INDUSTRIES 



lost him his store and above 2,000 cwt. 

 of powder. In February 1639-40 he found 

 himself obliged to petition the Council that 

 the imprest of ;^2,ooo to him for the erec- 

 tion of his works might be released to him, 

 and offered in lieu of the same to disclaim all 

 his interest in the buildings used by him in his 

 industry.* It was on his recommendation 

 that the surveyor-general was ordered to view 

 all the Chilworth mills and works, and to 

 certify their value, with a view on the expira- 

 tion of the lease to their purchase for the king's 

 use.* 



But whatever steps might have been taken 

 to this end had matters political continued to 

 follow the same course throughout the reign 

 of Charles I., the whole conditions of the 

 gunpowder industry were destined to be 

 changed shortly after the assembling of the 

 Long Parliament. The first note of the im- 

 pending change comes to us in Cordwell's 

 despairing petition to the king of 3 1 March 

 1641.^ He alludes to a petition to the 

 House of Commons that every man that will 

 might make gunpowder. In consequence he 

 dared not make his provisions, as about that 

 time of the year he was wont to do. For if 

 he should make them, and the manufacture of 

 gunpowder continued not in the king's hands, 

 he would be ruined with the great stock he 

 had already in hand and that he must further 

 provide. His petition was referred to the 

 Privy Coxmcil, but by 10 August 1641 the 

 king had already set his hand to the Bill ' for 

 putting down the restraint of making gun- 

 powder.'* This was the Act 16 Charles I. 

 c. 21, 'for the free bringing in of gunpowder 

 and saltpetre from foreign parts and for the 

 free making of gunpowder in this realm.' 



Thus at one blow fell the monopoly of the 

 gimpowder industry of the kingdom, which 

 had for many years been held by a succession 

 of Surrey makers. It is not perhaps a difficult 

 matter to decide why Surrey should have been 

 chosen as the home of the industry. Its con- 

 tiguity to the capital, where were the Ordnance 

 stores of the Crown, with the River Thames 

 intervening to relieve the inhabitants of the 

 city and of its more thickly-populated suburbs 

 from any fear of danger to their lives through 

 imtoward accidents in the manufacture, would 

 readily suggest its convenience for the purpose. 

 Moreover about the streams on which the 

 successive mills were erected there was no 

 lack of wood from which the best charcoal 



could be made. Aubrey notes at a later date 

 the alders at Albury from which the charcoal 

 that blacked the gunpowder then made there 

 was derived. 



But although the history of the gunpowder 

 industry of Surrey now ceases to be that of 

 the whole of England, the Surrey makers were 

 not at once to lose their predominance. The 

 experience which they alone had been free to 

 win was likely to serve them in good stead in 

 the troublous times which were to come. 

 Cordwell, good servant as he had been to the 

 government of Charles I., was not slow to 

 enlist in the service of the Parliamentary party 

 when the outbreak of the Civil War found 

 that party in possession of the district imme- 

 diately surrounding the capital. At least it 

 may be urged on his behalf that he found his 

 new employer a better paymaster than the old. 

 The possession of the Chilworth mills was a 

 point of strategic importance not likely to be 

 overlooked by the party which enjoyed it. At 

 the same time Chilworth was far enough off 

 from London to be difficult of defence in the 

 case of any sudden attack by the Royalists, 

 and to prevent the possibility of any large 

 stores of ammunition falling into their hands 

 it was ordered by the Committee of Both 

 Kingdoms on 18 March 1643-4 that all gun- 

 powder should be sent up by Cordwell to the 

 Tower as soon as made, and that not above 

 7 tons of saltpetre should at any time be 

 kept at the mills.^ On 3 April following 

 Robert Wallop was directed by the same com- 

 mittee to speak with the gentlemen of Surrey 

 for securing the gunpowder mills near Guild- 

 ford, and that a certificate should be returned 

 of their condition and of what should be 

 done for their security,^ On 1 1 April we 

 have a reference to a contract made by the 

 Committee of Safety with Samuel Cordwell.'' 

 On 7 January 1644-5 Cordwell was again 

 directed to send up from time to time such 

 powder as he should make, and never to keep 

 at the mills more saltpetre than was wanted 

 for a week's work.« On 13 April 1646 we 

 hear that the Committee of Both Kingdoms 

 had appointed two-thirds of all the saltpetre 

 made by the saltpetre men of certain counties 

 to be delivered to Cordwell, the remaining 

 third to Beresford, another powder maker." 

 In 1648 Samuel Cordwell was dead, and to 

 his brother Robert, who succeeded him in the 

 business, was allotted the same proportion." 

 On 22 September of the next year we find 



1 S. P. Dom. Chas. I. ccccxliv. 23. 



s Ibid, ccxcii. 115. 



s Ibid, cccclxxviii. 81. 



* Ibid, cccclxxxiii. 34. 



« Ibid. Interr. E. 7, p. 22. 



6 Ibid. pp. 36-7. ' Ibid. pp. 43-4. 



8 Ibid. Interr. E. 8, pp. 60-2 ; E. 19, p. 178. 



• Ibid. E. 23, p. 67. '" Ibid. E. 9, pp. 39-4'- 

 321 41 



