A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



About 1780 Hawks bought the Lumley Forge, 

 where excellent iron was made for ordnance pur- 

 poses. This forge is said to have been dismantled 

 because the hammers disturbed Lumley Castle. 

 Only a few years after Cort had invented grooved 

 rolls in rolling mills in 1783 '^ William Hawks 

 had started a rolling mill. He also worked the 

 Teams Iron Foundry.^' From 1829-77 the 

 Beamish Forges near Chester-le-Street were 

 worked by the firm, which changed its personnel 

 during the period. Messrs. Hawks, Son & Co. 

 held the Beamish Forges from 1829 to 1841 ; 

 from 1 84 1 to 1 856, the firm was Messrs. Hawks, 

 Stanley & Co. ; another change took place in 

 1855, when the firm became Hawks, Crawshay 

 & Son.'' In 1877 the mill dam was swept 

 away, and as the firm was unable to come to 

 terms with the landlord, the forges were dis- 

 mantled. 



Shovels, hammers, files, and buffers were the 

 chief articles manufactured. During the second 

 quarter of the nineteenth century, about fifty 

 women were employed, all the work was paid as 

 piece-work, and pay varied considerably from 51. 

 to I OS. a dozen for shovels. A wagon and two 

 carts were kept constantly at work taking the 

 goods manufactured to the chief factory at Gates- 

 head. Children of seven were employed to blow 

 the bellows. The total earnings of husband, 

 wife, and child often reached as high as ^^5 a 

 week. 



Though the firm never attempted to follow 

 Crowley's schemes of labour organization, the 

 accounts of the Beamish Forges give no impres- 

 sion of capitalist tyranny, but rather of a contented 

 people, working long hours it is true, but at a 

 healthy occupation, in salubrious air, and receiving 

 a fair wage. ' Hawks's Blacks,' as they were 

 known, waged internecine warfare on ' Crowley's 

 Crew,' but there seems little evidence of their 

 setting law at defiance in the systematic way 

 followed by their better-known rivals." 



It was not only as the makers of nails and 

 domestic implements that the Hawks were 

 known ; but in 1813 they were the first to make 

 studded cable chains ; they also erected the cast- 

 iron bridge over the Ouse at York, reconstructed 

 the noted Sunderland bridge, and supplied iron 

 for the high-level bridge at Newcastle and the 

 iron pier at Madras. They often undertooic 

 large contracts for Government and the East 

 India Company, Hawks, Crawshay & Co. sold 

 all their north-country works in 1890. 



" Ironmonger, ex, 427, 489 ; Iron and Coal Trades 

 Rfv. Ixx, 1698, 1766. 



" The Interest of Gt. Brit. List of Forges. B.M. 

 E. 2199. 



" Rent Book Be.imish Estate Office. I am indebted 

 to Mr. Richards of the Estate Office for these details. 



" I am indebted to Mr. Skelton, who began work 

 at the Beamish Forge seventy-five ) ears ago, as bellows- 

 blower to his father, a shovel-maker, for information 

 about the forge. 



Owing to a curious error of transcription in the 

 parish register the date of the beginning of sword- 

 making at Shotley Bridge was placed early in the 

 seventeenth century, but there seems little doubt 

 that the century was almost ended before the 

 works were started. The wording of their first 

 trade advertisements shows that some enterpris- 

 ing business men, who were acquainted with 

 Solingen the centre of European sword-making, 

 had foreseen the great demand for swords in the 

 eighteenth century, and imported foreign work- 

 people to meet it. This view of course up- 

 sets the popular tradition that they landed in 

 London, driven from their country by religious 

 persecution, and only came to the Derwent be- 

 cause they wished for a secluded place where 

 they could pursue their occupation without fear 

 of their trade secrets being discovered. 



Whereas great industry hath been used for erecting 

 a Manufactory for making sword blades at Newcastle 

 by several able working men brought over from 

 Germany which being now brought to perfection the 

 undertakers thereof have thought fit to settle a ware- 

 house at Mr. Isaac Hadley's at the Five Beds in New 

 Street near Shoe Lane where callers may be furnished 

 with all sorts of Sword Blades at reasonable Rates.™ 



The only possible date for the beginning of 

 the trade is therefore anterior but approximate to 

 1690. Apparently the company did not flourish, 

 and according to evidence given at the Morpeth 

 Sessions the Shotley Bridge Sword Works closed 

 in 1 702. They were however re-opened in 

 1703, when Hermon Mohll, who had gone back 

 to Germany, at the special request of the company 

 returned in order to work at the reconstructed 

 company's works, and brought with him some 

 hundred sword blades from Solingen to supply 

 the British market. Unfortunately a certain 

 amount of secrecy was observed in disembarking 

 the weapons ; Jacobite risings loomed dark before 

 all those answerable for public peace, the surrep- 

 titious importer of arms could not be overlooked, 

 and Hermon Mohll was seized and put in Morpeth 

 Gaol. Henry Villiers, J. P. for Northumberland, 

 at once communicated with the Secretary of State, 

 who replied from Whitehall that the arms must 

 be detained until some satisfactory explanation 

 could be given. Henry Hooper, sword-blade 

 maker of Shotley Bridge, and Thomas Cornforth, 

 cutler of Newcastle, both gave testimony as to 

 Mobil's respectability ; the former had worked 

 with him for about fifteen years for the Sword 

 Blade Company at Shotley Bridge. The Sessions 

 Records do not refer again to the matter ; *' how 

 long Mohll was detained is not known, but he 

 Was buried in 1 7 16 near Shotley Bridge, and 



*" Lend. Gaz. Aug. 25-28, 1690. I am indebted 

 to Mr. W. W. Tomlinson, of Monkseaton, for drawing 

 my attention to this advertisement and for a transcrip- 

 tion of the Morpeth Sessions Records. 



*' Morpeth Sessions, Dec. 1703. 



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