Industrial Biography: Iron Workers and Tool Makers

s of their lives, and to whom England's good was the foremost of their worldly considerations. And such, emphat

it and enterprise, an enlightened political economist (long before political economy had been recognised as a science), and in many respects a true national benefactor. Bishop Watson said that he ought to have had a statue erected to his memory because of his eminent public services; and an able modern writer has gone so far as to say o

ly a few readers of half-forgotten books. The following brief outline of his histo

ommended him to his officers, and he was raised from one position to another, until in the course of a few years we find him holding the rank of captain. "While a soldier," says he, "I had sometimes the honour and misfortune to lodge and dislodge an army;" but this is all the information he gives us of his military career. In the year 1648 he was instrumental in discovering and frustrating a design on the part of the Royalists to seize Doyley House in the county of Her

for the poor, then much distressed by the late wars. With the help of his wife, he established a manufacture of linen, which was attended with good results. Observing how the difficulties of communication, by reason of the badness of the roads, hindered the development o

nton must have lain in prison for nearly two years, charged with conspiring against the king's authority, the only evidence against him consisting of some anonymous letter's. At the end of May, 1662, he succeeded in making his escape from the custody of the Provost Marshal. The High Sheriff scoured the country after him at the head of a party of horse, and then he communicated to the Secretary of State, Sir Edward Nicholas, that the suspected conspirator could not be found, and was supposed to have made his way to London. Before the end of a month Yarranton was a

Trent. Some progress was made with this undertaking, so far in advance of the age, but, like the other, it came to a stand still for want of money, and more than a hundred years passed before it was carried out by a kindred genius-James Brindley, the great canal maker. Mr. Chambers says that when Yarranton's scheme was first brought forward, it met with violent opposition and ridicule. The undertaking was thought wonderfully bold, and, joined to its great extent, the sandy, spongy nature of the ground, the high banks necessary to prevent the inundation of the Stour on the canal, furnished its opponents, if not with sound argument, at least with very specious topics for opposition and laughter.[10] Yarranton's plan was to make the river itself navigable, and by uniting it with other rivers, open up a communication with the Trent; while Brindley's was to cut a canal parallel

more than a century after his death, it was actually carried out by modern engineers. This canal, it appears, was twice surveyed under his direction by his son.

n counties, who found their land doubled in value by the new method of husbandry, and it shortly became adopted throughout the country. Seeing how commerce was retarded by the small accommodation provided for shipping at the then principal ports, Yarranton next made surveys and planned docks for the city of London; but thou

ixing of the film of tin over the surface of the iron, proving difficulties which the English manufacturers were unable to overcome. To master these difficulties the indefatigable Yarranton set himself to work. "Knowing," says he, "the usefulness of tin-plates and the goodness of our metals for that purpose, I did, about sixteen years since (i.e. about 1665), endeavour to find out the way for making thereof; whereupon I acquainted a person of much riches, and one that was very understanding in the iron manufacture, who was pleased to say that he had often designed to get the trade into England, but never could find out the way. Upon which it was agreed that a sum of monies should be advanced by several

country also had profited in like manner by the religious persecutions of Germany, and even of England itself. Thus we are told by Yarranton that it was a Cornish miner, a Protestant, banished out of England for his religion in Queen Mary's time, who discovered the tin mines at Awe, and that a Romish priest of Bohemia, who had been converted to Lutheranism and fled into Saxony for refuge, "was the chief instrument in the manufacture until it was perfected." These two men wer

rting the manufacture in this country. A beginning was made, and the tin-plates manufactured by Yarranton's men were pronounced of better quality even than those made in Saxony. "Many thousand plates," Yarranton says, "were made from iron raised in the Forest of Dean, and were tinned over with Cornish tin; and the plates proved far better than the German ones,

ud Dudley's quondam partner in the iron manufacture.[15] "What with the patent being in our way," says Yarranton, "and the richest of our partners being afraid to offend great men in power, who had their eye upon us, it caused the thing to cool, and the making of the tin-plates was neither proceeded in by us, nor possibly could be by him that had the patent; because neither he that hath th

onfess they are sick," said Yarranton, "that trade is in a consumption, and the whole nation languishes." He therefore determined to ascertain whether something useful might not be learnt from the example of Holland. The Dutch were then the hardest working and the most thriving people in Europe. They were manufacturers and carriers for the world. Their fleets floated on every known sea; and the

hat we must out-do them in industry. But all must be done honestly and by fair means. "Common Honesty," said Yarranton, "is as necessary and needful in kingdoms and commonwealths that depend upon Trade, as discipline is in an army; and where there is want of common Honesty in a kingdom or commonwealth, from thence Trade shall depart. For as the Honesty of all governments is, so shall

e object of rendering it navigable, and proposed a plan for improving the harbour of Dublin. He also surveyed the Dee in England with a view to its being connected with the Severn. Chambers says that on the decline of his popularity in 1677, he was taken by Lord Clarendon to Salisbury to

t of the country for the purchase of foreign linen would be retained at home, besides increasing the value of the land on which the flax was grown, and giving remunerative employment to our own people, then emigrating for want of work. "Nothing but Sloth or Envy," he sai

l navigation with the object of creating new channels for domestic industry, his schemes for extending the iron and the woollen trades, establishing the linen manufacture, and cultivating the home fisheries, we find him throwing out various valuable suggestions with reference to the means of facilitating commercial transactions, some of winch have only been carried out in our own day. One of his grandest ideas was the establishment of a public bank, the credit of which, based upon the security of freehold land,[17] should enable

gh a hole to a bean and pease rick." "Is it not a sad thing," he asks, "that a goldsmith's boy in Lombard Street, who gives notes for the monies handed him by the merchants, should take up more monies upon his notes in one day than two lords, four knights

ands, to be honest, to pay every man his own, to prevent those sad things that attend families for want thereof, and to have the great benefit and advantage that would come thereby. A register will quicken trade, and the land registered will be equal as cash in a man's hands, and the credit thereof will go and do in trade what ready money now doth." His idea

ll my labours." Yarranton, however, received but little thanks for his persistency, while he encountered many rebuffs. The public for the most part turned a deaf ear to his entreaties; and his writings proved of comparatively small avail, at least during his own lifetime. He experienced the lot of many patriots,

he depression in the domestic tin trade (Cornish tin selling so low as 70s. the cwt.), he suggested a way of reviving it. With the Cornish tin he would combine "the Roman cinders and iron-stone in the Forest of Dean, which makes the best iron for most uses in the world, and works up to the best advantage, with delight and pleasure to the workmen." He then described the history of his own efforts to import the manufacture of tin-plates into England some sixteen years before, in which he had been thwarted by Chamberlaine's patent, as above described,-and offered sundry queries as to the utility of patents generally, which, says he, "have the tendency to drive trade out of the kingdom." Appended to the chapter on Tin is an exceedingly amusing dialogue between a tin-miner of Cornwall, an iron-miner of Dean Forest, and a traveller (himself).

the safety of British trade, the demolition of the fortifications of Dunkirk before they were completed, which he held would only be for the purpose of their being garrisoned by the French king. His 'Full Discovery of the First Presbyterian Sham Plot' was published in the same year; and from that time nothing further is known of Andrew Yarr

ut though his exhortations to industry and his large plans of national improvement failed to work themselves into realities in his own time, he broke the ground, he sowed the seed, and it may be that even at this day we are in some degree reapi

Elements of Political S

rranton, of Redstone, of Larford, of Brockenton, and of Longmore. With that disregard for orthography in proper names which prevailed some three hundred years since, they are indifferently designated as Yarran, Yarranton, and Yarrington. The name was most probably der

he House of Commo

Improvement by Sea and L

ndation of truth in t

reatness, the E

Neatness, the

ndsor, as would appear from his dedication of England's Improvement to his Lordship, whom he thanks for the e

t Worcester, being there committed by the Deputy-Lieuts. upon suspicion of a plot in November last; we having thereupon examined him, he allegeth that his Majesty hath been sought unto on his behalf, and hath given order to yourself for his discharge, and a supersedeas against all persons and warrants, and thereu

to this tract, there being no c

Worcestersh

phical Illustrations of Wo

Salwarp navigable originated in the

ats made use of in Yarranton's navigation were found. Neither tradition nor our projector's account of the matter perfectly satisfy us why this navigation was neglected….. We must therefore conclude that the numerous works and glass-houses upon the Stour, and in the neighbourhood of Stourbridge, did n

Thomas Foley and Philip Foley, Esquires, and six other gentlemen. The father of the Foleys was himself supposed to have introduced the art of iron-splitting into England by an expedient similar to that adopted by Yarranton in obtaining a knowledge of the tin-plate manufacture

pwards of 500 mines are wrought in the former district, and that one-thirtieth of the entire population of Saxony to this day d

el and tinning the said plates; and Chamberlaine's sole patent for "plating and

phical Illustrations of Wo

ed the sanction of Parliament; though the Bank of England (founded in

s scheme has recently been carried into effect by the Act (25 and

ntry, well-wishers to the Kingdom's interest.' The controversy was followed up by 'A Continuation of the Coffee-house Dialogue,' in which the chief interlocutor hits Yarranton rather hard for the miscarriage of his "improvements." "I know," says he, "when and where you undertook for a small charge to make a river navigable, and it has cost the proprietors about six times as much, and is not yet effective; nor can any man rationally predict when it will be. I know since you left it your son undertook it, and this winter shamefully left his undertaking." Yarranton's friends immediately replied in a four-page folio, entitled 'England's Improvements Justifi

cessively rare. There is a copy of it in perfect

n this story; but Mr. Green, in his Historical Antiquities of the city, has