A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



industries in the county, employing, according to 

 the census of 1901, nearly 7,000 persons. Be- 

 sides these, large numbers are engaged in its 

 transport. 



The Forest of Dean will be dealt with else- 

 where ; but it may be ftbserved that mention 

 is made in the forest accounts as early as 1280, 

 of the right to fell timber and burn charcoal 

 within its limits. 1 In 1657 and 1668 Acts were 

 passed for the preservation of the trees, the latter 

 ordering the enclosure, and planting with oaks for 

 the Royal Navy, of 11,000 acres of waste land 

 in the forest ; while during the Civil Wars, Sir 

 J. Winter complained, in his narrative published 

 in the reign of Charles II, 2 that from the 

 time that his patent in the forest was interrupted 

 by the civil troubles, until the Restoration, above 

 40,000 tons of timber were cut down by order 

 of the House of Commons. Its importance for 

 shipbuilding, &c., thus for long extended beyond 

 the limits of the county. Now English timber, 

 whatever be its intrinsic superiority, is both 

 scarce and costly compared with similar foreign 

 woods, and the trade in it is too unsystematic, or 

 too purely local, for chronicling. 



Foreign timber has far more than supplied 

 its place, as regards quantity and importance. 

 Bristol imported over j 1,000,000 worth in 

 1905, and Gloucester, which is said to be the 

 ninth town in order in the timber trade within 

 the United Kingdom, imported to the value of 

 nearly j6oo,ooo, out of a total of a little over 

 ^25,000,000 for the whole country. 8 As far 

 back as the time of Elizabeth it is said that 

 there were mills at Swinford for grinding log- 

 wood and other hard American woods for dyeing 

 purposes. They were owned by the Tyndall 

 family, and only closed in i886. 4 The his- 

 tory of the origin of the Gloucester trade in 

 foreign timber is curious. Up to 1736 the 

 government had sold the oaks felled in the 

 Forest of Dean to a local dealer, who squared 

 them up roughly and sold them again at a great 

 profit for the use of the royal docks. At length 

 in 1736 the government realized the meaning of 

 this ingenious transaction, and put a stop to it. 

 The disappointed dealer then sold the three ships 

 with which he had carried on the trade, and one 

 of these, purchased by its previous captain, 

 brought to Gloucester, as a speculation, the first 



1 Mins. Accts. bdle. 850, No. 19. 



* 'A true narrative concerning the woods and iron- 

 works of the Forest of Deane,' Bib. Glauc. iii. 



1 The exact figures are 1,267,473: i.e. 374,477 

 sawn wood, 14,471 manufactured wood, 878,525 

 ' other sorts ' (part manufactured, &c.), for Bristol. 

 Gloucester imported in 1905 hewn wood to the 

 value of 5,029 a decrease of 4,445 on the pre- 

 ceding year, which had also seen a decrease ; sawn 

 wood, 537,774 a considerable increase. jinn. 

 Statement of Trade of United Kingdom with Foreign 

 Countries and British Possessions, 1906, ii. (C.d. 3022.) 



4 H. T. Ellacombe, Hist, of Bitten (1881), 227. 



load of Norway deals. This, owing to the cap- 

 tain's fear of grounding with the falling tide, 

 which has always been a difficulty in the port of 

 Gloucester, was dumped at cost price in the 

 yards of a riverside merchant, Mr. Morgan Price, 

 who, however, profited so much by his venture 

 when he came to resell, that he organized a 

 regular service of vessels from abroad, which has 

 continued in his family for 130 years.* His 

 example was followed in a few years by one 

 Cornelius Gardener, who brought wood up the 

 river in trows and rafts ; and the foreign timber 

 trade, by means of the canals made in the early 

 years of last century, was for a time probably the 

 most important occupation of the lower Severn 

 waterways. The volume of the imports has in- 

 creased steadily throughout the century, and ex- 

 panded at Gloucester in the ratio of 9 to i during 

 the reign of Queen Victoria, with a temporary 

 inflation in the years 1851-3, when the huts of 

 the French army in the Crimea were supplied 

 by the oldest firm, Price, Walker & Co. 



This firm may be considered representa- 

 tive of the modern trade in the district. Its 

 imports have, of course, extended beyond the 

 Norway deals bought by its founder, to firwoods 

 from Russia, Sweden, and Canada, pitch pine 

 from the Gulf of Mexico, oaks from Prussia and 

 Austria, &c. These are sawn on the premises 

 by the most up-to-date machinery, and sent to 

 different parts of England by rail and water. As 

 many as 700 hands are often employed. Other 

 firms in Gloucester are those of Messrs. Ashbee, 

 Sons & Co., founded in 1872, who do a large 

 business in foreign deals, &c., for building pur- 

 poses ; Messrs. Nicks & Co., founded in 1 840, 

 who, like those already mentioned, combine the 

 import of timber with steam-sawing, &c., and 

 whose speciality is creosoting wood ; and some 

 ten minor timber dealers ; while in the Stroud 

 Valley various firms have in the last seventy years 

 carried on, by means of rail and canal, a fairly 

 flourishing trade, largely in English wood. 6 



At Bristol the import of timber is carried on. 

 by about twenty-seven firms, among whom 

 Messrs. Dentry, and Temple, Roger & Co. 

 may be mentioned, while Messrs. Parsloe, and 

 Harbour & Co. have important saw-mills. 



Beside these large firms there are various small 

 saw-mills which survive in different parts of the 

 county, and represent the centralization of the 

 scattered saw-pits that as late as twenty years 

 ago were to be seen continually among the 

 Cotswold woods. Of these that of Birdlip, 

 founded more than one hundred years ago, and 

 successfully employing twelve to twenty-one 

 hands in the sawing, carpentering, and wheel- 

 wright's business of the district, may be taken as. 



5 Supp. to 56th Ann. Rep. ofGlouc. Chamber of Com- 

 merce, 1897. 



6 There is a considerable trade in fir props for the 

 north-western collieries from the Stroud larch-woods. 



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