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This page is part of a website based
on the life and achievements of eighteenth-century inventor Henry Cort. Please email site controller Eric
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Cort’s links with Titchfield
Henry Cort’s mill at Fontley
is situated in the great Titchfield estate that once belonged to the Earls of
Southampton. First it housed a forge,
supplied with iron from a blast furnace at Sowley in the same estate (on the
coast, west of Southampton Water). A
Quaker family named Gringo has run the mill from 1674 until 1773, by which time
the estate is owned by the Delmé family.
Fontley Iron Mill is also mentioned among features of a large
tract of land leased from the Delmés by James Stares in 1771. How it passes to Henry Cort is unknown. Most accounts assume it is part of the
Attwick business when Cort takes it over, but no evidence has been cited.
Descriptions of the site and
what remains nowadays can be found in articles by M.D. Freeman and R.C. Riley
in Industrial Archaeology, 1968, and in a 1998 dissertation by Nick
Molteno.
The Meon runs into the Solent at Titchfield Haven, several miles
west of Gosport. The mill’s location is
about a mile upstream from Titchfield village.
When Cort first approaches Matthew
Boulton in 1779, he is interested in getting an engine to pump water back from
the mill's outflow to its head: a rotary engine for driving the millwheel
directly is not yet available. He
finds, however, he can manage without, doubtless helped by a small canal or
leat that traps water from two tributary streams lower down the valley and
feeds it to the millpond. Some
researchers credit Cort with building the leat; others say it was built
earlier. If earlier, he probably needs
to clear it of vegetation.
The mill's proximity to Titchfield brings Cort into contact with
some of the locals.
One of the most prominent is
Asher Humphreys, steward of Delmé’s estate, thus representative of Cort's
landlord. His signature turns up
repeatedly in orders summoning jurors to sessions of the manor court. In 1774 he gives his age as 63.
Associated with Humphreys in several documents is John
Rickman. This name recurs to a
confusing degree: there must be more than one.
Baptisee at Titchfield in 1737.
Bridegroom of Mary Wilkinson, Portsea 1743. Clerk in the Navy Office, 1758-61. Bridegroom of Mabel Beavois, Gosport Holy Trinity 1775.
Elsewhere on the web I have discovered a John Rickman,
commissioned in 1776, who sails in Cook's third expedition: he is probably the
one listed as captain's servant on the Launceston for the last few
months (1762-3) of the life of James Hackman. Later he serves on the Sally
storeship (1781) and the 74-gun Goliath (1787). In 1791 he is recorded as having been
"employed on shore at Lymington" (evidence of a Hampshire
connection). From 1798 to 1799 he
commands the Victory, then a hospital ship at Chatham. In 1815 he is in Greenwich hospital, where
he marries Hannah Jennett. They have
two sons.
Another of Humphreys' associates is mercer Richard Lee (aged 67
in 1774), who has been "Bailiff and Revisor of Rents for the manors of
Titchfield, Crofton and Newlands" since 1742. This post is closely linked to the steward's: no surprise to find
him witnessing Humphreys's will.
Evidence about Humphreys's and Lee's ages comes from Delmé v
Missing files at the PRO. Delmé's complaint concerns members of the
Missing family (four wills of different Thomas Missings can be found at the
PRO). The Shedfield property bought in
1767 by Adam Jellicoe has been in the Missing family
since 1729: according to records of the house, two of the Missings who owned it
were MPs; one of them also Mayor of Portsmouth, and a victualler to the
Navy! The Missings deserve a book to
themselves, but don't try searching for "Missing" in the PRO
catalogue: you will discover that hundreds of documents are missing!
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Mr Missing having received the Kings
Command by the Secretary at War to Victual Three Regiments going to Gibraltar
He writes to Mr Scrope from Portsmouth by letter dated the 21st instant
to acquaint my Lords that this Command coming in the Hot Season when Beef and
Pork cannot be Kill’d or Cured to hold the Service, it is impossible to serve
them according to the letter of the Contract, So is necessitated to exceed
the limits thereof by packing Salt Provision at Such place or places where
they are to be had soonest and his utmost Endeavours Shall be to obtain that
of the best Quality and he will exert himself in hastening a way a proper
Quantity of all Specie Suitable to the Augmentaco’n My Lords on this
emergency acquiesce in Mr Missings request, but that he is to take
care that the Letter of his Contract be Strictly pursued when the proper
Season for Killing and Cureing comes in.
From Treasury minutes, 27 July 1730 |
The John Missing who witnesses James
Watson's 1777 wedding can be identified as the barrister and judge who has
served as Recorder of Portsmouth from 1773 to 1775 (which brings him into
connection with the Carter family, one of whom marries Adam Jellicoe's daughter
Sarah). He is an associate of the Burges family - like Edward Ives, also of Titchfield,
with whom there is a tenuous relationship by marriage.
No children are named in
this John's will, but the John Missing serving in the East India Company's army
(who in 1802 will claim to have been a schoolfellow of Cort's
eldest son) is named as a reserve beneficiary, in case closer ones die too
soon.
Another Titchfield name that deserves mention is Henry
Cawte. Easy to confuse with our
inventor, but this Cawte's name crops up in Titchfield records as far back as
1753.
Then there are Cort’s employees at Fontley. John Bartholomew, who eventually takes over the mill, is probably local; as are Thomas
Edmunds and John Swaine.
Henry Foxall and Thomas Llewellyn definitely come from outside
the area.
In a letter that surfaces among the detritus of the 1812 inquiry, Llewellyn tells how his master, George
Daniel at Penygored near Cardigan (where Cort is said to have given one of the
earliest demonstrations of his puddling process)
sent him to Fontley to find out more, and how he stayed for 6 months in 1785.
Foxall
appears to have been an employee of Wright and Jesson at West Bromwich. He stays at Titchfield long enough to have
one child baptised there. He is the one
sent to Ketley, who later swears an affidavit about
his experiences there. Other evidence
shows him in Ireland in 1789. Later he
becomes an important figure in America, running an iron foundry targeted by the
British in the war of 1812. He also
becomes important in the Methodist movement.
henrycort.net
gv