RUINED RELICS

   Two precious relics of Thorncombe’s industrial past still just about survive, both within   easy walking distance of Thorncombe village. Hidden among the trees in the Synderford valley are two woollen water mills which are at least 175 years old, if not more.  But if you want to see them, you need to be quick as they are starting to disappear at an alarming rate. [click here for pictures]

 Evidence

   Wills and other evidence dating back to 1593 tell us that Thorncombe supported a thriving colony of weavers and associated trades well into the 19^th century ¹. Unsubstantiated local hearsay has it that there was a mill at Chaffeigh as early as 1750, weaving cloth for the parish  poor house.  The earliest documented evidence discovered so far for Chaffeigh  mill is the original 1806 map, drawn up in pencil by the government ordnance surveyor. The southern seaboard was mapped in anticipation of Napoleon’s invasion and formed the basis of the first OS map printed in 1809 ^2,3. 

   Other records which enable the 19^th century story of the mills to be pieced together include Thorncombe parish’s 1839 Tithe Map which lists both Chaffeigh and Shedrick manufactories  as being owned by Bernard Chaffey ⁴ .  The 1838 Factory Act return records three woollen mills in the parish of Thorncombe employing 50 people. The third mill belonged to George Warry Berry at New Inn, Holditch.  Winsham has one silk mill employing 31 people ⁵.

   According to the 1839 tithe apportionment Bernard Chaffey lived at Maudlin. He apparently was an affluent pillar of the community.  In 1836 as one of 21 Thorncombe’s principal inhabitants and ratepayers he signed a petition in favour of sending Thorncombe’s paupers to the Chard Union Workhouse instead of the one in Axminster ⁶. Nine years later, along with Colonel Bragge of Sadborow, he is listed as a founder committee member and shareholder for the Exeter Yeovil and Dorchester Railway in 1845 railway ⁷.  

     Prosecutions

    But there is a question mark over whether Bernard Chaffey was a good employer.  In 1847 he was fined by local magistrates a total of £7 0s 0d plus £2 19s 0d costs (worth £666 today) for offences relating to the employment of children, under the 1839 Factory Act ⁸ . As well as not registering them, having the medically examined or sending them to school, his other offences were making children work  for more than seven  hours a day and between the hours of noon and 1pm ⁹.

   The Tithe Map shows that both mills were powered by a complicated system of leats to accumulate the water needed to drive the mill wheels. Fragments can still be found in the undergrowth around the mills and along the road, also on the 1806 OS map, now a bridleway, which links them.  Inevitably, due to the vagaries of the weather, there were frequent non-productive periods of inactivity.  Workers including children were therefore expected to ‘make up time’  sometimes in the middle of the night if the wheels could be turned and there were urgent orders to fill ¹⁰.

   In 1880 a Frome resident recalled how ‘The work people were sometimes called at midnight on Sunday to use the water that had collected and they would work till 10.a.m. Monday when the water was getting low. They would start again about 5 p.m. and go on as long as there was any water. If they lived a distance they often slept in their clothes … all the girls doing such work never took their clothes off for a week’ ¹¹.

   Whether or not making minors work longer than the law permitted was an isolated incident and is evidence of child exploitation  is not currently  known. Given George Warry Berry  was also prosecuted at the same court hearing  as Bernard Chaffey, for other offences under the Factories Act, it can be implied that the inspectors swooped without warning and found  children working without a lunch break  at  Chaffeigh Mill when they should have been at school. So it is likely that this was not an isolated misdemeanour.

                                                  Reform

  While the Factory Acts are recognised as being important in improving working conditions on humanitarian grounds, it was recognised that productivity also improved. Just like today, many tax payers were exercised by the cost of poor relief. The big question was how to motivate the feckless while recognising society’s responsibility to the deserving poor who were not at fault. The 1834 Poor Law Reform Act which replaced parish with tougher  union workhouses attempted to address this issue and also the  low wage economy which was supplemented by poor relief and often helped bump up profits.   Bernard Chaffey’s mill workers were piece workers. They didn’t get paid if they didn’t work, which meant they didn’t eat and could lose the roof over their heads for non payment of rent.

   Where previously ‘dole’ i.e. outdoor relief, was paid to keep the unemployed in their own homes, Parish Overseers were now legally obliged to send able-bodied workers to the union workhouse i.e.  to provide indoor relief, as an incentive to force them to seek work.  Lack of local employment opportunities was no longer acceptable grounds for providing outdoor relief as it was believed this encouraged laziness.

   Parish ratepayers footed the bill for those in receipt of indoor poor relief. Until 1834 payment of outdoor relief enabled employers who were also tax payers to have a dedicated workforce on the doorstep available at a moment’s notice.  Perhaps in the face of poor law reform,  Mr Chaffey’s wish to see Thorncombe paupers sent to nearby Chard, was motivated by self interest rather than the welfare of his employees?

        If the law meant employees on short-time had to be sent to the local workhouse, better  Chard than Axminster, so they could be collected up more quickly, particularly as we have seen,  in the event of heavy rainfall following a drought.

                                                             Sources

1.        http://www.opcdorset.org/ThorncombeFiles/Thorncombe.htm  (see Thorncombe wills)

2.        British Library on-line gallery  http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/ordsurvdraw/b/zoomify82275.html (accessed 01.10.2010)

3.        Vision of Britain http://visionofbritain.org.uk/maps/results.jsp?xCenter=3138079.38352&yCenter=2747190.1163&scale=63360&

mapLayer=nineteenth&subLayer=first_edition&title=Ordnance%20Survey%20and%20Ordnance%20Survey%20of%20Scotland%20First%20Series  (accessed 01.10.10)

4.        Dorset History Centre:  PH/THO,  Thorncombe Tithe Map & Apportionment 1839 (accessed 01.10.10)

5.        House of Commons Parliamentary Papers On-line, 1839(41). Return of Mill and Factories which have neglected to transmit Returns to Inspectors, 1837-38: Number of Persons employed in Cotton, Woollen, Worsted, Flax and Silk Factories of United Kingdom, pp 166-167, 188-189

6.        The National Archive (Living the Poor Life archive)  MH12/2095/30 http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/displaycataloguedetails.asp?CATLN=7&CATID=-6078765&SearchInit=4&SearchType=6&CATREF=MH12%2F2095%2F10 (accessed 01.10.10.)

7.        British Newspapers 1800-1900   http://newspapers.bl.uk/blcs/  (accessed 01.10.10)

8.        http://www.measuringworth.com/  (accessed 01.10.10)

9.        House of Commons Parliamentary Papers On-line, 1847-48 [957]  Reports of Inspectors of Factories to Secretary of State for Home    Dept., November 1847-April 1848,  pp. 58-59

10.     Mann, J. (1971) The Cloth Industry in the West of England from 1640 to 1880, Oxford, Clarendon Press

11.     Somerset Record  Office, DD/LW, p. 244, Scrapbook of R.R Singer