This is a study of the salt industry in the region of Hampshire and Sussex between (and including) Southampton and Chichester. This region was known as the Portsea Collection to the Salt Duty Collection officers. Whilst there was only one saltwork in Sussex, in early modern times, there were many in Hampshire. There were two other Collection areas in Hampshire covering the Isle of Wight and the Lymington districts respectively.
This monograph would not have been possible without the information and general background to the national salt industry provided by George Twigg. However the responsibility for the ideas expressed herein remains my own.
I should also like to acknowledge the assistance of the staffs of The National Archives and the record offices of Hampshire, Southampton and Portsmouth as well as the librarians of the Royal Society and the Universities of Glasgow and Kansas.
Names and punctuation have (generally) been modernised. Years are New Style. Money is expressed in pre-decimal £ s d. The pre-1972 boundary of Hampshire has been used.
Abbreviations.
BL British Library
bushels bushel
HRO Hampshire Record Office
PCRO Portsmouth City Record Office
SCA Southampton City Archives
TNA: The National Archives
The Post-medieval Salt industry of Southeast Hampshire
Section One: Introduction
Every day, each of the earth’s six billion inhabitants uses salt as humans need to ingest about 3-6 gm of salt (sodium chloride) every day to live in a temperate climate. It is present in most cells throughout the human body and plays crucial physiological roles in life-sustaining processes. Whilst Prehistoric man ingested salt naturally from the meat of hunted animals when he ceased to be a hunter-gatherer and developed agriculture, salt was needed to supplement the vegetable diet, so the quest for salt became a significant feature of life.
Archaeological and an anthropological studies show that the diet of hunter-gatherers, during the Palaeolithic period, had high levels of potassium and very low levels of sodium but the physiology of mammals evolved to foster the conservation of salt and so to develop a taste for sodium chloride on the tongue and the salt appetite centres in the brain.[1] Some recent evidence suggests that two ranges of salt appetite exist: the physiological range of salt intake necessary to preserve body fluid volume and the higher range of salt appetite, which is determined by a learned desire to ingest salt in excess of physiological need. Deprivation of these higher levels of salt for several months results in a preference for less salt.[2]
Medieval Arabic cookery, with its leaning toward the sweet, had an effect upon the saltiness of European cuisine. This was one of many possible reasons that contributed to the decreased salt consumption of Europe during the early middle ages. When and why the waning of the use of salt occurred is different for various reasons. Cost, taxation, different cultures and geographical locations - all may have played a part.[3]
Salt has been used for medical, religious and culinary purposes. In Jewish Law, it was prescribed for the sacrifices and the loaves of proposition. There is the familiar Bible story of Lot's wife being turned into a pillar of salt. Plutarch wrote ‘First there is salt without which practically nothing is eatable’. Salt alters the electro-conductivity of the tongue, enhancing other flavours and reducing bitterness, even where there is no salty taste.[4] Nowadays there are conscious efforts to reduce the excessive salt consumption of people in Europeanised countries.[5] In the 19th century, salt became of increasing value as an important raw material for the chemical industry. This sprang from the commercial exploitation of the LeBlanc (and later Solvay) process for converting salt to synthetic sodium-based alkalis.[6] For this reason, the English chemical industry started on the Dee peninsula close to the Cheshire salt mines and the northwestern coalfields.
Annual salt production has increased over the past century from 10 million tonnes to over 200 million tonnes today. Nearly 100 nations have salt producing facilities ranging from primitive solar evaporation to advanced, multi-stage evaporation refineries.
PROPERTIES
Natural Sodium chloride physically appears as a cube shaped crystal which melts at 801°C and boils at 1465°C. Dissolving it in water will reduce the water’s temperature so that a saturated solution created at 15.5°C will lose approximately 3.3°C. It is hygroscopic and the crystals expand slightly on hydration thus allowing unprotected piles of rock salt to be left by the roadside for de icing.[7]
Molecular structure of NaCl crystal
The specific gravity of a sodium chloride crystal is 2.16 whilst saturated brine at 15º C contains 26.5% salt, and has a specific gravity 1.203 yet at 25º C it contains 26.7% salt with a lower specific gravity of 1.2004 even though it contains marginally more salt. It is this that allowed early salt makers to crystallise salt on the surfaces of ponds, using floating elements such as sticks to form the crusts of salt. It should be noted that with most other substances crystallisation cannot occur at the solution surface because their solubility increases more rapidly than their specific gravity decreases.
Chemical
---------------------------
Major constituents
Composition
---------------------
g/kg sea water
of seawater
----------------------------------Percentage of dissolved salts
Cl
18.980
55.04
Na+
10.556
30.61
SO4
2.649
7.68
Mg2+
1.272
3.69
Ca2+
0.400
1.16
K+
0.380
1.10
Total
34.237
99.28
The six major elements; Cl, Na, S (in the form of sulphate ion), Mg, Ca and K - account for more than 99% of the dissolved solids in sea water. Many compounds exist in more than one form in seawater, partly as free ions and partly as ion pairs; nevertheless sodium chloride represents around 97% of the material crystallised by the evaporation of seawater.
Seawater is a complex solution of positive and negative solvated ions, and by increasing the concentration of these ions (by evaporation of the water), they will crystallise out of solution at different rates (fractional crystallisation). First to be deposited are the almost insoluble calcium carbonate and calcium sulphate (in the dihydrate form of gypsum). Sodium chloride must be removed when it begins to crystallize, if it is to be pure, otherwise it will become mixed with the so called bitter salts (notably the sulphates of sodium and magnesium) when they precipitate. The sequence of deposition is thus-
CaCO3 & MgCO3 (very small amounts): CaSO4:
NaCl
hydrated triple sulphate of K, Mg, Ca: MgSO4 (Epsom salt) : Na2SO4 10H20 (Glauber’s salt)[8]
The substances that crystallise out after NaCl are known as the bittern (bitters, bittern salts) due to their bitter taste. If allowed to be included with the NaCl they not only have a deleterious effect on the flavour as well as making it deliquescent and thus causing it to become lumpy and – ultimately – ‘melt’ (in contemporary parlance). This had a negative effect on its transport and storage.
The common practice of retaining the bittern (by returning it to the next evaporation) was detrimental as this practice actually reduced that amount of salt that would be produced compared with draining away the bittern and using new brine. The evaporation rate deteriorates rapidly in the high concentration ranges.
Salinity of the Medina Estuary. (IoW)[9]
Salinity is a measure of the concentration of mineral salts dissolved in seawater. The median salinity of the world’s oceans is 34.7 g/kg (‰). Whilst the mean salinity of the Solent is 34.3‰ (ranging from 33‰ in March to 34.51‰ in September, it is < 30‰ in the inner estuaries and the inner parts of the Harbours of Portsmouth, Langstone and Chichester.[10] Similarly, it varies seasonally in the river Medina, which empties into the western Solent, being diluted by fresh river water.
Geologically the area under consideration is located within one of two major Tertiary basins of the British Isles (the Hampshire basin), enclosed by chalk outcrops of Cretaceous age. This chalk horizon dips underneath Portsmouth in a syncline and is overlain by sediments of the Lower Tertiary before becoming the prominent chalk ridge to the north.
As well as the simple rise in sealevel, it has been established that the shoreline along the East Solent has been eroding over an extended period of time. Maps charts and offshore finds all tend to indicate a continual recession of the shoreline.[11] There is historical evidence to suggest that during the 13th and 14th centuries, large inundations of the coast occurred e.g. Hayling Island. The period from about 1250-1350 was also an era of violent storms and tidal surges. Also in 1421, 1446, and 1570, there were exceptional tidal surges which killed an estimated 100000 or more as a result of the inundation of the North Sea coasts and adjacent areas in the Channel.[12] Storms resulting from low pressure systems lead to a temporary rise in sea level and it is these tidal surges that have been more important in causing damage to coastal areas than high-pressure system storms. This is obviously an important factor when deciding where to site saltworks.
Section Two: Techniques of salt production
Salt crystals occur in two different sizes between which there is an important commercial difference. Large grained salt is produced by the slow evaporation of brine such as occurs naturally in the wholly solar salt production areas. Small-grained salt is produced by the rapid boiling of brine and was characteristic of salt produced in Great Britain. The significance of the difference was known from at least the 13th century as there were distinct roles for each type. The latter was almost solely used in the home market whilst the former was widely used for fish curing for which small-grained salt is unsuitable. Nowadays, the size of the crystal can be determined by the precise type of manufacturing process used or by post production milling.
Salt crystals
There is a great deal of evidence for pre historic saltmaking in Dorset but little for Hampshire. This partly reflects the level of archaeological investigation in Hampshire, many of whose salt producing sites have been eroded away since prehistoric times or are now covered by the sea. At sites with a possible history of production of 2000-3000 years, most evidence of early workings has probably been destroyed by the inevitable new construction works over the centuries.[13]
The basic raw material used in coastal salt making in southern England was seawater or brine (a salt solution of enhanced concentration), which was reduced to a crystalline state by heating to evaporate the water. Brine could be obtained by washing dried, salt-impregnated sand or silt, or by the partial evaporation of seawater from exposure to the sun and/or strong dry winds. Refining Cheshire rocksalt or French Bay salt was another technique. Natural brine springs are only found inland, particularly in Cheshire, Worcestershire and Staffordshire. Details of the actual procedure used obviously varied with time and place.
The earliest known method of coastal saltmaking has been found in the late Bronze Age. This involved boiling seawater (or possibly brine) in crude clay dishes supported by clay firebars and was widespread throughout the world, even in areas where salt was later produced solely by solar evaporation. These coarse, sand and/or vegetable tempered ceramic items are known as briquetage and comprise the main archaeological evidence for early salt making and trade. Some 10% of all archaeological sites contain briquetage as the vessels were also used for transport of the finished salt and are therefore found at many non-salt producing sites. Furthermore, as most saltworks sites are now underwater, briquetage has been distributed by wave, wind and tide action over a larger area. There have been several significant finds in the Harbours of briquetage but the above caveats need to be considered in their interpretation.[14]
This technique continued into the Iron Age and into the Roman period with variations inevitably occurring in the industry, although coastal saltworks became much less common from the early 2nd century AD. In general, the evidence for all types of saltworks becomes much rarer after the beginning of the 3rd century AD. The dating of saltworks is very problematical since saltworks sites were not primarily intended for occupation, so dating evidence is restricted to a fairly narrow range of artefact types, and usually rests upon the evidence of domestic pottery. Aceramic finds are rare.[15] Much of the evidence for the function of early saltworks comes from the finds of briquetage. In general, any given assemblage can be divided into two groups: evaporation kiln furniture and brine evaporation vessels/salt moulds. The former includes items interpreted as firebars etc which were used to support evaporation vessels over a hearth. The latter includes shallow pans, or containers of various shapes, which were used for holding brine during the evaporation stage of saltmaking. An enormous range of briquetage items of both groups is known, and it has been suggested that all briquetage assemblages are site specific. Detailed interpretation continues to be a matter of dispute.
Salt containers originating from Droitwich and Cheshire were moved considerable distances from their sources but not into the southeast. Conversely, the distinctive pottery of Poole harbour has been found in northwestern coastal excavations. Fenland salt related pottery has not been found outside its production area.[16] It has been suggested that salt production was geographically restricted to areas in agriculturally unpromising environments and so might have led to such specialisation in compensation. Alternatively, strong cultural/social controls over extraction and large scale production may have led to a deliberate exodus to such specific places from the tribal heartlands.[17]
A major change in salt production technology occurred in Roman times when brine began to be heated in wood-fired lead pans instead of primitive ceramic containers. However, this being an aceramic technique, its archaeological remains are few as the lead pans were inevitably recycled. Only in the inland saltworks of Cheshire have Roman lead saltpans been found and whilst some slender evidence for the East coast exists; there is nothing similar for the South coast until the Anglo-Saxon period. Scraps of lead have been found at saltworking sites in Kent and Sussex, as well as along the East coast, in this era so it is logical to assume that lead pans were also used for making salt in Hampshire in the medieval period. How and why the new technology was introduced remains a mystery though it appears the technique possibly spread from southwest France.[18]
This development was accompanied by a major change in the method of coastal brine making. Almost universally around the English coast (except those northeastern areas near coalfields which only used seawater), brine was now being made by ‘sleeching’ i.e. by washing salt- impregnated sand as well as silts and clays, occurring either as beach deposits or as estuarine mud. Between successive maximum (spring) high tides, there is a period of about three weeks during which the salt water impregnated ground, near the high water mark, may dry out by natural evaporation so that its surface contains dried salt. The surface sand was scraped off the beach (or other littoral site) and stored in primitive roofed enclosures.[19] This salt-impregnated material was then washed with fresh water to produce brine and then filtered into sunken receptacles or ‘sumps’. The dumping of washed sand led to mound formation which is often the only surviving archaeological feature.[20] Much of the evidence for this technique has been destroyed by erosion, agriculture or industrial development. The chronology of this change and its geographical spread is unknown although its dissemination is likely to have taken centuries rather than decades. The brine was condensed by evaporation in lead pans over hearths, so as to produce salt, using whatever fuel was available; usually wood or peat. Although there were local variations in hearth and pan size, pans were always shallow, maximizing the surface area in order to facilitate evaporation and collection of salt.
Coal fired iron pan and grate. 16th century. After Agricola
Before complete crystallisation of the solution had occurred, the solid contents of the pan were removed into conical wicker baskets allowing the bittern to drain out of the salt. Although of limited productivity, the technique enabled a flexible approach to saltmaking by the makers who were predominantly small farmers.[21] The salt ‘crust’ (or crast) could be more easily stored and transported (short distances) than brine and the salt could be extracted at any time; as necessary. No large capital investment was required; inventories in Hampshire typically value saltern leads at about 20 shillings and utensils at around 15 shillings.[22] The technique could be used in areas of reduced salinity without increasing costs although the major disadvantage was the limited productivity. The system prevailed in Morecambe Bay and Normandy until the nineteenth century; these were areas with large tidal ranges and low beach profiles better suited to the technique.
The St. Elizabeth’s day flood of 1421 destroyed much of the Dutch salt industry and let to the dominance of salt from Atlantic France produced by natural evaporation.[23] During the 15th and 16th centuries, England became dependent on Continental salt suppliers until the French religious wars disrupted trade. This stimulated the setting up of many new coastal saltworks in England, from the 1560s onwards, particularly on the East Coast.[24] This trend was later accentuated by the prohibition on French and Spanish salt exports, in 1630, after the disastrous English expedition to the Ile de Ré in 1627.[25] The new works often incorporated the new techniques already prevalent on the southern side of the Channel. These were based on an almost totally new process using of coal fired iron evaporation pans with brine obtained from the partial evaporation of seawater by wind and sun in large, shallow ponds.
This method of production was described at the end of the 18th century:
The sea water is first admitted into feeding ponds, from whence it flows into levels, in which there are partitions, forming pans, as they are called, from 20 to 30 square perches each; these receive the sea water from the feeding ponds to the depth of about 3 inches, and from which it passes from the higher to the lower pans, exposed to the action of the sun and wind, until the brine becomes of a sufficient strength to be pumped up by small wind engines into a cistern, whence it is conveyed by troughs into the respective iron pans for boiling.
The ordinary size of these boiling pans is about 8 feet 6 inches square, and about 11 inches deep, but of which depth about 8 inches only is filled with brine, which is kept gently simmering for eight hours.
The extent of ground required for evaporation, exclusive of the feeding ponds and cistern, is about 3 roods, or 120 perches to each pan. The standard by which the strength of the brine is ascertained as fit for boiling… [when] the workmen know that it is of such a strength as the burning of 18 bushels or ½ a chaldron of coals will produce about 1 tons of salt, each pan yielding about 8 bushels of dry well-drained salt every 8 hrs., and consequently a bushel per hour for the 6 days and nights they are kept constantly employed. When the salt is first taken out of the pans, the quantity would measure more than 8 bushels, but as it is left to drain in the trough for 8 hours after the pans are emptied, about 10 gallons of bitters runs from each trough in that time… The salt-pans are all made of plates of wrought iron, well secured and rivetted together, and will cost new (making included) from £36 to £40 each, weighing about 18 cwt.[26]
Salt produced entirely by natural evaporation (by the wind and sun) came almost entirely from the Atlantic coasts of France, Portugal and Spain although there were sporadic imports from the Mediterranean, West Indies and the Cape Verde islands. The best quality of which - ‘white salt’- was exported mostly to England. The lower grade, Common or Bay salt, contained inclusions of dirt etc and was predominately bought by Dutch merchants and taken to Holland and Zeeland. After dissolving in fresh water, it was refined to produce ‘salt on salt’, which was re exported to countries around the North Sea and Baltic. The technique was also in Southampton to produce fisheries salt for Newfoundland. However, the major use of Bay salt was in the fisheries of northern Europe and North America. Later the name was applied to fisheries salt whatever its origin.[27]
Sodium chloride production by fractional crystallisation needs to be carefully monitored to prevent the inclusion of bitter salts, that is the various other chemical compounds present in seawater which render the salt bitter to taste and deliquescent. Of principal significance are sodium sulphate (Epsom salt) and magnesium sulphate heptahydrate (Glauber’s salt). During the seventeenth century chemists began to isolate the constituents of the bitters: the identification of Glauber’s salt, in 1624 has been taken to be the beginning of the chemical revolution even though it was several decades before this particular information circulated in England. In some works Glauber’s and Epsom salts were recovered from the stored bittern during the winter; either separately or as the double salt. They were both usually termed ‘purging salt’ and bore the same rate of Excise duty as common salt. The productive use of a once waste product was of minor assistance to the profitability of salting.[28]
The expenses of production are rarely detailed but an undated (but c 1660) account gives a comprehensive estimate of these and the manner or working;
A note of the saltworks at Portsea and what quantities of salt may be yearly made thereof on seasonable years together with the yearly charge. The work contains 40 acres of ground or thereabouts in which is 240 [sic] Brine and pickle pans made in the ground which must be amended and ready to set on work by the beginning of May yearly.
In June July August and part of September if the year be seasonable will be drawn three times every week 80 brine and pickle pans which will yield in brine 300 tons or thereabouts weekly. Every ton of brine makes 4 bushels of salt so that 300 tons of brine makes 150 quarters of salt weekly which is 30 weys of salt containing 40 bushels the wey.
Which to be sold at 40s the wey per week comes to £60 [30 weys]; per month comes to £240 [120 weys]; for 3 months it comes to £720 [360 weys]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
£720
for 200 weys of seacole to boil up the said salt £200
for 16 labourers each of them 8s per week is £6.8.0;
per month £25.12.0; which for 3 months comes to £76.16.0
to the landlord for rent of the said ground per annum £20
to one to keep the accounts and oversee the said work per annum £50
----------------------------
376.16.0 [recte 343.4.0]
so there rests clear to this work yearly 343.4.0 [recte 376.16.0]
the charge to raise and make a new work to this proportion will cost about £700.[29]
This gives a ratio of one ton of coal used per 1.8 tons of salt produced; a somewhat optimistic prediction; which was probably the point as it would appear to be part of some ‘sales promotion’.
This technique remained in use until the demise of the saltworks in Hampshire in the mid 19th century. More advanced 19th century techniques – particularly vacuum distillation – were never used in Hampshire because proprietors were unwilling to make the necessary capital investment in what was obviously a decaying local industry by then.
The discovery of rocksalt in Cheshire in 1670 brought about a revolution in salt production with most coastal saltworks being replaced within a surprisingly short time by rocksalt refineries close to supplies of coal so that they sprung up in such unlikely places as Yeovil. In 1702, an Act restricted rock salt being refined ‘except within 10 miles of [salt] pits or at such places used before 1702 for such purposes’ and most were around the fishing ports of Devon, Cornwall although later exemptions were made for some places in East Anglia. [30]
Section Three: Reclamation of the foreshore: the Wandesford grant
Stuart monarchs were renowned for the profligacy with which they gave out grants, by letters patent, of almost any right or monopoly as a means of augmenting their income without having to seek the approval of an increasingly hostile Parliament.[31] Though patents of invention were time limited by an Act of 1623, they could be extended by a subsequent Private Act of Parliament.[32] Nobody could have realised, however, that the privileges given by to the Wandesforde family (by patent) by Charles I could still be a matter of concern to national and local authorities in the last quarter of the 20th century. This apparently obscure example of Caroline autocracy has legal, historical, social, political, climatological and environmental implications.[33]
By the 17th century, the inhabitants of the coast of Hampshire were well aware, that the coastline was changing with grazing salt marshes, in particular, being lost to the sea. The cause of this they usually ascribed to extreme weather events - particularly tidal surges - as the concept of rising sea levels was not then appreciated. Folk memories of the 14th century inundations (particularly on Hayling Island) continued; heightened by the severe floods around the Bristol Channel in 1607.[34] As a consequence, various individuals considered that they could (to a degree) reverse the process in selected locations; to their own financial advantage.
Although the foreshore (the area between mean high water and low water marks) was the property of the Crown[35] and hence capable of being sold, leased or licensed to others, any new lands created naturally above high water mark had always been considered to belong to the lord of the contiguous manor as (contrariwise) he was not entitled to compensation if any of his lands were swept away by the sea. By the 14th century, it was a firmly established legal principle that the lords of manors adjoining the sea should ‘enjoy the land which is raised by silt and sand and which tides do cast up’. Cases during 1570s established the principle that the foreshore could be parcel of a manor by prescription and it has long been the custom that manors on the Isle of Wight – previously owned by the Earls of Devon – included the foreshore within their territorial limits.[36] This also applied to manors of the Honour of Arundel which included Hayling Island.[37]
Under early medieval English Common law, certain lands and resources were designated as public by longstanding tradition or specific dedication. Although the monarch held (and still does) sovereign title to these, he has a fiduciary responsibility to maintain them in trust for the public right of common use. Such places are in a civil state of common ownership, governed by public law, and are reserved from appropriation (purpresture) by any individual.[38] It is settled that the title to the soil of the sea (including tidal estuaries) below the ordinary high water mark, is vested in the king, except so far as an individual or a corporation has acquired rights in it by express grant, or by prescription or usage, and that this title (jus privatum) is held subject to the public right (jus publicum) of navigation and fishing.[39]
The foreshore is deemed a movable freehold, and property rights follow changes in high and low water marks caused by accretion or encroachment, provided that the process is gradual and imperceptible.[40] If tidelines are changed suddenly (e.g. by land reclamation) property boundaries remain as before, provided that the original positions can be determined. If gradual and imperceptible accretion is unintentionally caused by coast protection work, property boundaries change in consequence.[41]
In the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I, various efforts were made to raise money by the discovery of ‘concealed lands’ i.e. former Crown lands in private possession - but without any extant documented legal title - as well as lands held by (allegedly) defective title even though there may never have been more than a customary title. Owners who could not prove title were obliged to pay for the privilege of new title deeds from the Crown.[42] Such lands included 'surrounded' lands i.e. those formerly subject to flooding by the sea but now dry (by natural causes) and put to productive use. It also included lands once overflown by sea but now deliberately inned and made sufficiently dry for the local inhabitants to use them.[43] Inquisitions in the New Forest in 1608-9, for instance, revealed a number of these.[44] This led to so much antipathy that the principle that adverse possession against the Crown could be gained, after 60 years uninterrupted possession, received statutory approval in an Act of 1625 ‘for the general quiet of subjects against all pretence of concealment’.[45]
An extension of these Commissions of inquiry was one in 1613 to search for surrounded grounds all around the coast.[46] After their earlier experience in detecting concealed lands, William Tipper and his son Robert were appointed to seek out such lands gained from the sea (and by encroachment) which eventually amounted to nearly ten thousand acres.[47] A further patent was granted to Robert Tipper and John Gasson for draining both fresh and salt marshes in 1626 ‘wherever they wished’ for fourteen years.[48] The grant replaced one surrendered by Gasson (of 1623) and their first works were in the Fens.[49] They surrendered this the following year in return for one:
for draining, gaining, banking, sluicing and laying dry such lands, fens, oozey land and such other low grounds now subject to overflowing and inundation of fresh or saltwater or unto the rage of sea... there is a great quantity of [such] land in Langstone, Hayling island, Eastney, Farlington, Portsea island, Beddington, Drayton, Hilsey and other places in the counties of Southampton and Sussex.[50]
This work was to be effected before 1631 but their progress was slow and, by the end of 1628, they petitioned for an extension of time as they were:
bound to gain 2000 acres before St Andrew’s day next beginning at the places near Portsmouth as a grand example... They have proceeded so far as that they find themselves able to perform the work but not within the time.[51]
They also sought financial aid as they were evidently undercapitalised.[52]
Robert Pamplyn had been a minor servant of the Royal Household in three reigns, variously described in 1603 as the Queen’s page and later as one of the Yeomen of the Wardrobe (actually Page of His Majesty’s Robes and later Yeoman of the Robes).[53] This position was almost a sinecure, involving only nominal attendance to supervise the maintenance of the Robes of State although he was technically resident at Court. He had been elected a burgess of Lymington in 1593 and became mayor there in 1609; the latter position was not purely honorary and involved attendance at the Three-week courts so that it is probable he lived near Lymington although no records exist of him owning property in the region. The parish registers of Lymington only survive from 1650 so are of no assistance.[54]
The circumstances that led to Pamplyn’s association with the Wandesforde family are not known. Christopher Wandesforde was declared a lunatic in 1601 and became a ward of the queen who committed his custody to Robert Pamplyn. Robert Pamplyn’s daughters, Mary and Margaret, married the brothers George and William Wandesford, respectively, of Kirklington, Yorkshire shortly after 1600. To confuse matters, William and Margaret Wandesford’s son was named George (in 1608) whilst three years earlier George and Mary Wandesford’s son had been baptised William.[55]
The brothers George and William Wandesforde were forced to sell land in 1611 for repayment of loans from Thomas Whale of Lymington, organised by Pamplyn.[56] After the Restoration, the Wandesforde family fortunes improved with the more profitable exploitation of their Irish estates. One or more of the family were MPs throughout the reign of Charles II and Christopher Wandesforde married into the wealthy and influential Lowther family.[57]
In order to create an inheritance for his descendants (and profit from his public service), Robert Pamplyn sought a grant of lands ‘being places overflown by the sea ’in the parishes of Keyhaven and Berewater and certain lands in Milford, Winnings [Wymering] and adjacent parishes’; in fact, encompassing the foreshore over large stretches of the Hampshire (and Isle of Wight) coastline.[58] As a result, an order was given, in 1628, to the Sheriff of Hampshire, the mayor of Lymington (and others), to ‘survey and overlook all those harbours creeks lakes and lands overflowed by sea and to enquire if lands be inundated or received from sea’. An inquisition ad quod damnum was held the following year in Winchester. After a favourable report[59] from the jury, a grant was made to Robert Pamplyn, Mary Wandesford (widow of Sir George) and William Wandesford (husband of Margaret née Pamplyn) but Pamplyn died before he could receive the Letters patent, which thereby went to his daughters.[60] The grant included specified ‘inundated lands oaze or oazie ground … and all other Lands inundated and those recovered or left bare and dry and which shall be recovered in the area above and all houses edifices on them’, but excluded the west side of Portsmouth haven, and totalled 5189 acres.[61] There was an obvious conflict with Tipper’s grant ,which only had a short time remaining, so the Wandesfords sold him three parts of roughly all the grounds covered by their grant between Wymering and Emsworth; retaining the remaining part.[62]
The Wandesfords’ attempts to inclose some parts of foreshore led to litigation and, in 1628, information was filed against Bold and Browning regarding land at Langstone and Portsea claimed to be enclosed by them from the foreshore without licence. Bold claimed these lands as part of his manors of Portsea and Wymering. Finally the Wandesfords and Robert Tipper agreed to sell to William Bold and his brother Henry, in 1630 ‘marshy and oozy ground left bare by sea on the Isle of Portsea’ (at Copnor).[63]
Much more drawn out were disputes arising from the Wandesford’s attempts to enclose lands at Hulsey marsh. They took action in 1638 against Robert Rigges and others, regarding land there adjacent to Drayton Marsh in Wymering. In evidence, it was stated that about a year previously, the Wandesfords and other undertakers had begun to embank the marsh with a wall, which was partly thrown down by the defendants. Again it was claimed that all the said lands were previously ‘overflown by the sea’ and hence part of the foreshore. Yet again, local witnesses disputed this and said that the sea had never overflowed the lands until the extraordinary weather of the previous year. The seawall erected was destroyed and her workmen arrested at the instigation of Robert Rigges of Fareham. At the instigation of the Privy Council, Hampshire JPs investigated but Rigges refused to give satisfaction whereupon the Council issued a warrant for apprehension of any who should disturb her works.[64] There were three saltworks already there, of Sir Edward Banister, Robert Rigges and John Perkins. It was also said that ‘part of Hulsey marsh lies in ridge and furrow…and ploughed for corn for 60 years’. Rigges and Perkins as lords of the manor refused to let her wall in part of it as it was never overflowed by sea and was part of the manor of Hulsey. The disagreement seems to have originated from Robert Rigges wanting to buy the right to enclose part of the marsh from Margaret Wandesford but could not agree a price. Verdict was given for the defendant as the lands were said to be only covered by exceptionally high spring tides.[65] In 1638 the Wandesfords were obliged to surrender their patent for this saltmarsh and adjacent area to Charles I. The Wandesfords, in 1666, leased various marshlands in Milford and Lymington to Charles Guidott of Lymington whilst a few years earlier they had similarly leased to Thomas Burrard for 1000 years (and likewise to Thomas Bromfield) several small plots to build saltworks in Lymington.[66]
The remaining patent rights were eventually conveyed mainly to Hildebrand Pruson ,apart from those acquired by Brownlow, the latter forming – unsuccessfully - a ‘Company of Adventurers’ to drain some of the marshes in the 1650s.[67] Eventually the rights came into the possession of the Perkins family of Winkton in 1732.[68] It was subsequently argued that they had ceased to exist by then, having fallen into desuetude.
Section Four: Development of the Hampshire industry
Approximately 200 saltmaking sites can still be identified in Hampshire ranging in date from the Iron Age to the early 19th century; some probably having been in operation for nearly 2000 years (intermittently).[69] The Domesday book is the first nationwide account of the economic and fiscal potential of England and lists some 1000 salinae between Lincolnshire and Sussex but only some 200 more on the rest of the south coast with a mere 26 in Hampshire, including Bedhampton, Wymering and Hayling. In Dorset, several saltworks are noted but none for Somerset; suggesting under recording. This seems to be also the case for Hampshire in view of the large number of coastal saltworks recorded by 1200.[70]
Location map
Later medieval evidence for Portsmouth, Langstone and Chichester harbours (hereafter ‘the Harbours’) is scanty apart from that provided by the cartulary of Southwick priory. This records two saltworks at Porchester rendering (c 1220-30) 15 sesters (sextara) of 5 bushels each. An inquiry in 1303 into the value of the castle at Porchester noted rents, including 30 quarters of salt, from 5 customary tenants- ‘that rent is called le saltern and is worth 12d per quarter’. By 1319, Southwick priory owned the tithes of the saltworks of certain parishioners of the churches of Wymering and Portsea and a dispute over these led to a threat of excommunication. The fact that the tithes on salt were separate emphasises their value and this is a consistent feature of several littoral parishes of Hampshire.[71]
Whereas in 14th century Hampshire about 40 varieties of marine foodstuffs were available, by the end of the 18th century, Billingsgate was only dealing in ling, turbot, colefish, cod, whiting, halibut, skate and haddock. Of the twenty or so species of sea water fish widely utilised in England, the species most suitable for salting are herring Clupea harengus, sprat Sprattus sprattus (can be called young herring), pilchard /sardine Sardinia pilchardus and cod Gadus morrhua. The promotion of fish eating was allied to continual attempts to provide a ‘nursery of seamen’ for the Navy from the fishing fleets. In 1563, it was ordained that an extra day per week (Wednesday) be a fish day as ‘it is necessary for the restoring of the navy of England to have more fish eaten ‘.[72]
Until the mid 14th century, countries in Northern Europe mostly obtained their salt from their own indigenous sources but by the end of the century, it increasingly came from Continental Europe. Late medieval England experienced a decline in fisheries salt manufacture as the Continental solar salt producers undercut indigenous suppliers. The only internationally significant Continental suppliers were on the French Atlantic coast, St. Setubal (Portugal) with minor supplies from the Mediterranean coasts of Spain and the Adriatic although there was a host of very small saltworks all over Western Europe. A complex international market existed, dominated by the Dutch need for salt for their North Sea herring fishery which they usually obtained from France as return cargo for Baltic grain conveyed there. In the early 15th century, the Baltic herring fishery failed following the disappearance of the herring shoals so fishing became more prevalent in the North Sea, led by the Dutch.[73] The Dutch processed the herring at sea - instead of landing it first - using five or six tons of salt for 100 crans of herring (about 1000 herring) although further processing occurred on shore. [74] This became the method used in all herring fisheries. Catches of herring for domestic UK consumption (mostly from south east coastal fishing) doubled during the second half of the 18th century and by 1809 an estimated 123 Kbushels salt were used each year.[75]
Unlike herring and pilchards which are pelagic species, cod is demersal and was usually caught on hand-held hooked lines and not in nets. [76] Scandinavian cod fishing increasingly excluded foreigners and so other European countries were forced to move to the East coast of North America. By the end of the 17th century, fishing off the coast of Newfoundland was the preserve of the English whilst the French dominated that on the Banks to the southwest of the island. The French gutted the cod and lightly salted them directly in the holds of their ships. This ‘green cod’ was the favoured commodity in northern France. In contrast, the English landed the cod which was then gutted, split, salted and air-dried and taken to the main markets in the Mediterranean. By the end of the 18th century, English cod caught off Newfoundland amounted to about 30,000 tons p.a. and probably the same for both the French and New England fisheries; although reliable data is lacking for these latter fisheries. It was estimated that one million quintals of cod would need 50,000 hogsheads of salt. This came from a multitude of sources with the French using their own whilst the English (and Americans) picked it up in Portugal, Sicily or the Wine Islands (Cape Verde) on their return from the Mediterranean. In 1715 for instance 112 ships from countries on both sides of the north Atlantic loaded salt at Cape Verde.[77] Each English fishing port had its own preferences, Poole always using French salt whilst Exeter used Hampshire, Droitwich, Cheshire and Portuguese salt. [78] This emphasises the international nature of the trade in salt: a shortfall in one supply was quickly augmented from another nation. For instance, The Abbey of Beaulieu had a fishing room at Great Yarmouth utilising Poitou salt (sal grossus) in the 13th century, whilst it used the small-grained salt, (sal minutus) from its Lymington saltworks, for domestic purposes.[79]
Whilst there were 14th century English salt exports from the East and South coasts to an area stretching from Norway to Ireland, from the early 14th century English merchants went to Poitou, Gascony and especially Oléron for salt and wine. In 1319, mention is made of a ship of Richard Bagge, a Southampton merchant, with salt from the Bay (of Bourgneuf), which was seized in Brittany and the crew slain.[80] At the same time, Hampshire salt was being shipped to Exeter.[81] The Hundred year’s war adversely affected French salt production so there was a move to suppliers in Brittany and Spain. Brittany retained an independent assembly until becoming part of France in 1547 and this was a major factor in the development of its salt export industry as it was also exempt from the gabelle. The Dutch controlled much of the trade from Atlantic France as Bay salt was of poor quality and, in the Low Countries (later around Dieppe), it was refined to create ‘salt on salt’, before being re-exported.[82] Customs accounts show that during 1380-1500 the export of salt from England almost ceased due to a number of factors including plague, foreign price advantage, economic disruption, and weather.[83] By the late 14th century, the price of salt had declined sharply due to foreign imports and during the following century, it remained low and steady. By the end of the 15th century, the port of Southampton[84] drew its salt imports increasingly from the Bay of Noirmoutier region - at the expense of La Rochelle and Spain - as the importance of the Breton merchants also grew, although the overall amount decreased. Hanse merchants were allowed to bring in salt from Lüneburg duty free although they complained, in 1408, that this privilege was not being allowed them at Southampton.[85] There is no evidence of such imports into South Coast ports.
The relationship between salt production and the fisheries is thus very complex as political factors (internal and external) played a large part. The intricate pattern of trading links established by the European maritime powers meant that if salt production in any one locality was hindered or prevented by war, politics or natural disaster then there were alternative (if more expensive) sources available. Saltworks based on natural brine springs both in England and the Continent suffered the limitations of burghal administration and petty politics and failed to expand to meet the growing household needs of an expanding population. The famous salt mines of Austria and Poland were ill situated with poor transport links so that their production levels hardly changed during the era in question.[86]
During the reign of Elizabeth, various attempts were made to expand the English saltworks on the East Coast to serve the important Yarmouth herring fisheries. Various patents were awarded but the expansion of the English industry between 1560 and 1640 owed nothing to patent policy and a precondition of commercial success was to exclude the entourage of the court. A breakdown in production in France in the late 16th century due to the religious conflicts and civil disturbances in the United Provinces gave the impetus to a widespread increase in English salt production.[87] Many of the patentees were from the Low Countries and claimed to have knowledge of various ‘new’ and ‘superior’ methods of saltmaking but as these are never specified, there is rarely any description of them. In 1564 Caspar Seeler received the sole grant of the making and sale of white salt in England yet at the same time, Francis Berti of Antwerp was shipping pans and other implements for making salt to England from, Bergen op Zoom, as he claimed to make salt on salt by a new process.[88] In 1565, he received an exclusive grant of making white salt in England for 20 years. Like others, this was transferred to the ‘Lords of the Salt’- various noblemen like the Earl of Leicester or other members of the Privy Council. As part of this, it was ordered that 'works according to the new plan of furnaces and pans for making salt be erected' at Portsmouth. [89] These were iron pans, which were made in the Weald. However, a later report describes the outcome;
in 5 or 6 Elizabeth, sundry pans of iron were devised by advice of some strangers which being made at Her Majesty’s charge were to have been set up at Portsmouth but were afterwards carried to Tynemouth; their insufficiency to make good salt being apparent, they were left in Tynemouth castle where they have been for more than 20 years. [90]
A grant was made to Thomas Molesey (or Moseley) and Thomas Godstowe in 1614 of ‘making bay and white salt by a new invention and for venting of salt in more advantageous manner’ although again the details are not recorded. In November, Thomas Moseley petitioned the mayor of Lymington that he had made a successful trial of making salt on John Dore’s land near Lymington but that Dore had refused to transfer the estate to Moseley as promised. This event was overtaken by a dispute between the various patentees for saltmaking, although details of neither are known. This resulted in the temporary ascendancy of Echard’s patent of 1607 whilst Moseley’s patent was declared void in law.[91]
Disputes over conflicting patents continued until the Commonwealth with the mayor and burgesses of Lymington being required to investigate a complaint to the Privy Council. William Trumball maintained that ‘divers unruly persons in and around Lymington endeavour to cross and hinder the due execution of three patents [of James I] granted for making of salt after new way’. The results of this enquiry show that both lead and iron pans were in use and floor pans ‘in the new way’.[92]
Yet another attempt to obtain a monopoly of saltmaking (and salt imports) was made by Thomas Horth and his associates who petitioned the king in 1636 for a patent to that effect in the region of the Northern ports (Berwick-Southampton). The merchants of Southampton successfully made representations to be exempt from this new, increased duty on Bay or French salt, giving as reasons that:
Southampton was a member of the western division of ports… that the greatest part of the shipping of this town is employed in the fishing trade to the Newfoundland… that the fish being transported to foreign parts do provide wine oil fruit linen and many other commodities yearly…this fishing cannot be maintained without the use of French or Spanish salt…Newcastle salt is no good for Newfoundland fish as it is small and will melt with wetness.
Notably they were not concerned with local salt producers who only made salt for domestic use. This also suggests the still small scale of Hampshire commercial salt manufacturing. The scheme was never fruitful.[93]
Nevertheless, English salt production increased rapidly in the 18th century based mostly on Cheshire rock salt. Whilst Dartmouth received about 2ktn p.a. from Breton ports before 1630, but only half this amount thereafter with the rest from Spain, its 18th century supplies came from Droitwich until it finally succumbed to the Liverpool traders around 1800. Similarly the Welsh fishing ports replaced foreign with Liverpool salt as did north Devon ports and those in Sussex.[94]
Salt exports also increased with (for example) Denmark’s imports from England increasing from £2070 worth in 1722 to, £9698 by 1794. The traditional salt producers in Tyneside and the South coast declined after 1750 as Liverpool turned from exporting rock salt to sending white salt coastwise. And whilst it exported in 1785 2167 Kbushels of white salt and 1952 Kbushels of rock salt, in 1665 this had only been 6 Kbushels although climbing to over 200 Kbushels by 1689 after rock salt was discovered. In the three years to 1801, Liverpool sent 3,820 Kbushels, Lymington 149839 bushels of a national total of 5631 Kbushels British white salt sent coastwise.[95]
Section Five: Local Saltworks
There was no particular pattern to the establishment of saltworks in the area but geographical and economic factors were obviously paramount. There is, for instance, a notable absence of saltworks on the east side of Southampton Water because the foreshore could be more profitably used for shipping and ship building.
Distribution of saltpans in 1750
Southampton
Although the town has an extensive coastline this was of a superior economic benefit used as quays and for shipbuilding rather than for low cost items like salt. No trace has yet been found of any prehistoric saltmaking with the area of the town[96] for the borough’s interest in salt has almost always been limited to it being just another trading item.[97]
There were some exceptions: salt on salt was produced on the West quay at least between 1573-7 when redress was sought:
of the great annoyance for that it [saltworks] is a great devourer of wood and hath been partly the occasion of the dearth thereof which salt made there is also transported beyond the seas.
It was later moved to the marsh outside the city walls to the east where it operated in conjunction with the tide mill.[98] It was still in use in 1625 but not by the end of that century.
The attempt by Horth to impose a monopoly on salt production in Southampton, in particular, led to the town petitioning (successfully) against it, claiming somewhat extravagantly:
Reasons for the Continuance of the salt work at Southampton and the necessity of using some small quantity of bay salt there.
Because there is no better salt made in England than in that work, it being made with salt water and the help of some small quantity of bay salt, thereby to make the salt thicker, whiter and the stronger and no other base mixtures are used therein, as they do, who boil salt only out of saltwater which cannot be done without ox blood, egg white and such other trash which makes their salt baser and whiter than our salt and also very unwholesome, for trial pending being made at Southampton it held good a whole voyage to Newfoundland and makes better dry fish than bay salt does and which no other salt that is made in England can do.
Since that work was set up at Southampton all the country thereabouts is served with far better salt that such it was from other places but at half the price as before and there is no good salt made elsewhere near that town for at Lymington they can make no salt but in very dry summers.
We boil salt in a very short time and that we use coal whereas …they keep their fires with wood whereof they spend a great quantity and which by this means grows very scarce in the land.
And it is impossible that the kingdom should be served with salt from two or three places for that would make salt at 5s and 6s 8d the bushel as it pays since before the work at Hampton was set up and in truth they were not able to serve a quarter of the land with salt.[99]
Nevertheless salt production in Southampton ceased not long after even though Horth’s scheme was stopped in 1640.[100]
Southampton imported mostly from Bourgneuf (the Bay), la Rochelle/Brouage and Spain but, by the late 15th century, the importance of Breton merchants grew although the salt trade as a whole was in decline there. French alien merchants in Southampton (mostly from northern France) imported salt - not wine - although figures for 1567-1585 suffer from incomplete records although in 1576 320 weys came from La Rochelle.[101] In the first half of the 17th century salt imports into Southampton rose from around 250 to nearly 5000 weys in 1634, although affected by wars and internal politics. Imports ceased after about 1660 as the town’s involvement with fishing decreased considerably and local producers could supply domestic salt.
Portsea
The building of new saltworks in east Hampshire appears to have been brought about by patent granted, in 1606, for 21 years to Christopher Echard and Richard Tatnall for making white and bay salt anywhere in the kingdom they thought fit, although no details of their supposed ‘new’ process are recorded.[102] As was customary, they assigned part of the grant to Sir John Popham, Lord Chief Justice, in trust for the benefit of Sir John Payton. This was a quid pro quo for the assistance of courtiers in obtaining the patent and particularly in reign of Elizabeth, had led to a group of courtiers being dubbed ‘Lords of the Salt’ because of their quasi-monopoly of salt related patents.
About this time, Camden describes saltworks in the area;
the Island Portsey adjoining… in many places along this shore, of the sea waters flowing up thither, is made salt of a palish or green colour: the which by a certain artificious devise, they boil until it bee exceeding white. [103]
In 1625, Christopher Echard claimed to have entered into an agreement with Sir John Payton, Sir Edward Apsley, Thomas Warre and Nicholas Worth to the effect that the saltworks were in trust for Echard alone and that part of the grant (for life) was sold back to him. Roger Warre in 1623 sold his presumed part to Robert Aldred. This is only one of the many claims and counterclaims regarding this site, which were unresolved until the end of the century. There is no evidence that Echard was involved in building saltworks elsewhere on the South coast. He came from a locally prominent Great Yarmouth family.[104]
John Payton and his associates claimed to have spent considerable sums on the works and to have agreed with Robert Bold (Lord of the manor of Copnor) for the bringing of seawater over the lands of the latter to the saltworks for 21 years, recurring as long as saltworks existed, at the extortionate annual rent of £20. Payton also agreed with William Playfont and Matthew Fielder for a way over and through the latter’s land ‘for carrying of necessaries to said works’ as the patent itself did not grant such rights.
Bold was Mayor of Portsmouth in 1615 and gave the Corporation a salt in 1617 (now in Portsmouth City Museum) although no irony was probably intended as such objects were frequently ceremonial gifts. In 1629, on the expiration of Echard’s patent, the crown granted to
Copnor plan of foreshore
Sir Edward Sydenham all these saltworks at Copnor, and he together with Sir John Payton, Sir Edward Apsley, Thomas Warre and others laid out £80 on further works there.[105] The king’s share of the profit appears to have been interpreted as a part share in the ownership. Although the surviving sources do not enable the true ownership to be determined in view of the various assignments, mortgages etc made – or claimed to have been made - on it. The Sydenham family retained a nominal title to it throughout most of the 17th century although it would appear the saltworks were pledged as security to various others resulting in disputes that lasted nearly a century.
Diagrammatic representation of the saltworks in 1791. Milne’s map of Hampshire
Robert Bold, Lord of the manors of (inter alia) Stubbington and Copnor, purchased to right to embank part of the foreshore in Copnor from the Wandesfordes and thereafter created a strip of land between the saltworks and the sea. The saltworks had to rent a channel across this to obtain a supply of seawater whilst – ironically – it also contained the egress to the sea of the island’s only substantial freshwater stream. A Mr. Harvey, by appointment of John Payton, managed the Copnor saltworks but Sydenham tried to renege on the agreement with William Bold about bringing in brine and drainage of the springs of water. A decree in Chancery was obtained to confirm the agreement, in 1632, and that Sydenham was to pay Bold £20 p.a. for
this. For the next 50 years, there are a series of conflicting claims and much litigation although the surviving records do not provide answers to the questions raised by such legal actions. It seems that it became a matter of de facto possession rather than de jure.[106]
Copnor saltworks .Great Salterns. c1715
In 1650, Juliana Popham of Southampton, widow of Alexander, said that Roger Warre had conveyed half of the works to Alexander Popham and also leased the other half to Warre for 21 years as security for his debts to him but that Roger Warre had taken control of the first mentioned half. She went on to say that by reason of his delinquency, Sydenham had sequestered them to the use of the state and thereupon Robert Phillips, Thomas Newberry and John Munday had managed them. Sir Edward Sydenham was a prominent Royalist in Romford and his extensive estates were consequently sequestrated under the Commonwealth. She had applied to the Committee for Hampshire, which gave an order to the sequestrators to give her half in 1646. She was to have had half of the profits but she claimed to have been deceived by Phillips and his associates and never to have received any. Regardless of the conflicting claims as to ownership, it was at least agreed that the Warre family operated the saltworks until about 1680 although Sydenham and Warre brought in William Mitchell as sole manager. There were also allegations that Warre had mortgaged his share of the saltworks.[107]
Following the Restoration, Sir Edward Sydenham’s lands were evidently restored to him and he took further legal action against the Bold family particularly concerning two acres of land ‘overflown with water and called a fish pond or watering place … parcel of 48 acres the salt pits of Sir Edward’ which was – ironically- part of the natural freshwater drainage of the area. The saltwater supply had been stopped by the Bolds for non-payment of rent.[108]
In a bizarre twist to this already convoluted tale, yet another court case proved a legal milestone about the sheriff’s liabilities. Following an action in King’s Bench, Henry Mildmay, Sheriff of Hampshire, had been commanded to seize goods of Charles Sydenham, of Chichester, to secure repayment of a debt of £200 owing to Matthew Smith, Richard Alchorne, Hercules Horsey, and Peter Petty. He seized 40 chaldrons of sea-coals, 30 quarters of salt, and 9 salt-pans from the Portsea saltworks but Roger Warre, Roger Carrington and others on Portsea island, ‘with force and arms, to wit, swords, fists and clubs, took and rescued the said goods and chattels out of the hands of the said then sheriff and custody of the said bailiffs, and the said late sheriff further certified that the said Charles had not any other or more lands or chattels’. Mildmay was ordered to pay the money himself; a decision confirmed on appeal.[109]
In yet another claim of 1673, Edward’s son, Charles Sydenham, was said to have died ‘seized of the saltworks at Copnor and another on the Isle of Grain in Kent’ and to have employed Roger Warre as his agent in managing these. Nicholas Pitts was indebted to Sir Cyril Hayward for a debt of £300 of Sydenham’s, who also owed Pitts a further £250 secured on the saltworks, in 1660, but it was claimed Warre never applied the profits to paying the interest of these loans and kept them for himself. It was alleged that Roger Warre combined with his brother George to try to disinherit Sydenham pretending Sir Edward Sydenham had leased them the premises as security for Warre’s salary and expenses.[110]
Like many of the lessees, Nicholas Pitts was not involved in the actual production process of salt, being a London businessman. He had obtained a patent in 1664 for ‘a new way of preparing brine of seawater in winter as summer without sun’. This he sold the following year to Sir William Smith and Charles Sydenham (both then of London) who sold on the rights as they applied to Ireland. The latter is noted as living in Chichester in 1662 so it is possible that he took a more direct interest in the operation of the saltworks.[111] John Collins, writing about the salt industry in 1682, stated ‘Portsea… salts are made from brine raised by sun purged and embodyed by fire ...a dry hard salt free from dirt and ill qualities’. He goes on ‘Mr. Pitts [saltworks] at the eastward part of island is land recovered from sea by banks about 3 miles from Portsmouth’. The information was supplied to him by ‘Mr. Binglos a [salt] merchant in Abchurch lane [London] from Portsmouth’.[112] In later legal proceedings, it was agreed that the saltworks had been in possession of the brothers Roger and George Warre in 1680-4 (as lessees) but that the buildings were neglected. In 1683 Roger Warre of Portsea, saltmaker, initiated several legal actions against various persons for non-payment of salt sent to them including William Reeves of Petersfield.[113]
Matters came to a head in 1684 and the dispute was finally resolved; albeit by indirect means. The rent for access to the sea over Bold’s property had not been paid and Mrs. Ann Mason (daughter of Robert Bold) took legal action to recover this £280 whereby the Sheriff sequestered the saltworks to her in satisfaction of the debt. She then let them to John Bindloss until 1699 at £60 p.a. She owned these until her death in 1700. Bindloss obviously had major problems with salt production and was sued by various traders for salt not delivered according to contract; the delay in supply causing it to become liable to the newly introduced duty. However, it was also alleged that Bindloss owed rent of £200 when he left. Bindloss was to have been arrested for this but was taken up by the executors of a London apothecary and was said to have died insolvent in the Fleet prison in 1702.[114]
Yet further litigation ensued, in 1699, when Anne Sydenham and Roger Warre sued Anne Mason, widow, Samuel Bradford and John Bindloss. In evidence, Samuel Bradford said that he was the salter there and described how John Bindloss had rented the saltworks for £60 pa from 1680 when the 5 pans all needed to be repaired/rebottomed, although new ones were later installed by Bindloss which he took away when he left. From 1699, Samuel Bradford leased the premises at the same rent although, by then, they were not in a good condition. Some £321 had to be spent on repairs to the seabank, as well as the sluice being much decayed as were the feeding pond walls and sluices or bunneys. Much of this had been occasioned by several great tides and storms particularly during November 1690, December 1692, September 1697 and November 1714. The Great Storm of 1703 caused relatively little damage to saltworks along the Hampshire coast as it was not accompanied by a tidal surge. The profit or income from saltmaking was uncertain depending ‘on the goodness or badness of the weather’ in our uncertain climate.[115]
It rarely seems to have been a profitable business during the 17th century, (or so it was claimed) even before the advent of Cheshire rocksalt, and Bradford constructed a new building or workhouse for making sal catharticum amarum [Epsom salt] in 1704 without which it was said ‘the rent could not even have been paid’, even though this had reduced between 1713-7 to £20 p.a. Epsom salt were derived from the bittern and were processed during the winter months giving more continuity of employment to the saltworkers and spreading the operating costs over a longer period.[116] Thomas Wilkins leased the works in 1701 and experimented with making ‘salt in the sun’ i.e. solely by natural evaporation. As he describes the process;
I had one half of one of the sun pans paved with brick and letting strong brine stand in it several days in very hot weather; the salt kerned in large grains and subsided; and supplying it with strong brine, a considerable quantity was produced and then I ordered it to be raked up.
That part of the salt which was made upon the bricks was white, like the Spanish salt; the other made upon the muddy or ouzie ground was of the colour of French salt. And this pleasing those best, who fancied the Bay salt to have some particular virtue in it; I gave myself no further trouble to pave the pans.
Some others took the hint, and coals being very dear, by reason of the War then running; they also made salt in the sun; but I never heard that any was purposely made in England before that time; though in very hot summers it was common for salt to kern in their sun pans.
A few years after I left this salt work Mr Mackenzie; who had the management of it for the Lady Carrington; ordered a considerable quantity of it to be particularly fitted up for making Bay salt, and I assisted him in contriving it. There was a very large cistern made in the nature of a feeding pond, which lay convenient to be filled with strong brine by a windmill pump; and this cistern supplying any ranks of pans and sun pans with strong brine; soon produced bay salt, and great quantities could be made there in very hot summers.
This work had also a cistern to run the liquor into on occasion as when rain came; by which its strength was preserved; and from thence it could be pumped up again into aforesaid feeding cistern to be run through the pans to make more Bay salt. And when more strong brine from other works was wanted the same windmill pump could supply it.[117]
On the death of her husband, Lady Carrington retired to a convent around 1708 and Robert Malborn, was employed to look after her salterns, but ran away. [118]
The early 18th century was particularly warm and dry in this area, giving regional salt producers an economic edge over their northeastern competitors. The 1730s was one of the driest decades on record and gave a further advantage to Hampshire saltworks and an impetus to the building of new works. The major advantage of this was the opportunity to break into the London market as the new production techniques enabled Hampshire producers to undercut the Northumberland saltworks, who previously had monopolised that market. [119] The sudden influx of Lymington salt in 1717 was a considerable surprise to Newcastle producers, like Cotesworth, as little had been sent previously. Hampshire producers had the great advantage of partial solar evaporation so that even with a greater coal price, they could land salt some 5s per ton cheaper in London than Shields producers. Typically Cotesworth (who owned one fifth of the Newcastle pans) used 145 cwts to produce a ton of salt compared with 18 in Hampshire. Also of assistance was the temporary embargo on trade in coal and salt between Newcastle and London in 1706.[120] In a dry year like 1717 or 1723, it was said that they made so much salt that it ruined the market and eroded Shields advantage of proximity to the coal field.[121] As Cotesworth admitted 'Lymington supplied part of the demand which the trade in the North cannot at present dispense with’; as they had achieved a significant reduction in production costs. This was used by Londoners as a threat to keep the price down.[122] Even so John Hall complained in August 1716 ‘the salt [from Porchester] goes off but dull and yet I sell it for no more than they do at the salterns which is 4/6’.[123]
Samuel Bradford died in 1717 and Mrs. Hanna Mason had to mortgage the property as arrears of £280 from a rent-charge of £20 p.a. had built up again. In a strange change of circumstances, Joseph Griffin and John Wyndham and his wife (the granddaughter of Edward Sydenham) gave her the liberty to drain the freshwater pond adjoining the saltworks.
The national survey of 1749 provides little information as the works were well run with resident Salt Duty collection officials. It comprised three units of 10, 12 and 4 pans; all owned by Andrew Reid and said to:
extend near a mile from the 10 pan work to the 4 pan work. They have boiled only 5 weeks this year although they now have great quantities of brine... this proprietor makes a great deal of bay salt and has now near 6000 bushels in his cribbs.[124]
Thereafter Reid and Campbell acquired all the salt works between Hamble and Cosham in addition to the Portsea ones.[125]
The saltworks of Hampshire were the subject of a thorough investigation in 1796 as the last remnants of the solar assisted evaporative saltworks industry (appendix). This illustrates both the decline of the industry and its illegal activities. Mrs. Mason’s property descended to Mrs. Leeke (as Lord of the manor) and up to 1838, the rent was paid without question by Mr. Stewart, who had become owner of the Copnor saltworks; he also occupied Great Salterns under a lease from the Crown, which expired in 1830. Stewart continued this payment up to his death in 1838, long after the saltworks were abandoned, but his heirs refused to pay as they considered rightly (in view of the original agreement) that the licence was conditional on the saltworks being operated.[126]
The Great Salterns saltworks came to incorporate the Copnor works but originated somewhat later although - yet again - the Wandesford grant was involved. Dr. William Quatremaine had been in exile with Charles II after a career as a physician in Lewes. At the Restoration, he was appointed both as Physician to the Navy and to Charles II as well as being an early Fellow of the Royal Society and MP for Shoreham. He petitioned Parliament in 1660 for a grant of certain salt marshes in Dorset and Hampshire, without effect. Lady Wandesford sought the confirmation of her grant from Parliament in 1664 and this was referred to a Committee of the House, chaired by Quatremain, although it never reported back.[127] Several members of the Wandesford family were MPs but even the presence of her nephew, Christopher, on the Committee proved to be of no advantage. However Quatremaine successfully petitioned the Crown in 1664 for the ‘grant of three-quarters of 300 acres of fenland, Gatcombe haven, recovered by him from the sea at great charges, that a lease of 31 years thereof will cost him too dear also confirmation of other quarter reserved by the late king to Mary and Margaret Wandesford and purchased by him of them’. A report stated that he had expended in draining and embankment £3800 and for walls £300 more so he was granted a new lease for 99 years at 4d per acre of land reclaimed. The actual grant was made to him and Richard Alchorne jointly and on the death of the former in 1667, Alchorne continued the enterprise. The Alchorne family are noted as substantial landowners in the Lewes area at this time but which Richard Alchorne was involved in the saltworks is not known. Whether or not the purchase of timber by Alchorne in 1673 is connected with fuelling the saltworks is not determinable but coal was the fuel customarily in use by then.[128] Correspondence between Alchorne and John Byndlos and Samuel Jeake at Rye in 1689 shows that part of their output at least was shipped to East Sussex.[129]
The work was again described by Collins in 1682 stating that salts made from brine at ‘Mr. Alchorne’s work near Portsmouth with windmill pumps to raise the brine 24 ft high into ‘boiling pans of cast or wrought iron’ describing them as ‘may be 7 ½ ft long 5 ft broad and 9 in deep’ constructed from iron made in Hampshire and Sussex with some pans ‘being in 4 pieces, riveted together and the cracks stopt with lime putty’. He claimed that ‘a dry hard salt free from dirt and ill qualities is made commonly in Portsea...the chief works is of Richard Alchorne…and supplied to the navy at Tower Hill and Portsmouth’.[130]
The lease of William Quatremaine and Richard Alchorne of Crowhurst, Sussex was assigned to members of the Caryll family of Ladyholt, Sussex. Lady Caryll (later Lady Carrington), John Caryll and his sister Elizabeth inherited it from their mother and mortgaged it to Thomas Penny of London in 1737 and again in 1753 to Andrew Reid, a London merchant. Failure to pay the interest led to a legal action in which the Carylls admitted their debt and assigned the residue of the lease to Andrew Reid and John Campbell - a naval officer (later Admiral).[131] The latter requested a new lease from the Treasury in 1753 and a survey showed that 301 acres of 'ouzy ground' had been embanked of which 103 acres were in cultivation whilst 114 acres were still uncultivated and the rest were used as 'brine grounds'. Each saltpan was computed to make about 40 tons a year and 'sold at 35s per ton, being common salt and bay salt for the navy.’ It continued:
there are in all 26 pans supposed at £10 [rent] p.a., 2 in ruins... 6 are fed from Bradford’s [Copnor saltworks] 4 from the king's land... the 10 pan house is supplied by 272 ranks of brine pans of which 16 belong to Bradford so that only 4 boiling pans are supplied from the king's land and the other salt pans are supplied by 435 ranks of brine pans
and detailed the costs as 'one new pan each year £20, repairs to old pans £9, carpenters etc repairs to houses, cisterns, gins, mills £60, sea wall repairs £20’.
The lease was again renewed, in 1775, for 28 years and there were said to be now only 18 pans at work which should have produced 800 tons of salt yearly. Keeping the sea walls (of a mile or so in length) in repair posed a continual problem and expense. Strangely a survey of this date describes the brine being boiled in copper or lead vessels (rather than iron) and with 30 chaldrons of coal – an uneconomic amount - needed to make 29 tons of salt.[132] The works were managed by William Huttson, steward for the owners. Nevertheless production continued under further leases until 1822 when a new lease for 31 years was sought.
There was a great deal of argument over the terms of this and yet another survey shows the deteriorating situation of the works, sublet by Col. Stewart to Glendinning and Sharp.[133] This describes ‘the old mansion divided into two residences in the occupation of Sharp and Glendinning' together with a brick building used by the excise officers at a rent of £6.6.0 p.a. There were, as well:
4 brine cisterns, a very large cistern formerly used for making Epsom salts but now called bitter houses, quay, store house for salt and another constructed as a dry salting house with flues underneath but not now so used, 8 pan boiling house, 4 bitter pits, 2 large brine pits or cisterns with mill not now used, 2 other brine pits, 3 other brine pits and mill... all generally in poor condition.[134]
They had been worked by Stewart until 1818 and paid about £1500 duty p.a. (about 500 tons) but were afterwards let to Sharp and Glendinning at a rent of £550 p.a. that made about 600-700 tons of salt a year. Repair of the seawalls continued to be a major expense particularly after the extraordinarily large storms (and tidal surges) of the mid 1820s. There were, by then, only 3 brine grounds, 11 cisterns in the ground, 7 clearers or cisterns in brick, 4 boiling houses of 24 pans, 3 bitter houses, 11 bitter coolers, 8 bitter troughs, and 10 store rooms. The bitters or bittern is the residue of substances left after the sodium chloride has crystallised out. From this could be extracted Epsom salt (magnesium sulphate) and Glauber’s salt (sodium sulphate) which were sold for medicinal purposes. A special licence was needed to operate such a refinery. The numbers of pans continued to decrease from the original 32 to only 12 (and 8 by 1825) as it became increasingly difficult to sell salt at a profit so that the Treasury considered sale of the property. John Henry Stewart finally relinquished the property in 1829, after a long bitter correspondence over valuations and dilapidations, and it was sold the following year to Francis Sharp for £1100 who demolished the industrial buildings.[135]
Tipner saltworks
There was a minor saltworks on the northeast corner of Portsea island at Stampsey (Stamshaw) – or Tipner – also owned by Campbell and Reed and described in 1749 as ‘a 2 pan work of John Reid opposite Porchester castle and is chiefly for a retail trade‘.[136]
Hamble river
Hamble river. c 1620
‘olde salterne’ opposite Bursledon
On the Hamble river, there were medieval works up the estuary, in the saltmarsh at Bursledon; (SU 485079) whilst at Warsash was revealed inconclusive evidence for a possible later prehistoric/Roman salt working site (SU 491046).[137] Both Hamble and Bursledon paid salt rents to the bishop of Winchester in the 15th century.[138] A site on the river bank was described on a 17th century estate map as 'the olde saltern' yet shows possible evaporation ponds. [139]
Saltworks c 1870 on Hamble river.
The saltworks at Warsash started after 1700 whilst Giles Rogers was the saltmaker there in 1745. The 1749 survey shows William Chiddle as the proprietor of a two pan work at Warsash ‘at the bottom of a large common about quarter mile below the village of Warsash on the banks of Southampton water and is placed very conveniently for running salt. Thomas Chiddle appears to have been the saltboiler there.[140]
Similar misgivings were expressed about William Snudden’s two pan work on the opposite bank of the river at Hamble le Rice. It was said to be:
situated on the point of land that divides Hampton water from Hamble river, the boats can come up on either side within ten yards which makes it very convenient for fraud and indeed it was a notorious work when Fox was proprietor.[141]
At Hamble in 1696 there was one work with two pans said to produce 12 qtrs. per week and paid £49 salt duty that year.[142] After the saltworks closed down in the early 19th century, the feeding pond at le Rice was used for storing lobsters, brought in by Cornish fishing boats, before transportation to London. A chemical works was built on the Warsash site in which wood was distilled to produce pyroligneous acid.
Hayling Island and Langstone
The history of saltmaking on the island is peculiarly poorly documented although the industry appears to have survived longer there than anywhere else in Hampshire; until the 1870s. Claims that it survived into the 20th century must be discounted as it could not have been economically viable.[143]
Saltworks of the medieval era (and earlier) were on the west side of the island whilst later ones were only on the east and were in two groups at opposite ends of the island. A group of three between Mengham and Eastoke seems to have been in existence in the 17th century although extended or remodelled in the 18th; hence the number of different names for the same site. Eastoke Saltern (SZ 747988) was affected by erosion and gradually westwards. By the end of the 1870s it was said to have become too dilapidated for use. Jenmans Saltern (SZ 739 989) - also known as Norths – was expanded in 1748 by converting marsh to evaporation ponds. [144] Mengham Saltern (SZ 737995) is the only one of which there are still remnants.[145]
The works were described in 1745 as the ‘three pan works of Rowland Prowting and that of James Andrews… [the latter] is built to contain 6 pans although there is but 4 up at present’. Also there was the two pan works of John Barber at Eastoke, described as ‘the last is a mile from the other works, occasioned by the seas flowing up between them which makes it necessary to have it well guarded’.[146]
South Hayling. c 1810 OS.
South Hayling saltworks1870. OS
In 1717, James Ayles of Warblington, saltmaker, took a lease of a house for boiling salt on Hayling Island (north) and this remained in the possession of this family until the death of another James Ayles in 1817.[147] By 1749, this was said to be of three pans with John Ash named proprietor ‘but the real owner is James Ayles, son to the proprietor at New Wall’. There was another two pan work of Thomas Grigg within 200 yards of the last. [148] They were usually known as Great and Little Salterns and were largely destroyed by enclosure. [149]
North Hayling saltworks. 1810
Cosham - Widley and Wymering
The Wandesfords took action in 1638 against Robert Rigges (of Fareham) and others, regarding Hulsey Marsh, adjacent to Drayton Marsh in Wymering, as previously described.[150] There were three saltworks already there, of Sir Edward Banister, Robert Rigges and John Perkins although their location is unknown. [151] By 1749 the sole proprietor was John Legate with two pans. It was described as ‘entirely a retail work… found the beam very false with 3lbs more one side than other...new ordered.’ He was a maltster who died in 1777 and was succeeded by his daughter Elizabeth.[152]
Cosham
Inventories containing saltmaking equipment exist from 1585 for Wymering, Widley, and Farlington etc. As elsewhere these are of small farmers and mention sand and leads, shovels.[153] That of Robert Scutt is more revealing as he was a wage earning saltmaker with £31 2 6 due to him in wages.[154] A copyhold boiling house and salt works in Widley of James Stead was noted in 1798 and was still working in 1836. [155]
Fareham including Porchester
A map of 1630 ref shows a few saltworks between Fareham and Farlington (two described as ‘old’): mostly around Wymering; whilst that of 1628 shows saltworks at various places between Fareham and Stoke Point as Portsmouth was then still relatively undeveloped. [156] In the 18th century a number of short lived works appear to have existed close (south and east) to Fareham town although the major works were around Salterns quay and in 1751 it was stated ‘there is a new salt works now erecting at Fareham.[157] During the 1750s this was acquired by Reid and Campbell and continued in use until around 1840.[158]
Along the shore between Fareham and Porchester have been a number of saltworks at different times. In 1497, Thomas Westmyll was admitted to a saltern at Porchester whilst in the manor of Wicor Elizabeth Bold, widow, surrendered property near the ‘salterne’ in 1622.[159] A lease of 1617 to Christopher Hyldyard indicates there were feeding ponds next to his saltworks on the western boundary of Porchester. Saltworks are also noted at Morralls in 1649 whilst in 1662 the inventory of Thomas Vile of Porchester, yeoman, shows he had a saltworks there.[160] Salt was being produced on the manor of Porchester by the late twelfth century as in 1198 Walter de Boarhunt conveyed a salina to Thomas Hoo. In the mid-thirteenth century there were ten tenants of the Abbot of Titchfield with saltworks; amounting to 13 acres. In 1341 five of the King’s tenants held saltworks covering around 17 acres. Some salterns probably lay behind the properties on the eastern side of Castle Street as there were saltworks recorded in the 1405 survey of the manor.[161] In 1319, a dispute between Southwick Priory and the parishioners of Porchester concerned tithes of salt. [162] The traditional rent of Morralls [farm] in Porchester, included 12 quarters of salt whilst a salthouse is recorded there in 1502.[163] A salthouse and sandhouse (for the storage of sand crust) was still in use in the area in1670.[164]
Saltworks around Wymering. c 1630.[165]
Apuldram
In 1732 the first James leased part of New Wall marsh in Apuldram with his brother-in-law, Robert Bold, a Havant maltster, right on the southern parish boundary with Birdham.[166] The Bolds had a long history of involvement with the development of saltworks, starting at Wymering in the early 17th century. Robert Bold erected a saltworks near the Apuldram tidemill [167] which he sold to Ayles (now living in Apuldram) tin 1750. The Ayles family expanded to control many of the saltworks around Chichester harbour whilst a salt storehouse in the Pallant, Chichester was acquired later. [168] A later James Ayles of Havant, merchant, in his will of 1819 left it to his sister in law Mary Glaspole whilst the tithe award shows it to have been unoccupied and to have ceased working. [169]
A duty on salt had been imposed in 1694 and increased rapidly so that it was several times the wholesale cost. This inevitably led to much fraud and evasion and a great deal of smuggling. The Salt Duty Collectors were not part of the Customs but were a separate division of the Treasury. The Collectors handled thousands of pounds every year but had only a salary of around £50-100 and were consequently easily open to bribery. They were responsible for rendering to the Treasury all monies due for salt duties even if a producer absconded with amounts owing for unpaid duty.[170] A report of 1750 specifically concerned events following the suspension of the officer at New Wall for fraud. It stated:
[Ayles] will make use of every method to run his salt... it should produce 8700 bushels p.a. , when duty has been paid on not more than 2907 for the 4 years past. Since Williams was suspended, 4160 bushels have been produced in 11 weeks whereas in the twelve preceding under Williams were only 1800 bushels & the amount of duty this year is £1200 whereas the average production was only £448 for some years.’ [171]
By the 1840's the tithe awards show that yet another James Ayles still had a saltern on Hayling but that it was grassed over whilst his other at Apuldram was unoccupied even though the salt duty had been abolished in 1825, reducing the price of salt from 16s 3d to 1s a bushel. The works never returned to production.[172]
Richard Ayles (of the same family) had a one pan work at Langstone in 1750 described as being;
about a mile below Havant upon the entrance to Hayling island and was undoubtedly erected purely for smuggling as it is impossible for one pan to support a boiler it being a known fact that a boiler can but barely live with attending 2 pans. The officer resides near a mile from works... if work was well guarded so as to prevent the proprietor from carrying on his illicit trade he would soon destroy the saltern.
On Hayling (north) a three pan work had John Ash as the named proprietor but real owner was ‘James Ayles son to the proprietor at New Wall’.[173]
An account of the Portsea district in 1749 noted fourteen saltworks, described as ‘chiefly 2 pan works and sit in the most obscure places’. Whereas duties of £31401 had been received in the previous four years, they computed that it should have produced £54521 i.e. an average annual shortfall of £5780. They went on to describe ‘the very great abuses that have for so many years been carried out at several outworks... due to the Supineness of the collector and riding officers’, they concluded that there was a great temptation for officers at outworks to be drawn into frauds by the proprietors… a thorough removal of old officers etc belonging to them is necessary.[174]
Smuggling was nothing new and a notorious exponent, Thomas Bound proprietor of the saltworks at Fawley became poacher turned gamekeeper.[175] The Excise Surveyor General reported in 1749:
He [Bound] came to inform me of great frauds carried on in the Portsea collection particularly New Wall, he says that from the allowance for waste coastwise he has much the same advantage as James Ayles proprietor New Wall [Apuldram] and that he can afford and has sold it at Chichester cheaper by 4s than all the works and that he and his father have supplied dealers for over 30 years but since New Wall erected he has entirely lost trade...his former customers inform him they can buy it at New Wall at 3s 5d a bushel.
Bounds accused Ayles of threatening him with violence if he did not keep out of the east Hampshire market. As a result, the Commissioner set out for New Wall ‘without letting the collector or any officer know of my arrival in order - if possible - to discover the fraud carried on at that work... I called at Williams, the Officer’s house, and found him at home. I enquired who was at the works he told me nobody’.
The permit book showed that Ayles had delivered to his store in Havant only 66 bushels...94 bushels short of the 4-5 tons to which the boiler confessed.[176] Whilst the latter’s books showed he had delivered to Ayles some 423 bushels, amounting to £65 4 3 in duty which was due immediately the salt left the production site but the money had been not received for it as Williams always gave one month’s credit. Not surprisingly Williams was dismissed as was an 80 year old watchman who was sent to the workhouse although no prosecution of Ayles (or any other fraudulent saltworks proprietor) was attempted.[177]
Actually Ayles was only especially fraudulent; a Great Yarmouth proprietor, for example, paid duty on less than 10% of his salt production. His son - also James - continued the family salt business and he became sufficiently respectable for his death to be reported in the Hampshire Chronicle. Meanwhile a further report in 1796 is equally caustic about salt duty frauds in the Portsea area but does not single out the New Wall [Apuldram] works. There is no evidence that Chichester legally shipped any salt by sea and seems to have only supplied its hinterland directly.[178]
Other methods of smuggling included simply landing cargoes illegally further along the coast or shipping it to the Channel Isles which had no Customs administration until 1764. The Governor of Guernsey was notorious for issuing fraudulent licences purporting to show the salt had originated there.[179] When the salt duty was finally abolished, a survey showed there were still saltworks at Hayling (2), Portsmouth (2), Warsash, Fareham (2), Chichester (2), Cosham (2) and the Hamble although how many were still functioning is debateable. Pigot’s Directory, between 1822 and 1828, only lists the saltworks of Sharpe & Co. at the Great Salterns but that business ceased forever in 1830. [180]
Production
Before Excise duties were placed on English salt, no reliable figures are known for local production, which was probably insignificant commercially before c. 1650. The Port of Southampton (comprising all of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, except Portsmouth) imported a growing amount of foreign salt, mostly from France. The amount varied widely from year to year, depending on the involvement of local merchants in the Newfoundland fisheries, ranging from 280 weys in 1602 to a peak of 1545 weys in 1637. Thereafter the amount decreased, possibly as a result of expanding local production. Portsmouth accounted separately for Customs after 1609 although in 1637 it only imported nine weys of salt but none in the previous year.[181] Port books only exist for Portsmouth for certain years in the 1600s and none after 1720. A random sample of these contains very few references to salt indicating that it was almost entirely distributed by land. In 1675, 240 quarters were sent to London and 1560 bushels to various Sussex ports in 1701 whilst the peak was 5300 bushels of white and bay salt to London and Sussex in 1720. Many years only record salt being received coastwise from Lymington but none sent out.[182]
Naval consumption of salt varied widely obviously depending on the number of seamen who had to be victualled and the changing practice of the Victualling Board in buying ready salted meat rather than pickling it themselves.[183] The advent of the new dockyards at Plymouth and Portsmouth, towards the end of the 17th century, led to new victualling yards there replacing (to some extent) the main victualling base at Deptford. There is no evidence of the direct supply of salt to Navy from the Portsea saltworks. This does not mean that such a thing did not happen even though there are frequent references to ‘Lymington salt’ in this respect; this meant a standard of salt (white) rather than the poorer quality Bay. The Navy was very conservative and only reluctantly gave up using French salt even though it was more expensive than the local variety.[184] From the date of the earliest victualling records in the 17th century, salt was always supplied to the Navy by agents particularly the Jaggard family of London.[185] The amount of salt bought by the navy depended on how much it bought salted beef and pork although the trend was for it to establish its own slaughterhouses and salting units. The Jaggards imported nearly 500 weys of bay salt into Portsmouth in 1666 but this appears to have been an isolated occurrence prompted by the Dutch wars.[186]
In 1688-9 John Jaggard sent 142 weys of Bay and 34 of English white salt to the Victualling Office at Deptford. The following year, with his brother Abraham, they delivered salt to a value of £2490 comprising 120 weys of Bay and 493 weys of white salt.[187] In 1713-15 1855 weys white salt were received at Portsmouth from various suppliers but only 3 of bay,[188] whilst contracts in 1718 were made with John Carter for the supply of 1400bushels of Bay salt and with John Vining for 2400bushels of white salt. The following year John Nicholson supplied 70 wey of white salt 700 bushels bay, whilst in 1720-1 he delivered 2500 bushels of white salt in addition to 2500 bushels from John Vining and 2000 bushels of Bay from John Carter.[189] There are few 18th century records for Portsmouth although in 1745 the Victualling Board at Deptford used 700 weys of white salt and 4900 bushels (122 tons) of bay.[190] Even in 1775 it was recommended that 40lbs of salt (3:1 white: Bay) be used to salt beef for the navy.[191] In 1770 consumption was 7117 bushels of white (Lymington) salt and 946 of brine (Cheshire)[192] whilst in 1775 William Vanderstegen supplied them with 100 weys of white salt from Portsea: he was a relative of Mrs Stewart and continued to market Portsea salt in London for another twenty years.[193]
The turnpiking of the Portsmouth-Kingston road in 1712 had greatly improved the efficiency (and cost) of road transport so that even the Navy used this route when speed was essential. However, with a low cost material like salt, transport costs were a substantial proportion of its retail price (even with the enormous salt duty) so that distribution must have been limited to within about 60 miles to the east and north. There is no evidence of regular exports to North America – unlike Lymington.[194]
There were intermittent import duties on salt during the 17th century but excise Salt duties were first imposed in 1694 to service 16-year annuities raised by the ‘Million Lottery’. At first temporary, and discontinued from 1730 to 1732, they became permanent in 1758. Originally, they were placed under the management of the Board of Excise, but a separate Salt Duty Collection office was established in 1694. It lasted until 1798 when its functions returned to the Board of Excise. The collection costs were large as there were the usual highly paid sinecures in the headquarters. The true expenses of collection were never calculated, as the considerable part played by the Customs in handling shipments, both coastwise and overseas, was never quantified. [195]
Frequent increases thereafter occurred; between July 1698 and December 1699 it became 1s 8d a bushel (foreign salt always paid a duty twice that of the domestic) and was later raised to 3s 4d per bushel. The Act of Union of 1701 contained a specific clause about the locally important Scottish salt industry so that new regulations were introduced the following year, as Scotland was no longer a foreign country. All salt producers were to register and no refineries more than 10 miles from a salt pit were allowed. Sale was to be by weight only.[196] The duty was repealed in 1730 but revived two years later and additional duties of 10d a bushel were levied in both 1773 and 1775 making a total of 5s whilst Glauber or Epsom salts paid 20s per cwt. The collection of salt duties was transferred to the Commissioners of Excise in 1798 whilst the duty was raised to 10s. The expansion of taxes during the Napoleonic Wars led to a further increase to 15s in 1800 before being reduced to 2s in 1822 before its final abolition in 1825.[197]
Salt sent by ship did not pay the duty immediately and, instead, a bond was given to the Customs (usually for £100) who issued a cocquet. On arrival at the port of destination, this was counter-signed by the local Customs officer. If this port was in England (or Scotland after 1701), duty became payable but if overseas (including Ireland) the bond was destroyed on the ship’s return. Problems obviously arose in areas without a Customs administration such as the Channel Islands or Newfoundland (up to 1764). Other potential areas of abuse included the facility for fisheries salt to be delivered directly into a salt store without passing through Customs or leaving an audit trail.[198]
Over the years a multitude of Acts were passed varying the duties, drawbacks and exemptions so that an incredibly complicated tariff grew up about which large books of explanation were needed. The first Act was meant to operate for only three years and imposed import duties of 2s per bushel on foreign salt whilst the excise duty on English salt was only 1s per bushel. Subsequent Acts maintained this ratio but foreign salt imported into Britain received a full refund (drawback) if exported. Paradoxically, the bushel was computed by weight with 56 lbs deemed to be a Winchester bushel for white salt whilst for rock salt it was 120 lbs although later reduced to 70lbs. Two years later, the Act was made permanent.
The number of different drawbacks or discounts became more and more complicated so that administrative expenses consumed over half the duties collected. By 1756 these rebates/allowances included exports, rocksalt melted [refined] , curing fish, lost at sea, prompt payment, waste allowance coastwise, and fish, beef and pork exported.[199]
The Treasury was well aware of the huge amount of smuggling that went on and many proposals were made (and received) to reduce the loss of revenue. There were several methods employed by smugglers, the chief of which was to legally take the salt to Ireland (where duties were much less) or to the Isle of Man (a private jurisdiction) from where it was taken in small ships (with a stated Scandinavian destination) back to England and landed illegally. It may seem strange to smuggle salt out of England when no duties were thereby being evaded but the legal export process involved cocquets, bonds and indentures, which not only left a paper trail but also involved various fees (unofficial and official) and gratuities to the Customs officials. The inhabitants of Beaulieu, for instance, complained vociferously about the effect of this.[200] There was also illegal importation of French salt from Guernsey with a fictitious licence from the Governor that it was English salt. In volume, if not in value, salt was the largest commodity smuggled in or out of the country and small parcels of French salt were often found in the cargoes of French spirits seized by the Customs.[201]
There is little available positive information about the production or distribution of salt from individual saltworks on the South coast. [202] The figures would, in any case, have varied quite widely from year to year as production was entirely dependent on the fickle English weather. The Portsea Collection was divided (confusingly) into the separate Portsmouth and Portsea districts with Collectors in each. Whilst the Portsea Collection area stretched from Apuldram, Sussex in the east to the river Itchen in the west, its sub districts were never defined and there was a huge disparity between the duty collected in each. The Portsmouth district probably comprised only those saltworks around Portsmouth harbour whilst the rest all came under Portsea. The Excise duty collected at Portsmouth in 1700 related to only around 3Kbushels and this doubled over the next 50 years as new saltworks were established, reaching its maximum in the 1750s. In contrast, the Portsea Collector accounted for the duty on 40Kbushels in 1700 and this only increased slowly until the 1740s when around 60kbushels were dealt with and eventually reached about 80kbushels; also in the 1750s. This peak lasted about ten years, after which all the Hampshire (and Newcastle also) saltworks went into decline. [203]
A survey of c. 1700 only mentions Capt. Bindloss with three salterns on Portsea island containing 15 (boiling) pans producing an estimated 75 qtrs. per week in the Harbours area. Later lists of salt duty collection officers provide a fuller picture showing that in 1732 the Salt Duty Collection included three at Portsea and one each at Tipner, Cosham, Hayling, Langstone, Warsash and the Hamble whilst in 1770 the Portsea Collection had officers at Portsea, Tipner, Cosham, Hayling island, Warsash, Hamble, New Wall [Apuldram] and Fareham. Small saltworks did not have a resident officer and so may have been overlooked particularly in the early years of the newly created Salt Duty Collection office.[204]
By 1796 it was noted that there were 11 different marine saltworks in the area, the largest being of 24 pans, and (in total) capable of producing some 2K tons p.a. (80K bushels) although there was a great variation both in the quantity made and in the amount exported. In 1792, 66.1Kbushels were made but none exported whilst the figures for the following two years were 33K and 70K (domestic) and 9.3K and 14K (exported) respectively. Production collapsed thereafter, averaging about 10Kbushels p.a. by the turn of the century whilst Portsmouth’s coastal trade in white salt only increased to 12870 bushels after the war’s end – albeit temporarily.[205] The American Revolutionary war had stopped exports of Liverpool salt across the Atlantic and the trade had hardly recovered from this by the start of the French Revolution which also disrupted exports. The Cheshire salt producers turned to supplying the domestic market in London and the eastern half of England (which they had previously ignored) assisted by the improved transport infrastructure provided by canals.
Smuggling
The enormous Excise duty imposed on salt inevitably led to various attempts to avoid it.[206] Salt was smuggled in from Ireland where customs and excise duties were much lower. Salt was shipped to allegedly overseas destinations but in fact landed clandestinely at English destinations.
Henry Talbot, Commissioner for the Duties on Salt, continued the national survey of English salt works, begun in 1733, in 1750. He stated that in the Portsea area (Apuldram to Southampton) there were;
fourteen saltworks of 12 proprietors at great distances from one another, chiefly two pan works, all these works seem to me to be calculated originally for running [smuggling] as they sit in most obscure places...duties received of £31401 in the last four years when, on a modest computation, they should have produced £54521 - an average annual shortfall of £5780'.
he concluded 'the very great abuses that had for so many years been carried out at several out works required a thorough removal of old officers. [207]
He explained;
they have answered their intention for in the last 4 years the 54 pans have paid duty on no more than 203687 bushels which is an average of but 979 bushels per pan when the common produce of a pan is 1700 bushels and as make much more bay salt than any other, it is a plain proof that these works are capable of making a better brine and consequently more salt than any other works that make salt from sea water. The difference is 721 bushels per pan which on 52 pans amounts to 37492 bushels or £5780 0 4 p.a. which Govt. has been defrauded of; this collection is under the direction (I am sorry I can't say care) of 9 officers; no regular method of business is carried on and the supineness of the collector and incapacity of riding officer has been unfortunate temptation to officers in the outworks to fraud by the several proprietors.
This particular enquiry was triggered by information received from Thomas Bound who had a four pan saltwork at Fawley just north of Ashlett mill which was described as 'very much exposed to fraud; Bounds work having been formerly notorious for running salt, this occasions the Revenue to be at the expense of three watchmen instead of two... absolutely necessary are guarded at night'. Bound's action was prompted purely from revenge as he had been driven out of his illicit market in the Langstone harbour area. He told Talbot 'of great frauds carried on in the Portsea collection, particularly New Wall [Apuldram],' and that from the allowance for waste coastwise he had much the same advantage as James Ayles, the proprietor New Wall so that he could afford to sell it at Chichester cheaper by 4s per ton than at the works and that he and his father had supplied dealers for over 30 years but that since New Wall had been erected, he had entirely lost trade as his former customers informed him they could buy it at New Wall at 3s 5d a bushel and at that price he declared 'no man can afford to sell it, if he freely and justly pays the duty'. He continued, saying;
Williams, the officer [at Havant], when he came into the revenue, was a sawyer in the dockyard Portsmouth and married a poor woman, but since he became an officer, it is reported he has purchased Lands to the value of £1000; and that his a manner of living is far beyond what the income of a salt officer will admit of;
and that frauds were also carried out on Hayling island and at the Warsash and Hamble works.
As a result, Talbot went to New Wall and on the way called at the Langstone works of Richard Ayles, which he described as;
a notorious smuggler of salt and brother to the proprietor of New Wall works and takes advantage of old man near 80 years of age; grown almost childish and makes him do what he pleases; I was amazed to find so very ancient and infirm a man in the revenue. it was undoubtedly erected purely for smuggling as it is impossible for one pan to support a boiler, it being a known fact that a boiler can but barely live with attending two pans.
He later made a second survey of Langstone saltern to see if he could get any further information against the proprietor and met with Thomas Walles who said he was willing to give an account but 'he was apprehensive of it being known as the proprietor and almost all the inhabitants of Langstone are Roman Catholic'; and was afraid they should do him a mischief if they knew he had made any discovery, I promised to keep his name secret'. Walle's declared that about the year 1734 he was approached by Thomas Gregg, proprietor in Hayling island, and asked to purchase a boat that would carry one ton which accordingly he purchased. he then entered into an agreement with Gregg to convey salt for him from his works and to have 12s a trip to Bedhampton, and 15s a trip to Emsworth. he was to carry 16 bags a trip, said to contain 2 bushels each but he believed they carried 2 1/2 bushels each; and when he delivered it either at Emsworth or Bedhampton, the proprietor Gregg’s horses met him and carried it away. From his account book he stated that the number of trips he thus made in 1736 were 19, each of 40 bushels, amounting in the whole to 740 bushels for which he had received £12 1 6. since the year 1738 he stated that he had lost that business; the proprietor having taken a more secure method by bribing the officers in Hayling island.
Talbot's account continues;
Richard Ayles fearing I should get informed of the illicit trade he has carried on, was so terrified that he came over to me and, after a great deal of discourse and threatening him with prosecution in the exchequer, he agreed to destroy his works upon stopping the prosecution against a bond of £1000 penalty, that the Langstone salt works shall not be imployed in salt making by any person during remaining 37 years of his lease, to dispose of the salt and clear the works by Xmas.
He calculated that as duty on only 980 bushels had been paid in 4 years when the works ought to have produced 7000 'on a moderate estimation' he was firmly convinced that the Government had only received one fifth of duty due from this works since it was first set up.
Other frauds in the area were revealed by William Cook of Havant who told Talbot that he had purchased a saltworks in Hayling island (now rented by Rowland Prowting) in 1746 and had hired Joseph Vick, late agent and boiler to Mr. Prowting, to be his agent and boiler; intending to carry on the work himself, and had asked him if there was any truth in the common report of their smuggling great quantities of salt, to which Vick replied;
that they do not do it now by smuggling but by permit, for that the permits for the wagons, run generally for 40 or 50 bushels, and that they usually carried 80 sometimes 90 bushels. none of the proprietors will suffer any wagon but their own to go to the works for salt; he says that Mr. Gregg proprietor in Hayling north, who lives but three doors from him in Havant, when he knows of any wagons coming for salt , will send his own team to the saltern for it and will not loads it directly into the other wagon, but throws into his storehouse and is at the trouble of weighing it immediately out again, which can only be to cover the real quantity brought; has heard Gregg brag he has run 700 bushels in one year.
An opinion also voiced by Thomas Walles. This account was substantiated by Daniel Sprak, late clerk to Prowting's storehouse at Langstone, who gave an account of salt delivered from that store from Aug. 1 1746 to 5 April 1749, amounting to 10615 bushels. He stated;
'it is to this storehouse that Prowting removes the great part of his salt except that which he carries directly up in the country. in last 3 years he paid duty on 5841 bushels which is 4724 bushels less than he sold out of his storehouse in about 2 years 8 months.
Talbot described the five pan New Wall saltworks of James Ayles as:
situated on a marsh about 3 miles below Chichester and about 21 miles from Portsea. the proprietor has erected a storehouse adjacent to his dwelling house [in Chichester], to which place he removes his salt by permit but without paying down the duty and the officers have always given him a month’s credit. the low price mentioned in the information that the proprietor sold his salt for appeared to be the worst part of the charge. we sent for Dearling, a substantial and reputable shopkeeper in Chichester, who is mentioned to have bought salt at New Wall at 3s 5d bushels. Dearling said the lowest price he gave to James Ayles was 3s 8d bushels but 3s 10d was the price Ayles sold his salt to shopkeepers in Chichester. however he could now buy salt of Bound at Lymington for 6d a bushel and had bought of him for 5d a bushel.
Dearling said he did not give preference to Bound, even though he was cheaper, as when Ayles had erected his work at New Wall he had come to him, and other principal retailers of salt in Chichester, and told them that if they would not buy their salt of him that he would take a storehouse in the middle of town and constantly attend the retailing of it at a less price than they could sell at, this the retailers were sensible of and bought their salt of him.
Talbot concluded that Dearling could not possibly have bought of Ayles unless Ayles defrauded the Treasury of duty concluding that 'the produce of the works at moderate computation should not be less than 8700 bushels p.a. whereas has not been duty paid for more than 2907 bushels p.a. for 4 years past'. since Williams was suspended , 4160 bushels were produced in 11 weeks whereas in the 12 preceding weeks, under Williams, duty had been paid on only 1800 bushels so that the amount of duty for 1749 would be about £1200 whereas the average production before had realised only £448 for some years. The previously mentioned Daniel Sprak also informed Talbot that:
in 1743 he was at New Wall to assist James Ayles to carry salt from his works to his storehouse and that he used to lye at his works to begin early and that he has gone with 6 horses at a time and gone 6 times a day with only 2 permits and that he used to return the permits to Williams and then receive the same quantity and same permit again...also has bin several times with 2 horses to James Ayles work in Hayling island and Martin the watchman has delivered him salt without any permit, about 10 bushels each time, and he used to deliver the same into James Ayles storehouse at Langstone.
Unsurprisingly, Williams was immediately suspended and later replaced. The 'ancient' watchman was sent to the workhouse.
Salt from the Lymington area - 20 to 50 tons at a time - was frequently shipped to places between Hastings and Margate for the herring fishery. Fisheries salt was duty free and could be carried from any saltworks, under a Power from an authorised Fish Curer, to the storehouse of the Curer at the destination port and there deposited in the Curer's cellar. Although the Salt Duty Collection office was supposed to correlate the vouchers of all salt brought coastwise for the fishery there is no evidence this routinely occurred. The opportunity for fraud to be committed escalated after fish curers were no longer obliged to give security for the Duty of salt delivered into their sole custody. It was said that considerable quantities of salt had been frequently embezzled in this way and sold without payment of duty, to the detriment of the Revenue.
Salt shipped coastwise or exported did not have to pay the duty at the exit port but bonds and coquets had to be delivered to the Customs as a surety. The coquet was countersigned at the port of destination thus absolving the shipper from payment of the duty if the port was outside England and Wales.
Conclusion
Despite being written off on numerous occasions during the 18th century, the Hampshire salt industry continued until about 1830: it demise being – ironically - caused (inter alia) by the abolition of salt duty. With a very high level of duty, the actual production cost was a smaller proportion of the retail price so that the higher costs of the Solent area saltworks were not reflected in the price paid by the local consumer. Local production had peaked about 1750 (as it had in Newcastle) but it was not just Cheshire rocksalt that had destroyed the local industry. The revival of the Worcestershire salt industry was a more important factor as the Cheshire producers concentrated on overseas markets. Wars had effectively closed the North American markets in the late 18th century and no Baltic markets had ever been developed whilst the coastwise tax on coal gave the Northwest an advantage. Due to the vagaries of the weather, production varied widely from year to year in what was never more than a seasonal industry whilst the massive military presence in Hampshire during the Napoleonic wars created more profitable lines of business. The war also curtailed the large traditional market for salting fish in Newfoundland. In 1770 English ships had imported 4268 ton salt into St Johns whilst foreign vessels brought 3089 tons - mostly Portuguese – but virtually none after 1796.[208]
A bewildering plethora of various Acts allowed various and varied bounties and/or drawbacks on fish exported, salt was lost in transit, vessels, crew et sim. The complexities of the laws and their administration with a burgeoning bureaucracy were considered to be a limitation to fisheries expansion and there were a number of Parliamentary reports from 1785 onwards on the subject of the fisheries and salt. One commented 'the regulations are so intricate...and the penalties so heavy..' whilst that of 1801 considered ‘whether the salt laws have obstructed the fisheries or prevented persons from engaging in them is perhaps difficult to ascertain… there is difficulty in applying the laws’.[209] Ironically it was the high level of duty which protected the high cost coastal salt producers so that the removal of the duty in 1825 led to an accelerating downturn in the fortunes of the Hampshire saltworks.
The question that should be asked is why it lasted so long. The summer temperature of seawater in the Solent is higher than anywhere else in the UK and the constant (relatively strong) southwesterly winds produce a good rate of evaporation. Consequently less than one ton of coal was needed to produce a ton of salt compared with 8-12 tons in Newcastle. As coal was more valuable than salt so it was more economic to carry coal to the saltpan, the price of coal at Southampton being about three times that of the Newcastle area. It had easy access to many small towns although the naval element of its market continues to be unresolved. However as the season of production only lasted some 16 weeks (at best) the overheads of the works were proportionately higher than those worked full-time in Cheshire and elsewhere even though these concentrated on overseas sales.[210] A critical factor was the coastways tax on coal, which was obviously not relevant to sites supplied by inland transport. As a result, saltworks could be found in apparently strange locations close to coal mines e.g. Bishop’s Lydiard in Somerset. These imported Cheshire rocksalt salt and refined it locally. No single factor caused the elimination of the Hampshire saltmaking industry rather a combination of various unrelated events caused it to become uneconomic.
The burgeoning population of the area, even after the Napoleonic wars, meant that the land could be more profitably used for agriculture. The later history of Great Salterns is somewhat ignominious with its acquisition by Portsmouth Corporation for refuse disposal although it has now been landscaped into a golf course.
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Reger, A.J.C. A brief history of Hayling priory and the legend of the lost church. 2000. Havant
Ridgeway, V. ‘A medieval saltern mound at Bramber’. Sussex Archaeol Coll. 138, 2000 135 – 52
Rodwell, W.R. 'Iron Age and Roman Salt-winning on the Essex Coast' in B .C. Burnham and H. B .Johnson (eds.) Invasion and Response: The Case of Roman Britain (British Archaeological Reports- British Series 73) 1979, 133-76. Oxford.
Sakula, A. ‘Doctor Nehemiah Grew (1641-1712) and the Epsom salts’. Clio Medica 19, 1984 1-21.
Salt - Mineral Planning Factsheet www.bgs.ac.uk/downloads/start.cfm?id=1368.
Salzman, L.F. (ed.) 1970 edn. English industries of the Middle Ages
Schivelbusch, W. Tastes of Paradise A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants. (Transl. David Jacobson). 1992:
Smith, A. An Inquiry into the Nature And Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Book Four Of Systems of Political Economy.
Solar salt engineering http://www.solarsaltharvesters.com/notes.htm)
Solvay process: http://www.solvay.com/salt/selProd.htm
Sonnenfed, P. and J.-P. Perthuisot. Brines and Evaporites.1989. Washington D.C.
Sorgeloos, P. ‘Brine shrimp Artemia in coastal saltworks: hydrobiological key to improved salt production and inexpensive source of food for vertically integrated aquaculture’ in Proc. International Meeting on ‘Saltworks Conversion for Aquaculture’ Trapani, Italy, May 9-11, 1986, 1987, 133-141
Spicer, A. `The French-speaking Reformed community and their Church in Southampton 1567-c. 1620'. Ph.D. thesis, University of Southampton, 1994. 86-88.
Sturman, C.J. ‘Salt-making in the Lindsey Marshland in the 16th and early 17th centuries’ in N. Field and A. White (eds.) A Prospect of Lincolnshire. 50–56. 1984. Lincoln.
t’Hart, M. ‘Salt Tax and Salt Trade in the Low Countries’ in Hocquet 1987, 293 -312.
Tate, W.E. The Parish Chest. 1957,
Thirsk, J. 'The Crown as projector of its own estates, from Elizabeth I to Charles I' in Hoyle, R.W. (ed.) The estates of the English Crown 1558-1640. 1992, 308-20.
Thomas, F.G.S. The King Holds Hayling. 1961
Thomsen, B.N., and Thomas, B. Anglo-Danish trade 1661-1963. 1966.
Tomalin, D.J. 'An early Roman cliff-top salt-working site at Redcliff Battery, Sandown, Isle of Wight'. Proc. Isle of Wight Natl. Hist. Archaeol. Soc. 9. 1989, 91–120
Touchard, H. Le commerce maritime Breton. 1967
Vancouver, C. View of Agriculture in Hampshire . 1813
VCH. Hampshire
Viel, C. Histoire chimique du sel et des sels. Science Tribune. Septembre 1997 http://www.tribunes.com/tribune/sel/viel.htm
Vollans, E. ‘Medieval saltmaking and the inning of tidal marshes at Lydd’ in J. Eddison (ed.) Romney Marsh: the Debatable Ground. 1995. Oxford
Wee, H. van der. The growth of the Antwerp market and the European economy (14th-16th centuries). Leuven, 1963
Wessex Archaeology. Hampshire salterns: a cartographical study of the Hampshire salt industry Report No. 49211.01. 2002 Salisbury.
West, I.M. 'Geology of the Solent Estuarine System' In NERC. The Solent Estuarine System: an Assessment of Present Knowledge. NERC. Publication, Series C, No. 22. 1980, 6-18
White, H.J.O. The Geology of the Country near Lymington and Portsmouth. Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain. 1915.
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Appendix
Messrs London & Warren's reports of their survey of the several Collections of Portsea, Wight Isle and Lymington in Hampshire and Poole in Dorsetshire, with the Commissioners remarks thereon.[211]
To the Honourable Commissioners of His Majesty's Salt Duties
Honourable Sirs,
Pursuant to the instructions delivered to us to make a survey and to inspect Bonds, Papers etc that may belong to the Salt Revenue of the Marine Salt Works on the Coast of Hampshire etc. We proceeded to the four collections of Portsea, Isle Wight, Lymington and Poole.
Portsea Collection extends from New Wall [Apuldram] in Sussex to Hamble in Hampshire thirty miles, it consists of eleven different marine salt works the largest and most considerable of these has 24 salt pans employed in making salt. The others have four; three and two pans only, the whole are capable of producing about two thousand tons of salt annually.
Duties paid | Bonded [export
ted]
In the year ended 5th April 1793 the | £16533 | nil
produce of duties paid at this |
Collection amounted to about |
in the year ended 5th April 1794 to about | £8195 | £2330
In the year ended 5th April 1795 to about | £17500 | £3500
We state this account to point out the great variation in the quantity of salt made in the different years, and of the increase of export salt bonded, upon which no duty is paid. In proof of which, in the present year to April 1796, the greatest part of the salt made in the Collection will be shipped for exportation without the payment of any Duty. At these works a quantity of about 50 tons of Bay, single Epsom, and damaged salt is made. Some of the doors of the storehouses where this salt was deposited were without hinges, and otherwise very badly secured. The officers employed in this Collection are a Collector, Supervisor and nineteen Inferior officers and watchmen.
The Cribbs at the Key Saltern, Portsea, are a quarter of a mile from the House or watchman's Box, this circumstance appeared surprisingly, but was done away upon reviewing the manner of Watching at Lymington, where it is impossible to say what frauds have not been committed formerly, as accounts vary. At present the greatest interest Government has in the article of salt at Lymington owes its security to the scarcity of smugglers, to the respectability of the present proprietors, and the watchmen, the latter of which we think the least of all, as an extent of five miles containing near twenty works, is watched by two men.
The very high duty of salt holds out every temptacion to adventurous proprietors and nefarious smugglers; no prohibited article affording the defraudor so enormous a profit.
We beg leave to remark that we made the following proposal to the Lords Commissioners His Majesty's Treasury in our Reports of 13th December 1794, and 10th October 1795, for the better securing the different salt works viz,
'We also beg leave to represent to your Lordships that the salt works in the different collections from the insecure state of the doors, windows etc of the several Boiling houses, Cribbs, storehouses, warehouses and other buildings used for the purposes of making, refining, stoving, drying and storing salt, are greatly exposed, particularly at night to the depredations of persons in the practice of stealing salt; and it is impossible for the watchmen in the service of this Revenue who are stationed at night at the different salt works, from the extent of the said works, totally to prevent such practice, and the law has not given the Salt Officer any power to oblige the proprietors to secure their works, in any other way than they may think proper. These depredations are of much greater injury to the Revenue than the proprietors, the former losing no less than 5s per bushel for every bushel of salt stolen, whereas the loss to the latter is no more than about 6d or 7d per bushel, and in some salt much less; which makes the proprietors careless in securing their works in the manner they ought to; to remedy which evil we humbly propose, that all proprietors of salt works shall be obliged by law to secure their several boiling houses, cribbs, storehouses and every other places used by them in making, refining, stoving, drying and storing any salt, to the satisfaction of the Collector and Supervisor of the Salt Duties for the time being in the Collection wherein such works may be situated, and that upon such officers giving the proprietors notice in writing under their hands, particularizing the alterations or additional security required by them to such work or works, such proprietor shall be obliged to make such alterations and provide and affix such additional fastenings to the satisfaction of the Collector and Supervisor within fourteen days from the date of such notice, or shall in default thereof be liable to the penalty of £100. And we also humbly propose that all the doors of the said several boiling houses, cribbs, storehouses, warehouses and other buildings, shall be furnished with two locks at the expence of the proprietors, and that the same shall be locked up every night evening, upon the Officers quitting the work; the key of one lock to be kept by the proprietor and the key of the other lock by the Officer of the Salt Duties attending such work' which proposal if carried into effect would we are of opinion greatly contribute to the safety of the Revenue.
It happened whilst we were at this Collection a large quantity of salt was shipping for America- upon our entering the warehouse, we found the proprietor's agent, servants and officers in the act of delivering for exportation. The mode of weighing was by throwing into a measure or sieve, one bushel at a time; and when weighed, emptied into a barrow which contained three or four of these sieves, it was then taken to the lighter to be conveyed to the ship in the harbour. The salt so weighed appeared to us to be very improperly managed, as in one stance upon the turning of the beam, we discovered there was at least a pound and a half of salt more than the proprietor weight, it was taken out, and the scale turned fairly afterwards; this in a large quantity would be very considerable; and as we have no doubt of the same practice existing where the Duties are paid; Government must suffer a loss equal to 3 per cent, even supposing there were no collusion between the parties. This being the only instance we had of seeing any marine salt weighed, it is a natural inference, the same fraudulent and illegal acts, are committed at the salt works in the other marine collections.
The following is the standing order of the Board to the different Officers respecting the weighing of all salt, and which the Superior Officers have strict orders to see obeyed, viz.
'When any salt is to be delivered, you are first to balance and make even the scales and weights; and all the time of weighing you are duly to observe that you are not imposed upon by any persons putting their foot under the scale, or shoulder to the rope or beam etc or by having any more weights than were at first put into the scales, or false weights' and you are not to allow more or greater weight than the fair turn of the scale: And you are hereby strictly forbid to use any partiality in weighing, by allowing one man more or less weight than another.' And on proof to us of any officer disobeying the above order he is immediately discharged.
The bittern when there are no refineries for Glauber or Epsom salt, it was said, is let run into the sea to waste; this may not always be the fact. The Duties chargeable on this species of salt amount to £29 per ton but only on such as are made at a salt work. Now when it be considered how easily the bittern may be conveyed to the laboratory, or other places, where the chymist will have it in his power to make these salts; it seems probable that an improper use may be often made of this bittern. Several instances have occurred of Glauber or Epsom Salts having been brought to London in large quantities, and sold for less than the Duty, not being made or produced at any salt works. Since the duties have been imposed on this article the refineries for Glauber salt have decreased very considerably.
Bittern is not suffered to be delivered from the works, except in particular instances upon paying the Duty as White Salt viz. seven pence halfpenny per gallon; therefore if any is conveyed away without paying the Duty it must be clandestinely.
The scales at this Collection are balanced with all sorts of stones, pieces of iron and brickbats.
The scales, beams and weights furnished by the Revenue for weighing salt for the purpose of charging the Duties thereon, are necessarily made extremely strong for the purpose of weighing from one to four bushels at a time, are much exposed to the weather and by constant use may not at times balance correctly, when it may be necessary to use something for that purpose, but the Superior Officers have directions from the Board, that if upon their survey in which they are particularly ordered to inspect the Scales, Weights etc any defect should appear in them to get the same immediately remedied; and the Officers who weigh the salt are ordered not only to balance the scale, before they begin to weigh, but at times during the weighing, to prevent or detect any fraud that may be attempted; and immediately upon the discovery of any defect in the beams, scales etc to represent the same to their superior Officers; and we beg leave to remark that any fraud committed by the method here mentioned of balancing the scale can only arise from the inattention of the Officer, and the danger would therefore be the same were any other mode made use of.
The amount of the duties received in this collection for the year ended 5th April 1794 was £3047:7:6 and for the year ended 5th April 1795 £1588:18:9. It is of no consequence to the Revenue the increase or decrease of the quantity of salt made in any particular Collection, which as it depends on local circumstances will be always fluctuating, but the whole of the salt delivered for home consumption has been gradually increasing for some years.
There are nine watchmen employed in this Collection instead of six as here represented.
[1] Denton D. The hunger for salt. An anthropological, physiological and medical analysis. Berlin, 1982
[2] National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Diet and Health. Diet and health: implications for reducing chronic disease risk. 413 Electrolytes
[3] Panciroli, G. History of Many Memorable Things Lost, Which Were in Use among the Ancients; and an Account of Many Things Found Now in Use among the Moderns... 1715. 1955 edn. : Schivelbusch, W. Tastes of Paradise; A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants. (Transl. David Jacobson). 1992: Sonnenfed, P. and J.-P. Perthuisot. Brines and Evaporites.1989. Washington D.C.
[4] IV Kings, ii, 19 ff; Leviticus, ii, 13 Although ‘saltpetre’ is more accurate: D. Denton. The hunger for salt. An anthropological, physiological and medical analysis. Berlin, 1982.
[5] K.W. De Brisay and K.A. Evans. Salt: the study of an ancient industry: report on the Salt Weekend held at the University of Essex, 1974. 1975. Colchester; H.E. De Wardener, and G. MacGregor. Salt, diet and health: Neptune's poisoned chalice: the origins of high blood pressure. 1998: http://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~rice/stat20_98/salt.html Science -- Taubes 281 (5379): 898 BIOMEDICINE: The (Political) Science of Salt. Gary Taubes.
[6] A.J.G. Notholt and D.E. Highley (comp.) Salt. 1973. Mineral dossier; no 7: http://www.solvay.com/salt/selProd.htm Solvay process: http://www.catalyst.org.uk/download/Historical/Chemical%20Manufacture%20in%20Runcorn%20and%20Weston%20from%201800.doc.G. Rintoul. CHEMICAL MANUFACTURE IN RUNCORN AND WESTON 1800 - 1930: M. Rochester. The Growth of the Salt Industry in the 19th Century. Northwich.
[7] A. Goudie. Salt weathering. Oxford. 1985.
[8] H.H Read. Rutley’s elements of mineralogy. 1960. 217
[9] With acknowledgment to www.medinavalleycentre.org.uk/field_studies_outdoor/resources_biology_estuary_medina.aspx copyright reserved.
[10] G. Bearman (ed.) 1989. Ocean chemistry and deep-sea sediments, Sydney: Swenson H, Why is the Ocean Salty? US Geological Survey Publication; A.J Phillips. ‘The distribution of chemical species in the Solent’. In NERC. 1980. The Solent Estuarial system; an assessment of present knowledge. NERC Series C No 2.
[11] M.J. Allen and J. Gardiner. Our Changing Coast: a survey of the intertidal archaeology of Langstone Harbour, Hampshire. CBA RR124. 2001: H. Godwin and M.E. Godwin. ‘Submerged peat at Southampton: data for the study of postglacial history.’ New Phytologist, 39, 1940, 303-307: F.G.S. Thomas. The King Holds Hayling. 1961; I.M. West. 'Geology of the Solent Estuarine System' In NERC. The Solent Estuarine System: an Assessment of Present Knowledge. NERC. Publication, Series C, No. 22. 1980, 6-18; H.J.O. White. The Geology of the Country near Lymington and Portsmouth. Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain. 1915.
[12] H.H. Lamb. Climate History and the Modern World. (Second Edition) 1995: M. Bailey. ‘Per impetum maris; natural disasters and economic decline in Eastern England; 1275-1350’ in B.M.S. Campbell (ed.) Before the Black death; studies in 'the crisis of the early 14th century'. 1991, 184-209.
[13] R.A.H. Farrar. ‘Prehistoric and Roman Saltworks in Dorset’ in K.W. de Brisay & K.A. Evans (eds.) Salt, the Study of an Ancient Industry. Colchester, 1975, 14-19: C. Poole. ‘Saltworking and briquetage’ in B. Cunliffe. Hengistbury, Dorset. Vol. 1 Prehistoric & Roman settlement 3500BC - AD 500. Oxford University Committee for Archaeology No 13. 1987, 178: J. Gerrard. 'Cretarii et Salinarii: a tale of two industries?'. Study Group for Roman Pottery. NEWSLETTER 31 - February 2002: S.J. Hathaway. ‘Poole Harbour: a review of early and more recent archaeological investigations with evidence for Iron Age and Romano-British salt Production’. Proc. Dorset Nat. Hist. Archaeol. Soc. 127. 2005, 53-57: Wessex Archaeology. Hampshire salterns: a cartographical study of the Hampshire salt industry. Report No. 49211.01. 2002. Salisbury: Tomalin, D.J. 'An early Roman cliff-top salt-working site at Redcliff Battery, Sandown, Isle of Wight'. Proc.. Isle of Wight Natl. Hist. Archaeol. Soc. 9. 1989, 91–120: Momber, G., Rackley, A. and Draper, S. New Forest Coastal Archaeological Resource.. 1994. Winchester: Momber, G. ‘The inundated landscapes of the Western Solent’ in N C. Fleming (ed.) Submarine prehistoric archaeology of the North Sea. 2004. York: CBA Res. Rept. 141, 37-42
[14] ‘Harbours’ is used as a term to cover any or all of the harbours of Chichester, Langstone and Portsmouth: Tomalin, J. ‘An early Roman cliff-top salt-working site at Redcliff Battery, Sandown, Isle of Wight’. Proc. Isle of Wight Nat. Hist. Archaeol. Soc. 9, 1989 91–120: Bradley, R.J.. ‘Salt and Settlement in the Hampshire-Sussex Borderland’ in de Brisay, K.W. and K. A. Evans (eds.) Salt: the Study of an Ancient Industry. 20-25. 1975, Colchester.
[15] www.crt.state.la.us/archaeology/SALT/product.htm Primitive techniques of salt production: http://www.eng-h.gov.uk/mpp/mcd/salt.htm: the literature on the subject is vast.
[16] S. J. Hathaway. ‘Poole Harbour: a review of early and more recent archaeological investigations with evidence for Iron Age and Romano-British salt Production’. Proc. Dorset Nat. Hist. Archaeol. Soc. 127. 2005, 53-57: E.L. Morris. ‘Salt Production and distribution’ in T. Lane and E.L. Morris (eds.) A Millennium of saltmaking: prehistoric and Romano-British salt Production in the Fenland. 2001, 389-404. Sleaford.
[17] E.L. Morris. 'The Production and Distribution of Pottery and Salt in Iron Age Britain: a Review'. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 60, 1994, 371-93; E.L. Morris. ‘The organisation of salt Production and distribution in Iron age Wessex’ in Fitzpatrick H & Morris (eds.) The Iron Age in Wessex; recent work. 1994; E.L. Morris. 'Iron age Artefact Production and Exchange’ in T.C. Champion and J.R. Collis (eds.) The Iron Age in Britain and Ireland: Recent Trends. 1996. Sheffield, 41-65; R.J. Bradley. 'Salt and Settlement in the Hampshire-Sussex Borderland', In de Brisay Salt. 20-5; A.P. Detsicas. 'A Salt-Panning Site at Funton Creek (3rd century)'. Archaeol. Cantiana 1985; J. Nenquin. Salt: A Study in Economic Prehistory. 1961: W.R. Rodwell. 'Iron Age and Roman Salt-winning on the Essex Coast' in B .C. Burnham and H. B .Johnson (eds.) Invasion and Response: The Case of Roman Britain (British Archaeological Reports- British Series 73) 1979, 133-76. Oxford.
[18] V. Ridgeway. 'A medieval saltern mound at Bramber'. Sx. Archaeol. Coll. 138. 2000, 135 – 52: S. Penney and D.E. Shotter, ‘An inscribed salt pan from Shavington, Cheshire’. Britannia, 27, 1996, 360-365: S. Penney, ‘Lead Salt pans’. Lucerna. 22, 2001, 11: Lemonnier, P. Les salines de l'Ouest. Logique technique et logique sociale. Lille 1980: Productions and applications www.salines.com/index.php?page=3&fiche=44: Denis Morin, A saltern dating back to between 5500 and 5800 B.C. is discovered in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. www.cnrs.fr/cw/en/pres/compress/SelAntique.htm
[19] ‘The sand from which they prepare the brine . . . is collected on flat sandy shores on those parts which are only covered in the high tides which flow two or three days before and three or four days after the full and new moon. This sand they collect . . . when the sea has been exhaled from it by the sun . . . this sand is only collected in dry weather’. W. Brownrigg. The art of making common salt. 1748. 136
[20] F. McAvoy. ‘Marine salt extraction: the excavation of salterns at Wainfleet St Mary, Lincolnshire’. Med. Archaeology. 38. 1994, 134–63: The technique was still used in nineteenth century Normandy. C.J. Sturman. ‘Salt-making in the Lindsey Marshland in the 16th and early 17th centuries’ in N. Field and A. White (eds.) A Prospect of Lincolnshire. 50–56. 1984. Lincoln.
[21] W. Brownrigg. The art of making common salt: as now practised in most parts of the world: with several improvements proposed in that art, for the use of the British dominions. 1748: based on analysis of inventories for Lymington: University of Glasgow special collections MS Hunter D155.
[22] E.g. HRO 1590B/17 Thomas Fox of Milford, Husbandman. ‘saltern lead 13s 4d: sand and wood at saltern, tools 26s 8d’
[23] Wee, H. van der. The growth of the Antwerp market and the European economy. Den Haag. 1963.
[24] E. Hughes. 'The English Monopoly of Salt in the Years 1563-71', Eng. Hist. Rev. 40, 1925, 334-51: BL Lansd. MS 59 no 66-70, 73 no 48-51: TNA E 178/2951: Vollans, E. ‘Medieval saltmaking and the inning of tidal marshes at Lydd’ in J. Eddison (ed.) Romney Marsh: the Debatable Ground.1995. Oxford
[25] TNA SP 78/82 On salt and wine from the isles of Ré and Oléron: G. Martinière and F. Souty. D'un rivage à l’autre: villes et protestantisme dans l'aire atlantique (XVIe-XVIIe siècles): actes du colloque organisé à La Rochelle (13 et 14 novembre 1998). Paris. 1999.
[26] C. Vancouver. View of Agriculture in Hampshire. 1813. 420 based on information provided by Charles St. Barbe: Red House Museum, Christchurch. Charles St. Barbe notebook 1805: a Newcastle chaldron weighed 52 cwts whilst a Winchester one was 26 cwts. The London chaldron varied being volumetric.
[27] Israel, J. Dutch Primacy in World Trade, 1585-1740.1989. Oxford: Leenders, K.A.H.W. Verdwenen Venen. Een onderzoek naar de ligging en exploitatie van thans verdwenen venen in het gebied tussen Antwerpen, Turnhout, Geertruidenberg en Willemstad. 1250-1750. Brussels: A collection of the State Papers of John Thurloe, vol. 3 December 1654 - August 1655.1742, 219-38: Delafosse, M and Laveau, C. Le commerce du sel de Brouage aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. 1960. Paris: Touchard, H. Le commerce maritime Breton. 1967: J-C Hocquet and Jean-Luc Sarrazin, Gildas Buron (eds.), Le Sel de la Baie. Histoire, archéologie et ethnologie des sels de l'Atlantique. 2006, Rennes: t’Hart, M. ‘Salt Tax and Salt Trade in the Low Countries’ in Hocquet, J.-C. (ed.) Le roi, le marchand et le sel. 1987, Lille, 293 -312.
[28] http://www.tribunes.com/tribune/sel/viel.htm Histoire chimique du sel et des sels .Science Tribune. Septembre 1997 Claude Viel: rock salt does not contain such bitter salts
[29] BL Cott. MS Titus B. V f.348.
[30] BL 816 m 13(96) re bill to restrain more salt refineries. 1 Anne c 21
[31] Thirsk, J. 'The Crown as projector of its own estates, from Elizabeth I to Charles I' in Hoyle, R.W. (ed.) The estates of the English Crown 1558-1640. 1992, 308-20.
[32] 21 Jas. I c.3 limited such monopolies to 14 years
[33] E.g. TNA CRES 58/1324 Wootton Creek copy of Wandesford Grant 1629 and later legal opinions 1905-1977.
[34] Haslett, S.K. and Bryant, E.A. ‘The AD 1607 coastal flood in the Bristol Channel and Severn Estuary: Historical Records from Devon and Cornwall (UK)’. Archaeology in the Severn Estuary, 15. 2004, 81-89: the actual amount of land lost at Hayling is still disputed - Reger, A.J.C. A brief history of Hayling priory and the legend of the lost church. 2000. Havant: Allen, M.J. and Gardiner, J. Our Changing Coast: a Survey of the Intertidal Archaeology of Langstone Harbour, Hampshire Oxford: ‘Hayling Island', A History of the County of Hampshire: Volume 3 (1908), pp. 129-34. http://british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=41942
[35] BL Add MS 25302 f72-80 arguments proving the kings property in sea lands and marshes
[36] TNA CRES 58/1324: Moore, S.A. The History and law of the foreshore. 1888 reprinted 2006, 81: Hughes, E. Studies in administration and finance 1558-1825.1934.Manchester.
[37] Foster v. Urban District Council of Warblington. [1906] 1 K.B. 648.
[38] Dugdale, William, Sir. The history of imbanking and draining of divers fens and marshes, both in foreign parts and in this kingdom. 1772: Of particular concern, with regard to littoral areas, are the rights of Common Piscary and Free navigation. Under English common law, navigable waters were only those affected by the ebb and flow of the tides and capable of being traversed in a vessel. The Crown owned the High seas out to the international limits
[39] Fitzwalter's Case, 3 Keb. 242; King v. Smith, 2 Doug. 441; AG v. Parmeter, 10 Price, 378; AG v. Chambers, 4 De Gex, M. & G. 206: Malcomson v. O'Dea, 10 H. L. Cas. 591, at 618, 623: AG v. Johnson, 2 Wils. Ch. 87, 101- 103; Gann v. Free Fishers, 11 H.L. Cas. 192.
[40] Scratton v Brown (1825) 107 English Reports 1140; Gifford v Yarborough (Lord) (1828) 130 English Reports 1023; Re Hull and Selby Rly. Co (1839) 151 English Reports 139.
[41] A-G v Reeve (1885) 1 Times Law Reports 675: Brighton and Hove General Gas Co v Hove Bungalows Ltd [1924] 1 Chancery 372: Howarth, W. Wisdom's Law of Watercourses, 5th Edn. 131-133.
[42] BL Lansd. MS 169 fols. 2-21, 29: BL Lansd. MS 151: Cheshire and Chester Archives and Local Studies Service ZM/L/2/ ‘trespassers and intruders upon His Majesty's right in their lands’ were required ‘to repair to the house of Robert Tipper, Esq., in Fetter Lane near Holborn, so that if they cannot clear the defects against their title, they may proceed to an equal composition with the Commissioners’.
[43] Thirsk ‘Crown as projector’ 310-
[44] Lockwood, H. H. 'Those greedy hunters after concealed lands' in Neale, K. (ed.) An Essex tribute: essays presented to Frederick G. Emmison as a tribute to his life and work for Essex history and archives. 1987, 153-70: Stagg, D.J. A Calendar of New Forest Documents: the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries. 1983. Winchester.
[45] 21 Jas. 1 c.2 reinforced by 9 Geo. III c.16 and the Limitation Act, 1939.
[46] Moore 180-211: Thirsk 314: TNA E 178/4063.
[47] BL Add. MS 38444 fols. 66-71d: Thirsk 325: Lockwood ‘Concealed lands’: H. Lawrence. 'John Norden and his colleagues, surveyors of crown lands'. Cartographic J. 22. 1983, 54-6: Thirsk, J. ‘The Crown as projector of its own estates, from Elizabeth 1 to Charles 1’ in R.W. Hoyle (ed.) Estates of the English Crown 1558-1640. 1992, 297-353: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=42451&strquery=william%20tipper
[48] CSPD 1626 376: TNA SP 16/32 no 45: APC 1627, 203: TNA E 178/5629 inquisition 1626.
[49] BL Add MS 64889 f83
[50] APC 1627 Jan – Aug, 203: TNA C 66/2437: C 66/2375.
[51] CSPD 1627-8 326: CSPD 1627-8 336: TNA SP 16/77/ 29.
[52] APC 1627 Jan – Aug, 203: TNA CRES 58/1324: C 54/2737
[53] I. 544. Letter from the Queen to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, recommending Robert Pamplyn, a servitor in her Wardrobe of Robes, to the next vacancy in the office of one of the Measurers of Coal. 'Offices and officers', Analytical index to the series of records known as the Remembrancia: 1579-1664 (1878), 270-307. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=59959&strquery=pamplyn : BL Stowe MS. 557 inventory of Garderobe of The Robes; Pamplyn under Sir Thomas Gorges temp Eliz. : Gorges had extensive interests in lands to the west of Lymington and was Governor of Hurst castle, HRO 58M71/E/T/34, CSPD 1560-90 428, 1629-31 9
[54] The town books of Lymington, although extant, are too fragile for examination; HRO 27M74/DBC1, 2: E King. Old Times Revisited . 1879. Lymington
[55] IGI http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/frameset_search.asp
[56] TNA C 142/263/8(1), 64: C 142/281/57: WARD 7/26/91, 97: WARD 7/38/121: WARD 10/3/1 Packet 1: Maccall, H.B. Story of the Family of Wandesforde of Kirklington & Castlecomer. 1904, 57, 60, 254-6: Comber, T. Memoirs of the life and death of the Right Honourable the Lord Deputy Wandesforde. 1778. Cambridge
[57] North Yorkshire County Record Office. MIC 4054, Wandesford family of the North Riding of Yorkshire: Cumbria Record Office, Carlisle Headquarters D LONS/L1/1/18-19, 22-3, 26: Archives Dept, University College, Dublin IE UCDAD S0006/58 Papers of the Wandesford family: Castlecomer House - home of the Wandesforde family http://www.sip.ie/sip019B/history/history.htm
[58] CSPD 1625-6, 41
[59] HRO 5M50/1955 Letters Patent of Charles I to Mary Wandesford and William Wandesford of lands formerly drowned by the sea but since reclaimed or to be reclaimed and tidal mudlands ,1628, after an Inquisition taken at Winchester in 1626 i.e. in relation to Tipper’s patent. The lands detailed in the grant comprise 3923 acres formerly creeks etc., and 1500 acres of drowned or surrounded lands. The acreage of each parcel is specified
[60] HRO 2M57/1A
[61] HRO 52M87/221/1, 5M50/1955, 52M87/221/1, 2M57/1 Wandesford grant: TNA C66/1708 m1: BL Add. MS 16371A : PCRO 36A/3/1-3 Wandesford grant in Latin and English; DC/PM/27 c 1665 Wandesford grant, map by Dan Favreau de la Fabvolliere, ditto DC/Pm2/4713
[62] TNA C 54/2737
[63] APC 1626, Sep. 26: TNA E 214/887
[64] TNA PC 2/46 366, 2/47 62, 93,100: CSPD 1636-7 139,163,169.
[65] TNA E 134/13Chas1/Trin8; Moore quoting TNA E178/5636; E 112/241 no. 19 ; E 125/19 no 395, E 125/20 no 465, E 125/21 nos. 49, 63 : E 125/23 no 60 ; E 126/4 no 308: Exchequer decrees 17 Charles II fol.63,137
[66] HRO 52M83/2 ; 2M57/1; 24M61/E/T154
[67] TNA C 5/403/29
[68] HRO 6M80/E/L17
[69] Wessex Archaeology. Hampshire salterns; a cartographic study of the Hampshire salt industry. (ref. 49211.01) 2002. Winchester
[70] Hase, P. ‘The development of parishes in Hampshire particularly in 11th and 12th centuries'. Ph D. thesis University of Cambridge. 1975.
[71] K.A. Hanna (ed.) The Cartularies of Southwick Priory, Hampshire Record Series vol. 9, 1988, I 175, 193; II 81, 204; H.C. Darby and R.W. Finn R.W.(eds.) The Domesday geography of South-west England. 1967: e.g. BL Add. Ch. 28241: TNA E 210/942: HRO 24M61/1: e.g. Lymington TNA E 210/942
[72] Tawney, R.H., and Power, E. (eds.) Tudor economic documents; being select documents illustrating the economic and social history of Tudor England. 1951. ii, 104-10: Tate, W.E. The Parish Chest. 1957, 156.
[73] Israel, J.I. Dutch Primacy in World Trade, 1585-1740. Oxford, 1989): Nicolson, J. Food from the Sea. 1979. 52, 62: t'Hart, M. ‘Salt tax & salt trade in the low countries’ in Hocquet, J-C. (ed.) Le Roi, le marchand & le sel. 1986.
[74] Wee, H. van der. The growth of the Antwerp market and the European economy (14th-16th centuries). Leuven, 1963; Hodgson, W.C. The herring and its fishery. 1957. Israel, J.I. Dutch Primacy in World Trade, 1585-1740. Oxford, 1989.
[75] Kbz= thousand bushels: PP HC 1810-11 (18) iv, 409 Report of the Committee on herring fisheries. 445 app. 3 ; Reports of Committees to the House of Commons 1715-1801, vol. X. 52 ‘1785 state of the British fisheries’, 3rd rept., app 1. 1803.
[76] Jones, E. ‘England’s Icelandic fishery in the early modern period’ in Starkey Sea fisheries.
[77] TNA CO 218/1, p294
[78] Head, C.G. Eighteenth Century Newfoundland, Toronto, 1976. a quintal was 112-120 lbs. and there were 5 hogsheads to the ton TNA CUST 64/2 Exeter letters to Commissioners of Customs 1751-2: Davies, G. J. England and Newfoundland : policy and trade 1660-1783. Ph D Thesis University of Southampton. 1980. 232.
[79] Hockey S. F. ‘The account-book of Beaulieu Abbey’ . Camden Society, fourth series, 16. 1975
[80] The following is based on A.R. Bridbury. England and the salt trade in the later Middle Ages. 1955; L.F. Salzman. (ed.) 1970 edn. English industries of the Middle Ages; E. Hughes. 'The English Monopoly of Salt in the Years 1563-71', Eng. Hist. Rev. 40, 1925, 334-51; J-C. Hocquet. Le roi, le marchand et le sel: actes de la table ronde L'impot du sel? en Europe, XIIIe-XVIIIe. 1987; M. Delafosse and C. Laveau. Le commerce du sel de Brouage aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. Cahiers des annales; no. 1. 1960; S.F. Hockey. 1975. The account book of Beaulieu abbey. Roy. Hist. Soc. Camden Soc. 4th series 16; CCR 1318-23, 209; C. Platt. Medieval Southampton 1000-1500. 14; Cal. liberate rolls vol. 4, 140, 160.
[81] M. Kowaleski. The Local customs accounts of the Port of Exeter 1266-1321. Devon & Cornwall Record Society, New series, 36. 1993: M. Kowaleski (ed.). The havener's accounts of the Earldom and Duchy of Cornwall, 1287-1346 . Devon & Cornwall Record Society. n.s. 44. Exeter, 2001.
[82] J.B. Collins. ‘The Role of Atlantic France in the Baltic Trade: Dutch Traders and Polish Grain at Nantes, 1625-1675’. J. European Economic Hist. 13, 1984, 241-243: J. Israel. Dutch Primacy in World Trade, 1585-1740. 1990.
[83] N.S.B. Gras Early English customs; M.A. Mills. ‘Collectors of customs’ in W.A. Morriss (ed.) The English Government at work 1327-36.1947, ii: R.H. Tawney and E. Power. Tudor economic documents: vi 242. 1947: R.A. Pelham. 'The foreign trade of Sussex 1300-1350', Sx. Arch. Coll., 70, 1929, 93-118; ibid.' Some further aspects of Sussex trade during the fourteenth century', Sx. Arch. Coll., 71, 1930, 171-204.
[84] The ‘port of Southampton’ was a legal term denoting the area controlled, for Crown Customs purposes, by the headport of Southampton town which included all of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight at this date. There were no member ports before the 17th century and then only at Cowes and Portsmouth.
[85] C. Lamschus. ‘La Production de sel a Lüneburg & son contrôle’ in J-C Hocquet. (ed.) L'impot du sel et l’état. 1965. Grenoble: SCA SC2/1/2, f 116-8.
[86] Hocquet, J-C (ed.) le Roi, le marchand et le sel. 1986. Lille
[87] E. Hughes. Studies in Administration and Finance, 1558-1825 with special reference to the history of salt taxation in England. 1934. Manchester: W.J. Lewis. ‘A Welsh saltmaking venture of the 16th century’. J. Nat. Lib. Wales, 8, 1953, 419-32.
[88] SP 12/36 f. 201-225
[89] CSPD 1547-80 238, 255, 274
[90] CSPD 1586-1625. (Add.) 198.
[91] APC 1613-4, 567, 636; APC 1615-6, 67: TNA C 66/1704: CSPD 1603-1610, 319-27. License to Echard and Tatnall, for making of brine, pickle, and salt
[92] J. Thirsk and J.P. Cooper (eds.). Seventeenth century economic documents. 1972, 235; TNA SP 16/3 f 80; APC 1625-6, 62
[93] TNA E 214/189: J. K. Gruenfelder. 'Nicholas Murford; Yarmouth salt Producer'. Norfolk Archaeol. 41, 1991, 162-70: BL Lansd. MS 253 f 252, 257, 261: TNA E 214/189: HRO 44M69/G2/526: SCA SC/TCBox/1/70, 76-8: C.T. Carr. Select charters of trading companies. AD 1530-1707. Selden Society. 1913.
[94] Bourhis ‘Dartmouth’ 55: Cornwall RO QS/1/1 -5 analysis of salt lost in transit : Lewis, E. ‘The port books of the port of Cardigan in Elizabethan & Stuart times’. Cardigan Antiq. Soc. vii. 1930, 21-39: Davies, G.J. ‘The supply of salt for the Newfoundland trade’. Somerset & Dorset Notes & Queries, 31. 1981, 113: Farrant, J.H. ‘The seaboard trade of Sussex, 1720-1845’. Sx. Arch. Coll. 114, 1976, 97-121.
[95] Thomsen, B.N., and Thomas, B. Anglo-Danish trade 1661-1963. 1966. 65; Ellis, J. 'The Decline & fall of the Tyneside salt industry 1660-1790. Econ. Hist. Rev. (2nd ser) 33. 1980, 45: BL, Add MS 38221 f 100 memorial on the salt trade of Liverpool: Clemens, P.G.E. ‘The Rise of Liverpool, 1665-1750,’ Econ. Hist. Rev. (2nd. Series) 29, 1976, 211-225: PP HC 1818 (115) v, Report on laws relating to salt duties, App. 17.
[96] Southampton City Council - Historic Environment Record MSH1544.
[97] In 1226, the burgesses received in aid of their fee farm the customs of salt at Pennington which Henry de Pont Audemer had also (wrongly) been granted Rotuli Litterarum Clausarum (1204-27) 1833, i 339, 472.
[98] F.J.C. Hearnshaw and D.M. Hearnshaw (eds.) Court Leet records [of Southampton]. vol. 1 part 1, 1550-1577, 81, 96, 109, 125, 145: ibid vol. 1 part 2. 1578-1602, 220: ibid vol. 1 part 3. 1603-1624. 1905 -7. Southampton Record Society: SCA SC 6/1/40
[99] Hants RO 44M69/G2/526 n.d. this petition is probably associated with the corporation’s attack on Horth’s plans: Southampton Archives Office SC/TC box 1/70-80: C.T. Carr. Select charters of trading companies. AD 1530-1707. Selden Soc. 28 1913: TNA E 214/189: Society of Saltmakers. A true remonstrance of the state of the salt businesse : undertaken (for the furnishment thereof between Barwick and Pool; they with the Ile of Wight, and members inclusive) by the Societie of Saltmakers of South, and North-Shields, and of Scotland . 1640
[100] W.H. Price. English patents of monopoly. 1912, 114
[101] A. Spicer `The French-speaking Reformed community and their Church in Southampton 1567-c. 1620'. Ph.D. thesis, University of Southampton, 1994. 86-88.
[102] TNA C66/1704
[103] Camden, W. Britannia 1607. Norden has a similar, shorter description 1609.
[104] The following is based on TNA E 134/7Chas1/East 14: E 134/7Chas2/Trin1: E 134/11&12Anne/Hil23; PCRO G/MN 387; Hughes; TNA STAC 8/171/21: Popham of Wellington (Somerset) had interests in several commercial ventures, including the colonial settlement in America. He sent out two unsuccessful expeditions, one in 1606, the other in the following year, headed by his brother, George, and a Roger Warre. This Roger Warre came from Kingston St. Mary in Somerset but the relationship between the various Roger Warres is uncertain.
[105] TNA C 66/2500: C 142/421/123, WARD 7/72/85, C 142/426/90, WARD 7/74/52
[106] TNA E 134/7Chas1/East14; E 134/13&14 ChasI/Hil14
[107] Cal. Comm. for Compounding 1643-60, 94; Cal. comm. Advance of Money. passim esp. 1286 ; TNA C 10/29/36 ; C 10/37/163
[108] TNA E 134/13&14Chas2/Hil14
[109] Williams E.V. The Reports of... Sir Edmund Saunders... Of cases in the court of king's bench. Vol. 1-2 (1666-1673). Edition: 6th 1845.
[110] TNA C 9/410/258
[111] Patent no. 144 of 1664, it contains no details of the process; Somerset Archive and Record Service, DD\WHb/44, 45, 46, 2779, 2780: WSRO GOODWOOD/E316.
[112] J. Collins. Salt and Fishery, a discourse thereof, etc... 1682
[113] TNA C 8/297/125
[114] TNA C 6/319/32: PRIS 1/2 contains no reference to the committal of Bindloss.
[115] TNA C 6/319/32: E 134/11&12Anne/Hil23: E 134/11Wm3/Mich28: D. Defoe. A Collection of the Most Remarkable Casualties Disasters which happen'd in the Late Dreadful Tempest both by Sea and Land on Friday the Twentysixth of November, Seventeen Hundred and Three. 1705
[116] TNA E 134/11&12Anne/Hil23.
[117] University of Glasgow special collections MS Hunter D155 p29
[118] NLW Powis Castle deeds 2408.
[119] J. M. Ellis. A study of the business fortunes of William Cotesworth, c1668-1726. 1981. New York. Reprint of the 1975 edn., Oxford.143
[120] TNA SP 42/7/101
[121] Tyne & Wear Archives Service Cotesworth MSS CM/2/405. 1911 1723: Carr Ellison MSS ZCE 10/2
[122] Tyne & Wear Archives Service MS ZCE/10/2 ; Ellis 144: According to Cotesworth Lymington used 2/5 Newcastle chaldron [i.e. 20 cwt] per ton of salt compared with about eight tons in the northeast.
[123] HRO 5M50/835
[124] TNA CUST 148/15, 39. Cribbs were locked warehouses for non-duty paid salt.
[125] PP HC 1836 (528) 369
[126] PCRO G/MN/78; TNA E134/11Wm3/Mich28, E 134/11&12Anne/Hil23
[127] B.D. Henning. History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1660-1690. 1983: T. Comber. Memoirs of the Life and Death of the Lord Deputy Wandesford. 1778. Cambridge: CJ 1660-2. passim
[128] HRO 5M50/1058: CTB 1660-67, 38; East Sussex RO SAS/G21/99 ff: West Sussex RO WISTON/1910 ff: They also received a grant of lands in Dorset. TNA T 51/12.
[129] East Sussex Record Office. FRE/4762-4.
[130] Collins, John. Salt and Fishery, a discourse thereof, etc. 1682.
[131] The following is based on an analysis of TNA CRES 2/1162-3: C 11/339/30 Campbell v Caryll 1744.
[132] TNA CRES 2/1162
[133] TNA CRES 39/15.
[134] The same source includes the Excise office description (probably obsolete) ‘ 3 brine grounds; 11 cisterns in ground, 7 clearers or cisterns in brick, 4 boiling houses, 24 pans, 3 bitter houses, 4 bitter pits, 11 bitter coolers, 8 bitter troughs, 10 storehouses’.
[135] Portsmouth Museums and Records Service G/MN/78: TNA CRES 2/1163
[136] TNA CUST 148/15 p 39
[137] C.F. Fox. ‘Saltworks at Hook near Warsash, Hampshire’. Proc . HFC 13, 1935. 105.
[138] The pipe roll of the Bishopric of Winchester 1409-10 (Hampshire record series) 1999. Winchester. 290, 430.
[139] HRO 142M83/1 Titchfield map c 1620 of doubtful provenance: the original does not exist.
[140] TNA CUST 148/15: HRO 1768AD/17: 1745A/100
[141] TNA CUST 148/15 f 40-41.
[142] TNA CRES 2/1777: AO 1/2088/101
[143] SALT INDUSTRY ON HAYLING ISLAND - BY MAURA CHAPMAN online: ‘Hayling Island.’ Penny magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. 11. 1842. 483
[144] Clarke, W.B. The guide to Hayling. 1836. Hayling: VCH. Hants 1, 473: 3, 129: Longcroft, C.J. A topographical account of the hundred of Bosmere in the county of Southampton [etc.]. 1857, 192.
[145] HRO 21M65/F7/216/1-2 S Hayling tithe: Q23/2/97 Hayling salterns enclosure: 44M69/F6/9/76 1730 ‘new salt works Hayling’.
[146] CUST 148/15 f41
[147] TNA CRES 2/1777; Hants RO Q25/3/1 p29.
[148] TNA CUST 148/15 f41: HRO Q25/3/1 p.29.
[149] Clarke, Hayling
[150] CSPD 1636-7 139, 163, 169: TNA PC 2/46, 366: PC 2/47, 62, 93, 100: E 125/21 f 63.
[151] TNA E 134/13Chas1/Trin8; Moore quoting TNA E178/5636; E 112/241 no. 19 ; E 125/19 no 395, E 125/20 no 465, E 125/21 nos. 49, 63 : E 125/23 no 60 ; E 126/4 no 308.
[152] TNA CUST 148/15: HRO 21M65/D4/1777/2: CRES 2/1162
[153] E.g. HRO 1585A/094 Clemence Pygion : 1592B/24 Thomas Hargood ,
[154] HRO 1671A/106 Robert Scutt ,Wymering
[155] 50M63/C49/164: PP HC 1836 (528) xvii
[156] De la Fabvolliere, map of Portsmouth harbour. BL Add MS 16371a
[157] Northants RO Montagu of Boughton W14
[158] TNA CRES 2/1162: CUST 148/15: HRO Q26/3/20: Brewer, H (ed.) Letters & Papers, Henry VIII. 9, 460,462 27 Sept. 1535 James Hawkysworthe to Lord Lisle. ‘Your ship sailed from Fareham ..has sent in her ... a hogshead of white salt’;. Wm. Waytte to Lady Lisle. ‘Sends two barrels of white salt’.
[159] HRO 5M50/1384, 37M73/E/T3
[160] HRO 5M50/1417, 4M53/63/11,1662A/101
[161] B. Cunliffe and Julian Munby [et al.]. Excavations at Porchester Castle Vol. 4, Medieval, the Inner Bailey. Reports of the Research Committee of the Society of Antiquaries of London; no.43. 1985, 290
[162] HRO 5M50/16
[163] HRO 1M53/1360-1, 5M50/1348, 4M53/50. 5M50/1391
[164] HRO 5M50/1399
[165] Redrawn from BL Add MS 16371a
[166] WSRO Add Mss 12420-2. the rent was six bushels of good well made and merchantable salt and one salt cat
[167] TNA: TNA CRES 2/1777; HRO Q25/3/1 p29; WSRO Add MS 25991; HRO Q/4/25/3/1: WSRO ADD MSS 21531-4, Add MSS 25984, Cap. I/28/44
[168] WSRO Add MSS 25984-5, 25990-1, 21531-2: Cap. I/28/44: A. Readman (ed.) West Sussex land tax 1785. Sussex Record Society. vol. 82. 2000
[169] WSRO ADD MS 25991, 25993
[170] E.g. CTB 1710 464 Robert Elliott Collector for Portsea petitioned for relief of a bill drawn on John Woodford, Portsea, and not honoured as ‘since absconded’.
[171] WSRO Add MSS 25984-25990: TNA T 1/343/26
[172] WSRO Add MSS 25993 : HRO 21M65/F7/216/1-2 : J.H. Farrant. ‘The rise & fall of a South coast seafaring town 1550-1750 '. Mariners Mirror. 71. 1985; TNA SP 16/3 f 80
[173] CUST 148/15 41
[174] TNA T 1/343/26
[175] He was described as ‘saltworks lie very much exposed to fraud; Bound’s work having been formerly notorious for running salt, this occasions the Revenue to be at the expense of 3 watchmen instead of 2... absolutely necessary are guarded at night’. TNA CUST 148/15 f8: 1726A/011 Will of David Bound of Lymington, Hampshire, Salt Boiler 1726: 1724A/021 Will of Thomas Bound of Old Lymington, Lymington, Hampshire, Saltmaker 1724
[176] TNA CUST 148/15 p 21, 35-7
[177] TNA CUST 148/15 p 5-6
[178] TNA T 64/233; Hampshire Chronicle 1 Aug 1789 'James Ayles proprietor of the Appledurham salt works died aged 62.': WSRO Add MSS 25991-2 : e.g. TNA AO 1/2104/152: PP HC 1818. v.317
[179] CTB 1679-80 239
[180] PP HC 1836 (528) 369
[181] TNA E 190/824/6; E 190/824/4.
[182] TNA E 190/824/6, 828/8, 843/9,11, 861/4
[183] e.g. 1688-9 142 weys bay salt and 34 English white salt but 1713-15 1855 weys of white salt only. TNA ADM 20/48; ADM 20/115.
[184] TNA BT 6/183 1817 salt beef and pork contracts still specified Setubal salt.
[185] Beveridge, W H. 1965. Prices and wages in England: from the twelfth to the nineteenth century. Vol. 1: Price tables: mercantile era. ; TNA ADM 112/162. ADM 20/52.
[186] BL Add. MS 45516B
[187] TNA ADM 20/48, ADM 20/52
[188] TNA ADM 20/115
[189] RN Museum 1973/320
[190] TNA ADM 110/14 f 127
[191] J. Campbell. Political survey. 1775. 1 (2) 25
[192] RN Museum Pm. 1984/373
[193] TNA ADM 112/162: his allegations about fraudulent underweighing in London are in Vanderstegen, W. Observations on Frauds practised in the collection of the Salt duties. 1794: Refutation of the charges brought by W. Vanderstegen, Esq., against Mr. T. Walton and others. 1794: Vanderstegen, W. A Reply to a Pamphlet entitled "A Refutation of the charges brought by W. Vanderstegen, Esq., against Mr. T. Walton and others, &c.". 1794: Vanderstegen, W. An address to the public, in justification of the conduct of the author of the pamphlet entitled Observations on frauds practised. 1794. Reading.
[194] T.S. Willan. The English coasting trade 1600-1750. 1938. Manchester. 110; TNA E 190/861/4; E 190/844/9; E 190/843/11; E 190/828/8.
[195] Hughes ?
[196] 5 Wm & Mary c 7: 7 & 8 Wm III c31; 9 Wm III c6, 44; 1 Anne c15.
[197] 3 George II c20; 5 George II c6; 20 George III c 34; 22 George III c39; 38 George III c89.
[198] Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature And Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Book Four Of Systems of Political Economy. CHAPTER V: TNA T 1/726/1-30: BT 6/89: PP HC 1818 (35.)(115.) Reports from the Select Committee on the Laws relative to the Salt Duties, and on the means of remedying the inconveniences arising there: The Repertory of arts, manufactures, and agriculture 297 1808
[199] TNA T 1/415/210-15.
[200] TNA T 1/364/37, T 1/372/41; Davis, AS. 1936. ‘Cardiganshire salt smugglers in the 18th century’, Arch. Cambrensis xci, 312; CTP 1704 passim; Palace House Archives, Beaulieu EIII/RV16.
[201] CTB 1679-80, 239; e.g. Salisbury & Winchester Journal, 1789 no’s 2642, 2665.
[202] TNA CUST 58/1 states Mr Reed said to 'frequently do ship considerable quantities of British salt for London [coastwise] ' in 1749.
[203] TNA AO 1/2088/101; AO 1/2090/110; AO 1/2093/119; AO 1/2099/138; AO 1/2102/146; AO 1/2105/155; AO 1/2106/156; AO 1/2112/176.
[204] TNA CRES 2/1777 part is missing possibly containing information on other Hampshire saltworks; T 44/1
[205] PP HC 1818, v 313 Report on salt duties; TNA T 64/233.
[206] PP HC 1816 (178) Further Correspondence relating to Excise Prosecutions for Salt Duties: PP HC 1818 (115) 299: frequent adverts in Salisbury & Winchester Journal e.g. 1789 no. 2642: CTB 1698-1699, 397
[207] The following section is based on TNA T 64/233 1796; T 1/343/26; CUST 148/15
[208] TNA T 64/82
[209] Reports of Committees to the House of Commons 1715-1801, vol. X., Report on British fisheries 1785, 1803, 9; PP HC 1818 v (115) 299 Report of the Select Committee on the laws relating to salt duties; 1801 1st report, 2nd report & App. 311
[210] Hatcher, J. 1993. History of British coal, vol. 1, before 1700. 436.
[211] TNA T 64/233 1798 (No. 1) the responses of the Collection staff are in green