A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



give me an account of the origin of this peculiar 

 system of cottage manufacture in his neighbourhood. 

 It appeared that Hugo de Lupus {sic), William the 

 Conqueror's Master of Arms, the first Earl of Chester, 

 settled in North Cheshire shortly after the Conquest. 

 He occupied Halton Castle and his workmen resided 

 In Warrington and the adjacent villages of Appleton, 

 Widnes, Prescot, and Cuerdley. There they produced 

 coats of steel, mail armour, and steel and iron 

 weapons, under the direct superintendence of their 

 chief. 



The manufacture thus founded continued for many 

 centuries. Although the use of armour was discon- 

 tinued, these worlcers in steel and iron still continued 

 famous. The skill that had formerly been employed 

 in forging chain armour and war instruments was 

 devoted to more peaceful purposes. The cottage 

 workmen made the best of files and steel tools of other 

 kinds. Their talents became hereditary and the 

 manufacture of wire in all its forms is almost peculiar 

 to Warrington and its neighbourhood. Mr. Stubbs 

 also informed me that most of the workmen's pecu- 

 liar names for the tools and implements were traceable 

 to old Norman-French words. 



Neither Nasmyth, nor any other person who 

 has repeated his statement, has given authorities 

 to justify it. Another, and better authenticated, 

 case of foreign immigration is that of German 

 miners into the Furness district, but it is not 

 clear that they came in any large numbers. 

 The register book of the parish of Hawkshead at 

 the beginning of the seventeenth century con- 

 tains the following entries : — 



Baptisms, 1608. 



April 1st Hans Mozer fil : Martini. 

 Burials, 1609. 



December nrvth Michaell Suckmautle, a 

 Dutchman 

 Baptisms, 1607 



March 3rd Margaret Godmunte fil : 

 Anthony. 



These names, as well as others, were brought in- 

 to the Lake district in the sixteenth century by the 

 German copper-mining colonies at Keswick, and 

 perhaps also at Coniston.' A reference to a 

 German miner also occurs in a licence, dated 

 10 October, 1564, to Thomas Thurland, clerk, 

 and to David Loughsetter, a German, to dig for 



metals and minerals anywhere in the county of 

 Lancaster.' Another industry which appears to 

 have been benefited by foreign immigrants is the 

 St. Helens plate-glass manufacture. In this case 

 French workmen were brought over in 1773 to 

 introduce the industry into the country. 



During the nineteenth century several 

 foreigners commenced business in Lancashire, 

 employing British workmen. In earlier cen- 

 turies skilled artisans had migrated to Lancashire 

 from abroad ; in the nineteenth century it was 

 highly trained chemists and engineers, coming 

 chiefly from Germany, who settled in the county. 

 As examples such names as Steiner, Schwabe and 

 Beyer may be mentioned. But probably the 

 immigrants who had the greatest influence upon 

 our prosperity were those who flocked to this 

 country at the end of the eighteenth century and 

 throughout the nineteenth century, from France, 

 Germany, Spain, Greece, Italy, Armenia, and 

 other parts of Europe to direct the export trade 

 from Lancashire. The chief cotton industry of 

 the world being localized in Lancashire, and the 

 foreigner knowing best the requirements of con- 

 sumers in his own country, it was natural that 

 foreign merchants should find it advisable to 

 transfer their base to Lancashire. English 

 dealers and producers have found it highly 

 advantageous to have the index of foreign 

 demand, so to speak, at their doors. With emi- 

 gration we are not here concerned, but we may 

 just remark that there have been at times con- 

 siderable effluxes of skilled artisans, who, when 

 their freedom of movement was restricted inter- 

 nationally prior to 1824, were compelled to 

 migrate secretly. In this way the gift of the 

 cotton industry (if we accept tradition) was 

 returned with interest to the Netherlands in 

 1805, after England had transformed it by new 

 inventions, when forty Englishmen and seven- 

 teen spinning-mules, bearing i6,000 spindles, 

 were smuggled out of the country under the 

 direction of Li^vin Bauwens. Russia obtained 

 her power-spinning through Ludwig Knoop, 

 who had learnt the trade in Manchester, but that 

 was not until about 1840 when the prohibition 

 on the export of artisans and machinery had 

 been removed. 



NATURAL PRODUCTS 



Of the natural products of Lancashire, other 

 than coal and iron, there is very little to be said. 

 Deposits of salt at Preesall, near Fleetwood, were 

 discovered early in the ' seventies,' in the course 

 of a search for iron-ore ; but it was not until 

 1888 that the salt mines were systematically 

 worked. At the present time all the brine re- 



' H. S. Covi^er, Tie Oldest Register 'Book of the 

 Parish of Hawkshead in Lancashire, 1568— 1704. Lon- 

 don, 1897, cii. 



quired for the United Alkali Company's chemical 

 works at Fleetwood is obtained by pipes from 

 wells sunk at Preesall. Since 1894 the company's 

 works at Widnes, St. Helens, Glasgow, and other 

 places have been supplied with rock-salt from 

 Preesall. The rock-salt bed here varies in depth 

 from 300 to 500 ft. below the level of the ground, 

 and in some portions the floor of the mine is 

 450 ft. below the surface of the earth. The out- 



* Duchy of Lane. Misc. Bks. vol. 23, fol. 279 d. 



354 



