INDUSTRIES 



INTRODUCTION 



PRESENT-DAY Surrey, were we 

 limited in our observations to the 

 administrative area which is still 

 comprised under that name [after the 

 Local Government Act of 1888 has 

 taken from the old county most of the 

 important industrial districts in the immediate 

 neighbourhood of the metropolis], would have 

 small claim to rank as a manufacturing county. 

 But the change is too recent to make it possible 

 in the present work to consider the county 

 otherwise than as it had existed from the 

 time of the Domesday survey and earlier, 

 and perhaps for the purposes of historical 

 study it will always be convenient to re- 

 store to Surrey its ancient territory. This 

 being so, the manufactures of the county, 

 both past and present, of which we have to 

 treat in the following account, are of almost 

 every conceivable variety and often of the 

 first importance. 



Although for close upon three hundred years 

 the interest of the history of the manufactures of 

 Surrey has been mainly centred in Southwark 

 and the places adjoining to it along the south 

 bankof the Thames, this hasnotalways been the 

 case. The earliest industries to be evolved, and 

 for long years by far the most important, were 

 all in the rural districts close to the southern 

 border of the county. The gradual shifting 

 of the scene of industrial activity in Surrey 

 from the south of the county to the north is 

 perhaps the most striking phenomenon in her 

 economic history, and in these introductory 

 remarks we shall have occasion to put forward 

 some reasons that will partly account for it. 

 In taking a survey, necessarily somewhat 

 cursory, of the chief industries that have been 

 fostered in the county, we shall consider here 

 the chief conditions that have promoted their 

 birth and subsequent development, and, where 

 such has to be recorded, that have led to their 

 ultimate decay. Industries whose histories are 

 of especial interest and value will be reserved 

 for more particular treatment afterwards. 



The economic condition of the county at 

 the period of the Norman Conquest, so far as 



it can be ascertained from the Domesday 

 survey, has already been very fully considered 

 in this History. The survey shows, it has been 

 said, that in the main the county was given 

 over to agriculture,' an industry with which 

 we are not concerned in this section. Along 

 the riverside in the north there were a few 

 scattered fisheries, but the chief item of impor- 

 tance for our present purpose is the two stone 

 quarries at Limpsfield.^ The bare mention 

 of these but faintly indicates the nature of the 

 first industries, other than those of a purely 

 agricultural description, which were to be 

 developed in Surrey. These industries grew 

 naturally into being out of the especial geo- 

 logical or geographical features pertaining to 

 certain districts. Abundant evidence still 

 exists within the county to show that at an 

 early date the various building stones yielded 

 by the upper and lower greensand formations 

 were utilized for erections of an ecclesiastical 

 or military character. The chalk stone of the 

 North Downs was also so used but was perhaps 

 more usually burnt into lime. At what date 

 the peculiar properties of fullers' earth, which 

 exists in such abundance about Nutfield and 

 Reigate in the county, were first understood, 

 we do not know. In all probability it was 

 used in very early times, and the fact of its 

 being readily accessible to the fullers of Surrey, 

 combined with the excellence of the sheep 

 pastures within the county and the facilities 

 alForded by such small rivers as the Wey for 

 the setting up of fulling mills, tended to the 

 early development of the important cloth- 

 making industry in the district around 

 Guildford. The first notice we have of the 

 so-called Guildford cloths is in 1391, but even 

 then the reputation for excellence which the 

 cloths had enjoyed is spoken of as a thing of 

 some antiquity. 



Other most important early Surrey indus- 

 tries were the manufactures of glass and iron, 

 both of which were carried on in the Wealden 

 district in the extreme south. The notices 



1 V.C.H. Surrey, i. 290. ' Ibid. 311b. 



243 



