INDUSTRIES 



addition to their printing works Messrs. Childs 

 & Son employed at one time as many as 60 or 

 70 engravers on metal, who did the work in 

 their own homes at Bungay. In 1876, Mr. C. 

 Childs, the son of Mr. J. R. Childs, died, and in 

 the following year the business was taken over 

 by Messrs. Clay & Taylor, now Messrs. Richard 

 Clay & Sons, and the firm became a limited 

 company in 1890. The increasing tendency 

 shown by the printing trade to leave the metro- 

 polis has led to a constant expansion of the 

 Bungay printing industry. The number of 

 those now employed is upwards of 300, and 

 further building is in progress. The educational 

 character of the work undertaken is as marked a 

 feature now as it was when the famous Bonn's 

 Library was issuing from the Bungay Press. 

 Besides books, Messrs. Clay print a large number 

 of the best magazines, monthly reviews, and 

 annual or other publications of learned societies, 

 such as the Early English Text Society. They 

 pay much attention to illustration by the latest 

 colour processes. 1 



Readers of Dr. Smiles' Men of Invention 

 are familiar with the remarkable career of 

 Mr. William Clowes, who took a leading part 

 in the introduction of the printing of books by 

 steam. The Penny Magazine and the Penny 

 Cyclopaedia, and the many admirable volumes 

 edited for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful 

 Knowledge by Mr. Charles Knight, which did 

 so much for the promotion of popular education 

 in the first half of the last century, were issued 

 from the newly-established steam press of 

 Mr. Clowes. From the very smallest beginnings 



his printing office became one of the largest in 

 the world. It had twenty-five steam presses, six 

 hand-presses, six hydraulic presses, and gave 

 direct employment to over five hundred persons, 

 whilst many times that number were employed 

 indirectly. Mr. Clowes cast his type and pro- 

 duced his own stereotype plates. The printed 

 matter issuing from his presses every week at 

 Duke Street, Blackfriars, was equivalent to 

 30,000 volumes. Mr. William Clowes died in 

 1847 at the age of sixty-eight. 3 



The branch establishment of Messrs. Clowes 

 & Sons, Ltd., at Beccles, was founded in 1875, 

 and since that date has made steady progress. 

 In 1894 the increase in business was so marked 

 that the directors found it necessary to make 

 large additions to buildings and plant. These 

 now include composing-rooms and reading-closets, 

 with accommodation for 250 compositors, capa- 

 cious machine-rooms, a foundry fitted up with all 

 modern stereo and electro appliances, extensive 

 plate rooms, and a large bindery, which enables 

 the company to produce books ready for the 

 publishers. Several machines for the execution 

 of art work have been laid down of late years. 

 Altogether employment is found for over four 

 hundred hands. 



In connexion with the works there is a 

 flourishing athletic club for the promotion of 

 cricket, football, cycling, quoits, swimming, &c, 

 which is presided over by Mr. W. Knight 

 Clowes, the chairman of the company, and there 

 is an institute where religious and social meetings 

 are held for the benefit of the girls employed in 

 the works. 4 



FISHERIES 



' Hereabouts,' writes an eighteenth-century 

 tourist in Suffolk, ' they begin to talk of herrings 

 and the fishery.' 2 This local characteristic may 

 claim to be a very ancient one. The remoter 

 records of the industry are mainly concerned, as 

 along every coast-line that has suffered from the 

 encroachments of the sea, and the consequent 

 loss or restriction of its fishing-havens, with the 

 fortunes of decayed towns, or, in instances where 

 a port has averted, or rallied from absolute ruin, 

 with a period of its story which verges on the 

 legendary. 



As elsewhere along our coasts, the herring has 

 been from the earliest times of supreme import- 

 ance in the history of the Suffolk fisheries, not 

 even excepting the Iceland fishing, which is 

 entitled, nevertheless, to the special place allotted 

 to it in another section of this volume. The 

 herring was borne on the seal of the bailiff of 



1 Ex inf. Messrs. R. Clay & Sons. 



' Defoe, Tour in Eastern Counties, 113. 



Dunwich in 12 18, and in later times on the 

 town-tokens of Lowestoft and Southwold. 



At the time of the Domesday Survey, Beccles, 

 whose ancient commerce would seem to have 

 been almost entirely confined to this staple fish, 

 paid sixty thousand herrings as fee-farm rent, 

 the introduction of the industry having been 

 owing, it is said, to that company of twenty-four 

 burgesses of Norwich who fled from the latter 

 town to escape the penalties of their participation 

 in the conspiracy of Earl Guader. 5 So extensive 

 was the herring trade at this port that the chapel 

 of St. Peter, the patron of fishermen, and him- 

 self a member of their craft, was specially erected 

 for the convenience of buyers and sellers on the 

 western side of the market-place, being in use 

 as late as 1470. Covehithe or North Hales was 



3 S. Smiles, ' Men of Invention and Industry,' 

 pp. 208-19. 



4 Ex inf. Messrs. Clowes & Sons. 



5 Suckling, Hist. Suff. ii, 9. 



189 



37 



