INDUSTRIES 



This verse is lost, his Pill embalms him safe 

 To future times without an epitaph. 



Nevertheless Manning and Bray ' tell us that 

 the pills were still in use in their day and had 

 been recorded in the Act of Parliament 

 laying a duty on quack medicines. 



The same writers notice the existence in 

 Rotherhithe at the beginning of the last cen- 

 tury of a considerable copperas work, which 

 was said to be the oldest in the kingdom.^ 

 The first house and furnace, however, for the 

 preparation of copperas or sulphate of iron 

 would seem to have been erected at Whit- 

 stable in Kent in the reign of Elizabeth by 

 Cornelius Stephenson.' Regulations for the 

 working of copperas were made by Act of 

 Parliament in 1565-6.* 



The manufactures that have been carried 

 on in the metropolitan district of the county or 

 are still in existence at the present day, and that 

 maybe conveniently classed under the general 

 heading of chemical works, are too numerous 

 for us to note here any but a few of the more 

 important. To the soap and candle making 

 industries, which have undergone a complete 

 revolution in consequence of the discoveries 

 made in chemical science during the last cen- 

 tury, we shall devote a special section. Starch 

 and size have been made in several localities, 

 notably in Southwark, Lambeth and Batter- 

 sea. The whiting works in the latter place, 

 close to Nine Elms, are said to have been 

 established in i666.^ In Battersea also are 

 the kyanizing works for the preservation of 

 timber from dry rot.' The process, which 

 consists in saturating the timber with a solu- 

 tion of corrosive sublimate in compressed 

 tanks, receives its name from its inventor, 

 John Howard Kyan, who took out a patent 

 for it in 1832.'' 



About Mitcham, where in the middle of 

 the last century industrial activity appeared to 

 have been stayed in consequence of the decay 

 of the bleaching and calico-printing indus- 

 tries in that quarter,* there are now several 

 important manufactures of chemicals. But 

 the industry which has more particularly 

 taken the place of the old staple one in that 

 neighbourhood is the manufacture of varnish, 

 in which there are twenty or more firms en- 

 gaged in Mitcham and Merton, the majority of 



1 Hist, of Surrey, iii. 573. 



2 Ibid. i. 228. 



3 Exch. Dep. by Com. East., 42 Eliz. No. 14. 



* Stat. 8 Eliz. cap. 21. 



^ E. Hammond, Bygone Battersea, 23. 



• Ibid. 25. 



' Pat. of Invention, No. 5309. 



8 Brayley and Britten, Hist, of Surrey, v. App 6. 



them being of some considerable extent. Mit- 

 cham has long enjoyed some reputation for its 

 manufacture of snufF and tobacco, and the 

 industry there is still represented by Messrs. 

 J. Rutter and Co., of the Ravensbury Mills. 



The well-known manufactory of Messrs. 

 Day and Martin in Southwark has already 

 been noticed in this account. The business 

 was established about 150 years ago by Mr. 

 Day and Mr. Martin, and carried on at first 

 in Tavistock Street, and afterwards in High 

 Holborn, until its removal to the present ex- 

 tensive premises in the Borough Road in 1889. 

 In 1899 the business was converted into a 

 limited liability company with a capital of 

 j^ 1 5 2,000. In addition to its manufacture 

 of blacking and boot polishes and leather pre- 

 servatives, dressings and dyes, the company 

 makes inks, furniture polish, knife powder, 

 metal and stove polishes, dubbin, blue, soap 

 powders and various other sundries, and em- 

 ploys on an average 300 hands.' 



Another firm of still older foundation, but 

 also of comparatively recent immigration into 

 Surrey, which combines the manufacture of 

 ink with a variety of other articles, is that 

 of Messrs. Cooper, Dennison & Walkden, 

 Limited. In the manufacture of writing inks 

 this firm claims to be the oldest in the king- 

 dom, and to have been founded in 1735 

 by Mr. Walkden, whose original factory was 

 on old London Bridge, near St. Magnus' 

 Church. The business was afterwards trans- 

 ferred to Shoe Lane, Fleet Street, where it 

 was carried on for about a hundred years, and 

 came into the possession of the Cooper family 

 in the early part of the nineteenth century. 

 In 1 89 1 it was converted into the present 

 private limited company. Very early in the 

 history of the business the manufacture of 

 quill pens and parchment was added to that 

 of ink making, and these formed the prin- 

 cipal branches of the business until 1877, 

 when an agency for tags and labels of all 

 kinds was begun for an American firm. 

 Owing to the development of this business 

 machinery was imported from America and 

 set up in the Verney Road, Bermondsey, and 

 the manufacture was begun instead of con- 

 tinuing to import from the United States. 

 This has created a new industry in this 

 country, which, although it may appear of 

 little importance, is really of considerable 

 magnitude, and has completely revolutionized 

 the trade for this class of goods. Owing to 

 experiments conducted by the chemist of the 

 firm a new marking ink for linen was brought 

 out in 1878, and in 1885 the manufacture of 



9 Ex inf. Messrs. Day & Martin, Ltd. 



261 



