A HISTORY OF SURREY 



& Co., Limited, and Messrs. Dallett & Co. 

 soap and candle makers both of Putney, and 

 Messrs. John Gosnell & Co., Limited, fancy 

 soap makers in the Blackfriars Road. Messrs. 

 Wiggins, Pease & Co., carry on a consider- 

 able business as melters and tallow chandlers 

 at Bermondsey, and have works at Bow 

 Common, Shadwell, Deptford and Northolt 

 in addition to their bone mills at Wandsworth. 

 At their Garratt Mills in the latter place the 

 grease is boiled out of the bones and the 



liquor converted to size. The bones are after- 

 wards sorted, the leg bones being exported to 

 France to be made into tooth-brush handles 

 and other articles, and the remaining bones 

 converted into superphosphate of lime for 

 manure.* 



With the single exception of a present 

 candle manufacture at Kingston-upon-Thames, 

 the soap and candle industry of Surrey does 

 not appear to have ever strayed out of the 

 more metropolitan districts of the county. 



METAL AND MACHINERY WORKS 



Apart from the production of its own 

 native iron ore, various industries connected 

 with the preparation of different metals and 

 their manufacture into finished products have 

 been and still are carried on in Surrey. At 

 the present day iron founding, engineering 

 and machine-making engage a fair proportion 

 of the population in the metropolitan districts 

 in the north-east corner of the county. But 

 there are several notices of early metal in- 

 dustries in Surrey which are of somewhat 

 exceptional interest and demand particular 

 treatment. 



A number of conflicting statements based 

 as we believe on somewhat unsound author- 

 ity have been made as to the sites and dates 

 of the first wire mills and the first brass works 

 in England. The scene of both has been 

 claimed to be in Surrey. One account tells 

 us that ' it is said that the first wire making 

 was at Esher in Surrey by J. Mommer and 

 D. Demetrius.' ' These works were set up 

 in the year 1649 ^"'^ ^""^ more generally 

 claimed as the first works for the manufacture 

 of brass in England, that is to say of the 

 alloy of copper with zinc to which later usage 

 has restricted the meaning of the word.^ 

 Anderson gave 1663 as the date of the first 

 wire mill which he said was set up by a 

 Dutchman at Sheen near Richmond.^ It is 

 certain however that wire drawing by means 

 of machinery was practised much earlier in 

 this kingdom than either of these two dates, 

 and there can be little doubt that it owed its 

 introduction in this country to the arrival 

 about 1565 of Christopher Shutz, a native of 

 Annaberg in Saxony, upon the invitation of 

 William Humphrey, assay-master of the 

 Tower Mint. Shutz was reputed to be a 



» Bum, Foreign Protestant Refugees, 256. 

 2 C. Drury E. Fortnum, F.S.A., Bronzes (S. 

 K. Handbooks), i6. 



' Origin of Commerce (1787), ii. 474.. 



workmaster of great cunning in the finding of 

 calamine, one of the ores of zinc, and in its 

 right use for the composition of the mixed 

 metal called latten, as well as in working both 

 this metal and iron and steel into all sorts of 

 battery wares, cast works and wire. On 

 17 September 1565 Humphrey and Shutz re- 

 ceived a patent to dig for calamine in England 

 and Ireland, and to manufacture latten and 

 other metals." The powers conferred upon 

 them under this patent they afterwards trans- 

 ferred to the well known company formed by 

 several of the nobility and others under the 

 style of the Governors, Assistants and Society 

 of the Mineral and Battery Works. The 

 patent of 1565 was confirmed to this com- 

 pany by another of 2 July 1584,^ and on 22 

 January 1 603-4 the company was incorpor- 

 ated by James I. as the Society of the City of 

 London of the Mineral and Battery Works.'' 

 The company's most important works were 

 at Tintern Abbey in Monmouthshire and it 

 was for having enticed away some of its work- 

 men from these works and for having under 

 their direction set up at Chilworth in Surrey 

 certain wireworks, houses, hammers and 

 engines, which were alleged to be a direct in- 

 fringement of its privileges, that a prosecution 

 was commenced in the Exchequer against one 

 Thomas Steere and others in the very year of 

 the company's incorporation by royal patent. 

 Witnesses were examined in the course of the 

 proceedings as to the principles of the patent 

 which had been infringed, and from their 

 evidence it is clear that the chief feature of 

 Shutz's invention in the matter of wire draw- 

 ing had been the substitution of water power 

 for the old engines called ' brackes ' on which 

 the wire had been formerly drawn in England 



* C. T. Davis, Industries of Wandsworth, 5. 



Pat. 7 Eliz. pt. 8. 



" Ibid. 26 Eliz. pt. 4, m. 33. 



' Ibid. I Jas. I. pt. 7. 



410 



