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POTASH-MAKING IN ESSEX: A LOST
RURAL INDUSTRY.
By HENRY LAVER, M.R.C.S., F.L.S., F.S.A. (Vice-President).
[Read November 24th, 1894.]
IT is often said, that there is now no fear of an art being lost,
since the printing press has become such an active agent in
recording events and the teachings of science, and that, had it been
invented sooner, we should not have had to regret so frequently as
we do, the loss of the knowledge how various arts were carried out.
All this may have some truth in it, but still there are many manu-
facturing processes which have disappeared, and of which no records
are in print although the press had then been invented ; processes
which had, and would still have, great value if those engaged in the
particular arts to which they relate could re-discover them.
Several of our rural industries also have gone without any records
remaining from which those who may come after us could re-intro-
duce them. At one time, the manufacture of woollen fabrics of a
particular character found employment for thousands of people in
the district around Colchester, and there are many records remaining
of the amount of woollen goods made and of the number of workers,
but there is no account of what the materials were like when made,
nor of the processes in use in the manufacture, and to a great extent
this is therefore a lost art. The Press records the commercial value
of a manufacture, but rarely the processes adopted in its practical
working out.
An instance, as far as Britain is concerned, of a lost art, or
perhaps more correctly a lost manufacture, is that of Potash-Making;
and of this also there are few or no records, excepting in some old
chemical authors.
[Since the reading of this paper I have to thank our member,
John Spiller, Esq., F.C.S., for kindly sending me the following
extract from "Chemical Essays," by R. Watson, D.D., F.R.S.,
Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge (5th
Edition, 5 vols. London, 1789). The passage is, I think, worthy
of insertion here, as it gives the reason for the name "Potash," and
because it mentions that some of the experiments from which the
conclusions were drawn, were made in Essex. To a certain extent it
confirms the opinion I have expressed ; it gives the results of the
manufacture but not the details of the economical processes, as
carried out in this county :