INDUSTRIES 



marked on the map prefixed to Aubrey's 

 Surrey. But in 1704 it appears that the last 

 of these three was converted into a paper 

 mill.i 



Morgan Randyll, who was elected as one 

 of the representatives of Guildford to various 

 parliaments between the years 1680 and 

 1 71 5, is said to have become so much in 

 debt by the contests on these occasions that 

 in 1720 he sold his estate to Richard Houl- 

 ditch, esquire, a woollen draper. The estate 

 is described as the manor of Chilworth with 

 the appurtenances, amongst which two mills 

 only, called Chilworth Mills in St. Martha, 

 are mentioned. Mr. Houlditch was also a 

 director of the South Sea Company, and on 

 the bursting of the famous bubble the estate 

 he had thus acquired was seized and sold 

 towards indemnifying the victims. Sarah, 

 Duchess of Marlborough, purchased Chil- 

 worth from the trustees and devised it by 

 will to trustees for her grandson, John 

 Spencer, the ancestor of the Earls Spencer. 

 George John, second Earl Spencer, having 

 succeeded to the titles and estate in 1783, 

 sold Chilworth in 1796 to Edmund Hill, 

 esquire, the owner of considerable powder 

 mills near Hounslow." 



From the pages of Manning and Bray 

 we find that during the first decade of the 

 nineteenth century the long-established and 

 once important Surrey industry of gunpowder 

 making still existed in the county to no in- 

 considerable extent. The principal stream 

 of the Wey then supplied a great number 

 of corn, paper and gunpowder mills.^ On 

 the Tillingbourn stream, which drove the 

 Chilworth mills, there were four powder 

 works, which had been originally, it is said, 

 higher up the stream near to Albury. Until 

 recent years these mills had been worked by 

 pestles instead of stones.* The little Hogs- 

 mill stream, the scene of the Evelyns' first 

 venture in the art, especially abounded in 

 gunpowder mills. There were four wheels 

 in the parish of Ewell, each wheel working 

 two mills. In Long Ditton there were two 

 wheels, each similarly driving two mills. 

 Thus in all there must have been no less 

 than twelve mills, devoted to the manufacture 

 of gunpowder, on this tiny stream.^ The 

 mills at Long Ditton were then commonly 

 known as Maiden Mills, and were owned by 

 Mr. William Taylor, whose business is 

 described as extensive,* 



1 See the evidence in the trial of Rex v. 

 Tinkler and Mountford in 1 8 1 7 noticed below. 



2 Manning and Bray, Hist, of Surrey, ii. 118. 



3 Ibid. i. p. ii. * Ibid. ii. 117. 

 8 Ibid. i. pp. iv. 475. « Ibid. iii. 12. 



Since that time gunpowder making has 

 ceased to be one of the common industries of 

 the county. So much was this the case in 

 1850 that the very full account of industries 

 then carried on in Surrey, printed in Brayley 

 and Britton's History of Surrey, makes no 

 mention of gunpowder. But the industry 

 has never ceased to be carried on at Chilworth, 

 and at the present day the Chilworth Gun- 

 powder Company, Limited, worthily enough, 

 though alone in the county, enable us to 

 reckon the manufacture of gunpowder as a 

 still existing Surrey industry. Of this com- 

 pany and of its predecessors during the last 

 century in the ownership of the Chilworth 

 mills it now remains to speak. 



In the year 1817 these mills were owned 

 and worked by Mr. William Tinkler and 

 Mr. Richard Mountford. In that year these 

 gentlemen were indicted for erecting and 

 maintaining certain powder mills called a 

 corning-house, a dusting-house, a gloom- 

 stove, etc., in the parish of St. Martha at 

 Chilworth. The case was tried before Mr. 

 Justice Dallas and a special jury at the King- 

 ston Lent Assizes, and the full report of the 

 proceedings, taken in shorthand, was after- 

 wards printed in book form and may be read 

 by the curious.^ The evidence gives much 

 useful information as to the processes then 

 employed in powder making, and also as to 

 the then importance of the Chilworth mills. 

 The defendants were stated to have been the 

 owners of these mills for twenty-eight years, 

 a statement which requires to be reconciled 

 with that, already noticed, of Manning and 

 Bray, that in 1796 Chilworth was purchased 

 by Edmund Hill the Hounslow powder maker. 

 The chief instigator of the prosecution was 

 Mr. Rowland, the owner of the paper mills 

 which had previously been the Lower powder 

 works. The jury on hearing the evidence of 

 the first-called and most important witness 

 for the defence, Major By, R.E., the super- 

 intendent of all the king's powder works, and 

 how all his previous recommendations for the 

 safety of the Chilworth mills had been carried 

 out to the letter, until in his opinion these 

 mills were the safest in the kingdom, at once 

 found a verdict of ' not guilty'. The prosecu- 

 tion was stigmatized by the judge as the most 

 malicious he ever remembered brought into a 

 court of justice. 



On 4 March 1819 Mr. Tinkler leased the 



' Chilworth Powder Mills : Trial on an Indictment 

 charging them as a nuisance : by which they were proved 

 to be not only no nuisance but as safe as any, if not the 

 safest, powder mills in the kingdom. Taken in short- 

 hand by Thomas Jenkin, 2 April 1817 ; London, 

 1817. 



327 



