INDUSTRIES 



history little is known, as no early records are 

 forthcoming.^^ Copies of their rules, however, 

 go back to the sixteenth century, and some of 

 these are probably of great antiquity, as for 

 instance the regulation — 



That no man of the Company shall set into his 

 fellow-tradcsmen's quarr to worke there without his 

 consent within 12 moneths and a day, nor to come 

 into any part of that ground within a hundred foote 

 of his fellow-tradesmen's quarr upon the forfeiture of 

 5 poundes to be paid unto the owner of the quarr 

 unto whom the offence shall be dun. Neither shall 

 no man in this company worlie partners with any 

 man, except it be a freeman of the same company, 

 upon the forfeiture of 5 poundes. 



There were also restrictions as to the number 

 of apprentices. These, after their seven years' 

 probation, were admitted at the annual meeting 

 on Shrove Tuesday at Corfe Castle. According 

 to the rule — 



Upon any acceptance of any apprentice into the 

 company he shall paie unto the wardings for the use 

 of the company 6s. Sd., a penny loafe and two pots 

 of beer. 



Apparently the new freeman appeared in court 

 with the penny loaf in one hand and a pot of 

 beer in the other, and on paying the half-mark 

 was declared free, his name being entered in the 

 register. The newly-admitted quarrier was, 

 however, unable to take an apprentice until seven 

 years after his admission. The wife of a free- 

 man on paying is. could also be admitted to the 

 freedom of the company, and was then enabled 

 if she survived her husband to take an apprentice 

 and carry on the business. At the annual 

 meeting a warden and a steward were appointed. 

 The business of the first of these was to arbitrate 

 between quarriers in disputes arising out of their 

 craft, and especially in regard to encroachments. 

 In difficult or important cases it might be 

 necessary to summon the whole body to deter- 

 mine the matter. The last man of the company 

 married in any year provided a football, and this, 

 as we know from a rule recorded later than the 

 sixteenth century, was to be carried to Ower — 



As also a present to be made of one pound of 

 pepper as an acknowledgement in order to preserve 

 the company's right to the way or passage to Owre 

 key according to antient and usual custom. 



Although Ower has long ceased to be, as it was 

 in the heyday of the marbler's trade, the port 

 whence the stone was shipped, this custom is 

 still observed. By the eighteenth century the 

 stone was carried in carts to the ' bankers ' at 

 Swanage, and there stored till it could be put on 

 board the stone ships.*^^ And Swanage still 



retains its position as the practical head quarters 

 of the trade in Purbeck stone. 



An edition of the rules of the company drawn 

 up in March, 1 697-8, recites the ancient rules 

 substantially as before, but certain articles are 

 added in order to meet the difficulties and incon- 

 veniences arising from the trade being in the 

 hands of a number of small dealers with very 

 slight capital, and in fact to organize the trade 

 as a joint stock company. The preamble of 

 these articles declares that the stone dealers, by 

 reason of the deadness of the trade, 



have of late yeares made it their practice to carry 

 their said stone to London in small quantities, having 

 but little stocks. And in order to dispose thereof 

 have and still doe endeavour to undersell one another 

 to the infinite prejudice of the stone trade, by means 

 whereof the price and value of the said stone is so 

 lessened and beate down that scarce anything can now 

 bee gotten by it. 



It is, however, probable, as the editors of 

 Hutchins' History of Dorset point out, that the 

 notorious slackness of trade in Purbeck stone at 

 the end of the seventeenth century was partly 

 due to the inferior stufFsupplied. This inference 

 may perhaps be legitimately drawn from a 

 curious document of 1687, ten years earlier than 

 the date of the revised rules. In this certain 

 persons, 



being inhabitants of several parishes of Sandwich 

 and Langton within the Isle of Purbeck and county of 

 Dorset marblers and merchants in the said trade, 



bound themselves to resist the claim of the 

 London buyers to have the stone examined and 

 to deduct the cost of the search from the price 

 of the material delivered. This suggestion of 

 the poor quality of the stone is supported by 

 an allusion in the articles of 1697 to the 

 breaking of the stone by the manager if found to 

 be unmerchantable. 



The measures taken to consolidate and control 

 the Purbeck stone trade in 1697 seem to have 

 borne fruit, as during the eighteenth century 

 considerable activity is discernible. For instance 

 a tough red stone from Purbeck was used for 

 building Ramsgate Pier, and between June, 

 1750, and September, 1752, the Harbour 

 Trustees of that town employed fifty sail in 

 transporting 15,000 tons of stone from Dorset to 

 the Isle of Thanet.*'* Again, between January, 

 1764, and January, 1 771, Purbeck stone was 

 shipped to the extent of 94,000 tons,^* according 

 to the Customs Records. In fact the yearly 

 output at that time was probably at least 14,000 

 tons. 



The nineteenth century saw renewed activity 

 in the Isle of Purbeck in marble quarrying. 



" The early records seem to have been burnt at 

 Corfe Castle in a fire about 1680. 

 '' Hutchins, op. cit. i, 682. 



2 337 



'' Hutchins, op. cit. i, 657. 



" Possibly the real amount was much greater, as 

 owing to the absence of any duty no great care was. 

 taken in securing accurate returns. 



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