{"id":22,"date":"2018-12-18T09:22:30","date_gmt":"2018-12-18T09:22:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uk118.net\/?page_id=22"},"modified":"2018-12-18T09:22:30","modified_gmt":"2018-12-18T09:22:30","slug":"industrial-development-in-the-19th-and-20th-centuries","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.uk118.net\/index.php\/industrial-development-in-the-19th-and-20th-centuries\/","title":{"rendered":"Industrial Development in the 19th and 20th Centuries"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Industrial Development in the 19th and 20th Centuries<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the beginning of the 19th century Kent was predominantly an\nagricultural county, with few other industries and those mainly small. The\ndockyards at Chatham\n(where the Victory was built) and Sheerness were the largest industrial\ncentres, and even there it was alleged that the number of employees was kept at\nan unnecessarily high level in order to provide support for Government\ncandidates at elections. Paper-making was carried on in a small way at Maidstone, Crayford, the Crays, Eynsford, Buckland,\nCrabble and two or three other places. Whitstable had a works, dismal in\nappearance, for making copperas, a substance used in dyeing and tanning, the\nraw material of which was a certain kind of pebble found locally and in\nSheppey. There were salt-works at Stonar and in the Isle of Grain. From\nPitcher’s yards at Northfleet ships of up to 1,000 tons and even beyond were\nregularly launched. Brewing and brick- and tile-making were carried on in all\nparts of the county, and quarrying wherever there was chalk or stone. But,\napart from the dockyards, all these industries were on a small scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1834 William Aspdin began at Northfleet to make Portland cement, so\ncalled because it was thought to resemble Portland stone. Its manufacture\nrequired chalk and clay, and since both of these were found in the neighbour\u00adhood,\nwhilst the river was available to transport the finished product, Thames-side\nwas an obvious area for the development of the industry. It was the cement industry\nwhich largely accounted for the rapid growth of Northfleet, Swanscombe and\nStone, to which reference was made in the last chapter. Later in the century\ncement-making spread to the Medway Valley between Upnor and Burbam, leaving as its\nlegacy great scars in the North Downs where\nchalk has been quarried, and industrial villages such as Eccles and Wouldham.\nIts effect on the villages of the Medway\n Valley is shown by the\ncensus figures: in the 20 years between 1861 and 1881 the populations of\nBurnham and Halling almost doubled and of Snodland and Wouldham almost trebled.\nFrom agricultural villages they grew, within a generation, into industrial\ntownships. The cement works of the Medway\n Valley depended mainly on\nbarge-transport and therefore were handicapped in competition with the\nThames-side works which were accessible to larger ships. In consequence the\ncement industry along the Medway came nearly to a standstill in the slump of\nthe early 1920s, but since then the development of road transport has resulted\nin a revival of cement-making on the west bank of the river; on the east bank\nthe abandoned factories have crumbled into picturesque ruins. Fortunately the\nlarge paper-mills of Messrs A. E. Reed and Co. Ltd at New Hythe, which were\nbegun in the early 1920s, expanded rapidly and gave employment to some of the\nmen who were thrown out of work by the contraction of the cement industry in\nthe Medway Valley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first expansion of the paper-making industry followed the abolition,\nin 1861, of the excise duty on paper. The Dartford Paper Mills, on the River\nDarent, were erected in 1862. At the end of the century the introduction of the\nhalfpenny newspaper and the popular magazine resulted in a further increased\ndemand for paper and again the industry expanded. Apart from the mills at New\nHythe the industry has developed on a large scale at Dartford,\nNorthfleet and Sittingbourne. All three places are conveniently situated for\nthe import by water from the Baltic and from Canada\nof logs and wood-pulp, the most important raw materials, and for despatching\nthe finished product to London,\nthe great paper-consuming centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Dartford engineering has been an\nindustry of growing importance for the last century. Erith owed its rapid\nexpansion to the establishment there in 1889 of the Maxim Nordenfelt Gun and\nAmmunition Company, a concern which was taken over by Vickers in 1898 and to\nthe development of Frazer and Chalmers’ engineering works. The opening of\nVickers’ factory at Crayford during the 1914-18 war resulted in the town\ndoubling its size in the course of a few years. The industrialisation of the\nThames-side area has been carried further in the present century by the\nestablishment of cable and electrical equipment works at Erith and Northfleet,\nof chemical works at Dartford, and of a large\nelectricity generating station at Littlebrook. From Gravesend\nwest\u00adward the whole of Thames-side has become an industrial area interspersed\nonly by marshes and worked-out chalk pits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the 19th century and until recent years Chatham\ndockyard has constituted the largest industrial centre in the Medway towns, but\nengineering is also an important local industry, and so was the building of\nflying boats until Shorts’ works were moved to Belfast in 1946. At Maidstone\nindustrial expan\u00adsion\u2014motor-engineering and the manufacture of foodstuffs\u2014dates\nonly from the 1890s and 1900s, although here as elsewhere in the county\n(notably at Faversham) the brewing industry has a much longer history. At\nSheerness, as at Chatham,\nthe dockyard was the main industry until its closure some years ago, but during\nthe last sixty years or so the glassworks at Queenborough have provided\nemployment for a considerable part of the local population. Sittingbourne owes\nits industrialisation to the paper-mills, established about 1840 and much\nenlarged since the 1914-18 war, and to brick-making, an industry which expanded\nrapidly during the 19th century to meet the growing demand for bricks,\nespecially from London.\nBricks are bulky and heavy to move and the availability of water-transport and\nof brick-earth is sufficient to account for this industry’s flourishing at\nSittingbourne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lying between the industrialised areas of Thames-side and the Medway towns\nare the Hundred of Hoo and the Isle of Grain which for long remained wholly\nagricultural, except for a cement works and an explosives factory at Cliffe. However,\nin the 1920s an oil storage plant and refinery were established at Grain and\nsince then they have grown into a gigantic installation, again, like many other\nindustries in Kent,\nmaking extensive use of water-transport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The presence of coal in East Kent had\nbeen suspected for many years before it was proved in 1891 by borings made from\nthe abandoned workings for the projected Channel tunnel. At Tilmanstone and\nSnowdown coal began to be mined just before the 1914-18 war, at at Chislet in\n1918. Betteshanger pit was some ten years later. For some years inadequate\nmeans of transport handicapped the Kent coal industry. The East Kent\nLight Railway, winding its way from Shepherdswell through Eythorne and\nTilmanstone to Eastry, where one line branched westward to Wingham and the\nother north-eastward to the (1914-18) war-time port of Richborough, was\nconstructed to serve the coal\u00adfield, but did not prove very successful. In 1930\nan aerial ropeway was built to convey coal from Tilmanstone to Dover Harbour, a\ndistance of six or seven miles but that, too is now disused. For the\naccommodation of miners and their families who came to Kent from all over the United Kingdom\nnew townships were established at Aylesham, Elvington and Hersden. The new\nindustry has made its mark upon on the landscape and upon social conditions in East Kent, but in neither respect perhaps has its effect\nbeen so devastating as was feared<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 (or sometimes hoped) sixty or\nseventy years ago, and Chislet is now closed. Even more conspicuous than the\ncolliery pit-head gear are the huge electricity generating stations at\nRichborough and Dungeness, which dwarf everything else in the landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the last few years new industries have grown up, but, except for\na few districts such as Richborough and the Cray\nValley around St Paul’s Cray and St Mary Cray, they are\ngenerally distributed widely over the county rather than concentrated into new\nindustrial areas. Almost entirely, they are light industries with relatively\neasy problems of transport. The development of the motor-lorry and the\nmotor-bus in the last sixty or seventy years and more recently the universality\nof the motor-car have linked together town and coun\u00adtry for work, for shopping,\nfor sport and for entertainment. By the 1960s few villages were without a bus\nservice, even those where, seventy years earlier, the carrier’s van, going once\nor twice a week to the nearest market town, was almost the only link with the\noutside world. Scarcely noticed, Kent passed through a transport and\na social revolution in little more than a generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most remarkable development in this area is, of course, the\nconstruction of the Channel Tunnel between Folkestone and Calais. The project took seven years to\nrealise, at a cost of \u00a36 billion plus interest, and was officially opened by HM\nQueen Elizabeth II and President Mitterand on 6 May 1994. The Eurostar service,\nbased on the French TGV, started on 14 November 1994 and allows the passenger\nto travel from London to Paris\nin three hours, while the journey to Brussels\ntakes 15 minutes longer. These times will be reduced with the introduction of a\nhigh-speed rail link from London\nto Folkestone which is planned for early next century.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Defence against Invasion<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last two chapters have emphasised how its situation, on London’s door\u00adstep, has been one of the major influences\nin the history of Kent.\nMuch of the 19th- and 20th-century urbanisation resulted from nearness to the\ncapital. Another important factor throughout the county’s history, both in\npeace and in war, has been its proximity, on the other side, to the Continent,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a soil that doth\nadvance<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her haughty brow\nagainst the coast of France<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

as Wordsworth described the county in the sonnet which he addressed to\nthe men of Kent,\n‘vanguard of liberty’, when the fear of a French invasion was at its height in\n1803. Threat of invasion has repeatedly given the county anxious and stirring\ntimes, some of which have left their permanent memento in the form of defence\nworks. It was the risk of a French invasion that caused the fortification of\nChatham Lines, begun in 1758, and when Britain\nwas again at war with France\nfrom 1778 until 1783 Fort\n Amherst was built as an\nadditional protection to the dockyard and Chatham Barracks were erected to\nhouse the garrison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a far more real danger of invasion 20 years later, when\nBonaparte boasted that ‘with three days east wind I could repeat the exploit of\nWilliam the Conqueror’. Kent\nmade preparations for defence. In 1794 volunteer troops of horse were raised in\nseveral different parts of the county. The French army was known to march on\nits stomach, and therefore plans were elaborated for removing cattle and\nfoodstuffs from the eastern, the more vulnerable side of the county, so as to\ndeny the enemy provisions if he succeeded in making a landing. Even on paper\nthe plans were incomplete, and whether it would have been possible for a mere\nhandful of Volunteers to drive the cattle from East Kent into the depots which\nwere to be arranged at Cobham and elsewhere in West Kent was a question which\nfortunately never had to be put to the test; the chaos that would have resulted\nfrom driving some thousands of cattle over old Rochester Bridge can be\nimagined, and how the livestock were to be removed from the Isle of Sheppey,\nwhether by rafts or by a temporary bridge, seems never to have been settled. As\npart of the defence preparations parishes were required in 1798 to make a\nreturn of men between the ages of 15 and 60 who could help in the defence of\ntheir county; of infirm and elderly people who would not be able, without\nassistance, to remove themselves in time of invasion; and of waggons, horses,\ncattle, foodstuffs, etc. At Folkestone, of a total population of about 3,200,\nbetween 1,200 and 1,400 were unable to remove themselves from the district\nwithout help, 215 men were already serving as sailors, soldiers or privateers,\nand another 140 expressed themselves as ready to volunteer, nine as horsemen\nand the rest as foot-soldiers, the great majority as pikemen, not more than ten\nventuring to serve with firelocks. The returns for the other coastal towns, if\nthey were available, would probably show a similar state of affairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More conspicuous signs of the preparations to resist the threatened\ninvasion were the Martello towers and the Hythe Military\n Canal. From Copt Point,\njust east of Folkestone, where the high chalk cliffs come to an end, right\nround the more vulnerable parts of the coasts of Kent and Sussex, was built a\nseries of small forts of the same design as the tower at Cape Martella in\nCorsica, which the British Navy had been given cause to respect. Many of the\nMartello towers still exist. They are brick-built, the walls 5 to 8 ft. thick,\nthe diameter about 22 ft. at the top, and the height about 30 feet. Each tower\nwas designed to house, in considerable discomfort, a garrison of 20 to 30\nsoldiers, and to mount a 24-pounder gun. Having, in the basement, a reservoir\nof water and stores of food and ammunition, a Martello tower could, so it was\nthought, withstand a siege. Contemporary critics disputed the effectiveness of\nthese fortifications, but as to their costliness there could be no dispute.The\nmain purpose of the Military Canal, which was dug along the landward side of\nRomney Marsh from Hythe to Rye,\nwas to hold up the enemy if he succeeded in making a landing on the Marsh.\nEvery quarter of a mile or so there is a break in the line of the Canal, and at\neach bend an embrasure was constructed for heavy cannon. This defence work also\ncame under criticism, and men asked scorn\u00adfully whether Napoleon, who had\nthrown armies across most of the major rivers of Europe,\nwas likely to be held up by this glorified ditch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Chatham, the defences were further\nstrengthened by the building of Fort Delce, Fort Clarence and Fort Pitt,\nalthough the latter was not completed until some years after the war had come\nto an end. Whilst the risk of invasion still existed, large military camps were\nestablished at Chatham, Coxheath, Barham Downs, Brabourne Lees, Dover and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shorncliffe. On the coast vigilant watch was kept for the enemy; when\nthe wind was fair for a crossing from France the guard was trebled and the\nFolke\u00adstone records show that the streets were patrolled all night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A problem which confronted the defenders, before the day of the electric\ntelegraph, was how to send messages from the coast to London. The old-fashioned beacon system\nmerely enabled some sort of warning to be given, but it could not be used for\ntransmitting anything but the simplest messages. It was to meet this need that,\nin 1796, a line of semaphore stations was constructed from London to the coast, the distance between the\nstations being six or eight miles, so that a message spelled out at one could\nbe read by the neighbouring station and relayed along the line. A brief\nmessage, it was said, could be sent from the coast to the station at the\nAdmiralty in London\nin two minutes. The line of stations in Kent\nwas Shooter’s Hill, Swanscombe, Gad’s Hill, Beacon Hill\n(with a branch wa Tonge and Furzebill to Sheerness), Shottenden Hill, Barham\nDowns, Betteshanger and Deal. Industrialisation had not yet overtaken West Kent\nand the Medway towns, and the atmosphere was clean enough for a system of visual\nmessages to be feasible; today, industrial haze and smoke would too often\nreduce visibility to make such a system reliable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the Battle of Trafalgar the danger of a French invasion receded,\nand with the Battle of Waterloo it was removed altogether. Apart from fears\nwhich were entertained for a brief period in 1858 about the intentions of\nNapoleon III (it was about this time that a Martello tower was built to defend\nSheerness Dockyard) the people of Britain could turn their attention\nfor the rest of the century to the business of making money and prospering. To\nthat era of peace and prosperity the 1914-18 war put an abrupt end. For the\nfirst time for a hundred years a British army was fighting in western Europe\nand Kent was on the main\nline of communication with the front in Flanders.\nSoldiers in their hundreds of thousands sailed from Folkestone\nHarbour, and war material was shipped\nacross the Channel from the hurriedly constructed, and now derelict, port of Richborough. Dover,\nwhere the Admiralty\n Harbour had recently been\ncompleted, was the base from which the Dover Patrol operated with such dash and\nbrilliance that its exploits have become legendary. German bombs were dropped\non Kentish soil, Thanet towns were shelled by German men-of-war, and even as\nfar inland as Maidstone the ominous and continued rumble of gunfire could be\nheard from the battlefields of France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These disturbances were small compared with those of the 1939-45 war,\nwhen Kent\nwas not on the line of communication, but was itself for years in the front\nline. In 1940 the danger of invasion was as acute as it had been in 1803. Along\nall the beaches steel scaffolding and barbed wire were put up to discourage\nenemy landings, guns were mounted at commanding points round the coast, anti-tank\nditches were dug around the key towns, part of the civilian population was\nevacuated, and at strategic points pill-boxes were built which will presumably\nremain as a lasting reminder of Hitler’s War as the Martello towers are of\nNapoleon’s War. In the autumn of 1940 the aerial Battle of Britain was fought\nout largely over Kent and the Thames Estuary. There were fighter stations from\nBiggin Hill in the west to Manston in the east, and anti-aircraft batteries\nwere established everywhere, even on stilt-like forts which were con\u00adstructed\noff the north coast, out in the mouth of the river. Four years later Kent proved ,a.- convenient depository for\nflying bombs, destined for London,\nbut prematurely. brought down by fighter aircraft, by gunfire, or by balloon barage.\nIn a new fashion the county was playing once again its accustomed part of\nvanguard, in the defence of England.\nHappily, when hostilities were over it could still repeat, with truth, its\nproud motto, Invicta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether it can make the same claim in the more subtle warfare against\nuglification and Subtopianism is more doubtful. In the long run the face of the\ncounty has suffered more from invasion from the west than from the east. Much\nof the urban sprawl is inevitable, industrialisation has brought prosperity,\nand public authorities do their best to plan and control development; but need\nthe 20th century be quite so careless of appearances? Wordsworth! it is thou\nthat shouldst be living at this hour; we have need of thee, to urge the Men of\nKent and Kentish Men of today to fresh vigilance in the face of another and\nless civilised enemy than the Frenchmen who vainly waited in the Channel ports\nnearly two hundred years ago. Only if we are vigilant whilst there is yet time,\nwill our descendants be able to say with Michael Drayton, writing in 1613:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fair Kent<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What countrie bath\nthis isle that may compare with thee?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Industrial Development in the 19th and 20th Centuries At the beginning of the 19th century Kent was predominantly an agricultural county, with few other industries and those mainly small. The dockyards at Chatham (where the Victory was built) and Sheerness were the largest industrial centres, and even there it was alleged that the number of … Continue reading “Industrial Development in the 19th and 20th Centuries”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-22","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uk118.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/22","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uk118.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uk118.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uk118.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uk118.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uk118.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/22\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.uk118.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/22\/revisions\/23"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uk118.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}