The ESSEX FIELD CLL'B. 43 



Saturday, March 30th. These nominations were duly made and will be 

 recorded in the report of the Annual Meeting. 



Mr. Avery exhibited six water-colour drawings of Essex Churches with 

 the object of ascertaining the name of the artist. Tliey dated from 179.; to 

 1797. Fur many years they were in the possession of the late Mr. Thomas 

 Bird, J. P., of Romford, a member of the Club. Mr. Avery also exhibited an 

 old plan of Wanstead House Gardens. 



Mr. Walter Crouch said that the coloured sketches Mere very interesting 

 They resembled a number of drawings that formerly belonged to Sir Edward 

 Hulse, Lord of the Manor of Barking. 



The President remarked that the view of Little Ilford Church was an 

 admirable memorial of a church which had sufficed for a parish containing 

 only 250 inhabitants within his recollection. At that time Great Ilford was 

 only a hamlet of Barking, and contained no parish church. The best 

 estimate that could be made of the population of I^ittle Ilford noi^ was 25,000, 

 and these parishioners certainly could not go to church all at one time ! 



Mr. H. W. Littler exhibited some old hand-printing blocks formerly used 

 at Mr. Edmund Littler's Silk-printing Works at Waltham Abbey. Mr. 

 Littler subsequently kindly presented these blocks to the Museum, and in 

 doing so furnished the Secretary with the following notes on the subject. 



NOTES ON THE HAND-PRINTING SILK WORKS AT WALTHAM 

 ABBEY AND WEST HAM. 

 By H. W. LITTLER. 

 I have forwarded to you for the Essex Museum the hand-printing 

 blocks I spoke about at the meeting of the Club on February 23rd. They 

 were made and used at Mr. Edmund Littler's Silk and Cotton Printing Works 

 at Waltham Abbey, Essex, and are exactly similar to those used in Mr. 

 Reding Littler's factory at West Ham Abbey. These West Ham Works 

 were afterwards sold to Mr. J. Tucker, of Messrs. Baker, Tucker and Co., and 

 subsequently removed to Teddington. The Waltham Abbey factory was 

 sold to Her late Majesty's Government, for the extension of the Powder Mills, 

 about the middle of the 19th Century. Of the old silk printing factories near 

 London I believe the only one left is that which is (or was a few years back) 

 carried on by a Mr. Littler at Merton Abbey, Surrey. The reason that these 

 factories (all of which were in the first instance used as silk printing works) 

 were located on the sites of or adjacent to old Abbeys was that large 

 quantities of pure water were required for the purpose of bleaching the silk. 

 It was no uncommon thing for great stocks of silks to lay on the meadows 

 adjoining the factories, while an armed guard paraded round his valuable 

 charge. Looking now at the putrid water of the Channelsea at West Ham 

 and Lea one can hardly realise that these two factories were established on 

 the banks of these rivers on account of the purity of their waters. The 

 receipt for making madder green dye for which Mr. Reding Littler, of West 

 Ham, was famous, was kept a profound secret even from his immediate 

 relations interested in the same work. His madder green dyed silk handker- 

 chiefs were the beau-ideal at tiiat time of what a sprightly coster's neck-cloth 

 should be. This recipe I believe died with him, he only revealing an inferior 



