INDUSTRIES 



southern Dorset at the present time Forest marble 

 and the refuse of Purbeck and Portland stone are 

 often used locally, but the main roads are mended 

 with stone brought from a distance. 



Before the advent of railways heavy mer- 

 chandise was, if possible, sent by sea, exported 

 from Poole, Weymouth, Bridport, and Lyme. 

 There was often no other alternative. Though 

 Dorset was well watered, a writer in 1769 says : 



there is not in the whole county, one river rendered 

 navig.ible by art ; nor indeed any stream that vifould 

 be of sufficient advantage to the county, to induce per- 

 sons to undertake it, except the Frome, which might 

 easily be rendered navigable from Wareham to Dor- 

 chester ; and could not fail of paying the necessary 

 expenses at the same time it would prove of the 

 greatest advantage to the county by reviving the 

 manufactures which formerly flourished there.'* 



However, the Frome was never canalized, and 

 at present the only canal in the county is one in 

 the north, in the upper course of the Stour.'^ 

 It is called the Dorset and Somerset canal, but 

 it was never completed, and is not used. Con- 

 sequently, until railways were built, all goods 

 had to be sent by road or by sea, and the baneful 

 influence of the cost of carriage is clearly seen 

 in the history of the hemp industry. 



Coaches from London supplied the news of 

 the world and the correct time to a number of 

 small villages along their route, which were cut 

 off from such luxuries when the coach service 

 ceased in 1830,^' as the supplanting railway 

 followed a different line, and does not yet touch 

 all the villages through which the coaches passed. 

 The introduction of the motor car has, however, 

 recently brought some of these villages into more 

 frequent contact with the great world outside. 



From these general observations on the indus- 

 tries of Dorset we must now proceed to notice 

 very briefly a number of crafts which we are 

 unable to deal with in any detail. Some of 

 them, as for instance glove-making, still occupy 

 an important place in the county, others are 

 either practically extinct at the present day or 

 of comparatively slight economic importance. 



Salt-making, one of the most necessary indus- 

 tries of mediaeval England, was actively carried 

 on in 1086 at several places on the Dorset coast. 

 Two entries " occur relating to salters {saUnar'tt) 

 at Lyme. At Charmouth ^^ sixteen salters are 

 mentioned, while at Ower,^" which belonged to 

 the Benedictine house of Milton, thirteen salters 

 rendered 20s. At Studland ^' again no less than 

 thirty-two sa/inae are recorded. Beside these, as 

 we learn from a much later rental ^^ of the 



" Eng/. Displayed (1769), 64. 



" Faunthorpe, Geography of Dorset, 1 1 . 



" Quarter Sess. Rec. " Dom. Bk. fol. 77^, 85. 



" Ibid. 80. '» Ibid. 78. " Ibid. 80. 



''' Harl. MS. 61. It contains entries of as late a 

 date as the first decade of the fifteenth century, but 

 may be in substance much earlier. 



abbey of St. Edward at Shaftesbury, Arne [Hern) 

 in Purbeck was devoted entirely to the manu- 

 facture of salt, and over twenty tenants held one 

 or more salt-pans each. Benegarus, one of the 

 most substantial of these, held a sixteenth part 

 of the hide which formed the manor of Arne 

 at a rent of 30^?., and also three salt-pans, for 

 which he paid 8;. yearly, and in addition was 

 bound to render three week-works of salt as well 

 as one week-work from his land. Some tenants, 

 however, as Sampson, who held three salt-pans 

 for 9^. and two week-works, do not seem to have 

 had any share in the arable land. Numbers of 

 the tenants on other manors of the St. Edward's 

 Abbey were bound to carry a certain amount of 

 salt from Arne when required. For instance, 

 ' all the men of Fontmell ought to carry away 

 20 seams of herrings {allecium) from Wareham, 

 and 20 seams of salt from Hern.' ^' So also 

 Oswy, a virgater of Iwerne, had to carry salt 

 and herrings ; other tenants were subject to a 

 similar liability. 



In the fifteenth century there existed a con- 

 siderable export trade in salt with France. On 

 25 June, 6 Edward IV, a pinnace,"'' Le Typhan 

 of Cherbourg, Pierre Blanc master, carried out 

 of Poole not only broadcloth, but forty quarters 

 of salt worth ^^4 45., on which a foreign mer- 

 chant paid IS. o\d. in customs duty and 

 4^. 2\d. as his share of the subsidy. So also a 

 ' creyer,' the Mary of Poole, on 30 September,^* 

 7 Edward IV, included amongst her cargo, pro- 

 bably consigned either to the Channel Islands or 

 the French coast, twenty-one quarters of salt at 

 2J. the quarter, on which the English owners 

 only paid the subsidy at the rate of is. in the 

 ^i. Salt was, however, even at this time also 

 imported into Dorset from abroad, and gradually 

 the local manufacture dwindled and disappeared 

 before the competition of the salters of Worces- 

 tershire and Cheshire. 



At one time there were ship-yards in every 

 one of the Dorset ports. But Lloyd's latest 

 Yacht Register only mentions one firm at Wey- 

 mouth and three at Poole. 



A brief account of the industry at Poole dur- 

 ing the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is 

 given in Hutchins* History of Dorset. 



We have no ancient accounts of the number of 

 shipping in this port. In 1 649, 8 ships went hence 

 to Newfoundland and two to Barbadoes : but after 

 the Restoration this trade increased and flourished. 

 In 1736, one hundred and forty four sail belonged to 

 this town. In 1 74 1, forty nine ships of this place 

 had been taken since the commencement of the war 

 with Spain. In 1 743 thirty-one ships were taken 

 since the beginning of the war with France, on a 

 general computation worth, one with another, 

 j^3 7,200 . . . four ships exclusive of the thirty one 



"^ Harl. MS. 61, fol. 65J. 



"■ K.R. Cust. Accts. 6 Edw. IV, bdle. 1 19, No. 8. 



» Ibid. 7 Edw. IV, bdle. 119, No. 9. 



327 



