INDUSTRIES 



for redress in Chancery against Thomas Paryse 

 of Hitchin, who had refused to compensate 

 him for many years' delivery of short measure 

 of malt. The case was flagrant. For eight 

 years Warde had bought weekly of this dis- 

 honest trader ' vij quarters malte and therfor 

 well and truely contentyd and payd wekely to 

 the said Thomas Paryse.' But Paryse ' all the 

 said vij yeres vsed such sleight and deceytfull 

 measures that your said Oratour lakked euery 

 weke a pek of euery quarter malte, the which 

 malt the said vij yeres amountith to 94 quarters 

 malte for the which your said oratour hath 

 contentyd and paide to the saide Paryse 

 3^21 i8s. 8d. and had therefor noo thyng.' The 

 results of these cases do not appear, but the 

 facts recited are sufficiently suggestive of a 

 considerable trade in malt between Hertford- 

 shire and London. 



In the 17th century the trade was still 

 strong. Norden^" reports malting in 161 6 as 

 the chief business of Great Berkhampstead. 

 At Hitchin '^ there existed a mill called ' Le 

 Maltmilne.' Occasional entries in the Sessions 

 Papers introduce us to maltsters offending 

 against the ecclesiastical or civil regulations of 

 the time. In 1615 it was presented ^^ that 

 ' Thomas Maunsell of the parish of Muche 

 Monden, maltman, standing excommunicate 

 did upon the 9 July inst. disturb the minister 

 and congregation in the parish church there, 

 during the service time, so that the minister 

 was enforced to break off his sermon and leave 

 the church.' Some twenty-five years ^ after 

 Isaac FuUer, late of Ware, maltster, was charged 

 with keeping and using an illicit measure — to 

 wit, a bushel contrary to the assize. But the 

 chief concern of the justices with the maltster's 

 trade was as to its effect on the roads. So 

 active was the traffic that the justices ^ in 

 1 63 1 advised that between Michaelmas and 

 May malt brought from Royston to Ware 

 should be carried on horseback to save the 

 roads, since that part of the country was clay. 

 But the maltsters appear to have done their 

 best to evade the order. In 1646-7 the men of 

 Ware presented ^^ that ' the great decay of all 

 the ways arises through the unreasonable 

 loads of malt brought into and through Ware 

 to Hodsdon from remote parts, and the 

 bringing of great loads of malt from both the 

 Hadhams, Alburie, Storford all the Pelhams 

 and Clavering through Ware Extra and the 

 excessive loads from Norwich, Bury and Cam- 

 bridge weekly, the teams often consisting of 



'" Speculum Brit. 



'^ Pat. 7 Jas. I, pt. xxxiii. 



32 Sess. R. (Herts. Co. Rec), i, 44. 



33 Ibid. 65. 



3* Ca/. S. P. Dom. 163 1-3, p. 66. 

 35 Sess. R. (Herts. Co. Rec), i, 86. 



seven or eight horses.' They further noticed that 

 there had been a great increase of maltsters 

 in Ware and suggested that if the maltsters 

 would carry lighter loads with only four 

 horses as they used to, and each person would 

 duly perform his work, the ways could be 

 sufficiently amended. Attempts would seem 

 to have been made to discourage malting in 

 Hertfordshire during the reign of Charles I, 

 possibly on the advice of economic theorists 

 in London, and in consequence about 1636 

 the Hertfordshire justices drew up a state- 

 ment ^* of the inconveniences and damages 

 which are discovered to arise in that county 

 from the restraints of malt-making and chiefly 

 in the towns of Stortford, Hitchin, Baldock, 

 Ashwell, Royston and other of the champaign 

 parts of the county. ' The most maltsters in 

 that county,' according to this memorial, were 

 ' of mean abihty, and are chiefly employed by 

 gentlemen and others who send their barleys 

 to them to be malted for the provision of their 

 houses ; also widows, the portions of orphans, 

 servants who have some small stock and 

 others who like not to put their money to 

 usury buy barley and hire the making of it by 

 the quarter. These poor maltsters are very 

 useful to the county, pay good rents and have 

 borne all taxes. So in the villages many petty 

 maltsters make malt for themselves and 

 supply the markets ; they bear offices and pay 

 taxes, but being restrained, must turn day- 

 labourers, of whom many already want work. 

 So again malt making continued little more 

 than half a year ; many mechanics and men of 

 small trades employed their wives, children 

 and servants in malt making whilst them- 

 selves followed other callings.' 



Large quantities of malt continued to be 

 made in Hertfordshire during the 1 8th century, 

 especially round Ware and Hertford, for 

 consumption in London,^' and the improved 

 water communication of the Stort Navigation 

 gave fresh life to the industry at Bishop's 

 Stortford. From Ware no less than 5,000 

 quarters of malt and corn used to be sent in a 

 week to London by barges. '^ 



Even in the middle of the last century 

 malting remained the most important of the 

 industries of the county. At Ware there 

 existed no less than seventy malt-houses, and 

 most of the London breweries were still sup- 

 plied from this town.'^ In northern Hert- 

 fordshire the excellent barley grown in the 

 neighbourhood was largely used at the malt 

 kilns of Ashwell and Baldock.*" In fact, 



3' Cal. S. P. Dom. 1636-7, p. 323 et seq. 

 3' Walker, Gen. Fiew of Agric. of Herts, (i 791), 73. 

 35 Samuel Simpson, The Agreeable Historian (1746), 

 263. 39 Lewis, Topog. Diet. (1849), iv, 464. 



*o Ibid, i, 96, 133. 



243 



