Originally published by John Wrake in June 1999, as “Maresfield HISTORICAL SOCIETY : OCCASIONAL PAPERS 2”

GUNFOUNDING IN SUSSEX.

To the modern eye, Sussex and heavy industry seem unlikely companions, but it has not always been so.Though we might associate smoke, noise and glare with Port Talbot in Wales, or Sheffield or Glasgow, two hundred years ago, it was Coalbrookdale and Ironbridge in the West Midlands which were at the heart of the iron and steel industry. Two hundred years before that, the blast furnaces were hard at work in Sussex, in villages which now seem the epitome of tranquil country life, and the men who worked them produced not fancy gates or fire-irons, but cannon.

The history of the iron industry in the Weald, from before the Romans came to Britain until the last furnace closed at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century, has been well documented by many who are expert in the industry and its history and it is not the purpose of this paper to question their knowledge of the subject. However, this paper does set out to question the interpretation of certain statements on the history of gunfounding, long accepted as facts and consequently, frequently repeated, particularly as they relate to the history of Maresfield. Broadly speaking, they are the statements which claim Buxted as the original source of cast-iron cannon and Parson William Levett as the master gunfounder who made it possible.

IMPROVEMENTS IN CANNON

First of all, it is necessary to record the changes in the methods used to  make cannon which occurred between their first use in Europe early in the Fourteenth Century and the middle of the Sixteenth Century. These changes were clearly very slow to appear. All but the last and major change were pioneered on the Continent, where cannon had been invented.

Initially, cannon consisted of a bundle of wrought-iron bars, welded together into a hollow tube and bound with iron hoops to prevent them splitting apart when the cannon was fired. A separate iron pot with a touch-hole was filled with gunpowder and attached to the rear end of the tube after a stone ball had been inserted in the tube to act as the projectile. Since it was difficult to make truly round stones which fitted closely in the tube, difficult to attach the pot to the tube with a gas-proof joint strong enough to hold through the explosion of the charge and difficult to keep the charge small enough to ensure that the joint didn’t burst but large enough to project the stone ball, they were inaccurate short-range weapons, almost as dangerous to their users as to their targets.

The first improvement was in the quantity of the wrought-iron produced, when men on the Continent developed the blast-furnace. This provided cast-iron, which could be converted to wrought-iron, using a water-powered hammer, but it only facilitated the production of a greater number of the same inaccurate, dangerous weapons. A better step forward came from the use of cast  bronze for cannon, since the technique for casting bronze was known by bell-founders. This eliminated the need for a separate breech-chamber, making the gun more safe to handle and increasing its range. However, bronze cannon were very expensive. Again, the technique was pioneered on the Continent.

A major improvement was marked by the change from using stone for the projectile to using cast-iron balls made in a mould, but this did not occur until late in the Fifteenth Century. At about the same time, the Continentals were beginning to produce cast-iron guns, but these were still breech-loaders with a separate chamber for holding the charge. The same disadvantages of the early guns prevailed, for it was still necessary to fix the chamber to the barrel safely and to prevent the loss of gas through the joint and the consequent loss of range.

Up to that point, all the improvements in gunnery had begun on the Continent of Europe and the French and Germans were the acknowledged experts. Frenchmen were at work in the iron industry of the Weald by 1493 and early in the Sixteenth Century, Henry VIII encouraged foreign bronze gunfounders and cast-iron cannon-ball founders to bring their expertise to England. Iron shot were provided by a Hartfield furnace in 1513,though stone shot were still in use (Straker “Wealden Iron” p. 245). However, it was in England that the next major improvement in the manufacture of cannon took place and the change made England the acknowledged leader in the industry. This improvement was brought about by marrying the techniques of a French bronze gunfounder to the expertise of an English ironmaster which produced the first cast-iron muzzle-loading cannon. Increased range and accuracy, safety for the gunner and comparative cheapness of production were accomplished in one step.

Three names are associated with that ground-breaking development. They are Ralph Hogg, Peter Baude and William Levett.

THE CASTING OF CANNON IN BUXTED

It is necessary to acknowledge the debt owed by the writer to Edmund Teesdale, author of “The Queen’s Gunstonemaker”, for the wealth of detailed research contained in that book, on which, a heavy call is made in this paper. Anyone wishing to know about Ralph Hogg and William Levett and their involvement in gunfounding can do no better than start their search in its pages. Nevertheless, this paper must question some of the conclusions drawn from that research, despite the fact that those same conclusions have been drawn by many others who have written on the subject.

The origins of the widely-held view that English cast iron cannon owed their birth to William Levett at work in Buxted  rest on certain well-known pieces of evidence, which are clearly set out by Edmund Teesdale. We shall look at them in detail.

First in date is an entry in the Court Rolls of Lambeth Palace, dated 1492, referring to the ironfounders of Buxted and in 1493 to an ironfounder of Hartfield (Straker p. 47). He quotes Rhys Jenkins conclusion that by 1500, there were at least three furnaces at work, i.e. Buxted, Hartfield and Newbridge. Hartfield may refer to Parrock furnace. However, if Newbridge was in Hartfield, it is possible that Pieter Roberd the French ironfounder of Hartfield was working at Newbridge, so we can reduce the number of early furnaces to two. The sites of both Parrock and Newbridge have been clearly identified. The Buxted site may well have been Little Buxted, where the forge remains overlay evidence of an earlier furnace on the same site.

The Elizabethan historian, Holinshed, writing at the end of the Sixteenth Century and referring to the year 1543, wrote “This year the first cast pieces of iron that ever were made in England were made at Buckesteed in Sussex by Rafe Hoge and Peter Bawde”. On the face of it, this is a clear statement of fact by a near contemporary and should be accepted at face value. Nevertheless, we know that the first part of the statement is inaccurate. Cast-iron guns were produced in England, at Newbridge furnace as early as 1509 (Teesdale p.4). Parrock furnace was casting cannon-balls as early as 1513 (Straker, “Wealden Iron” p. 241). It may be that Holinshed was speaking in general terms of the first cannon cast in one piece, as Teesdale argues and as is now generally accepted. If so, it is legitimate to ask how much of the rest of his statement is true in detail, as Teesdale accepts, or only in general terms. There is some reason to accept as factual the involvement of Peter Baude, a skilled founder of bronze cannon, whose expertise would have been invaluable at the development stage in a new process,though there have been suggestions that other experts were involved, which seems probable. Indeed, it may be that Holinshed used the name of the most prominent French bronze gunfounder as the one involved,again speaking in general terms of the foreign input. In the same way, his naming of Buxted may not be literally correct.

Teesdale (p. 20 cf Straker p. 399) refers to the existence of a document dated 1588 relating to Hogge House, said to bear an endorsement “In this house lived Ralf Hog who at the then furnace in Buxted cast the first cannon that was cast in England”. That could well be merely a repetition of Holinshed’s statement, as it related to a famous previous owner, if it was not the source of that statement.

Where, then, was the site of the Buxted furnace at which the new process of casting iron cannon in one piece was first achieved? Straker (Wealden Iron pp. 388-390) lists the iron works in Buxted as a forge named Little Forge, owned by Arthur Middleton in 1574 (though we know now that it overlay an earlier furnace), a bloomery named Morphews, a forge named Howbourne (in 1568 in the possession of John Relfe and Robert Olyffe), a bloomery of the same name and a furnace named Iron Plat, which he judged was too small to have been used for gun casting. He also lists (pp. 394 & 396) Oldlands furnace and Hendall furnace as being in Buxted parish, though he groups them with Maresfield iron works.

Teesdale (p. 22) writes of the general thought “which history has firmly ascribed to the parish of Buxted” that the 1543 event is most likely to have taken place at Levett’s furnace at Oldlands. That is a view accepted by many, though some doubts have been raised because of the awkward location. If Oldlands was the site, there are other difficulties which need resolution. For a start, Oldlands is not now, and was not at the time, in Buxted parish. Now, it is in the ecclesiastical parish of Fairwarp, part of Maresfield Civil Parish. Then, it was in Maresfield parish, as is clear from entries in the Maresfield church registers of the time. If history firmly ascribes Oldlands to Buxted, history has it wrong! Hendall furnace is, and was, also, in the parish of Maresfield. A more likely site would be the Little Buxted site, if Buxted was really where the first muzzle-loading cannon was made.

We also have to ask in what sense was the furnace at Oldlands, Levett’s? Was he the operator of the furnace, or was he simply the owner of the land on which it stood? As Teesdale records, William Levett subsequently conveyed his lands “called Olde Lande and Appisfilde in the parish of Buckfield ” to Francis Chaloner and his wife Mary, William’s niece and a daughter of his brother, John Levett. That reference to “Buckfield” parish could as well mean Maresfield as Buxted and looks like a slip in the copyist’s concentration. The furnace is not mentioned in the 1576 sale of Oldlands, does not find a place in the 1574 ironworks lists and, according to Teesdale (p. 23) does not appear to have been mentioned again. Why, then, has Oldlands been accepted as the site of the great innovation? Is it because it fits, after a fashion, with the statement that the cannon was cast in Buxted? It is, at least, near Buxted parish and on land owned by the Buxted parson until his death in 1554.

Oldlands was conveyed to Francis Chaloner in 1554 and remained his property until he sold it in 1576, at which time, no mention was made of a furnace. At the latter date, Hendall furnace was owned by Nicholas Pope, then owner of Hendall Manor and son of Edmund Pope, William Levett’s cousin (Teesdale p. 22 note 30). Nicholas and his wife feature as godparents to Maresfield children in the church registers between 1559 and 1576 (Occasional Papers No. 1). Though Nicholas is described as “of Buxted” in 1559, he and his wife are not so described after 1566, suggesting that by that date they were resident at Hendall Manor in Maresfield. Mary Chaloner also acted as a godparent five times between 1556 and 1559, but was described as wife of Francis, gent. of Buxted, so it is likely that they were not resident at Oldlands. In 1570, Thomas Saxby was at Oldlands (Occasional Papers No. 1), so it is likely that the Chaloners were always non-resident owners. In 1548, Francis Chaloner, together with Thomas Gavell, a Maresfield man, leased, for twenty-one years, the Steel forge on Ashdown Forest and Stumblet furnace from Sir John Gage (Teesdale p. 18 note 12). A previous tenant of both these iron works had been John Levett, William Levett’s brother and Francis’ father-in-law. Incidentally, there were Cavells/Gavells/Gavylls in Maresfield at least from 1538, when a child named Pernell was buried, to 1602, when Thomas Gavill married Elizabeth Huttson. Brian Awty, an expert on foreign ironworkers in the Weald, in a letter to me in June 1999, records a mention of Thomas Gavell of Maresfield, collier, in the Sussex Assize records of 1588, John Gavell who became a denizen in 1544 while working for the Duke of Norfolk at the Sheffield works in Fletching and an ironfounder named Edward Cavell from Sussex, who died at Dyffryn furnace in Glamorgan in 1578.

 If the location of Oldlands and Hendall furnaces in Maresfield is insufficient to cast real doubt on the statement that the first cannon cast in one piece was cast in Buxted, we must turn to other evidence. This comes from the Maresfield church registers.

If that first cannon was the result of co-operation between Ralph Hogg, a Sussex wrought-iron gunforger and Peter Bawde, a French bronze gunfounder, working in Buxted, we would expect to see evidence from Buxted church registers of the presence of Frenchmen in the parish during the fourth and fifth decades of the Century, for the French expertise would have been required for a number of years while Englishmen learned the new techniques. However, they do not appear there. Instead, they appear in large numbers in Maresfield. Stephen, son of Peter Gag, a Frenchman, was baptised in Maresfield in 1551, Jane, daughter of Charles Pullen of Gaul, was baptised in 1552 and they were the first of many (see Occasional Papers No. 1). The burials of adult French people appear in the years between 1558 and 1565 and a child, Isamber Byllet, was buried in 1553, beside the burial of Pernell Cavell in 1538. Straker (Wealden Iron p. 314) records a hammerman named James Lamye alias Barden lodging in the East Gate of Robertsbridge Abbey in 1609. Anna Barden was baptised at Maresfield in 1550. The son of James Lamy alias Barden was baptised in Maresfield in 1558, and Barden appears among the foreigners taxed in 1549. Other foreigners appearing in the Maresfield registers include families named Almon, Arthur, de Bewe, Hanoset/Jaques, Jordan/Buly, Perigo, Pinyon, Pycarre, Sheron/Gawnet, Villan and possibly Freere/Lammyn, in addition to Barden/Lamy, Byllet, Gag, Gavyll and Pullen . Others appearing in the tax records as foreigners include Maryon Olde, Laby/Marell, Lucas and Powntyng. One cannot escape the conclusion that Maresfield, not Buxted, was where the gunfounding was taking place, and since some of the names of Maresfield Frenchmen are recorded in the Denization Rolls of 1544, they had clearly been resident in this country for a considerable time.

Why should they be in Maresfield and not Buxted, if Buxted was where the successful experiment took place? There were Frenchmen in Hartfield in 1544 (Straker p. 241), though the John Lambert mentioned there was resident with his family in Maresfield in 1566, as was John Turke (Teesdale p. 28). Though it is clear that these French ironworkers often moved about from furnace to furnace, it seems an inescapable conclusion that Maresfield was the place where the first muzzle-loading cannon was cast, that Maresfield remained the centre of gunfounding in the area and the attribution to Buxted arose solely from the involvement of Parson William Levett.

PARSON LEVETT, GUNFOUNDER?

Edmund Teesdale, in his book on Ralph Hogg, sets out the accepted view very clearly and describes parson Levett as outstanding among the gunfounders of the first half of the 16th Century. However, many of the recorded facts about him are capable of bearing more than one interpretation.

A well educated man with a degree in Law, he was instituted to Buxted in 1533 and to Stamford Rivers, Essex, in the same year. 1533 also saw him a prebendary of South Malling (Teesdale p. 16 notes 6-8). 1533 was a significant year, not just for him. It was the year of Henry VIII’s divorce and marriage to Ann Bolyn, the niece of Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, and the year of the final break of the Church of England with Rome. Was it personal influence which brought William those livings, perhaps through friendship with the Duke of Norfolk? It is unlikely that it was friendship with the man made Archbishop of Canterbury in that year, for Levett was not a reformer. On the contrary, he was deprived of the living of Buxted and his other ecclesiastical offices by Archbishop Cranmer, the patron, in 1545, and only re-installed on the accession of Queen Mary.

His appointment as deputy to the Receiver of the King’s Revenue in Sussex from 1533 to 1534 could also suggest nepotism, for, in those times, appointments such as this were usually gifts reserved for family or friends as an opportunity to make money. He must have had powerful friends who were in the ascendancy in 1533 and it may be that his connections, rather than his expertise, brought him the office, and the office brought him, later, to administer the iron works at Fletching and Worth in December 1546, following the attainder of the Duke of Norfolk and the forfeiture of his property to the Crown – property that was returned to him at the same time as William Levett was re-installed at Buxted (Straker p. 464).

William Levett had a brother in the iron industry, John.When John died in 1535, William was appointed one of the executors of his will, under which he was directed to let the iron works which John owned, the profit going to John’s son, John. Since John senior was a tenant on Crown land at Stumblet (Teesdale p. 18), either he had built the furnace there at his own expense, or he owned other iron works in the area. In the latter case,their location is unrecorded, but Maresfield parish is the most likely spot.  He was clearly a wealthy man when he died.

With such an example before him, an intelligent brother would have known the opportunities for wealth from involvement in this industry and by  1539, William had a foot in the door. However, it was only a very tentative foot, if the total value of the ore dug by Wm. Levett, Clerk, was valued at 6d! (Teesdale p. 17). That statement only suggests that ore was dug on William Levett’s land, as does the evidence to the Commissions of 1545 and 1546 (same page note 10), which may well have referred to Oldlands. It does not, in itself, substantiate the view that William was processing the ore and was a gunfounder, any more than it suggests that he was wielding the spade.

Evidence for his technical involvement in the industry also rests on other grounds, including records of payments made to him, beginning with a payment in 1539 (Teesdale p. 18). That payment was for “iron-work of his wrought and made”. In 1540, he received payment for fifteen tons of iron shot and shortly after his appointment as King’s Gunstonemaker in 1541, he received another payment towards the casting of shot (Teesdale pp. 18 & 19). How do we evaluate this evidence?

It seems unlikely that a man whose first recorded involvement with the industry was as the owner of land which produced 6d worth of iron ore should have produced wrought iron worth 3388 times as much as the ore in the same year. It is far more likely that this and subsequent payments were made to him in his capacity as executor of his brother John’s will, for we know that John was fully involved in iron working before 1535. William’s appointment as King’s Gunstonemaker in 1541 could well have been another sinecure, appropriate only because he was administering the established iron works which had belonged to his brother. The 1540 payment was 3200 times, the 1541 payment was 8000 times the value of the ore dug two years previously. Tudor accounting was not always so precise as to differentiate between sums paid for work done personally and sums paid to an accountant for work done by someone else.

Payments to William Levett in 1545 for guns and shot totalled ,600, the inventory of 1547 listing guns of psn Levett’s making (Teesdale p. 24) and the commission to William Levett in 1546 to oversee the iron works of the Duke of Norfolk at Fletching and Worth in Sussex, taken literally, certainly might suggest that he was a technical expert, but is that how we should read them? Having been appointed King’s Gunstonemaker in 1541, it would be natural that payments and orders for guns and shot from this part of Sussex would be channelled through his hands. In the same way, his office might explain how he became involved in iron works forfeit to the Crown. These were times when office holders jealously guarded their priveleges and the opportunities to make money which those offices provided. William Levett, a lawyer by training, deprived of his clerical incomes and, perhaps, tainted by association with fellow religious conservatives and a suspect Duke of Norfolk, would not have been slow to impress his name on other Crown office-holders as the one responsible for the provision of armaments from Sussex.

As to the breadth of his enterprises, Teesdale suggests that he was employing foreign gunfounders near the Tower in 1544  (p. 27), since his name appears as employer or sponsor in the Denization Rolls. Some of the names concerned reappear in the Maresfield registers,amongst the many others there. Large payments to Levett from 1546 to 1549 are taken to mean his heavy involvement in other iron works close to Maresfield (p. 28). Involvement, there must have been, but its nature is by no means as clear as has been suggested. It may be no coincidence that 1544 was also the year in which Brian Hogg, probably Ralph’s elder brother, was appointed a gunner in the Tower, in addition to his office as Clerk of the Ordnance, which he had held since 1530. Was it Brian and/or his brother Ralph who really controlled those Frenchmen, leaving William Levett to vouch for them as eligible for Denization, since he was trained in the law and a man with important connections? We should not forget that clerics had long made up the bulk of what then equated to the Civil Service, that the Church handled much of the legal business of the day and all testamentary cases, that even the chief Officers of  State were more frequently clerics rather than laymen. It is natural that clerks, i.e. clerics were involved in the administration of iron works, just as they were involved in every other field of administration, so the presence of John Shreve and William Levett at Worth and Fletching and John Horrocks at Panningridge and Robertsbridge is neither remarkable, nor should it be taken to mean that they possessed any more industrial expertise than a modern Company Secretary. The same administrative involvement could equally explain William Levett’s name being attached to the gunfounding taking place in Maresfield.

Teesdale notes that records of payments to Levett for guns and shot disappear from the records after 1549 and provides two possible explanations, namely, the lack of the Crown’s need, or money to pay, for munitions, or, secondly, Levett’s religious views rendering him unacceptable to government (pp. 28 & 29). He was restored to the Living of Buxted in 1553, when religious reform was reversed by Queen Mary, made his will that same year and died in 1554, a very wealthy man.

Perhaps the strongest argument in favour of accepting that William Levett was the managing genius behind the great step forward in the manufacture of cast-iron cannon is evidence of his relationship with Ralph Hogg. This evidence consists of entries in the wills of Edmund Pope (1550) and William Levett (1553), in which he is described as William’s servant (Teesdale p. 9 notes 2 & 3), and Ralph Hogg’s own complaint to the Privy Council in 1573, in which he says “in the begyning ther was none that cast any gonnes or shott of yron but only p(ar)son Lovet who was my Mr. and my p’decessor”. Once again, one must question the sense in which those terms have been accepted.

The entry in Edmund Pope’s will, in which he left ten shillings to Ralph Hogg, suggests that some sort of relationship had existed between the testator and Hogg and ownership and operation of Hendall furnace is the most likely reason for that relationship. It is necessary to remember the very clear distinctions between gentry and commoners of a lower order which operated at the time, and it would have been unthinkable to Edmund Pope to record Hogg in his will as though he were an equal. The description of Hogg as Levett’s servant could mean no more than that Edmund Pope was acknowledging a stronger tie between Levett and Hogg than his own tie with Hogg.

The same consideration applies to William Levett’s will. If Ralph Hogg was purely a servant, why should he have been left iron and cash to the surprisingly high value of ,29-,34 (Teesdale p. 20)? This use of “servant”, too, sounds like a statement of the class distinction which was then normal. Oldlands furnace was on land owned by Levett and it is conceiveable that he hired Hogg to operate it, but, if so, it was only a small component in the wider gunfounding industry in Maresfield, and proves nothing of Levett’s technical competence. William’s legacy sounds much more like a recognition of what he really owed to the man who had helped him to make his fortune.

Ralph Hogg’s description of Levett in his complaint is the strongest argument in Levett’s favour, but even here, some reappraisal is necessary. There is no difficulty with the word “predecessor”. It is a fact that Hogg was appointed Queen’s Gunstonemaker to Elizabeth I after Levett had held the office in Henry VIII’s reign. Whether they were appointed to that office for the same reasons is another question. By 1559, when Hogg was appointed Queen’s Gunstonemaker, he had developed a major improvement in the industry, proved his technical competence beyond question, had sixteen years experience of the new process, let alone his experience of wrought iron guns and was living and working in a major gunfounding centre.The same cannot be said of Levett’s appointment in 1541. His experience of the iron industry then consisted of six years at most as an executor of his brother’s will and two years as owner of land which had initially produced 6d worth of ore and was the site of one furnace.

What are we to make of the word “master”? It cannot refer to a master/apprentice relationship, for Hogg was obviously a skilled gun-maker before Levett was appointed to Buxted, as Teesdale points out (p. 9). Brian Hogg’s appointment as Clerk of the Ordnance in 1530 and John Levett’s unrecorded iron works mentioned in the will proved in 1535 both point to activity in Maresfield earlier than 1533 and it seems likely that Ralph acquired the gun-making skills which made the 1543 operation possible long before parson Levett was appointed to Buxted or became involved with the execution of his brothers will, let alone made provision of 6d worth of iron ore in 1539. The likelihood is that wrought iron cannon were being made in Maresfield well before 1543, making Maresfield the logical place for the great experiment. That is borne out by the payment from the Crown to Levett in 1539 for “wrought iron”, which had probably been produced in works formerly owned by his brother. So, what did Ralph mean by that word “master”? Perhaps it referred to a possible employer/employee relationship at Oldlands, though more likely, it  refers to the relationship between Hogg, the gunfounder and Levett, the King’s Gunstonemaker. After all, Hogg’s complaint is framed in terms to emphasize his conformity with his licence to supply only to the Crown, without express permission to do otherwise. He would want to show that he had kept the rules from the earliest days, when the previous appointee had been his master (in the sense of ruling his conduct).

Perhaps the significance of the preamble to his complaint has sometimes been missed. There, he lists himself, Robert Hodson and Arthur Mylton (Middleton) as the three founders who “have contynewed long and was the first beginners in p(ar)son Levetts tyme and onlye cast for the Tow(er)”. Pointedly, he does not include Levett as a founder and the reference to Levett’s time would seem to relate to his time as King’s Gunstonemaker, i.e. from 1541, two years before the first one-piece casting.

We know that Hogg was active in Maresfield parish and the location of at least five furnaces (Stumblet, Marshalls, Oldlands, Hendall and Powder Mills) together with forges at Steel, Marshalls, Langleys (with possibly another furnace) and Powder Mills, added to the large numbers of Frenchmen resident in Maresfield, suggests that he was very active indeed (see Occasional Papers No. 1). The other names he quotes, as founders with him from the earliest days, also have significance for Maresfield.

Robert Hodson is tentatively equated with Pounsley furnace at Framfield by Straker (Wealden Iron p. 150), which he held in 1574. There was a clear family connection with the Maresfield family, whose name is spelt Huitson or Hutson alias Saunders in the Registers, one member of which, Thomas Hutson alias Sawnder, acted as a godparent with Margaret Hogg in 1575. Any doubt over the connections is dispelled by the knowledge that Robert Hodson was also known as Robert Sawnders (Teesdale “Royal Armories Monograph 2” Appx 2) quoting PRO E 190/739/8 & 20, 745/13. Moreover, Barnaby Hodson, thought to have operated Mayfield furnace from 1592-99, was bringing children for baptism at Maresfield between 1602 and 1607 and was Churchwarden in 1609.

Arthur Mylton or Myddleton was operating Maynard’s Gate furnace in Rotherfield in 1574 and owned Little Forge in Buxted and Huggetts in Mayfield in the same year (Straker pp. 254 & 388). He acted as a godparent with Margaret Hogg in Maresfield in 1568. In 1581 he was a godparent again, this time with Mary Chaloner and Mary Pope. Straker also records a relationship between Myddleton and the Thomas Johnson who succeeded Ralph Hogg as Queen’s Gunstonemaker. Thomas Johnson, son of Peter Baude’s covenanted servant John, (another gunfounder) (Teesdale p. 78) acted as a godparent in Maresfield a number of times between 1567 and 1579 and was still gunfounding in Sussex, probably in Maresfield, after Hogg’s death. It is perhaps, appropriate to wonder if Thomas Johnson’s father, John Johnson, was the common source for Holinshed’s reference to Peter Baude being involved and the Sussex jingle’s reference to Ralph Hogg and his man John.

Other furnace operators and later gunfounders, beside Hodson and Myddleton, must have been well acquainted with Ralph Hogg. Robert Olyffe, partner with John Relfe at Howborne forge in Buxted (Straker p. 389), acted as a godparent at Maresfield in 1565, together with George Burges and the wife of Alexander Ellis. Both the latter were residents, and it is possible that the Elizabeth Olyfe, widow, who married there in 1583, was Robert’s widow. The Relfe(or Rolfe) family had an involvment with the iron industry at Fletching (Straker pp. 414 & 415), at Crowhurst (p. 352) and later, at Ashburnham (p. 366). Relfes certainly had a presence in Maresfield early in the Seventeenth Century, when they were probably living at Marshall’s Manor. John Eversfield was in Maresfield in 1574, when he held a furnace and forge in Hartfield (Straker p.251) and was operating the Worth works in 1582 (p. 464) The John Harman of Lewes, named in Ralph’s complaint as selling cannon overseas, was perhaps related to the Harman family of Maresfield, resident between 1556 and 1585. Nicholas Fowle, who had supplied cannon to Harman, was buried in Maresfield in 1593. There is no escaping the fact that many of the people involved in the production of cast iron guns throughout Sussex seem to have had connections with Maresfield, rather than with Buxted.

The weight of evidence, therefore, points to Parson William Levett being, not a gunfounder, but a landowner, who,  through the duties of executor of his brother’s will, ownership of land on which a furnace was built  and his location near a major part of the Sussex iron industry,  and because of his legal training and political influence, was appointed as King’s Gunstonemaker in 1541. As such, he became an administrator and  accountant for a group of Sussex gunfounders, whose skills lay, not at a desk, but at the forge and furnace. He continued that function, adding to it, the interests of works at Fletching and Worth in 1546, until the growing Protestant influence at Court rendered a deprived Catholic cleric more of a hindrance than a help to an infant industry depending on Crown contracts and Royal sanctions. Though he was restored to Buxted in 1553, there are no indications of any involvement by him in gunfounding after 1549. His successor there, Alban Langdale, was  also a man in the same Catholic tradition and is credited with responsibility for at least one of the martyrs burned at Lewes  during Mary’s reign.

The indirect evidence for this view is equally strong. The name Levett appears only once in the Maresfield registers, when the burial of Joan, wife of John Levett, is recorded in 1580. This sounds like the wife of the man who inherited the profits from the iron works of his father, Parson Levett’s brother. William Levett does not appear at all, despite the fact that those like Francis Chaloner and his wife, Nicholas Pope and his wife, Ralph Hogg and his wife, Thomas Gavell’s wife, all of whom we know were involved in the iron industry, appear as godparents on a number of occasions. Even Alban Langdale, Levett’s successor as parson of Buxted, acted as a godparent on one occasion. Is it conceivable that the man whose distinguished career as an iron-master and gunfounder, a career in which Ralph Hogg may have participated, (Teesdale p. 18) and who may have started other works around Maresfield (Teesdale p. 34) should have had so little to do with the owners, operators and workers in the industry and their families? Is it not strange that William should have left provision for the poor in Buxted, Uckfield, Cowden, but nothing for Maresfield, which, if we are to believe that he made his money as a gunfounder, had been the major source of his wealth?

It is certainly probable that he made a great deal out of his connections with the iron industry. He wouldn’t have been the first Tudor accountant and administrator to make his pile out of fees, warrants, commission, legal advice and plain bribes. That was the way that business was then conducted. Office holders were expected to profit from their offices, which were eagerly sought as the equivalent of licences to print money. Profits from the industry in no way show that his income arose from work as an ironmaster and gunfounder.

RALPH HOGG, GUNMAKER AND GUNFOUNDER

We can safely accept Holinshed’s word that Ralph Hogg was a major partner in the development of the casting of muzzle-loading cannon in 1543, even if his statement that it took place in Buxted is refuted. Equally, there is no doubt that Ralph, by 1543, must have been an experienced ironmaster to be so involved and the probability is that his experience included the manufacture of wrought-iron guns. Whether he gained his experience from working for John Levett or for his own brother, Brian Hogg, or some other ironmaster is unknown, but it seems likely that Maresfield was the location. Certainly, Maresfield was the main location for his subsequent activity until 1581, when he built his house in Buxted. Though he may well have had some involvement in furnaces in Buxted, Framfield, Hartfield and Worth in the intervening years, Maresfield was certainly his home from 1560, almost certainly from 1543 and probably, for at least ten years before that. Given the industrial nature of Maresfield at the time, it is not surprising that he should move to more congenial surroundings on retirement.

His age at his burial at Buxted in 1585 was not recorded, but to be experienced in 1543, he must have been born before 1520 at the latest and an earlier date seems probable, though no written evidence has yet been found. The place of his birth is unknown, but there were Hoggs in the Burwash area (another location of early ironworks) in 1524. His claim to be lame in 1584 (Teesdale p. 69) and the fact that his wife Margaret, whom he had married in 1560, outlived him by over thirty years, suggest that he was a mature man when he married his young wife and an old man when he died. The marriage was probably an arranged one, giving the Henslow family access to a thriving industry and raising Ralph’s status in the community.

Where in Maresfield did he work? His early years before 1535 might have been spent at Stumblet furnace or Steel forge, when they were operated by John Levett, though other works owned by John are more likely. Hendall furnace and Oldlands in the 1540s are indicated by Edmund Pope’s and William Levett’s wills. His possible involvement with the double furnace at Worth, dated to 1547 (Teesdale p. 26) may have been only advisory, in view of his experience. From then until 1574, when his name is linked with Marshalls furnace and forge (Teesdale p. 59 note 34) there is only a reference to Brian Hogg’s forge in 1567 or 1568 being used by a German for experimental use (Teesdale p. 52). (The burial of a “duchman” at Maresfield in October 1570, less than a month after the burial of Brian Hogg’s clerk, might mark the end of the experiment)! Ralph’s petition of 1573 speaks of “s(er)tine furnesses w(hi)ch I mayde of owne charge”, but doesn’t name them. Clearly there were more than one. Which were they?

Stumblets can be discounted, since it was operated by John Levett before 1535 and leased to Francis Chaloner and Thomas Gavell for twenty-one years from 1548. Marshalls is stated to be Ralph’s in 1574, and may be one of them, for Ralph did not own Marshalls Manor, but may have built a furnace on manor land. Langleys is another possibility. Oldlands and Hendall are possibilities, though 1539 and 1550 seem early years for Ralph to have had the resources to have built before then, even though he may have been operating them. Much more likely, is the furnace usually called Powder Mills, about which so much wrong information has been printed. It would be better to call it Maresfield furnace, for the entrance road to it leaves the main road near the centre of the village.

Straker (Wealden Iron pp. 400-401) follows Charles Dawson’s map, a fabrication based on Budgen’s map of 1724. In fact, Budgen was mistaken in his location of Maresfield forge, which he cannot have visited himself. He places the forge opposite Furnace Bank Wood and on the stream which runs under the A22 below Mill House Farm, into Abbey’s Lake and then to Shortbridge. Straker seems to equate the furnace with the forge or places it lower down the same stream. Teesdale (map p. 46) doesn’t show it at all.

Evidence on the ground for the location of the furnace was incontrovertible when I spent a considerable time walking the area between 1973 and 1977, and is common knowledge to longer-term inhabitants of Maresfield village, despite the changes to the area following the construction of a new house on the Powder Mill Cottages site and the digging of new ponds since 1986, which have destroyed much of that evidence. The Wealden Iron Research Group had already confirmed the location in 1970. A booklet written by Michael Lampson about 1982, also confirms the location of furnace and forge. Michael’s family had owned Furnace Bank Wood and Abbey’s Lake for about thirty years and he knew the area intimately.  He also identified a second bloomery site in Grove Wood, in addition to the bloomery site in Furnace Bank Wood, indicating earlier iron working in the area.

Budgen’s error, so frequently followed by others, may have arisen from the fact that the spring which supplied the water power for the furnace has largely dried up. Its position was clearer in former years, when the first catchment pond appeared as a boggy depression to the East of the footpath running from Park Farm to Abbey’s Lake, just before the path enters Furnace Bank Wood. The site is now covered by the by-pass, close to the present path under-pass. In the Wood itself, the furnace pond was so heavily silted as to have become bog which produced a large crop of Marsh Marigolds each year, but it was still clearly visible and still carried a small stream of water through to the Lake. A large bay at the lower end of the furnace pond, carried the joining footpath, which runs Eastwards through Furnace Bank Wood to the main road just North of Mill House Farm by way of a clearly defined Green Road. A single plank carried the walker over the stream which cut through the middle of the bay.

On that small stream, some yards below the bay, the site of the wheel-pit was still visible, with, close beside it, between the stream and the path, the site of the furnace. Though no building remained, the footpath beside that point contained much broken brick reinforcing the surface. The ground there was covered in furnace slag, some of which I have in my possession. An even larger area on the opposite side of the stream carried heavy deposits of furnace slag.

Unhappily, the owner of the house built on the site of Powder Mill Cottages, (which burned down in 1977, while Cecil Dedman was living there) has landscaped the Western side of Furnace Bank Wood and dug new ponds, obliterating  the evidence. However, it is worth noting that the O.S. reprint of Sheet 88 of the first edition 1″ map, probably dating from the third quarter of the last Century, though reproducing some detail from as early as 1813, shows both footpaths as roads. Traces of those roads are still visible, notably, beside the footpath, along the edge of the field behind Park Farm and on the Southern footpath, to the East of Furnace Bank Wood.

Michael Lampson clearly identified the forge site as lying between the site of Powder Mill Cottages and the stream. This is consistent with the air photograph reproduced by Straker, showing water resources from the Batts Bridge stream adjacent to the site,which would have been supplemented by water from the forge pond which had passed through the furnace site. Again, the evidence has been distorted by the construction (and perhaps the destruction) of the Powder Mills and the changes made by Mr. Abbey in 1931, but enough physical evidence has been found to confirm the siting.

Straker’s comment (p. 400) that a road from Marshalls would have been expected if the site was worked by Hogg does not make good sense. Maresfield furnace and forge were served by two roads to the village. The Northern road past Park Farm provided the shortest access to the main road and probably served to carry finished cannon for delivery to the Tower by road. The Southern road from Mill House Farm may well have served to deliver washed ore from Budletts and fuel coming from East of the parish. Perhaps Blackhouse Farm at Budletts, formerly called Blacklands (Occasional Paper No. 1) and Black Down got their names from the charcoal spilled from wagons carrying fuel, or from charcoal burning. The site of Marshalls furnace lies beside the old road to London, while the site of Langleys forge is close to the same road, South of the cross-roads which met near Cross House, so that all the works complexes had their own ready access to the road network.

An indication of the use of Maresfield forge for wrought iron gun-making comes from information which I was given in the 1970s that a number of stone cannon-balls have been dug up in the fields North-west of Abbey’s Lake, which local tradition says was used as a proving-ground for cannon. One example in my possession was dug up in the garden of the Rectory, West of Maresfield Church. This would appear to date wrought-iron gun manufacture here to before 1540.

It seems clear that Ralph Hogg was, at heart, an artisan, who was raised to the status of gentleman only in later life. It also appears, from the records of a court case in 1584, that Ralph was illiterate (Teesdale p. 69). It may be that his appointment as Queen’s Gunstonemaker and his marriage to Margaret Henslow account for his description as gentleman at Buxted in 1562 (Teesdale p. 48), but as late as the early 1570s, he and his wife are still plain Ralph and Margaret in the Maresfield registers. Perhaps this arose from familiarity with the couple.There is no indication in the registers of where they lived, though other important local families are located, whether gentlemen or not. The presumption must be that they lived in the village and this would be consistent with Ralph’s activity at Maresfield furnace and forge.

The only detailed indications we have of Ralph’s activity, between his marriage in 1560 and his evident retirement to Buxted in 1581, come from the Diary of Philip Henslow, who used a book, formerly used by John Henslow for rough accounts relating to some of Ralph’s business during the later years. Edmund Teesdale, in his book, gives the subject comprehensive cover. What emerges, is a picture of confusion and a multiplicity of cooks – perhaps the most appropriate description for those who had a hand in the financial affairs of the enterprise, since Ralph accused one of them of cooking the books and he appears to have been left in the soup!

Those involved include John Henslow, Ralph’s brother-in-law,  George Kenyon, accused by Ralph of defrauding him, Samuel Colstock, Roger Hogg, William Day and Thomas Johnson. It is not necessary here to cover the details of those accounts, or the disputes and claims over Ralph’s house, which Edmund Teesdale has researched so carefully. What is significant for this paper is simply that Ralph Hogg did not manage his own accounts and appears to have ended his life as a comparatively poor man.

All those mentioned as having acted for him in some capacity, have strong Maresfield connections. John Henslow first appears as a godparent in the Maresfield registers in 1557 and was clearly a resident. George Kenyon must have been present to act for Ralph as he did and he and Jane Kenyon were godparents between 1577 and 1583. From family entries in the registers between 1576 and 1583, the Colstock family were resident and Samuel acted as godparent with Thomas Johnson and Margaret Hogg in 1577. William Day, the son of William Day of Cuckfield, married a Cuckfield girl in Maresfield in 1548 and was clearly living in Maresfield to have married there. In 1585, he was a customary tenant of Ralph Hogg, together with William Aucocke (Teesdale p. 97) Teesdale assumes that it was Buxted land and may well be right, but the Aucocke (Alcock) family were Maresfield residents from 1540 until well into the next Century. Thomas Johnson’s residence in Maresfield has already been mentioned.

It seems clear that, just as Ralph employed local labour in his iron works, he employed local men and family members as bookkeepers and accountants because he couldn’t keep the accounts himself.  Whether it was just muddle arising from different hands dealing with a large number of operations, or whether it was individuals taking advantage of that muddle and Ralph’s illiteracy, is hard to tell. He thought it was deliberate fraud in Kenyon’s case (Teesdale p. 68). What is abundantly clear is that such extensive operations should have produced large profits (Teesdale pp. 81-88). What is also abundantly clear is that Ralph Hogg didn’t benefit much from those profits. His will makes no reference to iron-working assets, unless the word “edifices” refers to furnaces in Sussex but not Buxted, but this is speculative. Three legacies of ,10 do not speak of great wealth and the claim that he had mortgaged his house to John Henslow for ,120 gives the same impression.

Records are too scanty to show who else was involved in Ralph’s enterprises, but a number of people spring to mind as possibilities. Brian Hogg, George Hogg and Robert Hogg were all involved in the provision of ordnance and gunpowder and all were connected with Maresfield (Teesdale p.11). The provision of saltpetre by Robert Hogg, a Maresfield resident, has a certain unsalubrious interest. England then had no natural sources of saltpetre other than expensive and unreliable imports, yet it was an essential ingredient in the making of gunpowder. However, it was known that saltpetre could be extracted from urine. In consequence, during the Tudor period, licences were granted to employ “saltpetre men”. For their task, they were entitled to enter all private dwellings and dig up the urine-soaked earth floors, which, when processed, provided the bulk of the saltpetre available to make gunpowder. There were complaints from time to time that even invalids were turned out of their beds while the saltpetre men dug underneath! Perhaps it is not surprising that there was no shortage of invalids in such unhygienic surroundings! One wonders if Robert Hogg obtained some of his saltpetre from the crowded houses and hovels of Tudor Maresfield and if gunpowder was made here, along with the guns which would use it, long before the Victorian Powder Mills began to operate.

Others who might have been involved in the iron works were the landowners where the furnaces and forges were situated. We know of the involvement of Nicholas Pope and Francis Chaloner. Sir John Gage owned Stumblet furnace and Steel forge between 1545 and 1555 (Straker p. 247) He also acquired the Manor of Maresfield in 1545, which included the land on which Maresfield forge and furnace stood. He was not resident, but considering the industrial nature of Maresfield, that is not surprising. To whom the demesne lands were leased is not known, but it could have been to Brian or Ralph Hogg, Edmund Henslow, Alexander Ellis, John Fawkner, Simon Monk, the Normans, Thomas Shelley or a number of others. John Roots, owner of the Manor of Marshalls must also have been involved as a landowner.

There were close relationships between all these families, whose individual members acted as godparents to each others’ children, intermarried, or simply lived cheek by jowl. It is impossible to say what their working relationships were, but they must have been equally close. What proportion of the profits of iron working ended up in their pockets is unknown, but they probably contributed to the costs of production through rents, even if they were not investing, through loans to the operators to offset the costs of building furnaces and forges. We may be sure that they didn’t lose money during the years of growth of the industry.

Even if payments by the Crown had been made in full and on time, which was far from the norm in that age when the Treasury was permanently short of cash and when government contracts were only awarded at prices below the rest of the market, as Ralph Hogg noted in his complaint, much of the possible profit was filtered off by the hordes of placemen holding office between the producer and his customer. What we would call corruption in public affairs, whether caused by inefficiency or peculation, was a way of life in Tudor times and the example set by officialdom was closely followed by any who felt that they could escape detection. That is the background against which we should set Ralph’s business affairs.

When his books were kept by numbers of amateurs whom he was incapable of checking, it is not surprising that he ended comparatively poor, with law-suits and disputes over his estate which continued after his death. It is hard to understand how he could have built up his business of gunfounding if he had always relied on such broken reeds. Nevertheless, it is easy to understand his earlier success if his business affairs had been in the hands of one man and that man a legally trained clerk. That man, too, would have taken the accustomed cut of the profits, but at least, his work would have been comparatively efficient.  It would have been even more efficient if the same man had handled the business affairs of others engaged in the same sort of enterprise. It is in that field that we should recognise the contribution to the gunfounding industry of William Levett, Parson of Buxted.

CONCLUSION.

At the end of the Second Millenium, Maresfield is a pleasant place to live. Heavy traffic is largely confined to the bypass and the village centre is a Conservation Area, with a mix of older buildings and attractive new houses, flower-filled gardens, a green recreation ground and an ancient church. It wasn’t always like that. Four hundred and fifty years ago, it was a place of dirt, smoke, smells and noise. The cinder-surfaced village street was a highway for heavy-laden wagons and teams of oxen. Most of the houses were small, dark and indescribably dirty. Nevertheless, we can be proud of that earlier Maresfield. It was the birthplace of an industry which put England at the forefront of armament production in those days. Ralph Hogg’s achievement soon spread throughout the Wealden iron industry and English cast-iron muzzle-loading cannon were sought out by all the nations of Europe. Guns made here were used to defend the coast against invasion, fought the Armada, no doubt sailed with Drake and Grenville and Raleigh and helped open the Spanish Main and the Far East to English trade. A Maresfield man worked with men from Europe to bring it about and Maresfield men and their families developed and built on his beginning and spread their expertise throughout the iron industry of the Weald.

William Levett of Buxted initially helped to make the innovation a success, but has been given too much credit in the past for the technical ability which really belonged to Ralph Hogg and his fellow-workers. It is high time that more weight should be given to the strong evidence indicating that Maresfield was the real birthplace of cast-iron muzzle-loading cannon and thus restore to Maresfield its proper place in the history of the industry.

“Ralph Hogg and his man, John,
They did cast the first Can-non.”

Perhaps that Sussex jingle is more true than has sometimes been thought. Maresfield and Ralph Hogg certainly have a better claim than Buxted and William Levett, when it comes to balancing the probabilities!