INDUSTRIES 



of Canterbury who had protested against the 

 smoke nuisance in the neighbourhood of 

 his Croydon palace. Indeed so great was 

 Grimme's reputation that he was converted 

 into a character in two stage plays of the six- 

 teenth century. To one of them, Grim, the 

 Collier of Croydon, his name supplies the title. 

 In this he refers to his troubles in consequence 

 of the strict regulations of the City of London 

 and complains that every time he comes to 

 London his sacks are found faulty and burnt 

 before his face, whilst he stands in the pillory 

 to atone his offence. The vigilance of the 

 city authorities in this respect is well exem- 

 plified in the year 1568, when no less than 

 twenty-four Surrey colliers were summoned to 

 appear in the Court of Exchequer in answer 

 to informations laid against them of selling 

 coals in London in sacks not of the prescribed 

 size. Of this number twenty came from 

 Croydon itself, whilst the others all belonged 

 to the neighbourhood, to Waddon, Sutton and 

 Carshalton.* The thickly wooded tract of 

 country which extended from Norwood and 

 Dulwich, through Sydenham and Penge, into 

 Croydon supplied these colliers with material 

 in abundance for their trade. On the other 

 hand the people of Kingston, who raised their 

 voices in 1562 against the new iron mills in 

 the county on the ground that they had caused 

 the prices which they had been wont to pay 

 for their firewood and charcoal to be nearly 

 doubled, stated that these commodities came 

 to them from the country about Dorking. 



Despite wide agitation and restrictive 

 statutes the iron industry of the Weald con- 

 tinued to flourish for a while. Probably too 

 many of the influential residents of the county 

 were interested in its well-being for the pro- 

 hibitive measures to have much effect. There 

 is evidence to show that new mills were set 

 up until the early years of the seventeenth 

 century. Soon after the decline seems to have 

 taken place, not however on account of the 

 satisfactory replacement of wood fuel by coal, 

 which was not accomplished until well on in 

 the eighteenth century, but because of the 

 success attending the opening up of the works 

 in the Forest of Dean and South Wales, in 

 which also it may be remarked Sussex iron- 

 masters would appear to have been engaged. 

 The active existence of the iron mills of 

 Surrey was protracted beyond the middle of 

 the eighteenth century, and indeed about the 

 beginning of the nineteenth there was a belated 

 attempt to revive the industry at Felbridge 

 Water in the extreme south-east, but with the 



use of imported coals in place of charcoal fuel. 

 But the expense proved too heavy to enable 

 the products of the works to compete with the 

 cheaper pig and bar iron that the ironmasters 

 in the north of the kingdom could put on the 

 London market, and after a fair trial, it is 

 stated, the works were abandoned.^ 



The same charge, the excessive consumption 

 of timber, was brought against the far more 

 ancient industry, so far as Surrey is concerned, 

 of glass-making. Here the attacks, though a 

 little later in obtaining the effective support 

 of the executive, were more immediately 

 successful. Indeed the Wealden industry does 

 not seem to have survived the royal pro- 

 clamation of 161 5, which totally prohibited 

 the use of wood fuel in the manufacture. 

 Some time previously the industry had been 

 revived by the advent of some famous foreign 

 glass-makers, who had established themselves, 

 not without protest on the part of the in- 

 habitants, in several places in the Weald of 

 Surrey and Sussex. But the substitution of 

 coal fuel in the manufacture of glass was not 

 only a simple matter as compared with the 

 difficulty of bringing it about in the case of 

 iron, but would also appear to have been at 

 once attended with great improvements in the 

 quality of the glass. The fact that the first 

 successful experiments in the new manufacture 

 were made at Lambeth is significant of the 

 change that was now to take place in the 

 scene of industrial activity in Surrey and 

 suggests moreover one of the principal causes 

 of the change. At the time the general use 

 of coal in manufactures was every where urged 

 both by the Crown and the people ; and the 

 inventive genius of man, as the State Papers 

 of the reign of James I. amply show, was hard 

 set in every direction to make it possible. But 

 the enormous expense of the carriage of this 

 fuel over roads that were rarely good and 

 often impassable into the heart of Surrey would 

 have militated effectually against the success of 

 any industry there that depended upon its use. 

 Its transport by water to the Surrey suburbs 

 that fringed the river was comparatively cheap. 



But, although the iron industry of the 

 Weald had by the year 1615 probably 

 attained its fullest development and that of 

 glass-making was to perish utterly, the history 

 of some of the other industries carried on in 

 the southern half of the county continues to 

 be of interest. A few of them have survived 

 to the present day. Cloth-making at Guild- 

 ford, if we may judge from Archbishop 

 Abbot's reference to it in 16 14, was already 



1 Exch. K. R. Mem. R. Mich. 10 Eliz. 176-200 2 Malcolm, Comfendium of Modern Husbandry, 



passim. i. 41. 



245 



