INDUSTRIES 



determined, but a somewhat early notice of a 

 fulling mill in Surrey occurs in the manor of 

 Woking in the year 1271.' It is more than 

 200 years after this that we hear of the 

 objections to the use of fulling mills in the 

 making of caps. These objections produced 

 the enactment in 1482-3 that none should 

 full any caps at any mill.^ In the days of the 

 decay of the cloth industry it may be noticed 

 how many of the Surrey fulling mills were 

 converted to other uses. The mill at Rake, 

 Milford, in 1577 was undoubtedly a fulling 

 mill, although there was some question 

 whether it was only used by the owner or 

 whether it was a common fulling mill, and if 

 the latter whether all manner of persons used 

 it or only clothiers for the fulling of their 

 cloths.' In 1706 it had become a corn mill.* 



Similarly a fulling mill, which together with 

 a corn mill formed in 1649 P^""' °^ ^^^ Poyle 

 estate in St. Mary's parish, Guildford, is said 

 by Manning and Bray to have long ceased to 

 be used as such, and the whole were then corn 

 mills.* In 1701 a lease was granted of a piece 

 of land in Guildford to set up an engine for 

 waterworks there, and leave was given to the 

 lessee to lay pipes in the fulling mills and 

 under the bridge for conducting the water, 

 and to have the use of the mill wheel for the 

 purpose.' Other uses besides the grinding of 

 corn and the pumping of water into reservoirs, 

 to which the old fulling mills were put when 

 there was no longer a sufficiency of cloth 

 made in their neighbourhood to keep them 

 employed for their original purpose, could no 

 doubt be readily pointed out. 



MISCELLANEOUS TEXTILE AND ALLIED 

 INDUSTRIES 



The once important cloth industry of south- 

 west Surrey naturally dwarfs the other textile 

 and allied industries which have been carried 

 on in the county, but amongst them are a 

 few which appear to have been of some ex- 

 tent, and one or two which possess features 

 entitling them to notice in the present work. 



With the exception of the important tapes- 

 try works at Mortlake, which receive special 

 treatment here, silk weaving and the other 

 manufactures of which silk forms the prin- 

 cipal material do not seem to have obtained 

 any great or long-continued hold in Surrey. 

 There was however at the end of the sixteenth 

 and beginning of the seventeenth centuries a 

 small colony of aliens in Southwark and the 

 district adjacent engaged in various silk manu- 

 factures, and one or two later attempts to 

 establish silk works in the county may be 

 noticed. 



In 1569 we have a record of Peter le Roye, 

 apparently an alien, summoned to answer an 

 information laid against him of practising the 

 calling of a silk-wleaver in Bermondsey, 

 although he had not been duly apprenticed 

 to the trade.® The Lord Mayor's returns of 

 foreigners residing in the city wards, made 

 both in May and in November 1571, show 

 the existence of several silk-weavers in the 



1 Chan. Inq. p.m. (ser. i), file 41 (20). 

 " Stat. 22 Edw. IV. cap. 5. 

 3 Exch. Dap. East. 19 Eliz. 8 and Spec. Com. 

 2244. 



* Recov. R. East. J Anne. 



6 Exch. K. R. Mem. R. East. 11 Eliz. 151. 



various Southwark parishes.' They were 

 principally settled in St. Olave's parish, where 

 in May there appear to have been thirteen 

 Dutchmen, one Burgundian, and one French- 

 man, all silk-weavers, besides a Dutch silk- 

 thrower. In the same parish in November 

 there appear eleven Dutch silk-weavers and 

 one French one, in addition to a silk-thrower 

 and a silk-winder, both Dutch. In the remain- 

 ing parishes the numbers of aliens engaged in 

 silk manufacture were still smaller. In St. 

 Saviour's there was one only on each occa- 

 sion ; in St. Thomas's three in May and five 

 in November ; while in St. George's, in 

 November only six silk-weavers were returned, 

 three Dutch and three French. 



So far as the two lists of 1582-3 and 1583 

 enable us to form an opinion, there seems to 

 have been a considerable decrease in these 

 years in the number of foreign silk-weavers in 

 Southwark.* Only eleven aliens who are 

 described as silk-weavers appear in the former 

 list for the whole ward of Bridge Without, 

 while in 1583 there are seven silk-weavers, 

 one Dutch and six French, in St. Thomas's 

 parish, and two Dutch in St. George's. There 

 is also a French silk-twister in St. Thomas's. 

 No alien is given as connected with any of the 

 various silk industries in either the parish of 

 St. Olave or that of St. Saviour, but it should 



" Hist, of Surrey, i. 18. 

 ' Ibid. i. 33. 



8 R. E. G. and E. F. Kirk, Reiurtts of Alim 

 (Hug. Soc. Publ. X.), i. 462-74, ii. 94-123. 

 8 Ibid. ii. 287-96, 328-33. 



349 



