A HISTORY OF SURREY 



Shere, Ockley, Effuigham and Wotton.* It 

 is shortly after this that we have the beginning 

 of that legislative interference with the trade ^ 

 which, whatever harm it may have done in 

 thwarting its rapid growth, supplies us to- 

 day with the chief materials for our know- 

 ledge of its extent. 



A few years later the fears that no doubt 

 in part actuated this policy can be understood 

 from a petition of the inhabitants of Kingston- 

 upon-Thames. On 5 February 1562 they 

 complained that whereas they could formerly 

 buy firewood at 2s. 8d. or 31. and cliarcoal 

 at lOs. a load, brought from Dorking and 

 thereabouts, they were now compelled to pay 

 4i. or 41. 4.d. for the former and 20s. for the 

 latter. This state of things they attributed to 

 the iron-mills set up in the county, and they 

 apprehended that unless speedy remedy be had 

 they were like to have neither wood nor coals.' 

 This rise in the price of fuel must have ap- 

 pealed equally to the inhabitants of London, 

 who looked to the forests of Surrey for 

 their supplies, and to the Crown, with its 

 palaces in London, Windsor and Nonsuch. 

 Moreover the timber was in great demand 

 for shipbuilding. 



From the complaint of the people of Kings- 

 ton we may infer that the iron industry of 

 Surrey, if not actually at that time in its in- 

 fancy, was only then beginning to assume 

 such proportions as to give rise to these fears 

 of the possible exhaustion of the supply or 

 timber grown in the county. That the 

 working of the metal in Surrey should be of 

 considerably later development than in Sussex 

 or Kent is not difficult to understand. Except 

 in one small corner, the south-eastern, where 

 the ferruginous sandstone of the Hastings 

 beds extended beyond the district of Worth 

 in Sussex to Lingfield, the iron ore to be 

 found in the county was only to be extracted 



> Feet of F. Surr. Trin. 3 and 4 Phil, and 

 Mary. 



' The Act of I Elizabeth, c. 15, which is en- 

 titled ' An Acte that tymber shall not bee felled 

 to make coles for the making of iron,' enacted 

 that no person should thereafter convert to coal 

 or other fUel for the making of iron any timber 

 tree of oak, beech or ash of the breadth of one 

 foot square at the stub and growing within four- 

 teen miles of the sea or of any part of the rivers 

 of Thames, Severn, Wye, Humber, Dee, Tyne, 

 Tees, Trent, etc., under a penalty of 40/. for 

 every tree or part of a tree so converted. But 



by processes which mark a considerable ad- 

 vance in the science. But the chief difficulty 

 was one of transport. The badness of the 

 roads in the Weald is the subject of frequent 

 complaint, and was a very real obstacle to the 

 development of any industry in the southern 

 parts of Surrey. From Sussex the iron could 

 be carried by water-way to the sea and thence 

 to London. In Surrey however it is probable 

 that it was only the rapidly increasing de- 

 mand for iron ordnance at this period that 

 could at length make the working of its iron 

 at all profitable. 



That the iron ordnance turned out from 

 the Wealden works was considered excellent 

 we can judge from this increasing demand 

 for it not only at home but abroad. This 

 latter gave the Government another pretext 

 to interfere with the industry. At a later 

 period the Spanish ambassador, Gondomar, en- 

 deavoured to obtain permission from James I. 

 for a relaxation of the stringent regulations 

 against its export in fevour of his country.* 

 But so early as January 1573—4 we find 

 Ralph Hogge, ' the Queen's gunstone maker 

 and gun founder of iron,' complaining of the 

 infringement of his patent to export iron 

 ordnance." A note is appended to his petition 

 of all the furnaces which daily cast guns and 

 iron shot. From this it appears that besides 

 Hogge two other founders had long cast, but 

 only for the Tower, whilst four other founders, 

 including Sir Thomas Gresham, are mentioned 

 who had only begun to cast within the last 

 five or six years. Two of these latter were 

 alleged to sell more ordnance to go along the 

 coast than they sent to London. The yearly 

 output of all these furnaces was estimated at 

 above 400 tons.* 



It is not stated where these furnaces were 

 situated, but we may presume that they were 

 all in Sussex. We may presume also that it 

 was in consequence of this complaint that 

 the Government was led to make a stricter 

 scrutiny into the conduct of these works than 

 it had hitherto done, for in the following 

 month (February 1573-4) we have the very 

 important declaration of Christopher Barker, 

 which sets out for the information of the 

 Privy Council all the iron-mills and furnaces 

 that then existed in the counties of Sussex, 

 Surrey and Kent.'' The great spoil and 

 ' consummation ' of oaken timber and other 

 woods within these counties are here still put 



interference with these ironworks. But the 



there were excepted from this Act the county of foi'ward as the primary grounds for legislative 

 Sussex, the Weald of Kent, and the parishes of —^—'^ •' ' ' . „ . 



Charlwood, Newdigate and Leigh in the Weald 

 of Surrey. 



3 Loseley MSS. {Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. vii. App. 

 616). 



264 



♦ Fuller's Worthies (ed. 1840), Suss. iii. 241. 

 « S. P. Dom. Eliz. xcv. 16. 



• Ibid. 15. ' Ibid. 20. 



