j&iJfc Intmstrp in 



I. THE THROWING-MILLS AT SHERBORNE AND 

 THEIR OWNERS. 



II. DOMESTIC ECONOMICS IN THE EIGHTEENTH 

 CENTURY. 



By HENRY SYMONDS, F.S.A. 



Y the kindness of Mr. S. Whitty Chandler the Field 

 Club has received a collection of original deeds, 

 letters, letter books, and account books relative 

 to the silk industry carried on at Sherborne 

 and neighbouring places during the second 

 half of the eighteenth century. These 

 documents have enabled me to describe in 

 the following pages the annals of an under- 

 taking which was probably the first of its kind in this 

 county and certainly the longest lived. 



Our historian Hutchins tells us that " about 1740 a silk 

 throwster settled here," that is, at Sherborne ; but in default 

 of any evidence in support of that date I am inclined to 

 think that the industry was not established until about 

 13 years later, viz., in 1753. 



In September of the last named year John Sharrer, of 

 Little Ayliffe St., Goodman's Fields, in the parish of White- 

 chapel, silk thrower, acquired the lifehold interest of a family 



