Richard Vynton of Tonbridge, Collier - "Gun Founder” – 17 October 1594
Finding No. (copy and paste references into search box) - QM/SRc/1594/77
"Richard Vynton of Tonbridge, collier, in £5, to appear, answer and to be of good behaviour; sureties, John Denton and John Turner of Speldhurst, gun founder."
This case is surprisingly the only collier, in the Kent archive, that I can directly link to the booming iron industry that was happening in the Sussex, Surrey and Kent Weald at the time.
The process of making iron was a heavy consumer of charcoal: it wasn't until the early 18th century that coke was invented as a fuel for furnaces. According to Hammersley in the article "The Charcoal Iron Industry and Its Fuel, 1540-1750"1 to produce one ton of bar iron took 13.5 loads of charcoal in the 1590s at the Middleton and Oakamoor furnaces (Hammersley, table 2, page 604). A load was a waggon loaded with twelve sacks of charcoal. Hammersley estimates that a load of charcoal was made of around 300 cubic feet of solid wood, so that is 4050 cubic feet of wood per ton of iron produced. He goes on to state that by the end of the sixteenth century the annual output of a Wealden furnace was around 200 tons (Hammersley, Page 600), that is a whopping 81,000 cubic feet of wood converted to charcoal per annum... and that is just one of the 50 blast furnaces in Weald in the 1590s. (Hammersley, Table 1, Page. 595).
Getting back to out collier Richard Vynton, a quick search online took me to the 'Wealden Iron Research Group' (www.wirgdata.org) that links Richard's Surety 'John Turner of Speldhurst, gun founder' with the Barden Furnace and Forge (this is the only furnace in the Parish of Speldhurst). See http://www.wirgdata.org/printpro.cgi?personid=565
The furnace operated from 1574 until 1761, and there is evidence that guns were being founded from 1588-89. see http://www.wirgdata.org/searchpro2.cgi?personid=73
Whether Richard worked directly for the Furnace we don't know but, even if he was not directly employed the quantity of charcoal required would have kept him busy, though not busy enough to stop him getting into trouble and having "appear, answer and to be of good behaviour" at the West Kent Quarter sessions.
Whether Richard worked directly for the Furnace we don't know but, even if he was not directly employed the quantity of charcoal required would have kept him busy, though not busy enough to stop him getting into trouble and having "appear, answer and to be of good behaviour" at the West Kent Quarter sessions.
The Wealden Iron research Group's website is well worth a browse, I particularly like this modern artist's cross section illustration of a blast furnace and gun foundry in operation.
Illustration from http://www.wealdeniron.org.uk/hist.htm
Notes and Sources:
1: The Charcoal Iron Industry and Its Fuel, 1540-1750 by G. Hammersley, available to read for free online at http://www.jstor.org/stable/2593700
1: The Charcoal Iron Industry and Its Fuel, 1540-1750 by G. Hammersley, available to read for free online at http://www.jstor.org/stable/2593700
