INDUSTRIES 



foot. The old form of pin made in Reading, 

 which has been obsolete only within recent 

 times, consisted of a shank with a separate 

 head of fine wire twisted round and screwed 

 to it. Some examples of such pins manufac- 

 tured in the town are preserved in the Reading 

 Museum, and also some curious bones which 

 were evidently used for sharpening the points. 

 These were discovered when an old house was 

 pulled down at the corner of Broad Street 

 and Cross Street, where apparently pin- 

 making was carried on. In 1830 Messrs. 

 Nicholls and Brewer carried on this trade in 

 Thorn Island. 1 Mr. Hanson, who was an 

 apprentice of Henry Deane, the Oracle pin- 

 maker, bought his business and carried it on 

 until the building was pulled down and the 

 trade ceased in Reading, being effectually 

 killed by the rivalry of Birmingham. Some 

 of the last pins made in Reading are in the 

 writer's possession. They are made of single 

 pieces of wire, the head, shaft and point being 

 in one piece, and are of very creditable work- 

 manship. The consideration of the history 

 of this important industry of old Reading has 

 carried us a long way from the records of the 

 trades of the seventeenth century, and it will 

 be necessary to revert to the industrial history 

 of that period. In 1640 we find the first 

 notice of the manufacture of silk. 2 Another 

 new industry is mentioned in 1634 which has 

 a brief, chequered and unsavoury career. 

 William Hayes introduced the making of lute- 

 strings with gut, but certain burgesses com- 

 plained before the Corporation of Master 

 Hayes ' annoying them with stinks by using 

 the making of lute-strings, and misusing one 

 of them in words,' and he was compelled to 

 promise to desist from the manufacture of 

 these tuneful articles. 3 The making of guns 

 was a Reading industry. Gun Street still 

 exists where the manufacture was carried on, 

 and the time was fast approaching when such 

 weapons were to be much used in the town 

 and neighbourhood. The earliest record of 

 the industry is associated with the name of 

 Bartholomew Abrey, gunsmith, 4 who in 1636 

 was beaten and wounded by two men, and 

 was bound over to prosecute. In the Reading 

 Museum is a small blunderbuss with a flint lock 

 stamped with the name of J. Mace. The 

 date is c. 1750, and ' Reading ' is marked upon 

 it. This was a production of a Reading gun- 

 smith, whose descendant John Mace was still 

 making guns in 1830. At that later period 



* Pigot's Com. Dir. Berks, 1830, p. 56. 



2 Rec. of Reading, iii. 520. 



3 Ibid. iii. 249. 

 Ibid. iii. 345. 



the trade was also carried on by William 

 Morgan and John Soper, who lived and 

 worked in Broad Street. The growing use 

 of tobacco, the sale of which was hampered 

 by many restrictions, is shown by repeated 

 mention in the records of the town. There 

 were several tobacco-pipe makers in Reading 

 in 1636, as on September 27 there is an entry 

 relating to the differences between these 

 craftsmen, which were heard by the mayor 

 and burgesses and ' left to the law to be tried 

 and proved.' s 



At the beginning of the last century there 

 was a gauze manufactory at Reading con- 

 taining 109 looms, which found employment 

 for a great number of men, women and 

 children, in the making of gauze, crapes, 

 muslinets, and plain and figured silk dresses. 

 There were also several other manufactories, 

 among which were two for the making of 

 galloon, satin, ribbons, hat-bands, shoe-strings, 

 etc., in which a large number of persons 

 were employed. In 1814 a gauze manu- 

 factory was carried on in the Abbey, which 

 provided employment for seventy persons. 6 

 Just before the advent of railways, in the year 

 1838, there were three firms of silk manu- 

 factories, to whose works reference will be 

 made in a subsequent chapter. William 

 Clark made galloons, a kind of close lace, in 

 Chatham Street ; and other trades were con- 

 ducted there. 



Chairmaking was carried on at Speen in 

 1687 by one William Parker, who endeavoured 

 to set up his trade within the precincts of the 

 borough of Newbury, but he was ordered by 

 the Corporation to return to Speen and the 

 officers were commanded to remove him. 

 An ingenious gentleman of Newbury in 1816 

 invented a lifeboat, the precursor of the 

 modern boats designed for the deliverance 

 from the perils of the sea. The inventor was 

 Mr. William Plenty, who styled his new 

 craft the Experiment, and Mr. Money states 

 in his history that the boat received the 

 encomiums of the Elder Brethren of Trinity 

 House and the Directors of the East India 

 Company ; Viscount Exmouth agreed with 

 other distinguished naval authorities that 

 Mr. Plenty's boat was built on such a prin- 

 ciple of complete safety that it was impossible 

 to sink her, or that she could become water- 

 logged, or even bilged against rocks. The 

 Lords of the Admiralty and the Royal In- 

 stitution for the Preservation of Lives from 

 shipwreck ordered several of the boats, after 

 practically testing their powers, and they 



Ibid. iii. 338. 



9 Reading Seventy Tears Ago, p. 45. 



379 



