SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



potteries on Gateshead Fell and at other places at the end of the century. 

 The salt-works have already been referred to. They were found at Birtley 

 as well as South Shields, but the salt in the former case came from springs 

 discovered about 1785. 



The industries of the county of Durham will be dealt with in detail 

 in another section of this volume so that it is unnecessary to attempt to 

 trace their history here. However, it may be interesting to trace the 

 chemical works on the Tyne and Wear to the end of the eighteenth century, 

 but the coal-tar industry sprang up first at Cockfield, near Barnard Castle, in 

 1779. Thus the 'ingenious Mr. George Dixon,' as Bailey calls him, 

 anticipated Lord Dundonald's patent by two years, but cost of carriage to his 

 nearest market, Sunderland, caused him to drop the Cockfield business. 

 Bailey also claims for him the discovery of coal gas ; but it is startling to find 

 that he actually experimented with a view of lighting collieries with the 

 new illuminant. 



The textile trades never have flourished in the county. Durham city 

 itself had a strong weavers' gild in mediaeval times, but one of the few 

 things we know about its early history is that the two sections of workers in 

 it quarrelled furiously as to which should make the more profitable articles. 

 The jurors decided that the ' wolnewebsters ' ought to make and weave 

 'woollen cloths and lynen called plain lynen, caresay, sak cloth, and haircloth,' 

 while the 'chalonwebsters' were to make and weave 'coverings, tapestry work, 

 say, worsted motleys, twilled work, and dyaper.' No workman might make 

 articles assigned to the other section under penalty of £^. But by the 

 eighteenth century the Durham gilds had ceased to be of any practical 

 concern to the trade. Just before Bailey wrote in 18 10 the one considerable 

 woollen manufactory had failed. It had made a considerable amount of 

 worsted goods, 'tammies, wildbores, &c.,' and carpets. An attempt was made 

 to revive it by a Mr. Cooper, who claimed the buildings, workshops, &c., 

 left to the corporation to be let free, together with >C5°o ^^^ of interest, to 

 encourage the woollen manufactory, if anyone would bind himself to employ 

 a sufficient capital for carrying on the business. 



Durham did not succeed in becoming a seat of the woollen industry, 

 and the attempt to create a cotton industry in the city failed even more 

 completely. In 1792 a factory for making corduroys and 'cotton' goods 

 was started at Castle Eden, which found employment for '200 boys and girls' 

 in spinning, besides a number of men for weaving, cutting, &c. The owners 

 moved the trade to Durham in 1796, but before long the new factory was 

 destroyed by fire and was not re-erected. The old buildings at Castle Eden 

 became a sail-cloth factory, but the industry ruined its founders and the 

 building was taken down. 



Other towns were more fortunate. Darlington used to be famous for 

 linen, and the manufacture of huckaback, diapers and sheeting employed 500 

 looms in 18 10. Bailey tells us that worsted goods were being made there 

 too, partly by hand and partly by machinery. 300 looms, and 100 combers, 

 and 5,000 spinners by hand were needed, and even then much of the yarn 

 was spun in Scotland. Another Durham inventor was John Kendry, who 

 invented a machine for grinding optical glasses in true spherical form, but 

 derived much more benefit from inventions for spinning flax. In 18 10 there 



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