INDUSTRIES 



But the case was not so desperate as the petition 

 represents for, thirty years later, 500 looms were 

 employed in Darlington manufacturing hucka- 

 backs, diapers, and sheeting." Arthur Young 

 attributes the decay of trade to the idleness of 

 the Darlington poor. 



At that town is a considerable manufacture of Hucker- 

 back Cloths, in which the workmen earn from \od. 

 to 2/. 6J. a day. -nd women and children propor- 

 tionately. One Master Manufacturer employs about 

 fifty looms and asserts that he could easily set many 

 more at work and employ numerous women and 

 children if the idle part of the poor would be per- 

 suaded to turn industrious ; but numbers of hands, 

 capable of working, remain in total indolence ; and 

 that in general, there need never be an unemployed 

 person in Darlington. They make their cloths up to 

 iff. a yard." 



Brewster, too, an observant man, writing about 

 the same time, draws attention to the indolence 

 of the people of Stockton, and attributes it to the 

 want of manufactories. 33 



John Kendrew owned a flax mill on the Skerne 

 as early as 1788 ; ** he was an inventor of great 

 ingenuity ; Bailey says 



He was the first that invented the mode of grinding 

 optical glasses of a true spherical form by machinery. 

 He neglected to get a patent, and it was meanly stolen 

 by some person of superior capital near Sheffield, who 

 engrossed nearly all the demand by having riders to 

 take in orders in every part of the Kingdom. 1 * 



The spectacle mill adjoined Mr. Backhouse's 

 woollen mill. But it is in connexion with 

 the application of machinery to flax-spinning that 

 John Kendrew's inventions are of the greatest 

 importance.*' In partnership with Porthouse he 

 became the first spinner of flax by machinery in 

 the world. On the dissolution of the partner- 

 ship Kendrew went to a mill at Haughton-le- 

 Skerne. The mill still stands, a large and 

 imposing building, with the date 1782 on it. 

 According to the evidence of the church registers 

 early in the nineteenth century almost the whole 

 village worked in some capacity at the mills. 

 They were then in the hands of Edward Parker 

 & Sons, who, some thirty years ago, removed 

 their business to Ireland.* 7 Among the Hurworth 

 parish registers there is an interesting MS. account 

 of parish apprentices, where Edward Parker is 

 spoken of as a woollen manufacturer, but this 



" J. Bailey, op. cit. 194. 



" A Young, Six Month? Tour through the North of 

 Engl. 1769, ii, 427. 



" J. Brewster, Hut. of Stockton, 103. 



14 Darlington Leases. 



** Bailey, op. cit. 294. 



* Specification of Patents, 1787, No. 1613. 



17 Registers of Haughton-le-Skerne, 1 80 1 -5 2 ; White 

 and Parson, op. cit. 238. 



is probably due to the carelessness of the parish 

 authorities. 



1 804. Elizabeth Rickaby female 1 2 bound to 

 Edward Parker woollen manufacturer Haughton 

 for four years. (No fee is mentioned.) 



1805. Edward Scarr male 9 bound to Edward 

 Parker woollen manufacturer for 5 years, fee 

 i 1 6,. 



1815. Richard Gouldborough male 1 1 bound 

 to Edward Parkerwoollen manufacturer Haughton 

 four years 2 2/." 



The Coatham Mundeville Mill had a disastrous 

 history ; it was successfully worked as a shoe- 

 thread mill for many years by Porthouse, then 

 by Gibson, who removed to Selby about 1 840 ; 

 it then became a flour mill and was burnt down. 



(PI. Ill, fig. 2.) 



The I'Ansons, the Backhouses, and the Peases 

 were all connected with the Darlington linen 

 industry." 



The Peases came to Darlington early in the 

 eighteenth century ; the earliest document pre- 

 served amongst the leases of the manor of Dar- 

 lington relating to the family is the copy of a 

 plan and valuation ' of a water corn mill, bark 

 mill, &c., in the parish of Darlington. Mr. Joseph 

 Pease lessee for 3 lives. Sherburn 10 May 1793.'* 

 These mill buildings had been bought from 

 Edward Stamper by Joseph Pease in 1781 for 

 890." Mr. Backhouse seems to have made 

 a determined effort in 1795 to get complete 

 possession of the Skerne from his own mill as far 

 as Mr. Pease's (i.e. from the present Leadyard 

 Mill to the Priestgate Mill). But the bishop's 

 surveyor interfered ; he writes that 



there is a mill for the spinning of wool and a mill for 

 the grinding of spectacle glasses, the former a spacious 

 Building and the latter a very convenient and useful 

 one. One must be of the value of at least 60 p. 

 ann. for the uses at present put to, but having been 

 built only seven years Mr. Backhouse assures me they 

 are rated the poor at no more than 16 p. ann. 



He gives his opinion very emphatically that 

 Mr. Backhouse's request should be refused : 



I do not think the Bishop ought to grant Mr. Back- 

 house the river Skern between the Spinning Mill and 

 Mr. Peas's Mill; nor do I see what use it can be of 

 to him, if he raise his spinning mill dam, it will 

 naturally injure Mr. Peas's Mill by checking the 

 stream and causing Logg or Backwater ; and also it 

 may be prejudicial to the See by preventing similar 

 erections. The spinning mill is turned by steam and 

 at present has a dam or head no more than 1 8 inches 

 high. Lowes a Tanner and Locking a stone cutter 



" Register Book of Parish Apprentices. 



19 Richley, Hist, of Bishop Auckland ; ' Romance of 

 Commerce,' in The Friend, 21 Oct. 1898. 



10 These leases are kept at Durham in the office of 

 the Halmote Court (to which I had access by the 

 courtesy of Mr. Wall of Darlington). 



" H. D. Longstaffe, Hist, of Darlington, 284. 



317 





