INDUSTRIES 



the royal licence to carry on these works that 

 was the object of his petition. 



Of John Samyne we already know that 

 up to 1666 he was manufacturing gunpowder 

 at East Moulsey. As to Josias Dewy, 

 whether he still continued to work at any of 

 the Chilworth mills or, if not, to what local- 

 ity he had transferred his business, does not 

 appear. 



Colonel O'Neale died in 1664, and his 

 patent was surrendered to the Crown by his 

 widow. It was then that Charles II. decided 

 to suppress the office he had recreated, and to 

 commit the whole management of his gun- 

 powder business to the Ordnance Office. 

 This office was in consequence duly author- 

 ized on 17 November of the same year to 

 conclude the contracts for the supply and re- 

 pair of gunpowder.* 



According to the books of the office it 

 would appear that powder was supplied from 

 Vincent Randyll's mills in accordance with a 

 contract of 25 March 1671 up to October 

 1674. John Samyne appears also as one of 

 the most regular contractors to the govern- 

 ment up to about the same period.^ In the 

 pedigree however printed by Manning and 

 Bray, Vincent Randyll is stated to have died 

 on 28 December 1673,^ and this date very 

 nearly agrees with that given in an entry of 

 10 February 1675-6 in the Ordnance Bill 

 Book, when Morgan Randyll, the son and 

 heir of Vincent, was paid the sum of ;^5 1 5 

 for two years' rent of 'certain mills near 

 Guildford' from 18 December 1673, 'the 

 time when the said mills ceased to work.' It 

 is stated in the same entry that the mills had 

 been hired by the master and officers of the 

 Ordnance for eleven years from i February 

 1 67 1— 2, the date of the contract, at the 

 annual rent of ;^257 los.* 



Aubrey's Natural History and Antiquities 

 of the County of Surrey describes the county 

 as the writer actually saw it during a peram- 

 bulation commenced in 1673, and continued 

 during the following twenty years. His notes 

 therefore on industries existing during that 

 period are especially valuable. It is not 

 possible to be precise as to the year in which 

 he visited Chilworth, but the mills were then 

 still in the ownership of Morgan Randyll, 

 and the borough of Guildford still represented 

 in Parliament by him as one of its two mem- 

 bers. The number of powder mills 'in 

 this little romancy vale ' is given by Aubrey 



1 S. P. Dom. Chas. II. Entry Book 20, p. 36. 



* W. O. Ordnance, Stores Issued, vol. xlvi. 

 passim, and Ordnance Bill Books of date. 



^ Hist, of Surrey, ii. 118. 



* W. O. Ordnance, Bill Book II. xviii. fo. 170. 



in one place as sixteen, in another as eighteen, 

 of which he says five were blown up in a 

 little more than half a year's time. ' 'Tis a 

 little commonwealth of powder makers who 

 are as black as negroes. . . . Here is a 

 nursery of earth for the making of saltpetre : 

 there is also here a boiling-house where the 

 saltpetre is made and shoots ; a corning house, 

 and separating and finishing houses, all very 

 well worth the seeing of the ingenious. I 

 had almost forgot the brimstone mill and the 

 engine to search it.' " At Albury the same 

 writer notes that there were also some gun- 

 powder mills, and that the charcoal which 

 blacked the gunpowder was made of the 

 alders that grew there, although Mr. Evelyn 

 had informed him that the strongest powder 

 was made of dog-wood coals.® Aubrey's as- 

 sertion that the powder mills at Chilworth 

 were the first in England is not corroborated 

 by what has been previously related here. 

 Nor has it been possible to identify the 

 Evelyns as the owners of the many powder 

 mills near Wotton House which John Evelyn, 

 in the letter prefixed to Aubrey's work states 

 were erected by his ancestors ' who were the 

 very first who brought that invention into 

 England.' Evelyn remarks that a huge beam 

 of 15 or 16 inches in diameter had been 

 broken up in his brother's house upon the 

 blowing up of one of these mills, but that 

 no other mischief had been done. On the 

 other hand a mill standing below Shere had 

 shot a piece of timber through a cottage 

 which had taken off a poor woman's head as 

 she was spinning. 



Aubrey adds of the Chilworth mills that 

 the place was so proper for such dangerous 

 and useful undertakings that they had 

 been farmed out to several hands. One of 

 the lessees was Sir Polycarpus Wharton, 

 Bart., whose 'hard case' evidently set out 

 not earlier than the year 17 10 (Aubrey's 

 work was not published until 1 7 1 9) Aubrey 

 was induced to add in his account of these 

 mills at the request of a gentleman who had 

 communicated it. The recital occupies some 

 eight or nine of the small pages of the book,'' 

 and although an ex parte statement, written 

 perhaps by the gentleman most deeply 

 interested, professes to be based on the books 

 and accounts of the Ordnance Office. There 

 is no need to doubt the truth of the state- 

 ments made, and those facts of the case which 

 enable us to form some idea of the extent of 

 the works between the years 1677 and 1698, 



6 Aubrey, iv. 56, 57. 

 « Ibid. iv. 81. 



7 Ibid. iv. 57-65. 



325 



