INDUSTRIES 



of women and children employed had been 800 

 in 1793,'" but had declined by 1826 to 600, 

 working 8,000 spindles, ^^ whilst by 1 83 1, 

 150 persons, using only 3,000 spindles, were 

 employed.'^ The workers were divided into 

 mill-hands, whose average wages were 4$. bd. per 

 week,'' and winders, whose industry was a 

 cottage one, carried on in many instances in 

 conjunction with agricultural pursuits.'* In 1829 

 2s. 7,d. per lb. had been paid for winding fine 

 silks, the payment in 1 83 1 averaging is. per lb.'' 

 The decline in prices was to be attributed, 

 according to the witness, to the introduction of 



foreign thrown silk, and the severe competition 

 with foreign manufacturers.'* 



According to the latest census returns, 116 

 women and 19 men are employed in the silk 

 industry." Silk 'throwing' is still a principal 

 feature of the craft, but silk weaving is now 

 undertaken at Sherborne, where many new looms 

 have been set up by Messrs. J. & R. VVillmott. 

 Further improvements are contemplated, but 

 the industry is handicapped by the sudden changes 

 of fashion and by the variations in the yield of 

 silk crops, these difficulties naturally pressing more 

 heavily on a small than on a large industry. 



POTTERY AND TILES 



Dorset is abundantly provided with the raw 

 material for the manufacture of bricks, tiles, and 

 pottery, clay of various qualities being yielded by 

 the different geological formations of the county, 

 more especially by the upper formation of plastic 

 potter's and pipe-clay and sand known as the 

 ' Poole Trough.' ' From the earliest date, the 

 industry has centred around Poole, Wareham, 

 Norden, and Corfe.^ 



It is not known when the clays of Dorset 

 were first worked ; ' many roughly-made vessels 

 having been found near Wareham, evidently 

 constructed, according to experts, from this raw 

 material, and used for the ashes of the dead 

 before the Roman occupation of Britain. These 

 funeral urns alone have survived the passage of 

 time, no trace remaining of the earthenware 

 vessels which must have been in daily domestic use. 

 The Roman discovery and manipulation of the 

 Dorset clays will be discussed elsewhere in the sec- 

 tion of this volume dealing with the antiquities of 

 the county ; after the Roman withdrawal from 

 their area, the clays continued to be worked, with 

 more or less regularity, according to the stress of 

 economic conditions or the fluctuating demand 

 for earthenware vessels.* 



'" Claridge, Jgr'ic. of Dors. 40. 

 " Pari. Rep. Silk Trade, 278. 



" Ibid. 

 " Ibid. 280. 

 '« Ibid. 280. 



" Ibid. 279. 



" Ibid. 279. 



" Pop. Ret. 1 90 1, p. 56. 



' Kelly, Dir. (1903), I. De Luc, on his geologi- 

 cal travels through Dorset in 1826, noted 'a yellowish 

 clay, mixed with sand, commonly called loam, and 

 used for bricks,' and ' a pure bluish clay, of which 

 pottery and tiles are made.' Geol. Travels, ii, 29. 



' Woodward, Geol. Engl, and Wales, 271. De Luc 

 notes in his geological travels the 'very deep excava- 

 tions at Corfe whence is taken white clay for pipes 

 and earthenware.' De Luc, Geol. Travels, ii, 193. 

 The character of ' pure potter's clay ' is ' soft, white, 

 and unctuous.' Mem. Geol. Surv. 1898, p. 191. 



' ' The white and mottled clays of the Bagshot 

 series have been worked for centuries.' Ibid. 



* From local information. 



In early days the port of export for the clay 

 was Wareham,^ and around the traffic a long- 

 standing quarrel grew up between this town and 

 Poole, which is still unsettled, though an Order 

 in Council of 1666 directed that 'no dues were 

 to be paid on tobacco pipe-clay.' ° The real 

 commercial importance of the industry seems to 

 date from the eighteenth century, when the clay 

 however, was noted primarily as raw material 

 for export, rather than as forming the nucleus of 

 a local manufacture.' 



Poole clay, so termed from being shipped 

 at Poole in Dorset, is chiefly raised in the 

 neighbourhood of Wareham, and is extensively 

 employed in the British Potteries ; it is an ex- 

 ample of a tolerably pure clay (that is, one con- 

 taining a large proportion of silicate of alumina, 

 with free silica, but without injurious ingredients) 

 which has been accumulated far from any de- 

 composing crystalline rocks such as granites, por- 

 phyries, and the like. It is known also in the 

 potteries as ' blue clay.' Its geological position 

 is in that portion of the Tertiary or Cainozoic 

 beds which occur above the chalk of Dorset. 



' White Pipe clay ' occurs in the Bagshot 

 sands, and is worked round Poole Harbour and 

 in the district further west.^ 



In the same geological series occurs 



a bed 20 feet or more in thickness of white or red 

 mottled pipe clay extensively dug for the manufacture 

 of earthenware, and used in the local potteries or 

 shipped from Poole Harbour.' 



Besides these special clays there are various 

 local brick earths which are found in the Bag- 

 shot, Oxford, Reading and Wealdcn series. 



' The pipe-clay of Wareham was ' esteemed the 

 best in England.' Engl. Disfilayed {\j6ci), 69. See 

 also Postlethwayt, Diet. 0/ Trade. 



^ Hutchins, Hist. Poole, 38. 



'In 1823 the export from Wareham annually was 

 10,000 tons to London, Hull, and Liverpool. Pigot, 

 Dir. 277. 



' Woodward, Geol. Engl, and Wales, 2 7 1 ; Mem. 

 Geol. Surv. 1899, p. 139. ' Ibid. 



363 



