INDUSTRIES 



2f.' 1 A more comprehensive entry follows, 

 headed : 



Diverse copies of Rolls of Accts showing ye Bishopps 

 to have ye Passages and Feery Bootes at Sunderland 

 and account for making new Bootes allowed upon ye 

 accounts 1345, 1406, 1457, 1494, 1502, 1508. 



The bishop's rights were not always undisputed. 

 To a copy of a patent granted by Tobias, Bishop 

 of Durham, to one Evans Witting for the anchor- 

 age of Sunderland, is added the pregnant sen- 

 tence, ' The master of Trinity House preuved 

 him to have a Patent from ye King and ye Bishop 

 will not allow it.' 1 Probably these copies of 

 rolls bearing on shipping were compiled for the 

 use of the bishop in his admiralty jurisdiction, for 

 the admiralty court was an important part of the 

 administration of the county palatine.* 



The episcopal jurisdiction does not seem to 

 have fostered or developed the trade of Sunder- 

 land ; the Report of the Commissioners for the 

 care of Ports and Havens within the Bishopric 

 of Durham, presented in 1565, says of Sunder- 

 land : 



There are neither ships nor boats and only seven fish 

 cobbles that belong to the town occupying 20 fisher- 

 men. This town it in great decay of building and 

 inhabitants.' 4 



By 1626, according to the return made to the 

 Privy Council, Sunderland, where the coal trade 

 is one-fourteenth that of Newcastle, ought to pay 

 a fourteenth of the charge of setting out two ships 

 for the king's service, but the traders of Sunderland 

 deny to yield any contribution. Ten years later 

 Sunderland was assessed at 20 for ship-money, 

 Gateshead paying 50, and Darlington 25.* 

 But its development was very slow until the out- 

 break of the Civil War, when, as Royalist New- 

 castle refused to send coal to Parliamentary 

 London, the metropolis had to rely upon Sunder- 

 land and Blyth for the supply. An ordinance 

 dated 12 May, 1643, ordered that there should 

 be free and open trade in the port of Sunderland. 

 The jurisdiction of the bishop abolished, no trade 

 or gild restrictions to hamper its development, 

 supported by the government, Sunderland forged 

 ahead with almost incredible rapidity. Coal was 

 only found in the higher reaches of the river ; a 

 local industry, the building of keels to convey the 



1 R. Surtee, Durham, i, 256. 



' Cosin's Lib. Durham ; Micldeton MSS. No. 10, 

 fol. 362. ' Diverse copies of Rolls to prove that ye 

 Bishop of Durham hath ye Borough of Sunderland 

 and Rents for ye fishing ; which ye Prior had there, 

 and yt ye Bishop had a place therein in ancient time 

 for arrival of ships paying a rent.' 



1 G. J. Lapsley, The County Pal. of Dur. App. ii, 3 1 7. 



1 S.P. Dom. Eliz. Add. 26 Nov. 1565, vol. 12, 

 No. 86 (i); W. Cunningham, Growth of Engl. InJutt. 

 and Commerce, i, 66. 



'S.P. Dom. Chas. I, March, 1636, vol. 317, 

 No. 96. 



mineral to the harbour where it was shipped, was 

 already begun. But the development of the coal 

 trade increased the keelbuilding trade ; men ac- 

 customed to building keels found little difficulty 

 in dealing with the small wooden vessels so much 

 used at the end of the seventeenth century ; 

 when, therefore, there was an increased demand 

 for ships in the eighteenth century, a race of men 

 were at hand on the banks of the Wear with an 

 inherited manual dexterity brought to its utmost 

 development in the satisfactory training school of 

 voluntary apprenticeship. The woods of Dur- 

 ham, which the Petts had ransacked early in the 

 seventeenth century to get timber for The 

 Sovereign of the Sea, building in the naval dock- 

 yards at Woolwich, had diminished so rapidly 

 that the men of Sunderland could not rely on 

 their own county for their needs, but they were 

 favourably situated for commanding an inex- 

 haustible supply from the forests of the Baltic 

 regions.' Early in the eighteenth century several 

 shipbuilders were on the Wear, though the average 

 size of the vessels was only 135 tons. 



In 1753 only about 190 ships belonged to 

 this port ; 7 four ships are mentioned as going 

 annually to the Greenland Sea, but whether they 

 were locally built it is impossible to say. 8 Bailey 

 gives the table of the ships built in Sunderland 

 which was presented to the House of Commons 

 in 1807 : 



Year* 



1790 



'79' 



1804 

 1805 



Number 



'9 

 6 



5' 

 36 



Average 

 Tonnage 



144 

 202 

 '63 

 163 



Tonnage of 

 Largest 



312 



35 6 



349 

 337* 



Surtees gives statistics of the number of ships 

 building at various dates, which taken in conjunc- 

 tion with the previous list shows that the trade 

 fluctuated considerably : 



Date 



December, 1810 

 November, 1 8 1 1 

 November, 1812 

 March, 1814 



Number 



37 

 32 

 37 

 31 



Tonnage 

 8,410 

 8,O2O 



8,437 

 6,693 



He adds, within the port of Sunderland there are 

 twenty shipbuilding yards. 10 



The Napoleonic wars are supposed to have 

 given an immense impetus to Sunderland ship- 

 building, but the evidence given before a select 

 committee of the House of Commons in 1833 

 does not support this theory. The evidence 



' M. Oppenheim, AJminiitration of the Navy, 261 ; 

 F. W. Dendy, ' Extracts from Privy Seal Dockets,' 

 Arch. AeRana, xxiv. 



' 'Letter from Sunderland, 13 June, 1755,' Gent. 

 Mag. xxv. 



* Brit. Univ. Dir. 1792. 



J. Bailey, op. cit. 299. 

 " R. Surtees, op. cit. 264. 



33 



