INDUSTRIES 



any one from going out of the city for the 

 purpose of buying corn, cattle, or any other 

 merchandize, with the single exception of 

 timber in Southwark.* But Southwark's 

 position at the foot of London Bridge, the 

 only approach from the south to the city, 

 must have made the development of its trade 

 inevitable. A continual stream of travellers 

 from the south and the continent must have 

 been ever passing through it, and this called 

 for the existence of numerous inns and houses 

 of entertainment which made the place 

 famous at an early date. At that time when 

 all the ale that was drunk was such that 

 it could only be brewed for home or merely 

 local consumption, the number of these 

 inns meant a large brewing industry in 

 the neighbourhood. Southwark must have 

 held out many inducements as a place of 

 temporary residence to those foreigners who 

 came to London for the purposes of trade. 

 Here they might hope to enjoy a little respite 

 from the irritation which the jealous trade 

 theories of the period provoked against them 

 within the walls of the city. Their presence 

 in the Borough no doubt resulted in the 

 advent there of the Flemish innkeepers, whose 

 large numbers are the subject of complaint 

 by the Commons in 1437,^ and we need feel 

 no surprise at meeting in the same place in 

 1440, with perhaps our earliest notice of the 

 existence of foreign brewers in this country, 

 the brewers that is to say of the hopped beer 

 of the continent as opposed to the unhopped 

 ale of native production.^ Thus in South- 

 wark at this early date a change had already 

 set in which was ultimately to result in the 

 most important revolution which the con- 

 ditions of the brewing industry have under- 

 gone amongst us. 



The congregation of so many foreigners in 

 Southwark and of others who came up from 

 the country districts probably enough invited 

 furtive trading there, where the jealous eyes 

 of the city authorities could be less vigilant. 

 At any rate the right of the inhabitants to 

 their important leather market had become a 

 fixed conviction in their minds by the reign 

 of Henry VIIL, and the attempts of the 

 officers of the Lord Mayor to exercise their 

 rights of search and control were, as we shall 

 see, bitterly resented. Whether it was this 

 market that called into being the great leather 

 industry of Southwark and Bermondsey, or 

 whether it was the other way about, it is 



1 Munimenta Gildhdlae Londoniensis (ed. Riley, 

 Rolls Series), i. pp. lii. 273. 



2 Rot. Pari. iv. sua. 



' Lay Subsidy Rolls, clxxxiv. No. 212. 



perhaps now impossible to decide. But it 

 is certain from the nature of the occupations 

 in which many of the aliens resident in 

 Southwark in 1440 were engaged that the 

 manufacture had already assumed consider- 

 able proportions thereabouts. 



It must not be supposed that the Londoners, 

 while they were naturally jealous of main- 

 taining their control over the sale of all com- 

 modities within a certain area round their 

 city, necessarily sought also to check the 

 manufacture of these commodities in districts 

 lying outside their walls. On the con- 

 trary, there were amongst the commodities 

 which had to be produced within an 

 easy distance of the city, many which 

 could only be manufactured under con- 

 ditions offensive or dangerous to those dwell- 

 ing in houses closely packed together. 

 This fact alone will account in a great 

 measure for the origin of several of the 

 industries which grew up in Surrey suburbs 

 and even in more remote parts of the 

 county. The river Thames was con- 

 veniently wide to secure immunity for the 

 Londoners from any of the dangerous or 

 offensive conditions which attended certain 

 manufactures, while it did not prevent the 

 easy access to their markets of the goods so 

 produced. 



This disposition to make of Southwark a 

 convenience for the more disagreeable opera- 

 tions which were essential to the life of the 

 city was little doubt a main factor in the 

 settlement of the leather industry on the 

 Surrey side. Tanning itself was none too 

 savoury an occupation to be continually in 

 the nostrils of the citizens. But the pre- 

 liminary operations involved consequences 

 which were even more unpleasant, and the 

 proclamation of 1392-3, which ordained that 

 the butchers of London should have a con- 

 venient place in Southwark for their offal 

 and garbage in order to save the city from 

 such an annoyance, must have confined the 

 London slaughter-houses pretty much to the 

 Borough.* Pelterers or skinners are early 

 mentioned in special connection with South- 

 wark in the muniments of the Guildhall, and 

 from the skinner to the tanner was but a step. 

 The same regard for their own comfort 

 doubtless induced the Londoners at a later date 

 to prefer the opposite side of the river for the 

 seat of those manufactures which depended 

 upon a large consumption of sea-coal, when 

 the employment in various industries of that 

 particular form of fuel was enjoined by the 

 Crown. The first experiments with such 



* Sun. Arch. Coll. xvi. 59. 



249 



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