A HISTORY OF SURREY 



sealing-wax was begun, a branch of the busi- 

 ness which has since attained considerable 

 development. The premises in Verney Road 

 cover an acre of land, and additional buildings 

 are in course of erection. About 200 per- 

 sons are employed in the works, and the firm 

 has branches in Birmingham, Manchester, 

 Liverpool, Glasgow, Dublin and Bombay, be- 

 sides representatives in South Africa, Australia 

 and Canada. The inks are still sold under 

 the name of Walkden, the original inventor, 

 and his principle is still adopted in the manu- 

 facture, though with such modifications and 

 improvements as have been suggested by 

 many years of study and experiments.' 



Another industry, which on account of 

 the pre-eminent position enjoyed by one of 

 the Surrey firms engaged in it cannot be 

 omitted from a present day survey of the 

 manufactures of the county, is that of fire- 

 works. The firm of C. T. Brock & Co. can 

 date their records back to 1725, when they 

 were established in the east of London. Sub- 

 sequently they removed to Nunhead, and in 

 1875, in consequence of their displays at the 

 Crystal Palace, which they had initiated in 

 1864, set up their works at South Norwood. 

 In 1902 these were again removed to Sutton 

 in Surrey, where a site of some 200 acres 

 was secured in order to obtain perfect safety 

 and isolation for the multitude of small sheds 

 and workshops which are required by the 

 company to carry on its present extensive 

 business. The business is now under the 



management or Mr. Arthur Brock, a hncai 

 descendant of the original founder of the 

 firm. The number of persons employed at 

 the Sutton works varies from 250 during the 

 slack season to 400 in an ordinarily busy sea- 

 son. As bearing upon another Surrey industry 

 with which we shall have to deal at some 

 length it is interesting to learn that for over 

 one hundred years without intermission the 

 firm has bought its gunpowder from the 

 Chilwt)rth mills.* Another Surrey firm of 

 firework makers of some importance is that 

 of Messrs. Pain, who have extensive works at 

 Mitcham, and fireworks are also made on the 

 Osiers at Wandsworth, where is the only 

 licensed factory in England of amorces, or 

 the little detonating caps for toy pistols.' 



The list of small industries carried on in 

 the metropolitan districts of Surrey might be 

 continued almost indefinitely, so great is 

 their present variety and number. The 

 tendency still appears to be for the manufac- 

 turing area to be extended outwards from the 

 capital, and even as we write fresh sites are 

 being acquired for the erection of factories 

 where none existed before. Doubtless there 

 are several modern manufactures of no little 

 importance, and perhaps a few that are now 

 of the past, which we have been obliged 

 to omit altogether. But we must confine 

 ourselves to those industries whose develop- 

 ment has been of more historic interest, and 

 which may be said more particularly to have 

 contributed to the staple trade of the county. 



' Ei inf. Messrs. Cooper, Dennison & Walkden, 

 Ltd, 



> Ex inf. Messrs. C. T. Brock & Co. 

 ' Davis, Industries of Wandsworth, 3. 



NOTE 



An instance of bleaching in Surrey of a date very much earlier than that given above may be noted- 

 From a Chancery bill it appears that at a date which is almost certainly 25 March 1492, and 

 in any case cannot be later than 15 16, one William Here, a citizen and glover of London, had a lease 

 of a tenement called Stonewall, in St. Mary Magdalen's, Bermondsey, where he used 'the occupation 

 and craft of bleaching or whiting of linen cloth, having of divers and many folks great substance of 

 cloth to white and bleach' (Early Chanc. Proc. cxiii. 59, 60). The remarks made in the text as to 

 the probability of a foreign origin for this industry in Surrey must be modified in accordance with this 

 discovery. 



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