242 Mineral Trades 



dull seasons.^ This indicates the opportunit}- for the capitalistic 

 mine operator and manufacturer- who arose in the next century, but 

 during the early seventeenth century the man of small means was 

 distinctly favored. 



A common method of doing a larger business than usual was to 

 lease others' furnaces and forges. One George Sitwel' of Renishaw in 

 Derbyshire controlled considerable interests in this way.^ He sold 

 his products to a wide market, even to the sugar planters of the Bar- 

 badoes; they were marketed by way of Bantry and Hull to London. 

 One of the most celebrated London Ironmongers was x-Vmbrose Crow- 

 ley. In 1682 he set "a Factory ... in Sunderland in the 

 county of Durham for making Iron ware." He became a large 

 employer and imported into Sunderland a large element of foreign 

 workmen.** They were engaged at his works, forges, slitting mills, 

 etc. in Winlaton, Swalwell, and Winlaton Mill. Some idea of the 

 variety of goods made may be had from Crowley's advertisement, 1699, 

 in the Post Boy which enumerated "Augers, Bedscrews, Box and 

 Sad Irons, . . . Chains, Edge-Tools, Tiles, Hammers, Hinges, 

 Hows for the Plantations, Locks . . . Nails, Patten Rings, and 

 almost all other sorts of smiths ware."^ He also sold faggots of steel, 

 hoops, bundles of rod steel, bars of blistered steel, bars of iron, bundles 

 of rod iron and casks. ^ He conducted these manufactures under a 

 highly paternalistic system.^ It was a domestic system, also: the 

 workman entered into bond for a considerable sum to cover advances 

 of tools and iron; the worker took these to his own shop and engaged 

 apprentices and his famih' at manufacturing products which were 

 sold to Crowley and the cost of tools and materials was deducted 

 from the selling price. He established an old age pension system and 

 a pawn-shop arrangement in London whereby he facilitated the mi- 

 gration of London workmen to Durham."^ His goods reached the 

 whole island and distant parts of the world. His London connections 

 put him in contact with the braziers of that metropolis who retailed 

 his goods, along with others which they made themsehes or bought to 

 sell again. 



^ "Dialogue," 126. 



•^Ibid., 120. 



^ V. C. H., Derby, II, 359. 



' P. C. Reg. 1687-8, fcl. 702. 



*"The Post Boy," No. 510, 1699; V. C. H., Durhum, II, 1>>^2. 



" Ibid., 283. 



• Ibid., 283-5. 



^ Ibid., 286. 



