INDUSTRIES 



TANNING 



Leather is a material of such great and varied 

 utility that 'there is nothing like leather' has 

 passed into a proverb ; it follows that from early 

 times leather must have been prepared and worked 

 in all parts of the country, but Sussex was a dis- 

 trict particularly suited for the development of 

 the industry because of its great stores of oak 

 trees, of which the bark was, and still is, the best 

 material for the process of tanning. The earliest 

 period from which we can begin to trace the 

 history of tanning in Sussex is the end of the 

 thirteenth century. In 1275 John de la Rede 

 was accused of taking money from the tanners 

 of the hundred of Henhurst for leave to ply 

 their trade. 1 After the old town of Winchel- 

 sea had been destroyed by the great storm of 

 1287 New Winchelsea was laid out on a sym- 

 metrical plan, and in 1292 a survey of the town 

 was made, from which we learn that in the 

 thirty-first ' quarter ' there were seven houses, of 

 which four were occupied by skinners ; la more- 

 over, this quarter adjoined the piece of marsh 

 land known as the ' Pewes,' which appears to be 

 a variant of the ' Pells ' found at Lewes and 

 elsewhere, and to imply land where skins were 

 prepared. A subsidy roll of 1297 f r t ^ le ra P e f 

 Lewes mentions two skinners at Newtimber, a 

 tanner at Barcombe, and one John le Wytthau- 

 were at Cuckfield, the latter being evidently a 

 white-tawer or dresser of sheep and deer skins. 2 

 Another ' whittawere,' Robert de Toures of Uck- 

 field, was hanged as a thief in 1 300.** The Nonae 

 returns of 1341 mention tanners at Lewes 3 and 

 Southover, 4 while at Midhurst Richard de Hayl- 

 lyng had in the tannery tanned hides worth 36;., and 

 William Westdene had in his tannery three hides 

 worth 4.5. 6d.* In the poll-tax returns of 1380 

 two tanners are mentioned at Cuckfield, one at 

 Crawley, one at Westmeston, three at Ditchling, 

 one at Charlton, and at Southover one who had had 

 the misfortune to be captured by the French, evi- 

 dently during their raid in 1377. Harting would 

 seem to have been another seat of the industry, 

 as in 1403 Henry Glovere, white-tawer, was 

 presented for charging excessively, 7 as was William 

 Kays, tanner, in 1425. In the latter year William 

 Kays was also presented for selling ill-tanned 

 leather, and Richard White, white-tawer, for 

 similar bad workmanship. 8 Amongst the Sussex 

 men concerned in Cade's rebellion in 1450 were 

 a tanner from Wadhurst and three from Hailsham, 



I Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, 2 1 8. 



II Cooper, Hist, of Winchelsea, 51. 

 ' Suss. Arch. Coll. ii, 292-302. 



11 Assize R. 934, m. 3. 



' Lay Subs. 3f- ' Ib!d - 



4 Suss. Arch. Coll. XT, 10. Lay Subs. 



7 Ct. R. bdle. 1 26, No. 1870. 



6 Ibid. No. 1871. 



from which place were also two corvesers, or 

 leather-workers. 9 Mention has already been made 

 of tanning at Southover, and in 1461 William 

 Frankewelle, when making a grant of the meadow 

 called ' Dokwysshe ' on the stream from the 

 Watergate mill, especially reserved the right to 

 use the ditch on the south side of the meadow 

 for his hides. 10 



In 1547 there were two tanners and a white 

 tawer at Mayfield and three tanners at Wadhurst, 

 all of whom were presented by the jury of the 

 manorial courts, though without the mention of 

 any offence. 11 Whether a licence was required 

 for them to follow their trade, or whether tanning 

 was, like brewing, so hedged round with regula- 

 tions that anyone engaged upon it might be 

 assumed to have broken the assize, is not clear, 

 but the latter suggestion is partly supported by 

 the great frequency of offences against the regu- 

 lations of the trade during the sixteenth and 

 seventeenth centuries. The number of ways in 

 which the tanning laws could be broken is re- 

 markable. First the hides must be bought in 

 the open market ; Thomas Goff, a tanner of 

 Steyning, was presented in 1562 for buying 

 privately from butchers 300 raw hides called 

 ' Oxe Stere and Cowe hydes ' at 6s. 8d. each and 

 twenty dozen calf-skins at 6s. 8d. the dozen, 13 

 and in 1607 William Lulham of Hamsey, two 

 tanners at Salehurst, and others of Newick, 

 Buxted, and Uckfield were accused of buying 

 ' roughe hides ' outside the market. 13 Nor might 

 the tanner make a previous agreement to buy the 

 hides when they came into the market. 14 The 

 tanner, moreover, must be duly qualified, John 

 Burgess being charged in 1563 with practising 

 tanning, not having been brought up and ap- 

 prenticed to the same art ; 16 and he must use 

 only bark as a medium ; for using certain un- 

 lawful mixtures seven Sussex tanners were brought 

 before the court in i$6g. 16 Moreover, while he 

 must not hasten the process of tanning by adding 

 lime or other substances, neither might he do so 

 by taking the hides out of the liquor before 

 sufficient time had elapsed. In 1568 Simon and 

 John Undersheld, of Chichester, were charged 

 with having tanned hides for ' Uttersole and 

 Clowt lether,' not leaving them to lie twelve 

 months in the liquor called 'the Woses,' or 

 ' Wooses,' and other hides for ' Uppersoles,' not 

 leaving them for nine months in the liquor ; two 



9 Suss. Arch. Coll. xviii, 26. 



10 Add. Chart. 30687. 



11 Ct. R. bdle. 205, No. 13. 



" Mem. R., K.R. 4 Eliz. Mich. m. 191. 



13 Ibid. 5 Jas. I, Mich. m. 190-2. 



14 Ibid. 4 Eliz. East. m. 1 80. 



15 Ibid. 5 Eliz. East. m. 60. 



16 Ibid. II Eliz. East. m. 101-4. 



259 



