INDUSTRIES 



were unnavigable for any distance. From 

 some places, from Ewhurst for instance, near 

 which there were ironworks, it would appear 

 that no better means for the transport of the 

 timber could be found than by carrying it 

 overland into Sussex, where it could be 

 shipped on the Arun and so to the sea.' Such 

 Surrey rivers, however, as the Wey with its 

 tributary the Tillingbourne and the Mole 

 were, as we have previously stated, admirably 

 adapted to serve as mill-streams. The im- 

 portance several of the rural industries of the 

 county had acquired by the end of the six- 

 teenth century must be largely attributed to 

 these streams. 



The poverty of Surrey in easy means of 

 communication and the complete absence of 

 waterways in the interior of the county had 

 this important result, that one of the earliest 

 schemes in England for rendering a river 

 navigable by means of penning up the water 

 by locks was carried out within her borders. 

 Whether, as is commonly stated. Sir Richard 

 Weston was the first to introduce into this 

 country a principle the practical application 

 of which he must have frequently seen in 

 the Low Countries, is at least doubtful. The 

 navigation of the river Lea, for instance, seems 

 to have been undertaken as early as 1589, 

 and locks would appear to have been used for 

 the purpose.^ But the navigation of the 

 Wey from the Thames to Guildford was 

 undoubtedly one of the first important 

 schemes of this nature to be realized. Early 

 in the reign of Charles I. Sir Richard was 

 busy with his plans and making cuts for the 

 new river.' It was not, however, until 165 1, 

 when his royalist sympathies seem to have 

 debarred him from taking an active part in 

 the work, that the town of Guildford obtained 

 an act of Parliament for the navigation. Sir 

 Richard's interest in the scheme was sold to 

 one James Pitson, who completed it in 1653, 

 not without encountering much opposition 

 on the part of the landowners, which neces- 

 sitated recourse to the law courts and again 

 to Parliament.* The extension of the navi- 

 gation from Guildford to Godalming was 

 not commenced until 1760, when an act 

 was passed for the purpose.® The completion 

 of this last extension had important results in 

 opening up the trade of Godalming and the 

 country to the south and west. In 1767 

 proposals were discussed for the removal of 



the toll gate between Guildford and Godal- 

 ming on the Portsmouth Road, apparently 

 with a view to setting it up to the south of 

 the latter town, because it was argued that 

 the use of the road, since the extension of 

 the navigation to Godalming, had been 

 greatly increased by the considerable fall of 

 timber to the south and west of that town 

 by the carriage of hoops to the wharf, and 

 by traffic to and from the ironworks between 

 Milford and Hindhead, all which at that 

 time contributed nothing to the repair of the 

 road.* About the year 18 10 we are told 

 that much timber, planks, hoops, bark, flour, 

 paper, and manufactured iron of various 

 sorts were sent by the river from Godalming 

 to London.'' 



So much in brief for the general conditions 

 which governed the development of industries 

 in the south of Surrey from the time of the 

 Norman Conquest until the advent of rail- 

 ways. We must now travel back in time to 

 consider the somewhat different conditions 

 which prevailed in the no'rth of the county. 



Here the conditions of industrial develop- 

 ment, unlike those which we have been 

 considering in the south, came almost wholly 

 from outside. What special features the 

 district could have possessed in itself to 

 encourage the development of manufactures 

 can be recounted in a very few words. Its 

 geographical position on the bank of a great 

 navigable river was its principal economic 

 asset, but the advantages which thereby 

 accrued to it were subordinated to the 

 far-reaching influence of the powerful city 

 on the opposite bank. The numerous 

 little streams which flowed through the 

 district into the Thames, of which the 

 Wandle alone is of any size, could be readily 

 adapted to turn the wheels of the many mills 

 which actually existed from an early period. 

 In the extreme north-east these streams, 

 together with the oak woods which once 

 grew in abundance there, may early have 

 given rise to that leather industry of Ber- 

 mondsey which afterwards attained such vast 

 development. The oak woods may have 

 served too the ship-building industry of 

 Rotherhithe, perhaps also of some antiquity. 

 Here and there along the riverside fisheries 

 possibly constituted the staple industry, whilst 

 at other places, such as Lambeth, Battersea 

 and Wandsworth,* the osiers which grew 



' Exch. K. R. Mem. R. HIl. 25 Eliz. 104. 



2 Lansdowne MS. Ix. 35-9. 



3 Exch. K. R. Spec. Com., No. 5669. 



* See S.P. Dom. Chas. II. cclxvii. 1 14-7. 

 = Public Acts, 33 Geo. II. cap. 45. 



" The Proposal for removing the Godalming Turn- 

 pike Considered. Pamphlet, London, 1767. 



' Manning and Bray, Hist, of Surrey, i. 605. 



8 It is worthy of notice that in all these three 

 places until comparatively recent dates the osier 



247 



