INDUSTRIES 



and to supervise the education of the children 

 and the general morals of the people ; to preach 

 twice on Sundays and all saints' days, and be 

 the champion of the workpeople in cases of 

 official oppression. 



The surgeon was especially warned to see that 

 the medicine the people got from him was for 

 their own use, and not to be sold again to the 

 country people around. 



The schoolmaster was to supervise the accounts 

 of the poor, in fact was called the clerk of the 

 poor, to act as chapel clerk, and to teach the 

 children both by precept and example to 'show 

 respect to superiors and aged people,' and to 

 punish all guilty of 'lying, swearing, or suchlike 

 horrid crimes. He was never to dismiss the 

 school upon account of races, cock-fighting, rope- 

 dancers or stage-players.' Above all he was not 

 to think too highly of his own attainments to ask 

 questions, ' for there is not a rock upon which 

 more have split than that of conceitedness, to 

 think he is too old to learn or too wise to be 

 taught.' ^^ From an account written in 1793, 

 the schoolmaster, owing to taking in scholars 

 that did not belong to the works, had more pupils 

 than he could manage ; probably he eked out a 

 slender salary in this way.^' 



Each page of the Law Book makes clear the 

 secret of the rise of Ambrose Crowley from a 

 working blacksmith in the leather doublet, which 

 he adopted as his sign at his shop in Thames 

 Street, to being alderman and sheriff of London, 

 member of Parliament for Andover, with a fortune 



of ;^200,000. 



He had obviously a genius for organization, 

 but possibly his ready appreciation of the power 

 of work of the north countryman if handled with 

 a due respect for his independence was the most 

 important factor in his success. Such extra- 

 ordinary minutiae of petty detail are dealt with, 

 that organization sometimes seems to run riot. 

 All scraps of loose iron are to be carefully 

 collected, candles are to be 'kept secure from 

 ratts and mice,' ** bags are to have a fastening 

 stitch at every third stitch,^' frying-pans are 

 always to be packed bottom upwards to prevent 

 rust,'" when letters are sent they are to be wrapt 

 in clean brown paper.'^ These trivialities are 

 wedged in between laws dealing in the wisest 

 and most large-minded way with the real welfare 

 of the people. 



The wisdom of trying to work a small self- 

 sufficing community, with its own code of laws 

 and its own standard of morality, may be ques- 



"' Law Book, Law 97, verses 5-1 1, fol. 141/1, 142. 



" Athenaeum, June, 1807. From notes taken at 

 Swalwell, near Newcastle-on-Tyne, in Sept. 1793. 



** Law Book, Law l, verse 5, fol. I ; Order 100, 

 fol. 146. 



*' Ibid. Law 27, verse 3, fol. 4 1 3. 



'° Ibid. Law 46, verse 39, fol. 81^. 



" Ibid. Law 57, verse 17, fol. 99^. 



tioned. So long as the actual organizer of the 

 scheme lived, his spirit pervaded the works ; but 

 even under his son, who died in 1781, friction 

 arose. John Crowley died without male heirs, 

 and his daughter Theodosia took a partner, 

 Millington ; the firm continued under the name 

 Crowley, Millington & Co., but by 1827 the 

 works had lost their characteristics, the usual 

 fight between labour and capital had begun, and 

 as a contemporaneous account grandiloquently 

 asserts. 



Disunion has unhappily annihilated the charitable 

 institutions which formerly wiped away the tears of 

 the widow and the orphan, and alleviated the distresses 

 of the afflicted and superannuated." 



Crowley's crew, as they are always called in 

 the annals of the times, were in their early days 

 staunch Tories, but the Chartist movement got 

 a strong hold upon them, and the facilities for 

 making weapons which their work afforded them 

 rendered them a formidable danger to the state. 

 There is no doubt that it was to Crowley's crew 

 that the mayor of Newcastle referred in his letter 

 to Viscount Sidmouth : — 



Newcastle, Oct. 17, 18 19. 

 It is impossible to contemplate the meeting of 

 the lith without awe, more especially if my 

 information is correct that 700 of them were 

 prepared with arms (concealed) to resist the civil 

 power. These men came from a village about 

 three miles from this town, and there is strong 

 reason to suspect that arms are manufactured 

 there, they are chiefly forgemen." 



But the crew did not always come off victorious. 

 In 1792 they were attacked by a crowd of keel- 

 men and their wives, and had to fly for their lives, 

 the onlookers thinking that they escaped almost 

 by a miracle.'^ 



Mr. William Hawks, a working blacksmith 

 like Crowley, began with a few forges near 

 Gateshead. The works were started to work 

 up the old iron brought by collier vessels as 

 ballast. The Tyne shipping trade had increased 

 so enormously that there was a great demand for 

 anchors and chains. A few years ago a document 

 was extant giving a brief sketch of the beginning 

 of the firm : — 



The present firm of Hawks, Crawshay and Sons was 

 commenced by Mr. William Hawks, who commenced 

 business with a few blacksmiths' shops near New 

 Deptford in or about the year 1747. 



Signed G. Hawks, January 7, 1827, grandson 

 of the last named Hawks, attested by Elias 

 Henderson, aged 8 1 years, the oldest servant of 

 the company, from his own knowledge and that 

 of his elders." 



" White and Parson, op. cit. ii, 184. 

 " Netvcastli Couranl, 4 Dec. 18 19. 

 '* Newcastle Advertiser, 9 Aug. 1792. 

 " North Country Monthly Chron. Mar. 1887, p. 28 ; 

 J. Bailey, Gen. View of the Agric. of Dur. 288. 



287 



