in Broseley The thesis examines the historical processes shaping industrialisation in Broseley, Shropshire. Broseley is a small town situated at a height of approximately 400 feet1 above the River Severn that has cut a gorge forming a broad north-west to south-east bend from Ludcroft Wharf in the west to The Roving in the east over a distance of approximately three and a half miles. It originated as a wood-pasture village2 which developed over 200 years between 1600 and 1800 into a diverse industrial town with a varied social structure. It is this diversity with three groups of inter-related industries normally associated with coalfields – mining, ferrous metal and ceramics – that ensures that any historical study of the town will be multi-dimensional in terms of the growth and development of the industries, their locations and the scale and type of undertakings and also the social structures, particularly an entrepreneurial cottage-based stratum that provided the most significant social dynamic for rapid industrial growth. What makes Broseley worthy of special focus, within this broad-based and far-reaching process of industrial urbanisation, is that the processes began and ended relatively early – industrialisation from the early-seventeenth century and de-industrialisation and a decline