A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



at Bristol, which tanned 250,000 hides in 1900, 

 as compared with 187,000 in 1877. At one 

 Bristol tanyard alone, that of Messrs. Parker in 

 Whitehouse Street, 1,000 heavy hides can be 

 turned out weekly. It is, in fact, for heavier 

 leather that Bristol tanners are pre-eminent, and 

 Bristol 'butts' have quite a name. 1 Oak- 

 bark from Dean Forest is still used, though 

 a foreign import called valonia (a sort of acorn) 

 is also employed largely, as it enables skins to be 



tanned in four to eight months instead of in nine 

 to eighteen. The Whitehouse Tannery is es- 

 pecially good in the finishing processes of the 

 trade. 



With all this leather trade an enormous boot 

 manufacture has grown up in the county, em- 

 ploying, as we have seen, over 11,000 hands. 

 In Bristol alone there are a hundred boot fac- 

 tories, with an annual capacity of 10,000,000 

 pairs of boots. 



SOAP AND CHEMICALS 



Soap is almost the oldest recorded manufacture 

 of Bristol, which incurred great popular con- 

 tempt in consequence among other English medi- 

 aeval towns. In 1242 Seyer's Memoirs record 

 that ' this year grey soap was sold from this city 

 to London by one John Lamb, who retailed 

 it at a penny a pound, and black soap at a 

 half-penny.' 2 In the 1 6th century white soap 

 was one of the most important products of 

 Bristol, and was exported by Thorne, one of 

 Bristol's merchant-princes. 3 In the I7th cen- 

 tury soap manufacturers suffered greatly from 

 the effects of the special privileges granted in 

 1635 to a 'New Corporation of Soap-boilers at 

 Westminster.' Government inspection, too, was 

 a source of annoyance. New ingredients for 

 soap were being discovered, 4 and in 1632 an 

 assay-master of soap had been appointed. 6 In 

 1635 the amount of soap to be made yearly in 

 Bristol was limited to 600 tons, the allotment 

 for each manufacturer being made according to 

 the annual proportion he was supposed to have 

 made in the years 1630-2. This restriction 

 led to many remonstrances from the Bristol soap- 

 boilers. Richard Tovey petitioned the Council 

 to the effect that he used to make at least 80 tons 

 a year, but was now cut down to 24 tons. 8 

 Thomas Longman, describing himself as ' a 

 young man governed by his company,' declared 

 that he had ' conceived he did well therein, but 

 perceiving they have run into contempt, he dis- 

 avows their proceedings and submits to pay his 

 Majesty what shall be ordered by the Board. 

 He has undertaken the house and trading of his 

 master, who made 200 tons of soap by the year ; 



1 ' Butts ' are the skin from an ox's back, and are 

 used for boot-soles, machine-belting, and hard wear 

 generally. They require much more tanning than 

 the thinner parts of the hide. 



* Sam. Sever, Mem. of Bristol, ii, 14. About the 

 same date there was a soap-maker at Gloucester, but 

 this is a solitary instance of the trade occurring there. 

 Glouc. Cal. 



' H. R. Fox Bourne, Engl. Merchants, 105. 



4 Hitherto potash had been mainly used. See 

 S.P. Dom. Jas. I, Ixxxi, and clxxi, No. 69. 



1 S.P. Dom. Chas. I, ccix, No. 43. 



6 Ibid, cccviii, No. 1 5. 



20 tons a year is now allotted to him by his 

 company, on which he is not able to subsist. 

 He prays the Lords to settle his proportion, he 

 giving caution to pay duty for all he shall make 

 hereafter.' 7 



Disregarding this betrayal by one of their 

 number, the other soap-boilers of the city pre- 

 sented a general remonstrance, declaring it 

 impossible to obey the orders of the Council, 

 which, besides restricting their output, limited 

 their price to 3^. per Ib. and their sale to 

 Bristol and westward beyond the Severn, and 

 imposed a tax of 4. on every ton of soap. 8 By 

 1637, however, they were only praying for the 

 enforcement of these ordinances, in order to save 

 them from worse at the hands of the London 

 soap-boilers. 9 Not long after the unfortunate 

 master, wardens, and others of the soap-makers of 

 Bristol were in the Fleet prison for non-payment 

 to the commissioners of arrears in making soap. 10 



It is perhaps not surprising that the inter- 

 ference of the Crown with their soap-trade was 

 mentioned by Bristol citizens as one of their 

 inducements to take the Parliamentary side in 

 the Civil War. From this time we hear no 

 special complaints from this industry, which has 

 continued steadily through the l8th century to 

 the present day. Messrs. Thomas and Bros., of 

 the Broad Plain Soap Works, are now the last 

 representatives of the Bristol soap-makers. 



The soap industry now includes the manu- 

 facture of candles. 



Chemical trades, which comprise, among other 

 things, the manufacture of paint, ink, blacking, 

 gunpowder and explosives, glue and varnish, 

 employ about 1000 persons in the county. Of 

 these, saltpetre and gunpowder used to be manu- 

 factured at Gloucester and Bristol during the 

 Civil War. 11 In 1633 the Bristol powder-makers 

 were purchasing saltpetre ' unlawfully made ' at 

 Sherston Magna in Wilts, 12 and when this had 



' S.P. Dom. Chas. I, cclxxxix, No. 94. 

 * Ibid, cclxxxviii, No. 49. 

 ' Ibid, ccclxiii, No. 17. 



10 Ibid, ccclxxvii, No. 46. 



11 Ibid, cxliii, No. 67 ; and ccxi, No. 79. 

 " Ibid. ccl. No. 66. 



210 



