INDUSTRIES 



INTRODUCTION 



1 



CHOUGH the industries of Suffolk 

 cannot be said as a whole to owe 

 much to the soil of the county, 

 there are one or two interesting 

 exceptions. The manufacture of 

 flints at Brandon is the oldest of all British in- 

 dustries. It was carried on in the remotest pre- 

 historic times with the help of implements differing 

 in material, but not essentially in form from those 

 used at the present day. The Brandon flints were 

 said to be the best in the world for use on fire- 

 arms, and as late as the Napoleonic Wars the 

 demand for them was so great as to find employ- 

 ment for a large part of the population. 



An account published in 1846 states that the 

 industry was no longer so prosperous as it had 

 formerly been when seventy or a hundred were 

 employed. But even then, although similar 

 deposits, at Purfleet, Greenhithe, and Maidstone 

 had ceased to be worked, there was still sufficient 

 demand for the Brandon flints to encourage the 

 formation of a company consisting of 138 share- 

 holders of 25 each, whose agent received the 

 flints when made at a certain rate per thousand 

 and supplied the orders of the outside world : 



The flints are obtained (says the authority above 

 quoted) from a common about a mile east of Brandon. 

 The chalk is within 6 feet of the surface. The men sink 

 a shaft 6 feet and then proceed about 3 feet horizontally, 

 and then sink another shaft lower in the chalk about 

 six feet, and sometimes they fall in with a floor of rich 

 flint at this depth ; if not, they work again 3 feet 

 horizontally, and sink another shaft 6 feet, and so they 

 progress, perhaps for 30 feet, when generally they 

 meet with 3 or 4 floors of flint, at every floor of 

 which they excavate horizontally several yards. It 

 is found in large blocks, like septaria, which the 

 men break into pieces sufficiently portable to hand 

 from stage to stage, and a man being placed at each 

 stage so formed, the flint is passed from hand to hand 

 till it reaches the surface. It is then cut and worked 

 with great skill in the required form. 1 



The invention of the percussion cap struck a 

 severe blow at this thriving industry, but it still 

 survives in a small way to supply the needs of 

 primitive man in other continents to whom 

 civilization has not yet extended the blessings of 

 the percussion cap. The flints are also used for 

 the purpose of architectural decoration. The 



1 Kelly, Direct, of Stiff. 1 846, p. i 374 ; 1 875, p. 742. 



population of Brandon now devote most of their 

 attention to another natural product of this other- 

 wise barren district, the rabbit, whose skin is 

 turned into glue, and whose fur is prepared for 

 the use of the hat manufacturer. 2 If the rabbit 

 is not quite as inherent in the soil as the flints, it 

 was at least very much at home there in the 

 thirteenth century, especially along the western 

 border, where the rights of warren seemed to the 

 lords of manors worth claiming and to the juries 

 of the hundred worth disputing, 3 and on the 

 coast, where poaching seems to have been common 

 at that time. 4 In the seventeenth century Reyce 

 speaks with something approaching enthusiasm 

 of the ' harmless conies which do delight naturally 

 to make their abode here,' and adds : 



For their great increase with rich profit for all good 

 housekeeping hath made everyone of any reckoning to 

 prepare fit harbour for them with great welcome and 

 entertainment ; from whence it proceeds that there 

 are so many warrens here in every place which do 

 furnish the next markets, and are carried to London 

 with no little reckoning. 5 



In Arthur Young's day there was, he says, a 

 warren near Brandon said to yield above forty 

 thousand rabbits in a year. He adds : 



Estimating the skin at sevenpence and the flesh at 

 threepence (in the country it sells at fourpence and 

 fivepence), it makes tenpence a head ; and if ten are 

 killed annually per acre, the produce is eight and 

 fourpence. 



But Arthur Young's feelings as an agriculturist 

 appear to have led him to under-estimate the 

 profits of rabbit-farming. He rejoices that great 

 tracts of warren have been ploughed up, and that 

 the price of skins has fallen from 1 2J. a dozen to 7*. 

 Since that time the fur-dressing industry has 

 been continuously carried on, though its prosperity 

 has varied with the changes of fashion. In 1846 

 it was said that more than 200 had formerly 

 been employed, but that in consequence of the 

 introduction of the silk hat, the number was 

 reduced to fifty. The danger of the silk hat 



1 White, Direct, of Stiff. 1855, p. 68 1 ; and Kelly, 

 Direct. 1900, p. 59. 



5 Rot. Hund. (Rec. Com.), ii, 143. 

 4 Suckling, Hiit. Stiff, ii, 433. 



6 Reyce, Breviary ofSuff. (ed. Hervey), 35. 



' Young, A Gen. View of the Agric. of Stiff. 220. 



247 



