INDUSTRIES 



bymere manual strength. Humphrey and Shutz 

 were declared to have brought into England 

 twenty-two Germans to instruct the English 

 in their art. According to the evidence the 

 Chilworth wire works appear to have been 

 started about the year 1602, and one of the 

 defendants, Robert Hunt, was stated to have 

 made osmund iron to serve fhem, apparently 

 another violation of the company's monopoly.' 



Eventually on 3 July 1606, judgment was 

 given against Steere and his fellow defendants, 

 and they were forbidden to use the Chilworth 

 or any other works for the straining of iron 

 into wire or the drawing of wire in the 

 manner practised in the works of the com- 

 pany. The plaintiff company was however 

 ordered to purchase within a month at a 

 reasonable price all the iron and movable 

 working tools at Chilworth, and at Steere's 

 own request and upon his assertion of his 

 skill in the art to entertain him in its works 

 as a workman, at the rate of wages usually 

 paid by the company to one of his quality. 

 Upon Steere's submission, and in regard to his 

 poverty, the court forbore to fine him for his 

 infringement of the king's patent.^ 



It is clear therefore that even in Surrey 

 itself a wire mill had been in existence con- 

 siderably before 1649. Whether better author- 

 ity exists for the statement, that has been 

 persistently put forward in works dealing with 

 the subject, that Mommer and Demetrius' 

 works set up at Esher in this year were the 

 first for the manufacture of brass in this 

 country we have been unable to determine. 

 The term brass is of ancient use in the 

 English language, but was not originally em- 

 ployed in the special sense it has now acquired, 

 being made to include such alloys of copper 

 with other metals as we now know as bronze, 

 bell-metal, and the like. Zinc indeed, one of 

 the two components of brass, is said not to 

 have been recognized as a metal until the 

 time of Paracelsus, but to have been princi- 

 pally known through calamine which we now 

 know to be an important ore of zinc. The 

 alloy of copper with calamine produced latten 

 the manufacture of which Shutz seems to 

 have been the first to introduce into this 

 country. Previously to this the plates of brass 

 or latten so extensively used for the engraving 

 of monumental inscriptions and effigies are 

 believed to have been imported into England 

 from abroad, and the frequent occurrence here 

 of so called palimpsest brasses supports the 

 view that the plates were a somewhat scarce 

 and valuable commodity. 



' Exch. Dep. by Comm. Hil. 2 Jas. I. No. 1 2. 

 ' Exch. K.R. Mem. R. Trin. 4 Jas. I. 61. 



The Esher works were short lived, and 

 seem to have resulted in the ruin of their 

 founders who are stated to have spent ;^6,000 

 on their erection. Rosette copper, imported 

 from Sweden, is said to have been exclusively 

 employed in them.' 



Another place in Surrey for which a claim 

 has been made as the site of the first brass 

 works in England is Wotton where John 

 Evelyn in his letter to Aubrey prefixed to the 

 first volume of the latter's Natural History 

 and Antiquities of Surrey states that the first 

 brass mills for the casting, hammering into 

 plates, cutting and drawing it into wire were 

 set up. Evelyn describes the process of 

 wire drawing, which at first, he says, was 

 done 'by men sitting harnessed in certain 

 swings taking hold of the brass thongs fitted 

 to the holes with pincers fastened to a girdle 

 which went about them : and then with 

 stretching forth their feet against a stump, 

 they shot their bodies from it, closing with the 

 plate again.' Afterwards this practice was 

 quite discontinued and the process was per- 

 formed by an ' ingenio ' brought out of 

 Sweden, which at the time of his writing he 

 supposed to be still used. The mills however 

 had been removed some further distance from 

 his brother's house at Wotton. Nothing 

 further appears to be known of these works, 

 nor indeed do we hear anything more of the 

 wire-mill which the Dutchman is said to have 

 set up at Sheen in 1662 or 1663. We may 

 note the appearance of a wire drawer in 

 Stephen Combs of Godalming, who is so de- 

 scribed in his will dated 12 December 1677.* 



Another instance of our indebtedness to 

 foreigners for the introduction of brass works 

 in this country is the manufacture at Wands- 

 worth, noticed by Aubrey, by Dutchmen, 

 who kept it a mystery, of brass plates for 

 kettles, skellets, frying pans, and the like." 

 This manufacture would appear to have been 

 still in existence in 1754.° According to 

 Lysons the houses where it was carried on 

 bore the name of the Frying-pan Houses.' In 

 1 8 14 they are said to have been used by 

 Messrs. Gattey & Sons for preparing iron 

 liquids and sowers for the use of calico- 

 printers.^ Mr. C. T. Davis thinks that they 



3 W. Graham on ' Brass founding, tin plate and 

 zinc working' in British Manufacturing Industries 

 (ed. G. P. Bevan), 125 ; G. Clinch on 'Early 

 Surrey Industries' in Bygone Surrey, 231. 



' Prob. Commissary Ct. of Surrey, 19 May 1 681. 



^ .Nat. Hist, and Antiquities of Surrey, i. 14. 



" Dr. Richard Pococke, Travels through England 

 (ed. Cam. Soc. N.S. xliv.), ii. 171. 



' Environs of London (ed. 1), i. 503. 



8 Manning and Bray, Hist, of Surrey, iii. 342. 



411 



