A HISTORY OF SURREY 



of the Exchequer already instanced, show 

 that they existed in great number during the 

 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and well 

 into the eighteenth, and that they grew 

 wealthy and became landed proprietors not 

 only in their own county but in the adjoin- 

 ing counties of Sussex and Hants.' Whole 

 families were engaged in the industry and 

 carried on the same occupation from genera- 

 tion to generation. Amongst the families 

 whose representatives most frequently appear 

 in connection with the manufacture may be 

 mentioned those of Hooke, Chitty alias 

 Bocher, Elliot, Daborne, Bridger, Mellersh, 

 Chandler, Bowler, Peyto, Woods and Toft, 

 to quote only a few of the most known. 

 These are mostly of Godalming. Maurice 

 Abbott is perhaps the most famous of Guild- 

 ford clothiers in that three of his sons, Robert, 

 George and Maurice, became respectively 

 Bishop of Salisbury, Archbishop of Canter- 

 bury, and Lord Mayor of London. The 

 honour of the chief magistracy of London 

 had been won in 1565, more than seventy 

 \ears before Sir Maurice Abbott's election to 

 the office, by a Godalming man, Richard 

 Champion, a member of the Drapers' Com- 

 pany, and probably the son of a Surrey 

 clothier." Amongst the benefactors to Guild- 

 ford several have been members of her old 

 clothmaking trade. Thus Robert Broad- 

 bridge, whose name as a clothier of that 

 town has already appeared in this account, 

 finished in 1582 the glazing of the windows 

 in the Free School and caused his clothing 

 mark to be set on a quarry of glass in each 

 window.' In 1579 Thomas Baker, another 

 Guildford clothier, being enfeoffed by the 

 mayor and others of a parcel of ground in 

 Trinity parish, covenanted to build a market- 

 house thereon for rye, malt and oats, and that 

 the profits of the same after the determination 

 of the life interest of himself and his wife 



' I am indebted to Percy Woods, Esq., C.B., 

 for a great number of references from wills, deeds 

 and other documents to Surrey clothiers, etc., ex- 

 tending from early in the sixteenth to late in the 

 eighteenth century. Instances of Surrey clothiers 

 owning lands outside their own county may be 

 cited in the case of Richard Bridger of Godalming, 

 who on 17 October 1562 conveyed a messuage 

 and other property in Portsmouth to John and 

 Lawrence Elliot, clothiers of the same town (Close 

 4 Eliz. pt. 15), and at a later date in the case of 

 Joseph Chitty of Milford, gentleman, a descendant 

 of the 6mily of clothiers. In 1733 he left farms 

 in West Grinstead in addition to his messuage in 

 Milford (S«rr. Arch. Coll. xv. 160). 



2 W. Herbert, Historj of the Twelve Great Liverj 

 Companies of London, i. 437. 



' Manning and Bray, Hist, of Surrey, i. 76. 



346 



therein should be employed in the mainten- 

 ance of a schoolmaster for teaching poor 

 children at a stipend of ;^io a year.* John 

 Parsons, a citizen and clothworker of London, 

 but a native of Guildford, left by his will 

 dated 3 July 1702 the sum of ;^6oo, the 

 annual interest of which was to be paid by 

 the mayor and magistrates to a poor young 

 man who, having served an apprenticeship of 

 seven years and become a freeman of the 

 town, had not the wherewithal to set up his 

 trade there." The Poyle estate, part of 

 which consisted of a fulling mill in St. Mary's 

 parish, Guildford, was conveyed to trustees 

 by Henry Smith in 1643 for the poor of the 

 town, j^40 of the rents during the term of a 

 lease held by Sir Robert Parkhurst being 

 directed to be paid to the London Cloth- 

 workers' Company, to be disposed of by them 

 as Sir Robert should appoint.* 



Besides their genealogical interest, with 

 which we have not here to do, the wills of 

 the Surrey clothiers have sometimes a special 

 interest for us, in that they contain mention 

 of implements used by the testator in his 

 trade. Thus by his will dated 4 February 

 1559-60' Robert Peyto (Peytow) of Godal- 

 ming left to his son Robert all his shop stuff, 

 that is to say, his shears, handles and presses, 

 saving two pairs of shears which he gave to 

 his son Lawrence. On 20 December 1606 

 Bartholomew Bowler of the same town by 

 nuncupative will* gave to his eldest son John 

 his racks, press, and implements which be- 

 longed to his shop, and similarly on 1 1 June 

 1632 John Perryor of the same left to his son 

 John one cloth press ' and all his followers 

 and boords and the upper racke in Barton.' 

 Sometimes we see that the clothier was his 

 own dyer, as was Robert Broadbridge of 

 Guildford, already mentioned, who on 22 

 December 1602 left to his son Robert all his 

 freehold messuages, houses, dye-house, lands, 

 etc., in Guildford and Farnham other than 

 those in Farnham previously bequeathed to 

 his nephew Robert Quennell.* The father 

 of John Daborne of Guildford, clothier, whose 

 will bears date 17 December 1558," is 

 described in his own will as John Daborne of 

 Guildford, dyer." On 23 July 1685 John 



* Ibid. i. 81. 5 Ibid. i. 82. 



« Ibid. i. 18, 19. 



'' Prob. Archd. Ct. of Surrey, 28 Sept. 1 560 (?) 



" Ibid. 24 March 1607. 



» P.C.C. Bolein, 5. See Surrey Arch. Coll. xi. 

 106. 



" Prob. P.C.C. 23 March 1558-9 (JTelles, 52). 



"Ibid. 1549 {.Pofulwell, 36). The younger 

 John's son was Robert Daborne, who became a 

 citizen and haberdasher of London according to 



