INDUSTRIES 



1754 Robert Lever, of Liverpool, sugar boiler 

 1758 Peter Whitfield, of Liverpool, sugar baker 



1 769 Charles Woods, of Liverpool, sugar baker 



1770 John Herman Greves, of Liverpool, sugar 



baker 

 1770 Luke Olkers, of Liverpool, sugar boiler 

 1 78 1 George Robinson, of Warrington, sugar 



baker 

 1793 William Skelhorne, of Liverpool, sugar baker 

 1797 George Robinson, of Warrington, sugar 



boiler 



1799 Peter PfeifFer, of Liverpool, sugar baker 



1800 Stephen Waterworth, of Liverpool, sugar 



baker 



Two of these entries, it will be seen, refer to 

 sugar works at Warrington. The earliest men- 



tion of sugar at Warrington is in 1755, when 

 Chamberlayne writes, ' Warrington is much 

 noted for a large smelting-house for copper as 

 also a sugar house.' '" 



Another seat of the sugar industry in Lanca- 

 shire during the eighteenth century, of which 

 the Index to Wills tells us nothing, was at Man- 

 chester. From the Manchester and Salford 

 Directory of 1773 we learn that Sam Norcot, of 

 Water Street, was a sugar baker, and further 

 that Thomas Rothwell was clerk at the Sugar 

 House, Water Street. 



During the nineteenth century Liverpool has 

 been the chief centre of the sugar refining indus- 

 try in Lancashire. 



THE PAPER INDUSTRY 



The first paper mill established in Lancashire 

 is said to have been the Cromptons' at Farn- 

 worth, near Bolton, and the date given is 1674.'^ 

 The first certain evidence we have is that con- 

 tained in the Index to Wills at Chester ' : — 



1 72 1 George Warburton, of Heap, near Hey- 



wood, paper maker 

 1737 Robert Crompton, of Famworth, paper 



maker 

 1739 Adam Crompton, of Little Lever, paper 



maker 

 1760 Ellis Crompton, of Great Lever, paper 



maker 

 1767 James Grundy, of Little Lever, paper maker 

 1 769 William Appleton, of Stretford, paper maker 

 1772 James Crompton, of Manchester, papermaker 

 1790 William Appleton, of Manchester, paper 



maker 



Information of a similar character can be 

 obtained from the early Manchester Directories. 

 Thus in 1773 Ellis Crompton, of Bolton, is 

 described as a paper-maker. In 1788 no fewer 

 than four Cromptons are entered as paper-makers, 

 viz. James Crompton of CoUyhurst, Adam 

 Crompton of Botham in Lever, Robert Crompton 

 of Lower Darley, and Ellis Crompton of Lever. 



In 1795 occurs one of the few contemporary 

 references to the paper industry. Aikin, writing 

 in that year, says ' the making of paper at mills in 



" Chamberlayne, Present State of Great Britain (ed. 



38, I7SS)- 



' Leo. H. Grindon, Lane. Hist, and Descriptive 

 Notes, 155. We have no reason to believe this state- 

 ment is anything but correct, but we have found it 

 impossible to check it, as we were unable to obtain 

 access to a certain MS. volume of Crompton Collec- 

 tions, which apparently alone contains the informa- 

 tion required. 



' Lane, and Ches. Rec. Soc. xx, xxii, xxv, xxxvii, and 

 xliv. 



the vicinity of Manchester has been brought to 

 great perfection, and now includes all kinds, from 

 the strongest parcelling paper to the finest writing 

 sorts, and that on which bankers' bills are 

 printed.' ' 



One of the principal paper-makers of the first 

 half of the nineteenth century was Thomas 

 Bonsor Crompton, who owned paper mills at 

 Farnworth and at Worthington. He was con- 

 nected with a new method of drying and finish- 

 ing paper by means of heated cylinders, and was 

 also associated with the process of continuously 

 sizing with rollers. He supplied paper for nearly 

 all the northern and many of the London papers, 

 and for a period of ten years the average annual 

 sum he paid as duty on his paper amounted to 

 j^i 5,000. Before his death in September, 

 1858, he paid as much as ;^20,ooo annually in 

 paper duty, which represents a yearly output 

 of 1,400,000 tons.* The Crompton family 

 is still associated with the paper industry, the 

 present firm being Messrs. James R. Cromp- 

 ton and Brothers, Ltd., Elton Paper Mills, 

 Bury. 



During the nineteenth century Darwen 

 became one of the chief centres of the Lanca- 

 shire paper-making industry. Among the best- 

 known firms was that of Messrs. C. & J. G. 

 Potter, whose Belgrave Works were founded in 

 1 841.' The particular class of goods for which 

 Darwen is best known is wall-papers, and when 

 in 1900 a combine was formed under the name 

 of the Wall Paper Manufacturers, Ltd., with a 

 capital of j^4,200,000, five Darwen firms, in- 



' A Description of Manchester, 176. 



* Report of the Commissioners of the Exhibition 

 of 185 1, p. 938, quoted in the Morning Post, 15 Sept. 

 1858. We have to thank the Ven. Archdeacon 

 Fletcher and Mr. Sydney Douglas-Crompton for 

 kindly supplying us with information. 



' Shaw, Hist, of Darwen, 160. 



407 



