CHAPTER ELEVEN 



THE INDUSTRIES OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE 

 By F. M. Page, M.A., ph.d/ 



DANlEL DEFOE, WRITING IN I724-26, SUMMED UP HIS 

 impression of Cambridgeshire by saying that "this county has no 

 manufacture at all".- Although this is less true now than then, it 

 is still not surprising that industry should occupy a subsidiary place in one 

 of the most agricultural of counties. Chronologically, the industries of the 

 County fall into three groups. In the first place, there are the extinct 

 industries: thus during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the pro- 

 duction of saffron was flourishing in the south-east of the County, there 

 were two saltpetre factories at Cambridge and Barnwell, and bell-founding 

 was carried on in Cambridge. During the nineteenth century came the 

 digging of coprohtes.3 At this time, too, there was the activity of the 

 various industrial schools; spinning estabhshments existed at Fowlmere, 

 Soham, and Histon, and in this last village, stockings were also made; 

 while at Wisbech and Linton hemp was made into rope. Perhaps the most 

 interesting of these extinct industries was the manufacture of woad at 

 Parson's Drove, some 6 miles from Wisbech. Working ceased in 19 14, 

 but the mill still survives. This mill together vdth two others near Boston 

 are the last representatives in Europe of an industry that dates from pre- 

 Christian times. 



Secondly, come the industries with a long continuous history through 

 the Middle Ages to the present day. The best examples, perhaps, are basket- 

 making, printing and book-binding, quarrying for stone and clay. Finally, 

 there are the industries of recent growth, conspicuous elements in shaping 

 the modem economy of the County. In this class come the manufacture 

 of sugar, the canning and preserving of fruit and vegetables, and the 

 construction of scientific instruments and apparatus. 



The account that follows does not profess to cover every commercial 

 undertaking in the County. It can deal only with the most important and 

 the most characteristic. 



' For help in the preparation of this chapter, I am indebted to Mr F. J. Corbett, 

 the Secretary of the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce, to Mr R. S. Whipple, past 

 President of the Chamber, to Mr John Saltmarsh of King's College, and to the 

 numerous firms who have given me information. I am indebted to the Editor 

 (Mr L. F. Salzman) for allowing me to use material prepared for the Victoria County 

 History of Cambridgeshire. 



* D. Defoe, Tour through England and Wales (1724-26), Letter I. 



3 See p. 126 above. 



