INDUSTRIES 



INTRODUCTION 



BUCKINGHAMSHIRE has never 

 been a manufacturing county, and 

 before the i6th century there were 

 probably no industries but those 

 which supplied the actual wants of 

 the local agricultural population. During the 

 last three centuries the industries carried on in 

 the county, though on a small scale, have been 

 very various. The most interesting are those 

 which may be called cottage industries : lace, 

 straw-plaiting, and chair-seating. Of these, the 

 two latter owe their origin to natural products 

 grown in the county, the wheat-straw being 

 suitable for plaiting, and the beech woods of the 

 Chiltern Hills being famous throughout the his- 

 tory of the county. Chair-making is now per- 

 haps the most important manufacture, and is still 

 peculiarly local in its character, although much 

 of the wood used is not grown in the district. 

 Other trades owe their prosperity to the water- 

 power, arising from the Thames and its tribu- 

 taries in the south and the Ouse in the north. 

 The chief of these is the manufacture of paper, 

 the mills being grouped for the most part on the 

 streams running into the Thames. In the 

 northern part of the county much of this water- 

 power was lost, owing to the construction of the 

 Grand Junction Canal. Other industries have 

 existed in the county without apparently any 

 dependence on natural commodities or situation. 

 Needle-making, for instance, was a trade carried 

 on for more than two centuries at Long 

 Crendon, where it was difficult to procure wire, 

 and the manufacturers did not attempt to utilize 

 the water that lay close at hand. Silk mills were 

 opened in the early i gth century with the defi- 

 nite object of providing work for the unem- 

 ployed, and more recently branches of London 

 printing works have been established in the 

 county. 



The growth of the town of Slough should be 

 noticed in connexion with the Buckinghamshire 

 industries. Originally quite a small village, it 

 seems to have mainly grown up since the build- 

 ing of the station on the Great Western Railway. 

 Its population is to a great extent industrial, em- 

 ployed in a great variety of undertakings, the 

 chief being perhaps the brick-fields. Until very 



recent years the means of communication, how- 

 ever, in the county have offered no incentive to 

 the local industries. The roads as a whole seem 

 to have been uniformly bad for many centuries. 

 Each township or parish was responsible for the 

 roads which ran through it, the different land- 

 owners being bound to repair particular pieces. 



At the close of the I3th century indulgences 

 were granted to encourage the repair of the roads 

 in the county. In 1 292, during the episcopate 

 of Bishop Sutton l of Lincoln, such an indulgence 

 was granted to those who were bound to contri- 

 bute to the repair of Walton Street, in Aylesbury 

 parish, and in the succeeding years similar indul- 

 gences* were granted for the repair of the bridges 

 at Newport Pagnell and Great Marlow. Pre- 

 sentments in the manorial courts of different 

 obstructions left on the roads were very frequent, 

 and it seems doubtful if the courts were of suffi- 

 cient authority to have much effect, the same 

 offence coming up in court after court. 1 In the 

 1 6th and I7th centuries the justices of the peace 

 superseded the lord of the manor in this duty, 

 but the change seems to have had no effect. In 

 1634-5 the county was charged with a share of 

 carrying certain timber from Oxfordshire to 

 London. In April the justices wrote that the 

 roads were ' impassable, or at least so foul and 

 unfit for carriages of weight ' that the loads must 

 be very small, and therefore they begged that the 

 work might be done later in the summer. 4 In 

 the 1 8th century a highway rate could be levied 

 on different parishes by order of the justices 

 under an Act of William and Mary instead of the 

 different inhabitants providing labourers for so 

 many days.* 



The repairs, however, at the close of the cen- 

 tury were carried out mainly by gangs of parish 

 labourers, who were underpaid and without 

 supervision. The establishment of turnpike 

 trusts for the repair of the main roads produced 

 some improvement, but of course the by-roads 



1 Line. Epii. Reg. Sutton Mem. ' Ibid. 



' Add. MS. 27039, 27148, 27152. Instances are 

 frequent throughout the series of Fawley Court Rolls. 

 4 S.P. Dom. Cha. I, ccxv, 38. 

 * Quarter Sessions Rec. East. 1718. 



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