INDUSTRIES 



building was turned into a whiting factory. 

 It was a hideous building and occupied a 

 prominent position in the village, and when 

 Sir R. Sutton bought the property from the 

 Dundas family in 1876 he caused it to be 

 pulled down. At Newbury Thomas Harker 

 had silk works in the London Road, and 

 silk ribbons were made at Thatcham by 

 James Nesbitt. Greenham, always an active 



little suburb of Newbury, had some silk mills 

 owned in 1830 by Thomas Hibell, where 

 silk-throwing was carried on, and the same 

 trade found a home in West Mills under the 

 management of Charles Lewes. No other 

 traces of the industry, which has long been 

 extinct in the county, can now be found, 

 and it is now entirely obsolete in the county 

 of Berks. 



TANNING 



Tanning is one of the oldest industries in 

 this county and still maintains its importance 

 amongst the trades of Berkshire. The name 

 of Alan le Tanur appears at Wallingford in 

 the reign of Henry III. as an important person 

 and witness to several deeds. The name of 

 Richard le Tannur occurs in a deed dated 

 20 Edward II. ; that of Nicholas Tannere 

 a few years later. 1 At Reading also in the 

 fifteenth century we find the trade firmly 

 established. In 1444 the name of Thomas 

 Web be, tanner, appears in the records of the 

 town. He was a person of some position, and 

 was one of the chief burgesses. 2 There were 

 also several skinners, allied traders to the 

 tanners, and many workers in leather, glovers, 

 cordwainers, saddlers, bottle-makers, etc. 



The cause of the excellence of the trade in 

 this county is the plentifulness of oak trees 

 in Berkshire. In early times the bark of the 

 common oak (quercus robur), was almost the 

 only tanning material used by British tanners, 

 and it is still the substance from which the 

 highest quality of heavy tanned leather is 

 prepared, although with it the process is 

 naturally tedious. 3 Throughout the country 

 there are still a few tanners who boast that 

 they use nothing in their trade but oak bark. 



The woods of Berkshire and the neighbour- 

 ing forests of Oxfordshire supplied this 

 substance in plenty, and helped to make the 

 reputation of the Berkshire tanners. Oak 

 bark imparts firmness and solidity to leather, 

 while other agents give softness, and the 

 Berkshire product has not lost its good 

 quality. 



During the sixteenth century the trade in 

 Reading does not seem to have made much 

 progress. Few tanners are mentioned in the 

 lists of burgesses. The special trades carried 

 on by the burgesses are not infrequently 

 omitted in the records, and it is not there- 

 fore safe to conclude that this industry was 



languishing. A munificent tanner, Robert 

 Boyer, seems to have been very prosperous 

 during this century, and left all his lands and 

 tenements at Burghfield in trust for the poor 

 of Reading. If Deloney's Pleasant and Delect- 

 able Historie of John Wincbcomb may be taken 

 as evidence of the condition of the trade, 

 tanning prospered at Wallingford in the time 

 of Henry VIII., inasmuch as the first suitor of 

 the rich widow of Jack's master was a tanner, 

 ' a man of good wealth ' dwelling in that town. 

 While much dependence cannot, of course, be 

 placed upon this romance, it serves to show 

 that in Deloney's time (the latter part of the 

 sixteenth century) tanning was a well estab- 

 lished and flourishing trade in this district. 



In the seventeenth century it appears to 

 have been flourishing at Reading. In 1624 

 Edward Baker was the chief of the tanners, 

 and he and other freemen complained of 

 strangers who sold leather in the market to the 

 great hurt of the freemen, and to their buying 

 hides contrary to the government of the 

 town. 4 Sealers of leather were appointed 

 and were warned that they should seal no 

 foreign leather bought and sold in the country 

 and brought into the town, except on fair 

 days. 5 It appears in 1623 there was a tannery 

 at Mortimer, for one Richard Boles brought 

 some hides thence to Reading market. The 

 searchers examined these hides and found 

 them insufficiently tanned, and sundry fines 

 were levied. The seizers, triers, and the poor 

 received certain benefits from the proceeds 

 of the sale. Searchers of leather regularly 

 appear among the other officers of the town, 

 and their names are recorded. In 1628 

 William Sedburye and John Hughes were 

 sworn searchers and sealers of leather, 8 and a 

 month after their appointment seized five 

 hides of leather of Matthew Turnoer, because 

 they had not been examined, nor sealed, nor 

 registered ; and three hides of John Joseph 

 insufficiently tanned. The method of judg- 



1 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. vi., App. p. 581. 

 3 Rec. of Reading, i. 19. 

 3 Encycl. Brit. xiv. 381. 



Rec. of Reading, ii. 168. 

 Ibid. p. 402. 



Ibid. 



397 



