INDUSTRIES 



county written in the middle of the I gth century. 

 Around the station and works sprang up two 

 new villages, New Bradwell and New Wolver- 

 ton, inhabited entirely by the employees of the 

 railway and tradesmen supplying their needs. 

 In 1840 about four hundred hands were em- 

 ployed, but in the next twenty years the numbers 

 had increased to between 2,300 and 2,400 and 

 the factory contained brass and iron-foundries, 

 shops for erecting, repairing, and fitting engines, 

 and for making boilers, &c.* 



In 1 860, however, a change was decided upon 

 resulting in the conversion of the Wolverton 

 works into carriage works, 10 and the removal of 

 the engine factories to Crewe. The removal 

 took place between 1865 and 1877 and since 

 that time the works have grown beyond recog- 

 nition, and contain shops for building carriages 

 and all their accessories and also for repairing 

 them, covering in all about eighty acres of land 

 and employing about four thousand five hundred 

 hands. 



NEEDLE-MAKING 



The village of Long Crendon was long 

 celebrated for an extensive manufactory of 

 needles. There is considerable doubt as to the 

 date of the introduction of needle-making into 

 England, the tradition being that an ' Indian ' 

 first brought the art to London about 1545, but 

 that it died out with him. 1 It must, however, 

 shortly have been revived, for it seems to have 

 been brought to Long Crendon about 1560 by 

 one Christopher Greening.* In some accounts, 

 a Mr. Damer, a member of a Roman Catholic 

 family, is said to have settled the Greenin:; family 

 in the village in 1650,' but this is most prob- 

 ably merely a confusion in the date, since the 

 Greenings had then lived there for nearly a hun- 

 dred years. 



A Christopher Greening lived at Long Cren- 

 don in 1558* ; from 1556 to 1568 he was also 

 churchwarden and drew up, with John Padnoll, 

 the first parish register book preserved there.' 

 Another Christopher, the son of John Greening, 

 was born in 1587,' and against his name is a 

 later marginal note saying, ' this man first brought 

 out needle-making. 7 ' Probably he was the grand- 

 son of the first needle-maker, but having the same 

 Christian name, later tradition confused the two 

 Christopher Greenings. 



Other accounts say that needles were made in 

 the village before Greening's arrival, but that he 

 was of some importance in the trade and hence 

 its introduction was attributed to him. 8 



The chief family of needle-makers were the 

 Shiimptons, many of whom lived in the neigh- 

 bourhood of High Wycombe and were officers 

 of the borough.' In the i8th century the trade 

 was flourishing. When a sufficient quantity of 



* Sheahan, Hist, and Topog. of Bucks. 647. 

 10 Carriage Works at Wolverton. 



1 Home Counties Mag. vi, 184. 

 ' Ibid. 



* Chambers 1 Journ. 17 May 1856. 

 ' Lay Subs. R. ,%. 



5 Home Counties Mag. vi, 185. 

 1 Ibid. ' Ibid. 



" W. Shrimpton, Notes an a Decayed Needle-land, 

 9-27. Ibid. 



needles had been made, a journey to London 

 was undertaken by one of the more important 

 manufacturers. He took from seven to ten days, 

 going by the stage-coach from Oxford. The 

 goods had been first conveyed to Tetsworth, 

 where the coach was met and the needle-maker 

 was accompanied by armed men for his protection. 

 This was more especially needed on the return 

 journey, when he bought back a considerable 

 sum of money for the wages of the workmen. 

 A stock of wire was also brought back, part 

 payment for the needles often being made in 

 wire, which was difficult to procure direct from 

 Birmingham. In 1736, the needles were chiefly 

 made in the living rooms of the workers, but 

 later factories were built, one of which is still 

 standing in the village of Long Crendon. 10 



At the beginning of the igth century the 

 chief manufacturers bore the names of Harris, 

 Shrimpton and Johnson. 11 The processes em- 

 ployed were extremely primitive ; everything 

 was done by hand labour, no stamps were used, 

 and the methods of pointing made that part of 

 the trade at least very injurious to the health of 

 needle-makers. The fame of Redditch needles 

 was beginning to grow and the Long Crendon 

 manufacturers felt the pressure of competition 

 in the market. They seem to have taken no 

 steps, however, to meet it or to improve their 

 methods. They never employed the water- 

 power at Notley Mill and were very late in 

 introducing machinery of any kind. In some 

 ways the position of Redditch gave it an 

 advantage over Long Crendon, particularly from 

 being near Birmingham, but the Shrimptons 

 had many opportunities of improving their 

 trade, of which they never took advantage. 

 London merchants offered money so that new 

 machinery might be set up and the workshops 

 improved, but the Crendon manufacturers had 

 been so long without encountering competition 

 that they were utterly unprepared to meet the 

 new conditions of the industry. They seem to 



" Home Counties Mag. vi, 1 84. 



" Shrimpton, Notes on a Decayed Needle-land, 14. 



127 



