Industrial Biography: Iron Workers and Tool Makers

by Samuel Smiles

CHAPTER IV.

ANDREW YARRANTON.

"There never have been wanting men to whom England's improvement by sea and land was one of the dearest thoughts of their lives, and to whom England's good was the foremost of their worldly considerations. And such, emphatically, was Andrew Yarranton, a true patriot in the best sense of the word."—DOVE, Elements of Political Science.

That industry had a sore time of it during the civil wars will further appear from the following brief account of Andrew Yarranton, which may be taken as a companion memoir to that of Dud Dudley. For Yarranton also was a Worcester ironmaster and a soldier—though on the opposite side,—but more even than Dudley was he a man of public spirit and enterprise, an enlightened political economist (long before political economy had been recognised as a science), and in many respects a true national benefactor. Bishop Watson said that he ought to have had a statue erected to his memory because of his eminent public services; and an able modern writer has gone so far as to say of him that he was "the founder of English political economy, the first man in England who saw and said that peace was better than war, that trade was better than plunder, that honest industry was better than martial greatness, and that the best occupation of a government was to secure prosperity at home, and let other nations alone." [1]

Yet the name of Andrew Yarranton is scarcely remembered, or is at most known to only a few readers of half-forgotten books. The following brief outline of his history is gathered from his own narrative and from documents in the State Paper Office.

Andrew Yarranton was born at the farmstead of Larford, in the parish of Astley, in Worcestershire, in the year 1616.[2] In his sixteenth year he was put apprentice to a Worcester linendraper, and remained at that trade for some years; but not liking it, he left it, and was leading a country life when the civil wars broke out. Unlike Dudley, he took the side of the Parliament, and joined their army, in which he served for some time as a soldier. His zeal and abilities commended him to his officers, and he was raised from one position to another, until in the course of a few years we find him holding the rank of captain. "While a soldier," says he, "I had sometimes the honour and misfortune to lodge and dislodge an army;" but this is all the information he gives us of his military career. In the year 1648 he was instrumental in discovering and frustrating a design on the part of the Royalists to seize Doyley House in the county of Hereford, and other strongholds, for which he received the thanks of Parliament "for his ingenuity, discretion, and valour," and a substantial reward of 500L.[3] He was also recommended to the Committee of Worcester for further employment. But from that time we hear no more of him in connection with the civil wars. When Cromwell assumed the supreme control of affairs, Yarranton retired from the army with most of the Presbyterians, and devoted himself to industrial pursuits.

We then find him engaged in carrying on the manufacture of iron at Ashley, near Bewdley, in Worcestershire. "In the year 1652", says he, "I entered upon iron-works, and plied them for several years." [4] He made it a subject of his diligent study how to provide employment for the poor, then much distressed by the late wars. With the help of his wife, he established a manufacture of linen, which was attended with good results. Observing how the difficulties of communication, by reason of the badness of the roads, hindered the development of the rich natural resources of the western counties,[5] he applied himself to the improvement of the navigation of the larger rivers, making surveys of them at his own cost, and endeavouring to stimulate local enterprise so as to enable him to carry his plans into effect.

While thus occupied, the restoration of Charles II. took place, and whether through envy or enmity Yarranton's activity excited the suspicion of the authorities. His journeys from place to place seemed to them to point to some Presbyterian plot on foot. On the 13th of November, 1660, Lord Windsor, Lord-Lieutenant of the county, wrote to the Secretary of State—"There is a quaker in prison for speaking treason against his Majesty, and a countryman also, and Captain Yarrington for refusing to obey my authority." [6] It would appear from subsequent letters that Yarranton must have lain in prison for nearly two years, charged with conspiring against the king's authority, the only evidence against him consisting of some anonymous letter's. At the end of May, 1662, he succeeded in making his escape from the custody of the Provost Marshal. The High Sheriff scoured the country after him at the head of a party of horse, and then he communicated to the Secretary of State, Sir Edward Nicholas, that the suspected conspirator could not be found, and was supposed to have made his way to London. Before the end of a month Yarranton was again in custody, as appears from the communication of certain justices of Surrey to Sir Edward Nicholas.[7] As no further notice of Yarranton occurs in the State Papers, and as we shortly after find him publicly occupied in carrying out his plans for improving the navigation of the western rivers, it is probable that his innocence of any plot was established after a legal investigation. A few years later he published in London a 4to. tract entitled 'A Full Discovery of the First Presbyterian Sham Plot,' which most probably contained a vindication of his conduct.[8]

Yarranton was no sooner at liberty than we find him again occupied with his plans of improved inland navigation. His first scheme was to deepen the small river Salwarp, so as to connect Droitwich with the Severn by a water communication, and thus facilitate the transport of the salt so abundantly yielded by the brine springs near that town. In 1665, the burgesses of Droitwich agreed to give him 750L. and eight salt vats in Upwich, valued at 80L. per annum, with three-quarters of a vat in Northwich, for twenty-one years, in payment for the work. But the times were still unsettled, and Yarranton and his partner Wall not being rich, the scheme was not then carried into effect.[9] In the following year we find him occupied with a similar scheme to open up the navigation of the river Stour, passing by Stourport and Kidderminster, and connect it by an artificial cut with the river Trent. Some progress was made with this undertaking, so far in advance of the age, but, like the other, it came to a stand still for want of money, and more than a hundred years passed before it was carried out by a kindred genius—James Brindley, the great canal maker. Mr. Chambers says that when Yarranton's scheme was first brought forward, it met with violent opposition and ridicule. The undertaking was thought wonderfully bold, and, joined to its great extent, the sandy, spongy nature of the ground, the high banks necessary to prevent the inundation of the Stour on the canal, furnished its opponents, if not with sound argument, at least with very specious topics for opposition and laughter.[10] Yarranton's plan was to make the river itself navigable, and by uniting it with other rivers, open up a communication with the Trent; while Brindley's was to cut a canal parallel with the river, and supply it with water from thence. Yarranton himself thus accounts for the failure of his scheme in 'England's Improvement by Sea and Land':—"It was my projection," he says, "and I will tell you the reason why it was not finished. The river Stour and some other rivers were granted by an Act of Parliament to certain persons of honor, and some progress was made in the work, but within a small while after the Act passed[11] it was let fall again; but it being a brat of my own, I was not willing it should be abortive, wherefore I made offers to perfect it, having a third part of the inheritance to me and my heirs for ever, and we came to an agreement, upon which I fell on, and made it completely navigable from Stourbridge to Kidderminster, and carried down many hundred tons of coal, and laid out near 1000L., and there it was obstructed for want of money." [12]

Another of Yarranton's far-sighted schemes of a similar kind was one to connect the Thames with the Severn by means of an artificial cut, at the very place where, more than a century after his death, it was actually carried out by modern engineers. This canal, it appears, was twice surveyed under his direction by his son. He did, however, succeed in his own time in opening up the navigation of the Avon, and was the first to carry barges upon its waters from Tewkesbury to Stratford.