University of Essex Certificate in Local History
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UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX CERTIFICATE IN LOCAL HISTORY YEAR TWO Robert Sier 20 Pines Road Chelmsford Essex CM1 2D © Robert Sier 2015 1 A STUDY OF WATER POWERED INDUSTRIES IN ESSEX © Robert Sier 2015 2 INDEX OBJECTIVES 4 BUILDING MATERIALS Artificial Slate 5 Saw Mills 5 CLOTH AND ASSOCIATED INDUSTRIES Fulling Mills6 Silk Mills 6 Powder Blue Mills 9 Logwood Mills 8 MALTINGS BREWERIES & DISTILLERIES Distilleries 12 ELECTRICITY Electrical Generation 14 GUNPOWDER MAKING Powder Mills 15 LEATHER INDUSTRIES Bark Mills 18 Leather Mills 17 Oil Mills 17 METAL WORKING INDUSTRIES Copper Mills 19 Gun Making 19 Iron Working 19 Lead Mill 20 Pin Making 20 Tool Making 20 PAPER MAKING INDUSTRIES Paper Mills 21 WATER SUPPLY Water Works 23 CONCLUSIONS 27 MAPS Index of maps 24 © Robert Sier 2015 3 OBJECTIVES The objective of this study is to examine the role wind and water power played in developing and mechanising industry in Essex. The geographic distribution of industries is also examined. The history of Flour milling has not been included in this study, since from the twelfth century wind and water powered corn mills existed in every Essex parish. This study is based on original material in the Essex Record Office (ERO) and Greater London Record Office (GLRO) and the Public Record Office (PRO). I have also drawn on the transcriptions of Essex Feet of Fines published by the Essex Archaeological Society and Inquisitions post Mortum published by the PRO. © Robert Sier 2015 4 BUILDING MATERIALS [Key map number 1] A patent was granted to Henry Cook, of Stoke Holy Cross, Norfolk, in 1778 for “An entire Brick and tile making was practised exten- New Composition, to be used as a Substitute for, sively in Essex. The main requirement for power and will in every respect be Preferable to, either was driving the pug mill which prepared the clay Lead, Slates, or Tiles, in covering of Churches, for moulding into bricks. Before the twentieth Houses, and other buildings” [English patent No. century Essex Brick works seem to have been 1185 dated June 1778]. Although there is no evi- totally reliant on horses although there was some dence for this patent being used at Woodford it is use of wind pumps to drain the clay pits. Several interesting in its use of water power. The substitute Essex millers were involved in brick making, at material was to be made of : Beach’s brick works in Chelmsford the pug mill stood near Beach’s watermill where an early photo- Litharge, red lead, white lead, chalk, stone, black graph shows a “pug horse” harnessed to the pug flint, brick dust, fine sand prepared by washing, mill [ERO Spalding collection]. caput mortuum, and ground glass. The above reduced to a fine powder and all mixed together. ARTIFICIAL SLATE WORKS were set up To every hundred weight of the above materials is by Sir James Wright, who lived at Ray House added twenty-eight pounds of old junk, rope, or Woodford, the exact date is not known but the hemp, reduced to a pulp, and all worked together works were in existence by May 1782 when Sir in water by a water-mill; the composition thus James paid £2 10 0d in parish rates on ‘the mixed is put into moulds, and formed like slates, manufactory’ [ E.R.O D/DP 167/11/1 ]. In 1780 then pressed as dry as may be by large iron presses, John Smeaton was commissioned to produce afterwards dried in a stove by fire, and when quite drawings for utilising the waters of the Roding to dry pressed by iron cylinders: then each sheet is power the works, but it is not clear if Smeaton steeped in a liquor prepared with linseed oil, actually carried out the work since one of his litharge, red lead, white copperas, and sugar of drawings is inscribed “delivered but not executed” lead, again dried in a stove, pressed by the [Smeaton’s drawings]. A contemporary view of the cylinders, and painted. works, published in the Universal Magazine for August 1798, shows a two story building standing SAW MILLS. At Abbey Mill, Waltham by the Roding but gives no clue as to the power Abbey there was a small saw mill in 1821. This was used. This view of the works shows a sluice in the using a water wheel previously used to power a pin river but the general arrangement cannot be factory which moved out in 1821. [ERO D/DHf reconciled with that proposed by John Smeaton. P11]. The saw mill was still in existence in 1849 In 1796 the site was described as a patent when the lease for Abbey mills was advertised but manufactory of artificial slate, although no refer- may have gone out of use when the mill was taken ence is made as to which patent was used. The over by new tenants [The London Gazette, 1849]. slates were said to have measured 24 inches by 15 inches and cost 1/- each. The slate works may have been out of use by 1803 when Ray House was put up for sale, as the sale particulars make no mention of it [ E.R.O B1574 ]. Sand and gravel pits are recorded at Woodford bridge which may have originally been associated with the slate works [E.R.O D/DCy P3] © Robert Sier 2015 5 CLOTH AND ASSOCIATED INDUSTRIES [key map number 2] busy cloth centre may not have had mechanised fulling. Deeds of Langley Farm record land called FULLING MILLS. Outside of agriculture the Fulling Mead and in 1700 there were sufficient main source of employment in Essex was the numbers of fullers to form their own company woollen trade which specialised in bays and says. [ERO D/DU881: A F J Brown, Essex at Work, Chelms- The industry was centered on hand looms with ford 1969]. Lower down the Chelmer were fulling Spain and Portugal the main destination for Essex mills serving the weavers of Chelmsford and cloth. Essex specialised in the production of bays Maldon; these mills do not seem to have survived and says, forms of half worsted cloth brought to the depression of the seventeenth century, none are Britain by Dutch Protestants during the reign of shown on Andre & Chapman’s survey. In 1405 a Elizabeth I. War with Spain between 1624 and John Friday “fuller” is mentioned in documents 1630 bought about a period of depression in the concerning the rebuilding and lease of a fulling weaving industry, by denying access to its mill called Pacchingmelle [D/DP M209]. John traditional markets. By 1700 the weaving was Friday was one of the keepers of the torch light of becoming centered upon north Essex the cloth Writtle church [D/DP M223]. A fulling mill industry finally collapsed around 1800. A detailed existed in Lt Waltham in 1419 [D/DU 514/29-31] report, commissioned into the woollen trade in the was still at work in 1740 [D/DU 738/2] but by the Hinckford Hundred in 1629, shows the depth of 1760’s was used only for milling. In 1445 a John the depression occasioned by the loss of the Aleyn “ffuller” sold a house and land in Spanish trade. The principle clothing towns were Chelmsford [Feet of Fines]. In 1408 the Abbot of given as Colchester, Coggeshall, Witham, Bocking, Coggeshall was granted yearly rent of a fulling mill Braintree and Dedham [Essex Review vol 17, 1908]. and land in Springfield [Morant, History of Essex]. Minor centers of the weaving trade were Barnes mill, Springfield, was a fulling mill in 1436 Chelmsford, Maldon, Dunmow, Harlow and when it was leased by Thos Phillips of Springfield Waltham Abbey. to John Danel “fuller” of Gt Badow for a term of After the weaving process the cloth was fulled 11 years at £3 10s per annum [ERO. D/DAy T2/ to scour or cleanse the cloth. Fulling involved the 178-179]. It was still a fulling mill in 1441 and beating of wet folded cloth originally a hand 1582 [ERO. D/DAy T2/178: D/DU 480/1: Feet of process which mechanised by the use of hanging- Fines] but was a corn mill by l648 when it was stokes driven by a water wheel. When the water leased to Richard Adams, miller [ERO. D/DAc powered fulling mill first appeared in Essex is 213]. Little Badow mill was also once used for unclear. However in 1240 documents relating to fulling and milling, an apprenticeship indenture the manor of Dedham mention a Robert the dated 1624, between Jeffrey Melbourne of Lt Fuller. As there is no mention of a miller he may Badow miller and Phillip Somes, son of Edw have been working at Dedham water mill in which Somes was for instruction in “millinge and fullinge the manor had a half share [Feet of Fines]. A fulling of cloth” [D/DU 54/4]. Below Lt Badow was mill is recorded in Dedham in 1382 and around Huscardes mill which in 1539 was a fulling mill 1410 half a fulling mill was given to the prioress belonging to the manor of Mugdon Hall, Hatfield and convent of St Mary’s church Champesse [Inq Peveral, [Feet of Fines]. In 1589 it was both a corn Rich II; Inq 11 Hen IV]. In 1775 Dedham mill was a and fulling mill [Essex Review vol 42]. Fulling had corn and fulling mill and probably had always ceased by 1679 and the mill continued as corn and operated as such [Andre & Chapman]. Weaving in paper mill. In 1545 there was in Woodham Walter Dedham declined after 1730 and ended around one water mill and one fulling mill, ie a mill with 1791, the water mill continued on milling flour.