Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

‘a firkin of strong waters’. 347 In the 1730s Beoley boasted a distiller, though the exact
nature of his product is not known. 348
However, he fell on hard times. Perhaps new
regulations and foreign imports made legal distilling less viable, though perhaps some
illegal stills continued, unnoticed by authority. 349
Several water-mills were located on the River Arrow and smaller streams, while
the zone’s couple of windmills were probably constructed during the study period. 350
Many mills were family concerns. For example, members of the Moore family were
millers and millwrights for many generations in Ipsley and Alcester. Junior members of
a family wishing to stay in the milling business generally had to find a vacant mill, so
milling families were often widely dispersed, but long associations also exist between
certain families and their mills.
Millers had time on their hands when the mill was unable to run. One miller was
also a turner, while another possessed a ‘box of instruments for surgery’, which he may
have used on his neighbours or on their animals. Thomas Green farmed, dealt in hops
and malt and had £220 ‘upon good security’ and an £80 ‘life-lease’. 351
His mill was
probably used for both paper-making and corn-grinding, while some other mills became
dual-purpose needle and corn-mills in the eighteenth century. In 1776 Johnson’s mill in
347 WoRO, probate of Robert Boulton, Feckenham, (no occupation given), 1700, £244-0-5. Probably at the
Crown (he had a room called the Crown Chamber). Perry was common locally, a cider-like drink made
from pears crushed in perry-mills.
348 WoRO, marriage licence of Daniel Carr, Beoley, distiller, May 1735. WaRO, Studley burial register,
1732, also records the burial of the wife of Mr John Bickerton, London, distiller.
349 WaRO, DRB19/73/8, Tanworth in Arden removal order of Daniel Carr, senior, from Beoley to
Tanworth in Arden, 1775 (no occupation given), but apparently the same man who was a distiller at the
time of his marriage (WoRO, marriage licence of Daniel Carr, Beoley, distiller, May 1735). After 1775 no
distillers are mentioned in this zone.
350 See Appendix 17: Mills. If there had ever been a windmill on Windmill Hill in Coughton, it appears to
have been redundant by this time. The two windmills at Walkwood in Feckenham parish may date from
this period or later.
351 WoRO, probate of Ralph Hurst, Feckenham, miller, 1713, £16-17-0, (also a turner), and of Thomas
Dunn, Feckenham, miller, 1727, £74-10-6, (which lists surgical instruments) and of Thomas Green,
Beoley, yeoman/miller, 1735, £576-1-0. Green’s widow married the Beoley paper-master, Thomas Batten.
320