A HISTORY OF DORSET 



which he had paid for the expenses of six ropers 

 proceeding from Bridport in the county of Dorset 

 to Newcastle-on-Tyne. 



In the documents belonging to the Bridport 

 Corporation there is very little direct reference 

 to the making of ropes until the town procured 

 its Act of Parliament in the reign of Henry VIII, 

 but there are several allusions to the fact that 

 flax and hemp were ordinary crops, while in the 

 lists of forfeitures yarn, hemp, and hemp-seed 

 continually occur. 



The manufacture of ropes seems to have gone 

 on steadily increasing from the thirteenth to 

 the first quarter of the fifteenth century, when 

 for some time a great quantity of rope was 

 imported from Genoa and Normandy. But 

 Bridport recovered its pre-eminence, and orders 

 for cables were again received. In March, i486, 

 a command was sent from the dockyard at Ports- 

 mouth to John Browne of Bridport, to deliver 

 ' a pair of takkes [tackle] and a pair of shets 

 weighing 741 lb., and for a hauser for a tye 

 wei2:hing 500 lb. ' the total cost being 



The industry seems to have been badly 

 organized, and the regulations oppressive, con- 

 sequently manufacturers tended to leave Brid- 

 port and set up rival businesses, near enough to 

 share in the supply of excellent hemp, but beyond 

 the reach of the burgesses' rules. The inhabi- 

 tants of Bridport noted this tendency with 

 increasing uneasiness. Tradition says that they 

 were finally stung into action by jealousy of the 

 rope-walks at Burton Bradstock, a village with- 

 in three miles of their town hall. They peti- 

 tioned for an Act of Parliament limiting the 

 industry to their own town. The preamble to 

 the statute 21 Hen. VIII, cap. 12, explains their 

 position, their fears and their precautions, as 

 clearly as possible. ' The Bailiffs burgesses and 

 other inhabitants' of Bridport represent to the 

 king that 



where they out of time that no man's mind is to the 

 contrary, have used and exercised to make within the 

 same the most part of all the grc.it cables, halsers, 

 ropes and all other tackling as well for your royal 

 ships and navy as for the most p.irt of all other ships 

 within the realm, by reason whereof your said town 

 was right well maintained and inhabited, your High- 

 ness and your subjects right well served, until now of 

 late, many diverse and evil disposed persons, intending 

 the destruction of your said town for their private 

 lucre and advantage, have withdrawn themselves into 

 the country in diverse places there taking farms and 

 using husbandry out of the said town and also daily 

 resort to buy and provide hemp and thereof make 

 cables, ropes, halsers, traces, halters and other tackle, 

 being by the said persons slightly and deceivably 

 made by reason whereof not only buyers of the same 

 have been continually thereby deceived, but also the 

 prices of the said cables, halsers, traces, halters and 

 other tackle thereby greatly inhaunsed, and your said 



town or borough by means thereof is likely to be 

 destroyed, ruined and desolated if speedy remedy be 

 not by your Highness in that case provided. 



Evidently the burgesses saw no advantage in 

 competition, and they had probably persuaded 

 themselves quite honestly that the only reason 

 they objected to other rope-walks was because of 

 the inferior quality of the goods produced and 

 the disrepute into which such quality plunged 

 the industry. 



The Act they obtained was curiously short- 

 sighted and petty. It prohibited any persons living 

 within five miles of the town from selling hemp 

 except at the Bridport market, and further 

 enacted 



that no person or persons other than such as dwell 

 and be inhabitants within the said town, shall make, 

 after the feast of Easter next coming, out of the said 

 town any cables, halsers, ropes, traces, halters or any 

 other tackle 



except for their own private use. Various penal- 

 ties were imposed on those who broke the 

 statute. The hemp and rope forfeited were 

 divided between the king and the informer. In 

 the first place its action was only to endure until 

 the next Parliament, but the statute was con- 

 firmed and continued by various Parliaments in 

 the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, 

 Elizabeth, and James I. 



The natural result of this statute with its five- 

 mile limit was to drive manufacturers further 

 away, and a great part of the industry is said to 

 have migrated to Yorkshire, where it could 

 develop more freely. 



The lines on which the trade was organized 

 are indicated by the draft of the lease of the 

 common beam and weights preserved among the 

 Bridport documents.^' This manuscript is not 

 dated, but, judging from the writing, it is not 

 later than Elizabeth's reign, and it is probably 

 earlier. 



The bailiffs, with the assent of the burgesses, let to 

 farm to Morgan Moore for 2 1 years at a rent of ^^4 

 per annum, the common beam and weights used for 

 the only weighing of hemp within the borough of 

 Bridport, with all the usual fees, profits, penalties, 

 commodities, and advantages, and do constitute him 

 their officer and minister for viewing, surveying, and 

 searching of hemp, and for the true making of cables, 

 hawsers and ropes according to the statute in that case 

 provided. The lessee is prohibited from transferring 

 the lease, from enhansing or raising any payment or 

 duty, and from demanding a larger fee for the wind- 

 ing of hemp than heretofore has been payable. He 

 is also required yearly, on Michaelmas Day, to deliver 

 to the Bailiffs a book containing the names of all 

 persons that have hemp growing within 5 miles of 

 Bridport, the quantity grown by them and the value 

 thereof, and to inform the Bailiffs what fore-stalling 

 and regrating are carried on, and what conveyance 

 from the said market contrary to the Statute. 



Bridport Dagger,' Tie Globe, 24 Feb. 1906. 



346 



" Bridport Doc. K. 25. 



