INDUSTRIES 



in such poor case that the government felt that 

 special legislation was necessary to foster it. 



Probably the report on the salt trade correctly 

 represented the condition of affairs in the county 

 about 1605. 



It is to be noted that in the Countyes of Durham 

 and Northumberland there be no great trades as 

 clothing and suchlike used, by which the poorer sort 

 are sett on Worke and relieved from begery saving 

 only the trades of Colyery and Salting.' 



But by the end of the century the industry had 

 made some headway in the south of the county, 

 and though Bishop Auckland, Barnard Castle, 

 and Castle Eden as manufacturing centres had 

 brief and fluctuating careers, Durham carpets 

 retained their reputation until within the last 

 few years, and Darlington had still worsted mills 

 of great importance. 



Ralph Thoresby,when passing through Barnard 

 Castle in 1694, mentions leather as its chief 

 industry,^ ' now chiefly famous for bridles there 

 made,' but some forty years later 'a great 

 woollen manufactory of stockings' was carried on 

 there.' According to Bailey, whose authority as a 

 native of the coujity and an observant man can- 

 not be disregarded, the trade was lost owing to the 

 manufacturers trying to undersell each other, and 

 producing inferior goods. The customers were 

 drawn away and the unfortunate employees 

 forced to seek work in Durham, Darlington, and 

 the neighbouring counties.* But the popularity 

 of Barnard Castle carpets continued after the 

 other worsted industries were lost. The waters of 

 the Tees were supposed to be peculiarly well 

 adapted for producing brilliant colouring from the 

 dyes ; before the introduction of chemical dyes, 

 this was a matter of the utmost importance. By 

 1827 there were five carpet factories in the 

 town, manufacturing Dutch, Kidderminster, and 

 Brussels carpets, and employing several hundred 

 hands. The majority of these firms did not spin, 

 but imported their worsted and yarn from York- 

 shire ; the largest of the factories, however, 

 Messrs. Monkhouse & Whitfield, did their own 

 spinning. At one time they employed more 

 than 200 men, and the closing of their works in 

 1870 was the final blow to the prosperity of the 

 town. The last carpet factory, that of Smith, 

 Powell & Co., was closed in 1888.' The flax 

 mill, which was started in 1760, is still work- 

 ing,^" and is one of the largest shoe-thread mills 

 in the country, doing an extensive export trade 

 with Spain, Turkey, and the Colonies. All the 

 flax is imported from Belgium, Ireland, France, 

 and Russia. The mill is worked by Messrs. 



' Duke of Northumberland's MSS. Collectanea 

 Warburtoniana. * R. Thoresby, Diary, \, 279. 



'Camden, Gough''s Additions, iii, 1 1 2. 



'J. Bailey, op. cit. 294. 



' I am indebted to Mr. Vincent Ord of Barnard 

 Castle for information about the carpet trade. 



'"The mill is on the Yorkshire side of the river. 



Ullathorne, descendants of the original founders 

 of the business. The firm has branch establish- 

 ments in Melbourne, Paris, and London. About 

 100 men and 1 00 women and children are em- 

 ployed. In addition to shoe-thread, a certain 

 amount of twine and rope is made, in order to 

 utilize the yarn which is not of sufficiently 

 satisfactory quality to be made into shoe-thread. 

 In 1792 a manufacture of corduroys and sail- 

 cloth was begun by Mr. Burdon at Castle Eden ; 

 about 200 boys and girls besides men were em- 

 ployed in spinning and weaving. A row of 

 houses called the Factories, where the overseers 

 of the works used to live, still remains and gives 

 some idea of the extensive nature of the enter- 

 prise. All traces of the square where the factory 

 was have disappeared, but in the coal-house of a 

 cottage, still called the Bleacheries, there are the 

 ovens of the bleaching ground ; a great quantity 

 of sail-cloth was manufactured here. But the 

 enterprise was not successful. The industry was 

 removed to Durham in 1796, and the building 

 where the transferred business was carried on 

 being burnt down, it was never re-established.'^ 



Darlington from the earliest time was associa- 

 ted with spinning and weaving. Boldon Book 

 alludes to the dyers of Darlington, and the Cursi- 

 tor's records constantly refer to the mills on the 

 Skerne. But no records giving the exact date 

 when the corn mills changed into woollen or flax 

 mills have yet been unearthed. Darlington was 

 noted for its linen manufacture long before it 

 won a reputation as a worsted industrial centre. 

 Thoresby says that the linen manufacture was 

 settled at Darlington owing to the influence of 

 the late Queen Mary ; possibly he meant that 

 the linen trade developed considerably under 

 William and Mary throughout England, not that 

 Queen Mary interested herself specifically in 

 Darlington.'^ In 1690 three linen corporations 

 for England, Scotland, and Ireland were formed 

 as joint-stock companies, to introduce the im- 

 proved French methods of linen and damask 

 weaving. In England and Ireland they were 

 organized on the basis of buying up existing 

 undertakings ; the discovery in a book of modern 

 newspaper cuttings of three documents in a late 

 seventeenth-century handwriting points to some 

 connexion between Darlington and the newly- 

 established King's and Queen's Corporation of 

 Linen Manufacturers. 



'Darlington the 28th ^ 96. 

 300 : = : = Six days sight of this my bill be 



pleased to pay to Jno. Grainger three hundred 



pounds as per advise of your friend 



Robert Trueman. 



The Committee of Linnen Manufactory 

 Old Affrlcan House 



in Trogmorton Street 

 London.' 



" J. Bailey, op. cit. 293. 



" R. Thoresby, op. cit. ii, 430. 



315 



