This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ The building and works of the office of ordnance at the Tower of London, 1660-1722. Parnell, Geoffrey The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 11. Oct. 2021 The Buildings and Works of the Office of Ordnance at the Tower of London, 1660-1722 Geoffrey Parnell JoL 1 Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of London King's College London School of Humanities March 1995 BtýL. .ý ABSTRACT Following the Restoration, the Office of Ordnance enjoyed a period of considerable expansionat the Tower and between 1663 and 1676 replaced the old royal palace with a complex of stores and offices. Additional facilities were erected about the White Tower and between 1688 and 1692 the largest storehouseever seen at the fortress, the Grand Storehouse,was built. By now, however, depots such as Plymouth and Portsmouth were being rapidly developedand the centuries-old dominance of the Tower as the central arsenal of the nation was coming to a close. Throughout the reign of Charles II the Office endeavouredto modernise the Tower's defencesand improve the condition of the garrison. Despite considerable effort, the former was never effectively addressedand at the start of the Hanoverian period many of the gun batteries that had been introduced were removed. These reductions coincided with a fresh bustle of building work as the fortress assumeda more specialisedrole in the Ordnance supply and storage operations. Firearms were now the dominant military commodity in store and consequentlythe facilities of the Small Gun Office were expanded. Two new Ordnanceestablishments appearedin 1716. The first, the Drawing Room, made a significant contribution to the development of surveying in Britain during the eighteenth century: the second, the' Modelling Room, played a key role in the introduction of new patterns for the manufacture of guns and gun carriages. In 1670 the Ordnance assumedcontrol of the Armoury Office and with it responsibility for a large collection of historic arms and armour, some of which was already being shown to the public in a museum-like manner. These displays were extended and new ones devised, thereby encouraging the process whereby the Tower became the major tourist attraction that it is today. CONTENTS VOLUME I PAGE INTRODUCTION (i) History of the Ordnance Office 1 (ii) The political and military background, 1660-1722 6 (iii) The development of the Tower during the later Middle Ages and Tudor period 11 (iv) The early development of Ordnance facilities at the Tower 13 (v) The expansion of Ordnance facilities at the Tower during the early Stuart and Commonwealth periods 17 I. THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE PALACE WARD 27 II. THE DEFENCES AND THE GARRISON 42 III. THE BUILDINGS OF THE ESTABLISHMENT (i) Storehouses 61 (ii) Offices 89 (iii) Lodgings 97 (iv) Workshops 107 (v) Miscellanea 110 IV. LATER HISTORY OF THE BUILDINGS (i) Brief description of demolitions 130 (ii) Survey of surviving fabric 131 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS 137 CATALOGUE OF ORDNANCE DRAWINGS 157 PAGE APPENDICES 176 NOTE ON MANUSCRIPT SOURCES 199 BIBLIOGRAPHY 201 GLOSSARY 206 VOLUME II ILLUSTRATIONS IV ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am particularly indebted to the Royal Armouries, my present employers, and English Heritage, my previous employers, for providing the financial assistanceand leave that has made this study possible. Among those colleagueswho have provided ideas and stimulating conversation, Peter Curnow, former Principal Inspector of Ancient Monuments at English Heritage, Sarah Barter Bayley, Librarian at the Royal Armouries and Howard Blackmore, former Deputy Master of the Royal Armouries, deservea special mention. Jane Jephcoteof English Heritage kindly typed much of the draft manuscript, until I acquired a word processor of my own, and has been most helpful and supportive in other ways throughout. Jeremy Hall, Senior Photographerat the Royal Armouries, provided much valuable assistancewith the illustrations. To the staff of the various libraries and record offices I have consulted, particularly the Public Record Office, I should like to record my thanks for all the kind help and assistanceI have received. Lastly, I am much indebted to my two supervisors, Professor R. Allen Brown and Dr Ian Roy for steering me through the project. It is sad to recall that the admirable Professor did not live long enough to see the finished work submitted. V ABBREVIATIONS B. L. British Library B. M. British Museum Cal. SP Dom. Calendar of State Papers Domestic Cal. Treas. Books Calenderof TreasuryBooks Dart. MS. Dartmouth Collection, Staffordshire County Record Office E Exchequer, Public Record Office PC Privy Council, Public Record Office PRO 30 Pritchett MS. Public Record Office P.R. O. Public Record Office PROB Probate Records, Public Record Office R. A. Royal Armouries, Tower of London SP State Papers, Public Record Office T Treasury, Public Record Office WO War Office, Public Record Office WORKS Office of Works, Public RecordOffice Note on dates, spelling, etc. All datesare given in the English Old Style (that is the Julian Calendar). The new year, however, has been taken to start on 1 January rather than 25 March. Spellingand punctuationhave, where necessary,been modernisedto improveclarity. Most of the pageand folio referencesquoted from P.R. O. manuscriptsare original - new numberingsystems having been introducedafter researchwas under way. I INTRODUCTION (i) History of the Ordnance Office The origins of the Ordnance Office may be traced back to the reign of Edward I when the Privy Wardrobe began to act as an itinerant armoury for the royal forces campaigning in Wales. Though it existed as a permanent storehousewith a permanent staff the Privy Wardrobe continued its peripatetic existence throughout the reigns of Edward I and Edward II, during which time it was subordinateto the King's Chamber and the Great Wardrobe.' An important chapter in the evolution of the Privy Wardrobe took place on 17 July 1323, when John Fleet was appointed 'keeper of the part of the king's wardrobe in the Tower of London'. Though the wording of Fleet's subsequentappointments vary - for example on 17 May 1338 his patent styled him 'keeper of the king's jewels, armour and other things' - it is clear that under his authorship a settled organisation specialising in the provision of arms and armour was establishedat the Tower. Under the subsequentkeepership of Robert Mildenhall, the Tower establishmentbecame increasingly independentof the parent organisations with separateaccounts of its activities being submitted to the Exchequer, even though Mildenhall was still a clerk and receiver of the Chamber and the Mint. With the retirement of William Rothwell as Keeper in 1360 the emancipationof the Privy Wardrobe at the Tower was completed when the offices of the Keeper of the Mint and the Wardrobe were separated. The processby which the Privy Wardrobe at the Tower was replaced by the Office of Ordnance is not clear. Master Nicholas Merbury is the earliest known Master of the Ordnance being appointed by letters patent in 1414.2 It would appear that the role of the Master of the Ordnance, together with that of the 'Keeper of the King's armour in the Tower of London' who is first mentioned in 1423, replaced that of the Keeper of the Privy Wardrobe. For although the latter continued to be appointed until 1476, the post effectively became a sinecure with no accounts being rendered after 1407. In summary, 1. The origins and development of the department may be traced in Tout (1928); Hogg (1963), Vol. I, pp. 3-82; Tomlinson (1979); Forbes (1929), provides a useful summary. 2. Printed by Hogg, ibid., p. 27, note 92. 2 therefore, all that can be said with certainty is that the Ordnanceand Armoury developed as offshoots of the Privy Wardrobe and became separateorganisations which took over its responsibilities in the same way that the Great Wardrobe and the King's Chamber emerged from the structure of the Wardrobe during the thirteenth century. In the patent appointing the Master of the Ordnance in 1430 referenceis made to a yeoman, though the first appointment of this office, and that of a clerk, which is mentioned as early as 1414, did not appear by way of patent until 1484. Neither the Yeoman nor the Clerk had fixed responsibilities, rather they performed any duties which contributed to the smooth running of the department. Alongside the three officials worked a group of skilled craftsmen, gunners and engineerswho were appointed by direct warrant from the Crown. Basedat the Tower, where the master enjoyed an official residence, the Ordnance of the late Middle Ages had completed the first stageof its evolution and had laid the foundations of an organisation which was set to become a department during Henry VIII major of state the reign of .