INDUSTRIES 



put from the mine is about three thousand tons 

 per week, and what is not required at the United 

 Alkali Company's works is sold in the open 

 market. Salt-beds also exist on Walney Island, 

 opposite Barrow, but so far it has proved im- 

 practicable to work them on a commercial scale. 



Slate and flags are quarried in the Furness 

 district, particularly in the parish of Hawkshead. 

 It does not appear that any quarrying except what 

 the tenants of the manor required for their own 

 purposes was carried on until the eighteenth 

 century. At this time the quarries of Tilber- 

 thwaite became particularly famous. West refers 

 to the quarries as the ' most considerable slate 

 quarries in the kingdom,' and tells us that the 

 principal quarries were in the hands of a Hawks- 

 head firm of Rigges, who exported i,ioo tons a 

 year and upwards.^ Baines mentions ^ that there 

 were three considerable slate quarries in Hawks- 

 head, Monk Coniston, and Skelwith, and three 

 flag quarries in the same district, all the property 

 of the duke of Bucdeuch as lord of the manor. 

 Flag-stones are also worked in the neighbour- 

 hood of Darwen. Much fire-clay is also mined 

 in this district.* Similar products have been 

 worked at Haslingden, as mentioned by Aikin in 

 1795: 'Near Haslingden is Cold-Hutch-Bank, 

 under a hill fi-om which the finest flags and slate 

 are quarried out.' * 



An early reference to millstones occurs in 

 Richard Gough's edition of Camden's Britannia, 

 ' At Whittle, near Chorley, is a plentiful quarry 

 of millstones equal to those ... in the Peak.' ' 

 An anonymous writer at the beginning of the 

 eighteenth century also mentions the existence of 



a 'plentiful quarry of millstones' at Whittle, 

 near Chorley.* The same writer notes that a 

 lead mine had been lately found in the same 

 neighbourhood, in the ground of Sir Richard 

 Standish. Gough also refers to a lead mine at 

 this place. 



A hundred and fifty years ago limestone was 

 being quarried at Clitheroe, as it is at the present 

 day. This we gather from Dr. Richard Pococke, 

 who wrote as follows in 1751 : 



Clitheroe. This small town is chiefly supported by 

 limekilns. . . . They send their lime to the distance 

 of twenty miles both for building and manure, and 

 sell it for about 3^;/. per bushel on the spot.' 



Another mention of these limekilns occurs in 

 Baines' Directory and Gazetteer of the County of 

 Lancashire for 1824 : ' 



At Pimlico, to the north of Clitheroe, on the banks of 

 the Ribble, is the valuable and inexhaustible bed of 

 limestone, where ten kilns are kept burning for forty 

 weeks in the year, and yield collectively four thousand 

 windles or twenty-eight thousand strikes weekly. This 

 lime, which is of a dark blue colour, is in high repute 

 as a manure, and is fetched from a great distance to 

 quicken the powers of vegetation. 



The copper mines of Coniston, of unknown 

 antiquity, and employing 140 hands in Elizabethan 

 times, came to an end in the Civil Wars, although 

 they were re-opened and worked in a moribund 

 fashion during the eighteenth century. In 1820 

 they were again discontinued, but about 1835 they 

 took a new lease of life, so that by 1855 monthly 

 wages were paid to the amount of ;^2,ooo. ' 



COPPER SMELTING 



During the second part of the eighteenth 

 century copper-smelting works existed at War- 

 rington. The earliest reference to them appears 

 to be in Pococke, writing in 1750 : ^ 



Near the town [Warrington] is a smelting-house for 

 copper-ore brought from Cornwall, which turns to 

 account here by reason of the great plenty they have 

 of coals. It is first burnt twelve hours, then cast, 

 afterwards ground and burnt about twelve hours more, 

 and then melted a third time and cast into pigs. Some 

 of it is sent near to Holywell to be beat into plates, 

 and some to Cheadle in Staffordshire to make brass. 



In 1755 Chamberlayne states that 'Warrington 

 is much noted for a large smelting-house for 



' Cowper, Hist. ofHazvkshead, 292. 



' Hist, of Lane. (1835), iv, 710. 



' Shaw, Hist, of Darwen, 5 and 162. 



* Aikin, A Description of Manchester, 278. 



* Camden, Brit. Enlarged by Richard Gough 

 (London, 1787), iii, 138. 



^ The Neiu Description and State of England (London, 

 1701), p. 83. 



copper.'^ For some years previous to 1795 the 

 industry had ceased to exist at Warrington, as may 

 be gathered from Aikin's remarks : 



Large works for the smelting of copper were estab- 

 lished near the town [Warrington] and used for several 

 years, but have for some time been discontinued.' 



The present Lancashire copper-smelting in- 

 dustry has its seat at St. Helens. Messrs. Hughes, 

 Williams & Co. established their copper works at 

 Greenbank in 1780 for the purpose of smelting 

 and refining copper ore from the Paris mountain 

 in Anglesey, North Wales. According to Aikin 

 these works manufactured weekly thirty tons of 



' Dr. Richard Pococke, Travels Through England 

 (Camd. Soc. 1888), i, 200. 



* Vol. i, 612. 



° Cowper, Hist. ofHazvkshead, 291. 



' Dr. Richard Pococke, Travels Through England 

 (Camd. Soc. 1888), i, 9. 



' Chamberlayne, Present State of Great Britain 

 (ed. 38, 1755)- 



' Aikin, J Description of Manchester, 302. 



353 



