A HISTORY OF SURREY 



successor. This industry, however, belongs 

 to a special category. So far as this country 

 was concerned it was of purely exotic growth 

 and was carried on by foreign craftsmen 

 working out the ideas of foreign designers. 

 The practical support of the wealthiest was 

 essential to its existence, and the withdrawal 

 of this during the period of civil war and re- 

 publican government injured it too severely 

 for the somewhat half-hearted attempts to 

 revive it made by the Crown after the Res- 

 toration to have any real effect. Of more 

 permanent value must have been the several 

 metal works which are stated to have been 

 set up in Surrey by aliens during the century. 

 The brass wire mills started atEsherin 1649 

 by Dutchmen are declared, though on doubtful 

 authority, to have been the first of their kind 

 in England. A similar claim is made for 

 the flatting mill, the venture of another 

 Dutchman, at Sheen in 1663. Belonging to 

 the same class of industries is the manufacture 

 at Wandsworth of brass frying pans and the 

 like out of hammered plates, an art whose 

 secret was being religiously guarded in the 

 latter half of the century by the Dutch 

 operatives. 



The seventeenth century is an important 

 period in the history of Wandsworth, whose 

 development during it into a busy little manu- 

 facturing town may be traced from the 

 Huguenot settlement there about the year 

 1573.* There were at least some alien beer- 

 brewers in the town before the close of the 

 sixteenth century. But Wandsworth was 

 to be chiefly famous at a later date for its 

 manufacture of hats by Protestant refugees 

 from Caudebec who fled from France after 

 the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. For 

 years the special secret of these hat-makers 

 was lost to France, and during that period it 

 has been said that even the Roman cardinals 

 were forced to have recourse to the Hugue- 

 nots of Wandsworth for their hats. 



But the industries which gained the most 

 extensive hold over Wandsworth and the 

 whole course of the Wandle were those of 

 bleaching and calico-printing. The origin of 

 both of these in this country is indisputably to 

 be attributed to the examples set by foreign 

 immigrants. We have already noted the 

 appearance of a whitster in Southwark in the 

 sixteenth century, the first apparently of a 

 long line in Surrey, if not in the whole king- 

 dom. He is followed early in the following 

 century by another Dutchman at Mitcham, 

 and from this time onward there is continued 



evidence of the existence of the industry at 

 various places alongside the Wandle. The 

 flat meadow lands on the river's banks formed 

 convenient bleaching grounds. The first 

 introduction of calico-printing is of much 

 later date, the earliest known instance in 

 England occurring about the year 1690 at or 

 near Richmond, where a Frenchman is said 

 to have originated the industry. Shortly 

 afterwards calico-printers begin to appear at 

 Mitcham, and during the eighteenth cen- 

 tury here and at Merton especially, but also 

 along the whole course of the Wandle from 

 Croydon to Wandsworth, calico-printers and 

 bleachers became well nigh innumerable, and 

 for close upon a hundred years made this dis- 

 trict one of the principal centres of the two 

 industries in England. The Wandle retained 

 its eminent position in the trade until a date 

 sometime in the early part of the nineteenth 

 century, but by the middle of that century, 

 for reasons which will be better considered in 

 the special account devoted to them, these 

 industries had become almost extinct in 

 Surrey. 



The part that the little river Wandle has 

 played in the promotion of industries in the 

 district through which it flows must not be 

 ignored. Unnavigable like the two other and 

 larger tributaries of the Thames, the Wey 

 and Mole which drain the interior of the 

 county, its fall has been utilized since an early 

 period to drive the wheels of many mills. In 

 1609 when a scheme was on foot to take a 

 tenth part of the water which flowed between 

 Croydon and Waddon mill, and to convey it 

 by canals and underground pipes into the 

 City of London for the benefit of Chelsea 

 College, a loud protest was raised against the 

 proposal, not only by those most affected in 

 Surrey but by other inhabitants of the county, 

 as well as those of Brentford and other places 

 in Middlesex. Inquiry was made into the 

 matter and it was found that in the seven 

 miles of the river's length, no less than twenty- 

 four corn mills were at work, all of which 

 were very serviceable for the King's household, 

 for the City of London, and the counties of 

 Surrey and Middlesex, and that these mills 

 already suffered much from scarcity of water.' 

 The protest was effectual and the scheme was 

 abandoned for one whereby the water was to 

 be brought into the city from Hackney 

 Marsh.* The development of the bleaching 

 and calico-printing industries, as well as of a 

 large variety of manufactures along its banks 

 during the eighteenth century, had made the 



1 Weiss, Hi^y of the French Protestant Re- 2 Chan. Misc. Rolls, bdle. 13, file 6. No. I?. 



fugees (trans. Hardman), 217. 3 Stat. 7 & 8 Jas. L cap. 9. 



254 



