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 INDUSTRIES foot. The old form of pin made in Reading, which has been obsolete only within recent times, consisted of a shank with a separate head of fine wire twisted round and screwed to it. Some examples of such pins manufac- tured in the town are preserved in the Reading Museum, and also some curious bones which were evidently used for sharpening the points. These were discovered when an old house was pulled down at the corner of Broad Street and Cross Street, where apparently pin- making was carried on. In 1830 Messrs. Nicholls and Brewer carried on this trade in Thorn Island. 1 Mr. Hanson, who was an apprentice of Henry Deane, the Oracle pin- maker, bought his business and carried it on until the building was pulled down and the trade ceased in Reading, being effectually killed by the rivalry of Birmingham. Some of the last pins made in Reading are in the writer's possession. They are made of single pieces of wire, the head, shaft and point being in one piece, and are of very creditable work- manship. The consideration of the history of this important industry of old Reading has carried us a long way from the records of the trades of the seventeenth century, and it will be necessary to revert to the industrial history of that period. In 1640 we find the first notice of the manufacture of silk. 2 Another new industry is mentioned in 1634 which has a brief, chequered and unsavoury career. William Hayes introduced the making of lute- strings with gut, but certain burgesses com- plained before the Corporation of Master Hayes ' annoying them with stinks by using the making of lute-strings, and misusing one of them in words,' and he was compelled to promise to desist from the manufacture of these tuneful articles. 3 The making of guns was a Reading industry. Gun Street still exists where the manufacture was carried on, and the time was fast approaching when such weapons were to be much used in the town and neighbourhood. The earliest record of the industry is associated with the name of Bartholomew Abrey, gunsmith, 4 who in 1636 was beaten and wounded by two men, and was bound over to prosecute. In the Reading Museum is a small blunderbuss with a flint lock stamped with the name of J. Mace. The date is c. 1750, and ' Reading ' is marked upon it. This was a production of a Reading gun- smith, whose descendant John Mace was still making guns in 1830. At that later period 2 Rec. of Reading, iii. 520. 3 Ibid. iii. 249. Ibid. iii. 345. the trade was also carried on by William Morgan and John Soper, who lived and worked in Broad Street. The growing use of tobacco, the sale of which was hampered by many restrictions, is shown by repeated mention in the records of the town. There were several tobacco-pipe makers in Reading in 1636, as on September 27 there is an entry relating to the differences between these craftsmen, which were heard by the mayor and burgesses and ' left to the law to be tried and proved.' s At the beginning of the last century there was a gauze manufactory at Reading con- taining 109 looms, which found employment for a great number of men, women and children, in the making of gauze, crapes, muslinets, and plain and figured silk dresses. There were also several other manufactories, among which were two for the making of galloon, satin, ribbons, hat-bands, shoe-strings, etc., in which a large number of persons were employed. In 1814 a gauze manu- factory was carried on in the Abbey, which provided employment for seventy persons. 6 Just before the advent of railways, in the year 1838, there were three firms of silk manu- factories, to whose works reference will be made in a subsequent chapter. William Clark made galloons, a kind of close lace, in Chatham Street ; and other trades were con- ducted there. Chairmaking was carried on at Speen in 1687 by one William Parker, who endeavoured to set up his trade within the precincts of the borough of Newbury, but he was ordered by the Corporation to return to Speen and the officers were commanded to remove him. An ingenious gentleman of Newbury in 1816 invented a lifeboat, the precursor of the modern boats designed for the deliverance from the perils of the sea. The inventor was Mr. William Plenty, who styled his new craft the Experiment, and Mr. Money states in his history that the boat received the encomiums of the Elder Brethren of Trinity House and the Directors of the East India Company ; Viscount Exmouth agreed with other distinguished naval authorities that Mr. Plenty's boat was built on such a prin- ciple of complete safety that it was impossible to sink her, or that she could become water- logged, or even bilged against rocks. The Lords of the Admiralty and the Royal In- stitution for the Preservation of Lives from shipwreck ordered several of the boats, after practically testing their powers, and they Ibid. iii. 338. 9 Reading Seventy Tears Ago, p. 45. 379
 * Pigot's Com. Dir. Berks, 1830, p. 56.