INDUSTRIES 



confirmed by the clauses in the Act,* which 

 allowed to tanners only the right to buy raw 

 hides and to artificers in leather only that of 

 buying the red tanned leather from the tan- 

 ners. Throughout the reign of Elizabeth 

 and to a later period one of the commonest 

 offences against the leather trade Acts was 

 that of buying sheepskins to tear off the wool 

 and sell the unwrought skin or pelt. An 

 early instance occurs in 1563, when thirteen 

 Southwark and Bermondsey leather sellers 

 were Recused of such an offence,' and twenty 

 years later precisely the same number ap- 

 peared in the Exchequer to answer to a 

 similar charge.^ 



The instances that we have cited of oflFen- 

 ces against the Acts provided for the regula- 

 tion of the leather industry are merely typical 

 of a great host of others in which the manu- 

 facturers and traders of Southwark and Ber- 

 mondsey were concerned. Such as they are 

 they suffice to prove that the district was an 

 important centre of the industry, and that the 

 trade was considerable before the period when 

 the influence of the Protestant refugees, 

 driven from France by the eflFects of the 

 massacre of St. Bartholomew, could have 

 made itself felt. Indeed from the evidence 

 of these Exchequer cases there can be no 

 doubt that Southwark and Bermondsey formed 

 by fer the most important seat of the leather 

 industry in the county in the early part of 

 the sixteenth century, although there are a 

 number of places in the more rural parts of 

 Surrey in which the industry appears to have 

 been of considerable extent. Some of the 

 more important instances of offences alleged 

 to have been committed in these latter places 

 during the period which we have been con- 

 sidering, may now be noticed. 



Mention has already been made of some 

 early references to the existence of tanning at 

 Godalming and Chiddingfold, and of the in- 

 dustry in this quarter of the county, now 

 after Bermondsey its principal centre, we 

 shall have to speak more fully later. In 

 1563-4 we find one Robert Clarke, a currier, 

 accused of having curried 400 hides and skins 

 of tanned leather outside a market or corpo- 

 rate town, to wit in his own dwelling house 

 in the parish of St. Nicholas, Guildford.* In 

 1568 Anthony Bygnall, a tanner of Shere, 

 was suspected of having sold at St. Catherine's 

 Hill, leather which had not been properly 

 examined and sealed.* John Bygnall of 



' Stat. 5 Eliz. cap. 8. 



2 Exch. K. R. Mem. R. Trin. 5 Eliz. 120-6. 



' Ibid. Mich. 25 Eliz. 361-70 passim. 



* Ibid. Hil. 6 Eliz. 232. 



' Ibid. Mich. 10 Eliz. 274. 



Wonersh, perhaps a relative of this Anthony, 

 was charged in 1573 with having in con- 

 junction with several other tanners of Surrey 

 and Berkshire tanned a large quantity of hides 

 with such unlawful stuffs as we have al- 

 ready described in the parish of St. Andrew 

 Undershaft.' Right down in the extreme 

 south-west of the county at Shottermill or 

 Shotover on the Sussex border John and 

 Thomas Baldwyn, tanners, seem in 1568 to 

 have been selling leather in that place out of 

 open market.' 



In the south-east corner of Surrey about 

 Reigate and Blechingley there was also a 

 considerable leather industry. An early men- 

 tion of an Oxted tanner has already been 

 noted and also the appearance in the Ex- 

 chequer of John Cholmeley, a Blechingley 

 tanner, as part owner of some confiscated 

 leather goods. In 1568 the leather industry 

 still had its representative at Oxted in the 

 person of Edmund Stacy,* a tanner who ap- 

 pears again in 1573 in conjunction with John 

 and Richard Cholmeley (or Chamley) of 

 Blechingley as one of the Surrey tanners who 

 had been improperly tanning leather in the 

 parish of St. Andrew Undershaft.* John 

 Cholmeley seems to have been especially 

 singled out by the informer for observation, 

 for in 1566 he had made a second appearance 

 in the Exchequer, this time on the charge of 

 having exposed to sale 250 hides at Leaden- 

 hall before they had been examined and 

 sealed.*" In the same quarter of the county, 

 Reigate, Horley and Godstone were im- 

 portant centres of the leather trade. Robert 

 Wood of Reigate was accused in 1563 of 

 carrying on the art of tanning though not 

 duly apprenticed to the same,** and again in 

 1566 of selling unregistered leather.** Henry 

 and Nicholas Bray, tanners at Horley, are in 

 1 56 1 cited for selling leather in that place 

 not in open market,*' and the same pair, the 

 latter now described as of Reigate, are 

 amongst the other Surrey tanners who in 

 1573 appear to have been using unlawful 

 mixtures for their tanning operations in the 

 London parish of St. Andrew Undershaft.** 

 Other Surrey tanners not already mentioned 

 who were concerned in this business at the 

 some time are Richard Gander of Horley,' ° 



« Ibid. Mich. 15 Eliz. 414. 



' Ibid. East. 10 Eliz. 234 and Mich. 266. 



8 Ibid. East. 10 Eliz. 232. 



9 Ibid. Mich. 15 Eliz. 354. 

 10 Ibid. Trin. 8 Eliz. 142. 

 " Ibid. East. 5 Eliz. 60. 



12 Ibid. Trin. 8 Eliz. 251. 



13 Ibid. Mich. 3 Eliz. 79. 



" Ibid. Mich. 15 Eliz. 414. " Ibid. 



333 



