INDUSTRIES 



But in 1892 experiments with smokeless 

 powder gave way before the introduction of 

 ballistite or cordite, the manufacture of which 

 was first started in this country in the Royal 

 Gunpowder Factory at Waltham Abbey. The 



Chilworth Gunpowder Company was however 

 the first private factory in Great Britain to take 

 up the manufacture, and this new undertaking 

 of the company has again necessitated very 

 great changes in the Chilworth works. 



LEATHER 



The history of the leather industry of Surrey 

 in all its branches is of the first importance. 

 The pre-eminence which Bermondsey and 

 with it Southwark have for centuries past 

 enjoyed as a chief seat of the manufacture in 

 the kingdom would alone make it so. But 

 in addition there is a long-established and still 

 considerable branch of the industry in the 

 south-western district about Godalming and 

 Guildford, and other parts of the county have 

 been in the past or still are associated with the 

 leather trade. 



The infinite variety of the uses which the 

 conversion of the skins and hides of animals, 

 whether into leather, fiir or parchment, can be 

 made to serve must have made the industry a 

 first necessity from the earliest times. We 

 may safely conclude that there never was a 

 time, at any rate within the period with which 

 we are here concerned, when tanning and the 

 other occupations into which the manufacture 

 of leather has become subdivided, were not 

 carried on in Surrey. It may be taken for 

 granted, says Mr. Thorold Rogers, that the 

 tanning or tawing of leather was a bye pro- 

 duct in most villages.* But the very com- 

 monness of the manufacture accounts for the 

 obscurity in which its early history is enveloped, 

 and prohibits us from tracing with any certainty 

 its gradual development from an almost do- 

 mestic into a highly organized and centralized 

 industry. 



This change in the conditions of the industry, 

 a natural one and inevitable as it must have 

 been, was no doubt accelerated by the policy 

 of a legislature singularly jealous of the right 

 of the people to be assured that the first neces- 

 saries of life were being supplied to them 

 unadulterated and of perfect workmanship. 

 The better to secure perfection in each one of 

 them, recourse was first had to the expedient 

 of dividing the processes necessary for the 

 manufacture of the finished article and pro- 

 hibiting artisans to engage in more than one 

 of them. As early as 135 1 the Statute ot 

 Labourers laid down that no shoemaker should 

 be a tanner, or any tanner a shoemaker.* This 

 policy became more clearly defined on the 



accession of the Tudors, and in 1485 and 

 ^503-4 we have Acts which sharply divide 

 the operations of tanners, curriers, and cord- 

 wainers.' Legislation dealing with deceitful 

 processes, which had been resorted to in order 

 to hasten what is necessarily one of the slowest 

 and most tedious of operations, next follows,* 

 and finally we have the whole manufacture of 

 leather and leathern goods, from the first 

 moment when the hide is in the butcher's 

 hands until it reaches the consumer in its last 

 state, elaborately regulated in the Act of 

 1562-3.° To carry out these regulations 

 the appointment of official searchers and 

 sealers was necessary, a duty which fell to the 

 mayors or other head officers of cities and 

 towns, and thus, as also happened in the 

 cloth trade, the further development of the 

 industry in the villages was checked by the 

 necessity of insisting upon the old policy of 

 prohibiting the manufacture and sale of the 

 commodity outside market and corporate 

 towns. 



So much in brief outline of the general 

 principles by which the legislature sought to 

 direct the leather industry of the kingdom. 

 We may now proceed to consider their special 

 application to the Surrey industry, and what 

 evidences we may have to enable us to gauge 

 the extent and nature of the leather manufac- 

 ture of the county during the period when 

 these Acts were in force. 



Notices of the tanning industry before the 

 Tudor period would seem to be scanty, 

 although we need not doubt the existence 

 of a considerable trade in so necessary a com- 

 modity, more especially as, when the materials 

 are amplified, we find the industry a well- 

 established one in the county. We may notice 

 however that in 1437 we find a tanner at 

 Oxted in Richard Couper, who is a defendant 

 in a Chancery suit, and is described with the 

 other defendants, who comprise a London 



' Six Centuries of Work and Wages, p. 46. 

 > Stat. 25 Edw. III. »tat. 2 cap. 4. 



2 Stat. I Hen. VII. cap. J and 19 Hen. VII. 

 cap. 19. 



* Stat. 2 and 3 Edw. VI. cap. 1 1 . 



* Stat. 5 Eliz. cap. 8. The Act was superseded 

 by that of I Jas. I. cap. 22, which however con- 

 firmed the principles of the former Act, though 

 considerably elaborating them. 



329 42 



