INDUSTRIES 



duced. To quote the Bury and Norwich Post of 

 6 June, 1798 : 



Since the great improvement of the steam-engine, it 

 is astonishing to what a variety of manufactures this 

 useful machine has been applied ; yet it does not a 

 little excite our surprise that one is used for the trifling 

 object of grinding cocoa. It is, however, a fact that 

 Mr. Fry of Bristol, the maker of the famous Church- 

 man's Chocolate, has in his new manufactory one of 

 these engines, for the sole purpose of manufacturing 

 chocolate and cocoa. Either the consumption of this 

 little article must far exceed our ideas, or, which we 

 think much more likely, a very large proportion of 

 what is drunk in th.s country must be made by him. 



A few years later the Times was alluding to 



the high repute of the preparation of Fry, which no 

 less proves his superior skill and care, than the excel- 

 lent solubility of the articles produced from his cele- 

 brated manufactory. 



Since then the industry has grown steadily, and 



now, instead of the original building in Newgate 

 Street, with a small number of employees, it 

 occupies eight large buildings, in various streets, 

 and employs fully 4,000 hands. The whole of 

 these are not, it is true, employed in the actual 

 cocoa manufacture, as all the chocolate boxes 

 and cases are made on the premises by the com- 

 pany. Many tons of sugar, too, are melted down 

 and used for flavouring and for paste. The pre- 

 paration of the beans themselves requires elaborate 

 machinery. After being roasted, they are shot 

 down into galleries, cracked, winnowed by fans, 

 and ground between granite rollers. The oil 

 having then been extracted by heat, a fine paste 

 appears, which is mixed with sugar, and finally 

 made up into chocolate. 



The firm has a large export trade, which has 

 given rise to a whole new branch of their indus- 

 try the making of air-tight canisters. Their 

 cocoa-beans are imported from Ceylon, the West 

 Indies, Brazil and Central America. 



GLASS, POTTERY, BRICKS AND 

 BUILDING MATERIALS 



Though there were a few glaziers and glass- 

 wrights in Gloucester as far back as the 131(1 

 century, 1 it is to the brewing and mineral water 

 trade of Gloucestershire that the glass industry 

 of the county is mainly due. By the end of the 

 1 6th century it was reported that 'in Glouces- 

 tershire, one Hoe a Frenchman, hath built a glass 

 house and furnace and doth make great quantities 

 of glasses.' Hoe was condemned accordingly 

 in the general order issued by the magistrates in 

 1 598 to put down the manufacture of drinking- 

 glasses, for which a patent had been granted to 

 Sir Jerome Bowes. 1 By 1794, however, 'glass 

 bottles were already a flourishing manufacture, 

 occasioned by the demand for the export of 

 Bristol waters, beer, cyder and perry.' Window- 

 glass was also made. There were, altogether, 

 says Matthews,* twelve glass-houses, which 

 might ' be visited by presenting a small gratuity 

 to the workmen, who, living in hot climates,' 

 were ' very glad of some suction to moisten their 

 clay.' By 1828 flint glass was being made at 

 Bristol. 4 By 1863 a factory for glass bottles had 

 been established by Messrs. Powell & Ricketts, 

 still one of the chief representatives of what is 

 now a flourishing Bristol manufacture. 



Another Bristol industry due to similar causes 

 is the manufacture of stoneware. A rough 

 form of this was first introduced into England 

 from Cologne in 1581, but no salt-glazed ware 



> Chut. Cal. 



' Acts of P.O. (new er.) xxix (1598-9), loz. 



1 Neta Hiit. of Bristol (1794), ch. 8. 



4 Mathews' Briit. Guide (1828). 



was made till 1670, when John Dwight of 

 Fulham patented the invention. This was sub- 

 sequently improved by the brothers Elers, and 

 early in the i8th century was introduced 

 into Bristol. The productions of these first 

 stoneware manufacturers, of whom a number 

 soon sprang up, consisted of demi-johns, sugar- 

 pots, and jars and jugs grotesquely ornamented. 

 They were all glazed with salt in the following 

 way : 



the ware was placed in the kilns on open shelves, 

 built up tier on tier, so as to receive the full force of 

 the fire direct. When the highest temperature was 

 reached, common salt was thrown in through small 

 holes in the crown of the kiln and volatilized in the 

 great heat, the chlorine escaping in vapour, and the 

 sodium combining with the silica of the clay to form 

 a glass of silicate of soda, which covered the surface of 

 the ware with a fine, thin film of hard glaze. In 

 later days some most beautiful specimens of stoneware 

 have been glazed thus, as, from its fineness and deli- 

 cacy, this glaze is admirably adapted to set off artis- 

 tically figured pieces of pottery. 



In the year 1840 the stoneware industry was 

 developed and improved by the substitution for 

 salt of a liquid glaze, into which the ware was 

 dipped, and which, when fired, gave the rich 

 and highly vitrified enamel known as ' Bristol 

 glaze.* Nearly the same ingredients are still 

 used for the modern glazes which, being abso- 

 lutely without lead or borax, are fluxed at an 

 exceedingly high temperature. This, in con- 

 junction with a dense, hard body, renders the 

 ware specially adapted for resisting the action of 



213 



