INDUSTRIES 



In 1689 Mr. Thomas Cradock gave ^^500 to 

 build 



a convenient house and work houses for the master 

 and workmen, for the employing a stock for a woollen 

 manufactory, for to set the poor of the county on 

 work." 



But the works were not successful; in spite of 

 the assistance lent by the charity, Mr. Starforth 

 and Mr. Cooper failed to make the concern pay. 

 In 1 814 an advertisement appeared in the New- 

 castle Courant that the county justices would 

 advance ^^400 to anyone willing to re-establish 

 the industry, and able to give securities for the 

 capital. Mr. Gilbert Henderson, a weaver from 

 the parish of Merrington, was the successful 

 candidate. Coming of frugal and hardworking 

 stock, married to an enterprising wife, under 

 him the business developed rapidly. On the 

 early death of Mr. Henderson the business was 

 carried on by his wife and eldest son. Later the 

 youngest of Gilbert Henderson's sons was taken 

 into partnership, and the firm attracted a great 

 American trade ; even to-day people who were 

 fortunate enough to furnish their houses with 

 Durham carpc-ts show them in excellent condition 

 after ten or fifteen years' wear. The secret of the 

 success of the firm was their early recognition of 

 the necessity of putting in new machinery as it 

 was invented, and adding new buildings as they 

 were required. The factory was carried on by 

 members of the Henderson family until 1903, 

 when the goodwill was sold to Messrs. Crossley 

 of Halifax, who did not, however, take over the 

 buildings, part of which have since been let to 

 Messrs. Mackey & Co., Ltd., who still carry on 

 a carpet manufactory there. The capital advanced 

 in 1 8 14 was not repaid until 1876, when the 

 attention of the members of the flourishing firm 

 being called to what was then a small detail, the 

 money was at once repaid. 



A considerable trade was done at one time in 

 ropes and sail-cloth ; in Sunderland alone there 

 were in 1827 nineteen ropemakers and twenty 

 sail-makers, but the substitution of wire for hemp 

 rope and of steamers for sailing vessels has materi- 

 ally affected both trades. Webster & Co. at Dept- 

 ford, Haggle & Co. and Craven & Speeding 

 at Sunderland, and the Hepburn Rope and Sail 

 Works supply many of the Sunderland shipyards. 

 The first application of machinery to the 

 manufacture of ropes in the world was made at 

 the works of Messrs. Webster & Co. at Deptford. 

 This historic firm obtained a patent in 1797 by 

 which spinning machinery was introduced, the 

 cumbrous way of making ropes at long rope- 

 walks superseded, and the resistance power of the 

 rope, according to tests made at Shields, Sunder- 

 land, Liverpool, and London, doubled. The 

 first idea of the invention is said to have occurred 

 to Mr. Grimshaw, who, while helping a scientific 

 lecturer, whose experiment had failed, to get his 

 apparatus into order, was struck with the possi- 

 bility of applying the same principle to rope- 

 making. With the assistance of Ralph Hills, a 

 clock-maker, the experiment was successfully 

 carried out. Hills, however, did not derive 

 much profit from his share of the undertaking ; 

 he became a shipowner, had his ships seized by 

 the French, and was forced to sell his share in 

 the ropery, the original firm being Grimshaw, 

 Webster & Co. 



When Dibdinwas in Sunderland he visited the 

 rope-works and thought that the most wonderful 

 department in trade there was the rope manu- 

 factory. The length and size of the ropes 

 especially attracted his attention : one rope was 

 3^^ miles long without a single splice ; another of 

 4,900 yards long weighed 1 1 tons ; it was 6 in. in 

 circumference, and valued at ^^450. 



The grand-nephew of the founder of the firm. 

 Mr. Webster, still carries on the Deptford works. 



MINING 



It is so obvious a truism that the mining 

 industries of any district depend first and fore- 

 most upon its geological structure that a know- 

 ledge of the geology of Durham may be pre- 

 supposed in all who take an interest in the 

 development of its mineral industry. As this 

 subject has already been treated in the first 

 volume of this history it is only necessary here 

 to recall briefly the more characteristic features. 



It will be remembered that the western edges of 

 the county consist of Carboniferous or Mountain 

 Limestone, forming the hilly region intersected 

 with deep dales in which the Tyne, Wear, Tees, 

 and their tributaries take their origin. This 

 formation is traversed by numerous fissure veins 



•' Will of Mr. Thomas Cradock, 5 Feb. 1689, 

 proved at York. 



3 



carrying galena and at times also zinc blende ; 

 the galena is argentiferous, but the deepest ores 

 are, as is practically always the case, far poorer 

 in silver than the oxidized lead ores — carbonates, 

 sulphates, phosphates, &c. — of the outcrops. 



This phenomenon of the secondary enrich- 

 ment of mineral veins is, of course, one that is 

 well known in all mineral districts, the reasons 

 for which to-day are abundantly intelligible. In 

 these veins, the gangue of the lead ore frequently 

 contains spathic iron ore in smaller or larger 

 quantities, and in the Weardale district this 

 spathic ore becomes of considerable importance ; 

 moreover, the limestone traversed by these veins 

 is often changed locally into carbonate of iron by 

 metasomatic action, whilst the carbonates of iron 

 have in places been further converted into hydrated 



19 



