THE ESSEX FIELD CLUS.
43
Saturday, March 30th. These nominations were duly made and will be
recorded in the report of the Annual Meeting.
Mr. Avery exhibited six water-colour drawings of Essex Churches with
the object of ascertaining the name of the artist. They dated from 1794 to
1797. For many years they were in the possession of the late Mr. Thomas
Bird, J.P., of Romford, a member of the Club. Mr. Avery also exhibited an
old plan of Wanstead House Gardens.
Mr. Walter Crouch said that the coloured sketches were very interesting
They resembled a number of drawings that formerly belonged to Sir Edward
Hulse, Lord of the Manor of Barking.
The President remarked that the view of Little Ilford Church was an
admirable memorial of a church which had sufficed for a parish containing
only 250 inhabitants within his recollection. At that time Great Ilford was
only a hamlet of Barking, and contained no parish church. The best
estimate that could be made of the population of Little Ilford now was 25,000,
and these parishioners certainly could not go to church all at one time!
Mr. H. W. Littler exhibited some old hand-printing blocks formerly used
at Mr. Edmund Littler's Silk-printing Works at Waltham Abbey. Mr.
Littler subsequently kindly presented these blocks to the Museum, and in
doing so furnished the Secretary with the following notes on the subject.
NOTES ON THE HAND-PRINTING SILK WORKS AT WALTHAM
ABBEY AND WEST HAM.
By H. W. LITTLER.
I have forwarded to you for the Essex Museum the hand-printing
blocks I spoke about at the meeting of the Club on February 23rd. They
were made and used at Mr. Edmund Littler's Silk and Cotton Printing Works
at Waltham Abbey, Essex, and are exactly similar to those used in Mr.
Reding Littler's factory at West Ham Abbey. These West Ham Works
were afterwards sold to Mr. J. Tucker, of Messrs. Baker, Tucker and Co., and
subsequently removed to Teddington. The Waltham Abbey factory was
sold to Her late Majesty's Government, for the extension of the Powder Mills,
about the middle of the 19th Century. Of the old silk printing factories near
London I believe the only one left is that which is (or was a few years back)
carried on by a Mr. Littler at Merton Abbey, Surrey. The reason that these
factories (all of which were in the first instance used as silk printing works)
were located on the sites of or adjacent to old Abbeys was that large
quantities of pure water were required for the purpose of bleaching the silk.
It was no uncommon thing for great stocks of silks to lay on the meadows
adjoining the factories, while an armed guard paraded round his valuable
charge. Looking now at the putrid water of the Channelsea at West Ham
and Lea one can hardly realise that these two factories were established on
the banks of these rivers on account of the purity of their waters. The
receipt for making madder green dye for which Mr. Reding Littler, of West
Ham, was famous, was kept a profound secret even from his immediate
relations interested in the same work. His madder green dyed silk handker-
chiefs were the beau-ideal at that time of what a sprightly coster's neck-cloth
should be. This recipe I believe died with him, he only revealing an inferior