The Maritime Trade of the Smaller Bristol Channel Ports in the Sixteenth Century
Introduction :: North Devon Ports :: Port of Bridgwater :: Port of Cardiff :: Port of Milford :: Conclusion :: Appendices :: Bibliography
Chapter Four: The Port of Gloucester
Customs
records indicate that Gloucester’s waterborne trade was dominated by coastal
traffic and that overseas trade was all but insignificant by the end of the
century. This chapter will argue that a consideration of administrative and
local political considerations indicates that this picture is misplaced, and
that Gloucester’s overseas trade was vigorous, although was not recorded in
these documents.
Although there is evidence that Gloucester had its own independent overseas trade before 1575, it was not distinguished from that of Bristol itself in customs returns, and this chapter is therefore necessarily confined to the last quarter of the century.[1] Gloucester became a member port of Bristol in 1575, and then a separate port in its own right in 1580.[2] Independent port status was achieved only after a long and expensive campaign however. The first indication of this appeared in the city’s records in 1565 when the town clerk was reimbursed for a trip made to London to ‘laboure the custome howse’.[3] Ten years later the city had progressed the matter sufficiently to be able to bring a bill before parliament, although this was not successful on the first attempt.[4] Undeterred, the city then escalated its lobbying by obtaining the patronage and support of Lord Burghley, the lord chancellor. In 1575 the city gave him a gift of ‘one standing cupp with a cover doble gylte weyinge xxvi ounces and one quarter’; the following year he received a still more valuable gift, and in 1578 ‘one dozen of spoones wayinge sixe and thirtie ounces and a haulfe’.[5] Finally in 1579 the city appointed him lord high steward of the city and granted him an annual pension of £5 in recognition of his services in obtaining letters patent for the custom house.[6]
Bristol responded vigorously to the attempts made by Gloucester to reduce the jurisdiction of its port. The town clerk undertook several journeys to London in connection with the matter, and the council authorised gifts to Lord Leicester who lobbied on their behalf.[7] These efforts were not entirely unsuccessful. Bristol succeeded in having a commission appointed, which met in 1583 to review the claims and counterclaims of the two parties, but their protests were ultimately unsuccessful.[8] Although Gloucester therefore faced challenges to its establishment as an independent port authority, it nevertheless managed to achieve this status by 1580, and was subsequently able to maintain this position. The legacy of this was however to affect commercial relations between Gloucester and Bristol for some years.
The jurisdiction of the port extended from ‘Chepstowe to Welshrood, a distance of 120 miles’ along both banks of the river Severn, or effectively from Beachley to Aust (the present day ‘old’ Severn Bridge crossing).[9] Ships much above 30 tons were too large to be able to navigate to the quayside at Gloucester and could do so only at spring tides, and consequently larger ships with cargoes destined for the city offloaded into lighters or trows further downstream. [10] As well as the quay at Gloucester itself, customs officials were permanently stationed at Gatcombe and Newnham, which it was claimed were places which could accommodate ships of between 60 and 100 tons.[11] The largest ship in the customs accounts sampled was the 120 ton Bristol ship Joseph sailing with wheat to Bayonne in 1592, but the overwhelming majority of craft were less than twenty tons and were engaged in purely local trade plying up and down the Severn and around the coast of the Bristol Channel.[12] Awre, Frampton, Minsterworth, Westbury and Elmore were other downstream landing places lying within the port’s jurisdiction which were recorded in the customs accounts.
With regard to the upstream extent of the port’s jurisdiction, the letters patent establishing Gloucester as a port listed only Tewksbury as a creek.[13] However, since all goods passing up or down the Severn had to pass through Gloucester, the remit of the port was effectively much greater and reached as far as Shrewsbury. Other places recorded in the accounts where vessels had unloaded or loaded were Upton-on-Severn, Worcester, Bewdley and Bridgnorth. The extensive northward geographical reach of the port’s hinterland is demonstrated by the details of the merchants listed in some of the accounts: shipments of wine by a Coventry vintner; of hides by a Wolverhampton tanner; and of cloth by a Manchester clothier, all appear more than once. Of 395 ships entered both inward and outward in the 1575/76, 1576/77, 1592/93 and 1597/98 coastal accounts, just over half were recorded at Gloucester itself; only sixteen were downriver of Gloucester, and the remainder were further up river at Tewksbury (87), Worcester (18), Bewdley (49), Bridgnorth (4) and Shropshire (1). This accords with testimony given to the commission of enquiry into the establishment of the port that three quarters of outward cockets issued by the port were for places at or above Gloucester bridge.[14]
The issuing of cockets does not necessarily equate to the pattern of underlying trade however. It was clearly much easier to police traffic passing along the relatively narrow river north of Gloucester than it was in the open stretches of the estuary to the south of the city which afforded many landing places. In 1593 William Ashman described how he
hath traded
by seaverne for the space of tenn yeeres last duringe all which time he
knoweth that the inhabitants in the forrest side and of other places and parisches
borderinge on seaverne have used to trade and carry from porte to porte wthin
the realme ... comodities .... without any cockett billet or other
warrant or payinge any fees for the same and this deponent hath herde several
men affierme that they and their fathers before them used and accustomed so to
doe wthout .. let[15]
Bristol had argued for the retention of Gloucester within
its jurisdiction on the grounds that ‘The more ladinge and discharginge places
the greater concealmente and stelthe of hir majestes customes and conveyinge
awaie of prohibyted warres in smale Barks’;
furthermore ‘Gloucester’s merchants be corne merchants and fermers, and
theire smale Barkes will slippe awaye corne and goods at everie meane tyde and
so maye deceave as muche as they will’.[16]
Testimony outlined below indicates that this type of activity was particularly
associated with the lower reaches of the Severn below Gloucester where sea
going ships could rendezvous with small shore based craft.
Given the topography and location of the port, Gloucester’s
trade was principally recorded in the coastal rather than overseas customs
accounts. Table 4.1 illustrates the scale of the difference by comparing the
number of shipping movements in the two sets of accounts for particular years.
|
Period |
Overseas |
Coastal |
||
|
in |
out |
in |
out |
|
|
1575/76 |
1 |
4 |
64 |
152 |
|
1576/77 (half year) |
- |
- |
62 |
59 |
|
1577 (half year) |
3 |
3 |
- |
- |
|
1581 (half year) |
3 |
11 |
- |
- |
|
1581/82 |
- |
21 |
- |
138 |
|
1583 (half year) |
2 |
9 |
- |
- |
|
1592/93 |
13 |
5 |
- |
167 |
|
1597/98 (half year) |
3 |
0 |
- |
- |
|
1597/98 |
- |
- |
4 |
37 |
|
1599/00 |
0 |
3 |
10 |
73 |
It can be seen that not only was there a preponderance of coastal over overseas trade, but that there was also a greater outbound trade recorded than inbound, and that there was an overall decline in recorded trade over the last quarter of the century. The reasons for this, and the extent to which these figures reflect the actual pattern of trade will be examined below.
Cloth
The city of Gloucester’s once substantial cloth trade was in decline in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, although that of the surrounding countryside was still healthy.[17] In common with other regional ports, this aspect of Gloucester’s trade was also affected by the increasing predominance of London in handling cloth exports. Only four overseas cloth shipments were found in the accounts sampled. Two of these were made in 1575/76 to Waterford and Dublin with a combined value of less than £40. The 1575/76 coastal account additionally contained a range of woollen cloth which amounted to a value of approximately £10 under the 1558 book of rates valuations. [18] In other words total cloth exports for 1575/76 for both the coastal and overseas accounts were somewhere in the order of £50. This compares to nearly £5,400 worth of malt exported and makes clear that this aspect of the port’s trade was no longer significant.[19]
In contrast to exports of woollen cloth, those of linen increased during the period. There were no significant exports recorded prior to 1582 but thereafter they were as outlined in table 4.2.
Table 4.2 Port of Gloucester: outbound coastal shipments of linen (fardels and packs).
|
Period |
Fardels |
Packs |
|
1581/2 |
1 |
0 |
|
1592/3 |
36 |
65 |
|
1597/98 |
19 |
114 |
|
1599/1600 |
5 |
121 |
A pack is thought to have contained ten cloths, but a fardel remains an unknown quantity, if indeed it was a precise unit.[20] Even if we allow that a fardel may have been larger than a pack, there is still a noticeable upward trend, and the trade was well enough established for the city authorities to condemn private trading in linen in 1617.[21] Linen was produced from flax, and this trend is consistent with the increased acreage of flax grown in the later Tudor period as a result of government policy.[22] All of the linen in the Exchequer accounts was shipped to Bristol.
Table 4.3 shows such an extreme decline in imports of wine to the port that it demands an explanation. It is surely not possible that a city the size of Gloucester together with Worcester, Tewksbury and Shrewsbury would have imported only two tuns of wine in 1599/1600. Gloucester had after all claimed in 1582 that,
there hath benne more wyne bought in one yeare in Glouc and above Glouc bridge than all the whole cometh unto that hathe bene accustomed for at Bristoll that yeere [23]
Table 4.3 Port of Gloucester: imports and inbound coastal shipments of wine (tuns).
|
Period |
Overseas |
Coastal |
||
|
|
Number of ships freighting wine |
Tuns of wine imported |
Number of ships freighting wine |
Tuns of wine imported |
|
1575/76 |
0 |
0 |
17 |
101 |
|
1576/77 (Michaelmas to Easter) |
- |
- |
50 |
415 |
|
1577 (Easter to Michaelmas) |
1 |
15 |
- |
- |
|
1597/98 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
4 |
|
1599/1600 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
To set this decline in context: Bridgwater imported 43 tuns in 1560/61, 123 tuns in 1583/84 and 69 tuns in 1597/98; and the north Devon ports imported 28 tuns in 1581/82 and 53 tuns in 1595/96. Furthermore, the fall in wine imports at Gloucester was disproportionately greater than the overall decline in the number of vessels recorded inbound to the port outlined in Table 4.1.
Two possible explanations suggest themselves. Firstly, there may have been an enormous increase in the amount of wine which evaded customs. Study into wine imports at Bristol has found that while such a dramatic increase in smuggling did take place, it occurred much earlier, triggered by the introduction of the impost in 1558.[24] Rather than falling, imports to Bristol in the last five years of the century were found to be in line with those of the 1570s and 80s. Moreover, the majority of the Exchequer court records relating to Gloucester for this period relate to the illegal exporting of grain and leather, and only one contains allegations concerning the smuggling of wine.[25] An increase in the amount of evasion to the level where virtually all of Gloucester’s wine imports were being smuggled would be expected to have generated a considerable amount of litigation and official record.
The second possibility is that an administrative change led to a reduction in recording of wine shipments in the Exchequer accounts. That this was so is borne out by a case bought in the court of Exchequer In 1585 when the controller of the port of Gloucester, Richard Hall, counter-sued John White a deputy port official in a case concerning the alleged fraudulent traffic of wine shipped from Neath in South Wales to Worcester.[26] White was alleged to have bribed the deputy searcher at Newnham and officials at Gloucester to allow him to pass with a shipment of ten or twelve tuns of wine which was at that stage unguaged. Testimony in the case records that gaging or gauging was the act of applying a physical mark to the barrels with an iron implement to indicate that duty had been paid. White was alleged to have applied a fraudulent mark to the barrels before they reached Worcester. Learning of this the controller had ordered the wine to be seized at Worcester and had refused to release it to White. The interesting thing about this case is not that wine was alleged to have been smuggled, which is in itself unsurprising, but that both parties recognised that the wine did not need a coastal cocket and that a warrant of transire or letpass was sufficient. A let pass was a written permission for which merchants were not required to lodge security, which was used for coastal shipments of goods which had already paid custom, or the nature of which was such that they were not liable for custom.[27] The significance of this is that whilst cockets or certificates were recorded in the coastal accounts or certificate books, let passes or warrants of transire were not usually recorded in customs accounts at Gloucester until 1728.[28] The owner of the vessel called the Michel which freighted the wine from Neath, swore that he ‘had a warrant deliverd unto him called by the name of a let passe’.[29] This was confirmed by the testimony of John Bright one of the sailors aboard the Michel,
This deponent doth thinke that the Queenes majesties customes and dueties were duly paied in the towne of neeth as by a warrant called by the name of a lett passe the same customes and duties appere to be discharged and further he saith that he knowth the same to be true for that he was one of the mariners of the same bott and had the lett passe delivered unto him because he coulde reade.[30]
White had examined the let pass which purported to show that ‘all dueites and customes were discharged’, and although he doubted its veracity he did not question that this was the correct procedure for shipping wine.[31] The case did not turn on the question of whether a bond should have been paid and a cocket secured for the onward shipment of the wine, but whether the gaging mark to show that the duty on it had been paid was the official mark or had been fraudulently applied.
One shipment detailed in one court case does not of itself imply that the practice of shipping wine under let pass was widespread. However there are two reasons for supposing that this was the indeed the case. Firstly, this would explain why Gloucester’s wine trade declined so much more precipitously than that of Bridgwater or the north Devon ports. A change from requiring wine to be shipped coastally under cocket to under cover of a let pass would have had a greater impact on the recorded trade of Gloucester since it received nearly all of its wine imports via the coastal trade. Secondly, the anomalies outlined in Chapter Three between the Bridgwater customs accounts and the water bailiffs’ accounts supports the suggestion that let passes were in common use. For instance the bailiffs’ accounts showed that small quantities of one or two tuns were regularly received at Bridgwater from the south Welsh coastal ports which were not entered in the coastal customs accounts.[32] These shipments therefore may have been freighted under a let pass. Likewise the 46½ tuns which were recorded in the overseas accounts at Bridgwater arriving on the David in 1598, but which were not then subsequently unloaded at the quayside, and which did not appear in the coastal account at either Bridgwater or Bristol, may have proceeded up the Channel under let pass.[33] This has important implications for understanding flows of trade within the wider Bristol Channel since later testimony indicates that wine was also freighted under a let pass from Neath to both Barnstaple and Bristol.[34]
Iron
Gloucester had a long established metal working industry located in the city itself, which has been described as ‘the most characteristic Gloucester industry in the late medieval period’. [35] Although this was in decline by the end of the sixteenth century, Gloucester’s imports of iron still compared reasonably well to other English Bristol Channel ports.[36] For instance in the first half of 1576/77 63 tons were recorded inbound at the port compared to 42 tons received at the north Devon ports in the second half of the 1570/71.[37]
The range of products manufactured by Gloucester’s metal workers was perhaps reflected in the manifest of the Ellen sailing to Dublin in 1576 which included iron shoeing horns, bridle bits, iron wire, tin spoons, sword blades, daggers, scissors, small chains, pincers, snuffers, carpenter’s compasses and carving tools.
Table 4.4 Port of Gloucester: imports and inbound coastal shipments of iron (tons).
|
Period |
Tons |
|
|
|
Overseas |
Coastal |
|
1575/76 |
- |
34 |
|
1576/77 (half year) |
6 |
63 |
|
1583 (half year) |
2 |
- |
|
1592/93 |
0 |
- |
|
1597/98 |
0 |
0 |
|
1599/00 |
0 |
0 |
Table 4.4 indicates that Gloucester’s dependence on the coastal trade was pronounced with only two shipments arriving directly from overseas. Approximately half of the iron recorded inbound coastwise in 1575-7 came from Bristol, and the other half from the Welsh ports of Cardiff and Newport. Ninety percent of the iron recorded from Wales in these years was described specifically as being Welsh and therefore may be taken as domestic production. The absence of any inbound coastal shipments of iron at all after 1583 is striking, especially since this was a time when domestic production was expanding, and when supplies of Spanish iron were becoming restricted because of political difficulties.
One explanation for this apparent decline could be that iron was sourced instead from the Forest of Dean. Camden mentions Gloucestershire as producing ‘store’ of iron, and a letter to William Cecil written in 1566 described the Forest of Dean as having plenty of good iron.[38] More immediate local supplies of iron would therefore have been available which would not have been liable to customs control and recording since they would not have been shipped outside the bounds of the port. However Forest production did not begin to rise significantly until the very last years of the century and particularly after 1604 when blast furnaces were introduced.[39] It seems unlikely therefore that demand could have been wholly satisfied with increased production from this source.
The expansion of iron production in south Wales occurred much earlier than in the Forest of Dean however, with the establishment of the first blast furnace there after 1560 as outlined in Chapter Three. Another possible explanation therefore is that a change in recording occurred, rather than a change in the underlying flows of trade. The pre 1577 entries specified that the Welsh iron was travelling under bond with a cocket. Against a background of increasing Welsh production, and assuming that at least some Welsh iron continued to supply the Gloucester market after 1577, it is seems likely therefore that after this date the controls on domestically produced iron were downgraded to allow it to be shipped under a warrant of transire or let pass in the same manner as appears to have happened for wine. This explanation would also be consistent with the findings at Bridgwater where iron imports recorded in the port books had fallen to only six tons in 1597/98, but 162 tons were recorded in the water bailiff’s accounts coming from South Wales.
Fish
Data from the Gloucester port books confirms the trends identified in the port of Bridgwater relating to the fish trade. What had apparently been an important import trade conducted by Irishmen had fallen off by the end of the century to be replaced by an increased domestic catch, and by imports from the West Atlantic. Since Irish imports of fish were not recorded between 1563 and 1591 for the reasons set out in Chapter Two, and since Gloucester’s port books did not begin until 1575, it is necessary to rely on other evidence to infer the shape of this market prior to 1591. Gloucester’s petition to become a port mentioned Irish barks bringing herrings during the winter which were forced to undertake a long and arduous journey to return to Bristol to enter customs.[40] Bristol’s petition against the establishing of the customs house argued that it was to Bristol’s detriment that ‘Irishe men also with their Barkes have founde A directe trade to Gloucester..’.[41] In 1582 Richard Hyette, a sailor from Minsterworth, gave evidence that between 20 and 30 boats laden with fish came yearly from Cornwall, Devonshire, Ireland and Wales.[42] So the presence of Irish boats and merchants seems to have been acknowledged by all parties. However, Gloucester subsequently contended that it had not received more than about four Irish boats ‘which bringeth fishe for the provision of our country’ since it was constituted a port.[43] The arrival of fourteen ships from Waterford in time for the January fair was reflected in the 1592/93 accounts but not in the other accounts studied. Furthermore these ships, their masters and the merchants concerned were all recorded as English not Irish, so Gloucester’s contention seems right. The Gloucester customs accounts also show that Gloucestershire men themselves had become active in the fishing industry. John Millington from Tewksbury for example, owner of the bark Speedwell, entered for five lasts of white herring ‘of his own taking’ in January 1593.[44] Millington was therefore a fisherman trading on his own account. Also recorded importing white herring ‘of their own catch’ were a number of men whose occupation was given as sailor, and who came from Bewdley, Gloucester, Elmore, Newnham and Berkeley.[45] The increased participation of Gloucestershire ships in the fishing industry is perhaps reflected in the claim made in 1582 that ‘since Gloucester was made a porte, they have increased smale barkes and boates to the nomber of xl or thereaboutes, which are of burden from xv tonnes to xxx tonnes’.[46]
Pulses
Gloucester shipped significant quantities of pulses. In 1575/76 185 weys were shipped, and 210 weys were recorded in 1581/82, but this had fallen to 62 weys in 1592/93 and only 38 weys in 1599/1600. These were principally peas, which were usually described as white and were presumably dried; some beans were also listed. Whilst the volumes involved did not begin to rival those for grain described below, it is interesting that the main market for these was distinct from that for grain, and lay in the Cornish ports of Padstow and St Ives rather than Carmarthen and Bristol. The direction of Gloucester’s trade in this respect also contrasted to that of Bridgwater which despatched far larger quantities of beans, but where none were recorded to the Cornish ports.
|
Destination |
1575/76 |
1581/82 |
1592/93 |
1599/00 |
|
Bristol |
22 |
17 |
17 |
23 |
|
Carmarthen |
7 |
17 |
0 |
0 |
|
Padstow |
37 |
11 |
- |
- |
|
St Ives |
4 |
5 |
55 |
0 |
|
France |
- |
- |
- |
45 |
It is not possible to ascertain whether these were intended for domestic consumption or whether they were subsequently shipped overseas. Cornwall was a notorious base for smuggling, and the figures for 1599/1600 suggest that France may have been the ultimate destination for earlier shipments. [47] A corresponding port book for Padstow does make clear however that the majority of these cargoes do appear to have actually reach the port and were not smuggled directly overseas under colour of a coastal cocket. [48]
Grain
Gloucester was distinguished by the large quantities of malt, barley and wheat which it exported. Indeed Bristol had gone so far as to characterise Gloucester as a place which ‘standeth not upon any trade of merchandize but of Corne only’.[49] This was indignantly denied by Gloucester, but the city had earlier claimed that Gloucester quay was the origin of three quarters of all grains sent to Bristol, Devonshire, Cornwall, Wales and Ireland, and had further acknowledged that ‘it is vearie needful that such of the greate plentie of corne in Glouc Shire shoulde be transported to sowthwales northwales Devonshire Cornwall and Irelande to suplie and healpe the greate necessitie and want of these places’.[50] The scale of recorded trade can be seen by comparison with the customs accounts for other ports in the Channel: 217 weys were exported overseas from Gloucester during 1581/82 compared to three from the North Devon ports for example; similarly, the combined total of coastal and overseas shipments in 1597/98 was 105 weys from Gloucester compared to sixteen from Bridgwater. However, in many years the figures were considerably higher as Table 4.6 illustrates.
|
Period |
Overseas |
Coastal |
|
1575/76 |
- |
1,408 |
|
1576/77 (half year) |
- |
445 |
|
1577 (half year) |
62 |
- |
|
1581 (half year) |
64 |
- |
|
1581/82 |
217 |
1,139 |
|
1583 (half year) |
81 |
- |
|
1592/93 (half year) |
66 |
- |
|
1592/93 |
- |
1,729 |
|
1597/98 |
0 |
105 |
|
1599/00 |
- |
655 |
Prior to 1583 virtually all of these overseas exports were procured by the army for provisioning garrison towns in Ireland including Limerick and Galway on the west coast. It was not until 1583 that signs of a more normal commercial overseas trade became apparent when 33 weys were sent to San Sebastian aboard two ships from Bristol and Northam; and in 1592 trade to Bordeaux, Bayonne and La Rochelle was freighted aboard ships from Northam, London and Bristol. The virtual collapse in trade in 1597/98 seen in Table 4.6 can be explained by the harvest failure and plague which beset the city in 1594 and subsequent years.[51] Conditions became so severe that the city authorities bought grain for provisioning the markets and relieving the riotous poor during the worst years of the decade.[52]
It is worth noting that the corn being shipped was not principally wheat, barley or rye for milling and subsequent use as flour for food, but malt for brewing. Over ninety percent of the volumes described in Table 4.6 were malt, and Gloucester maltsters were at the forefront of the city’s society comprising the third largest occupational group on the council in the final two decades of the century.[53] The scale of the malting industry attracted the attention of the Privy Council in 1596 which was concerned that this was causing a shortage of food,
Whereas greate complaint hath been made unto us that divers persons of the richer sorte and somme Justices of the Peace within your citie and libertie doe use the trade of maultinge, and by the immoderate quantitie that they make therof cause the scarcitie and dearth of grayne to be the more to be the more (sic) within the citie and other other (sic) markettes abroade in the countie. We do by these our letters straightlie require you to see this abuse speedilie redressed within your libertie, and to suppress the making of mault during the time of this scarcitie by such as are afore mencioned men of good wealth and habilitie, otherwise then for their owne use and provision, and to restraine others unto a moderate and reasonable quantitie.[54]
The commercial effect of the dispute with Bristol over the establishing of the port is illustrated in Figure 4.1. This expresses in percentage terms the principal destinations of grain shipments made from the port for years in which both the coastal and overseas accounts survive between 1575/76 and 1592/93.
Figure 4.1 Port of Gloucester: destination of outbound coastal shipments of grain (% share).
It can be seen that both Bristol and Carmarthen were the main recipients of Gloucester’s grain shipments, receiving over half of all that which was recorded outbound. The extent to which trade between Bristol and Gloucester was damaged by their dispute over the status of Gloucester as a port is clear from the figure for 1581/82, the year of their litigation, which show a big shift towards Carmarthen at the expense of Bristol. The complaint of Bristol’s bakers that since Gloucester had become a port the volume of wheat which they received from Gloucester had fallen by three quarters is borne out by these figures, and also by Gloucester’s coastal accounts which show that in 1575/76 eighteen weys of wheat were sent coastwise, but in 1581/82 only twenty bushels.[55] The closeness of the relationship between Gloucester and Carmarthen at this time is confirmed by a letter from Lord Burghley to Gloucester council in 1586 in which he partially revoked an earlier order restricting trade in grain, so that Carmarthen ‘in this tyme of dearthe ... might be permitted as heretofore they have used to make provision there in theat cittie and partes thereabouts of some quantitie of mault for their relief’.[56]
However, the dispute had a wider resonance than simply that
between Gloucester and Bristol as a breakdown of the data in Figure 4.1
shows. The following two figures
demonstrate that there was a pronounced difference in the marketing of grain by
the merchants of Tewksbury and Gloucester.
Figure 4.3 Port of Gloucester: principal destinations of outbound coastal grain shipments from Tewksbury (%).
Figures 4.2 and 4.3 indicate that the merchants of these respective places had sharply different profiles of trade, with Gloucester directing much of its grain trade towards Carmarthen, whilst Tewksbury directed its trade overwhelmingly towards Bristol. At the height of the dispute between Gloucester and Bristol, there were no Gloucester merchants shipping grain to Bristol at all, and the situation did not recover until the final decade of the century. As well as shipping to Carmarthen, Gloucester’s merchants also sought to develop alternative trade routes by shipping to other south Welsh ports including Cardiff and Newport. In contrast, Tewksbury’s merchants remained oblivious to the dispute, had very little trade with Carmarthen and enjoyed close relations with Bristol. The extent to which these different trading profiles prefigured Gloucester’s dispute with Bristol is not clear. Differences between the authorities at Gloucester and Tewksbury were evidently of long standing. In 1505 Tewksbury trowmen had lodged a formal complaint against the attempts by Gloucester to gain exemption from an act declaring the Severn toll free, and Gloucester had tried on several occasions to enforce collections of tolls on the passage of goods down the Severn prior its establishment as an independent port.[57] What is clear is that the dispute between Gloucester and Bristol exacerbated long standing tensions and prompted Gloucester’s merchants to seek alternative markets for their grain.
These circumstances provide the context in which the mayor and burgesses of Gloucester bought a suit in 1593 in the Chancery courts against Edward Barston who was deputy customer of the port.[58] Barston had been Tewksbury’ principal grain merchant, who alone, for example, was responsible for one fifth of the town’s grain exports in 1581/82. As such the action can be seen as an attempt by the city to undermine Tewksbury’s trade with Bristol, and to wrest back control of the customs. It was clearly a source of great annoyance to Gloucester’s leaders that the customs jurisdiction for which they had so long fought, was not under their control but that of their rival at Tewksbury. In the early 1590s they agreed to underwrite the costs of a city official to,
attend the Lord Treasurer and the Lords of the Councell and minister the grieffs arisinge uppon the suite now dependinge concerninge the customers office against Mr Barston and the searcher and comptroller concernigne their offices and for constrayninge such as refuse to contribute to taxacons and for sundry and comon services of the Queene for the benefitt of the cittie And that Mr Recordar shall travell for procuringe the Mayor or Recorder to be of the commission.[59]
Moreover, Edward Barston was subsequently described elsewhere as being a servant to Lord Chandos, whose family seat was at Sudeley castle.[60] This would have provided a further reason for members of the city’s elite to move against Barston, since they were involved in a long running dispute with the local nobility who were resentful of the city’s privileges. In 1587/88 Gloucester had disputed Lord Chandos’ right as the county’s lord lieutenant to muster troops in the city, and again had to call on the support of the city’s patron, Lord Burghley, to aid them in resolving the issue.[61] At the same time as Gloucester was pursuing its case against Barston, the city council was also moving to secure the appointment of its own nominee to the post of controller. In January 1593 the mayor and aldermen agreed to ‘geve their letter of commondacon to the Lord Treasurer of England in the behalfe of Henry Merrick for the office of comptrollershipp of the custome howse in Gloucester.’[62] This in turn met with the objection of the authorities at Tewksbury who protested to Cecil and advanced their own candidate.[63]
The deteriorating relationship between Gloucester and
Tewksbury may also explain why the city authorities placed a chain across the
river Severn in 1572 at Gloucester quay to control the flow of up and
downstream traffic.[64]
In 1585 the water bailiff was charged with ‘authoritie to search all boates
barks and trowes for the transportinge or passinge of corne and to wayte and
keepe the chene now placed over the saide ryver and attende the ryver for stay
of passinge of corne.’[65] The chain was evidently still
in place in 1598 when the Privy Council ordered its removal following complaint
from Bristol’s brewers that it was impeding their malt supplies.[66]
Smuggling
The trade in grain described in the customs accounts was substantial, but it was also mainly domestic and as such it was not liable to pay customs. Goods which were liable for customs if shipped overseas were however required to be recorded, and a bond lodged with the customs officers. This bond or cocket could then be redeemed once a signed certificate was returned to show that the goods which had been shipped had reached another domestic port. The question therefore arises as to how successful the system of coastal customs control was, and of the extent to which the Exchequer records more generally fully reflect the principal arm of Gloucester’s trade.
It was certainly the case that not all of the malt nominally shipped coastwise from the port of Gloucester reached its purported destination. At least one merchant found it more lucrative to forfeit redemption of his bond and sell his goods overseas without obtaining a license, and without paying the relevant outbound duty. An entry in the overseas account for 1596 against the Elizabeth originally bound for Carmarthen with thirteen weys of malt shipped by the Gloucester merchant John Taylor, records that ‘the suttell dealinge of the merchant beinge doubted’ the customs officers secured an order for the mayor and aldermen to examine the master of the vessel who ‘confessed that they were dryven by fowle wether in to ireland and did depossid that they left much of theyr malt’.[67] Blaming contrary winds was a fairly standard mariners’ excuse and on this occasion the relevant overseas duty was exacted retrospectively with no further sanction applied.[68] That this was not an isolated incident is suggested by evidence given in a 1585 Exchequer case by Henry Mathew, a bookkeeper who acted for several merchants.[69] Mathew attested that the searcher of the port, Robert Robinson, and other customs officers were fully aware of the practice of shipping corn overseas under colour of a coastal cocket, but rather than preventing it, used it as a reason to extort bribes. Mathew listed the amounts which were due to each of the customs officers in person for the freighting of wheat, peas, beans and malt to Ireland: four shillings per wey were due to the customer, one shilling to his deputy and three shillings and fourpence to Robinson.[70] Furthermore,
if it chanced any merchants or owners of shipping to pass over into ireland without having made the said officers first privy therunto, then the said robinson would terrify and threaten the said person so offending with seizure and loss of their shipping and forfeiture of their bond if they would not pay the new exaccon and by this means whether at the going first or the coming home the said robinson would be satisfied.[71]
The fact that the merchants were threatened with forfeiture of their bond shows that they must have lodged a bond, and that therefore the shipments had been entered in the coastal rather than overseas accounts. The implication is that as long as merchants had forewarned the customs officers of their intentions, and had paid the necessary sweetener, then they could proceed with impunity. The reason that John Taylor was caught and forced to pay duty in 1596 was unlikely therefore to have been due to the diligence of the customs officers going about their proper business in the expected manner. It is interesting to note that Taylor was involved in private litigation with Robinson over a separate matter, and Robinson may well have been using the powers of his office to intimidate Taylor and to frustrate his commercial undertakings.[72]
There was undoubtedly a strong financial incentive for merchants to avoid paying overseas customs. The Mary Edward carried a cargo of wheat from Gloucester to Bayonne in France in 1592 on which duty was levied at two shillings per quarter; additionally money was paid for a licence at four shillings and eight pence per quarter; and fees were also due to the customs officers which were earlier recorded at one shilling and four pence per quarter.[73] In total therefore, before shipping costs these levies amounted to eight shillings per quarter, representing perhaps around half the wholesale price.[74] The merchant’s margin would obviously have been substantially enhanced if these costs were reduced or avoided.
Gloucester’s merchants would not have been exceptional in illegally shipping grain under colour of a coastal cocket. N.J. Williams found evidence of widespread evasion of customs in shipments of grain from East Anglia during the same period. Williams found that Francis Shaxton, an East Anglian merchant, secured a coastal cocket for only half of the volume of grain which he loaded for shipment to London. [75] These cargoes were then despatched to the Netherlands, rather than London, with the consequent forfeiture of £523 worth of bonds lodged with the Exchequer over a two year period. [76] In the summer of 1565 between 1,300 and 2,600 weys of wheat were estimated to have been exported in this way. [77]
Comparison of the coastal accounts of Gloucester, Bristol and Carmarthen reveals similar discrepancies. Not all shipments of grain recorded outbound from Gloucester were subsequently recorded inbound at the destination port as was theoretically required. The George, for instance, sailed from Gloucester to Bristol with nine weys of malt and two weys of wheat in early November 1592, but was not subsequently recorded as having arrived in the Bristol coastal accounts.[78] This was not the only occasion on which the George was recorded outbound at Gloucester but not inbound at Bristol; there were a further five occasions during the financial year when this discrepancy arose accounting for one third of the outward voyages made by the vessel.[79] Nor was the George alone in this. In total 256 weys aboard eight different vessels remain unaccounted for in the Bristol coastal records although they were recorded outbound for the port in the corresponding Gloucester accounts. This represents one third of the declared grain shipments made from Gloucester to Bristol during this year, and the inference therefore could be made that these were made under colour of a coastal cocket, but were in reality shipped overseas without license and without paying customs at the correct rate.
This interpretation must be qualified however because on occasion the George and other vessels were recorded inbound at Bristol with cargoes of grain from Gloucester when they had not been recorded outbound in the Gloucester port books. Furthermore, examples were found of ships which were recorded in the Gloucester port books as being bound for Padstow or Cardiff, but which were subsequently recorded inbound at Carmarthen.[80] Although vessels may have been entered outbound for Bristol in the Gloucester port books, they may therefore have actually sailed to another domestic port, rather than freighting their cargo overseas. The coastal accounts do not therefore provide an infallible or entirely consistent record of voyages made between different ports. The wider implications of this will be considered further in Chapter Seven, but it will be sufficient here to note that whilst some shipments ostensibly made coastally were smuggled overseas, the practice was not necessarily as widespread as discrepancies in the coastal customs records at first suggest.
Sailing under colour of a coastal cocket was not the only way in which grain could be illegally exported overseas however. Perhaps the more normal method was described in a 1565 survey of the port of Bristol which recorded how along the lower reaches of the Severn,
Diverse persons do with the plowes bringe corne grayne lether calfe skynnes victualles & other comodities of this realme to botes barckes & vesselles lyeng at the bankes of the saide river of severne at full sea and doo lade the same in to the saide botes & vessells secretlye in the night & from thense doo transporte the same into diverse ptes beyonde the seas.[81]
Further confirmation of this practice was noted in 1588,
After the shipps hath taken in at the Key
and Hungrode lawfull
merchandice, then the shipps goes into Kingrode and thear rides to take in
victuell and prohibited merchandice which comes to them owt of Wales or
Glocester in woodbusshis or trowes a tide or two before they make saile[82]
This was evidently a long established practice. An act of parliament in 1542 had noted that,
divers
persones aswell inhabytauntes fermers and dwellers nere unto the streme of
severne and unto the crykes and pilles of the same, from Kingrode upwarde
towarde the Citie and Towne of Gloucestre, conveyeth and carieth graine and
corne out of the Realme of Englande, unto the parties beyonde the Sea, where
graines are verye deare, and nowe of late tyme have made picardes and
other greate botes with fore mastes of the burden of xv toon and so to xxxvj
toonne, and by reasone whereof wheate rye beanes barley malte and other kynde of
graines, by stealthe are conveyed into th utter parties beyonde the Sea, so
that therby the Kinges Majesie is ... deceyved of his subsidie and
custome for the same,
and that,
greate botes and vessells, often tymes divers
Shippps, aswell of the parties beyonde the Seas as other of Englishe Shipps
lying in Kingrode and Hungrode, ... awayting and tarying there the coooming of
the saide greate botes with corne and graine downe Severne, who there
dischardgeth the graine and corne aborde the saide Shipps at Kingrode.[83]
An idea of the scale
of this can be found in an Exchequer commission of enquiry conducted in
1572 into the trading practices of twenty merchants from Tewksbury, Gloucester,
Bristol and Barnstaple trading aboard nineteen ships.[84]
In the light of this, and considering the acrimonious background which coloured relations between Bristol and Gloucester over the establishment of Gloucester as a separate port, it is no surprise that Bristol should have alleged of Gloucester’s merchants, ‘ yf they adventure any thinge to the sea the same is in smale Barks with corne and prohibyted warres where with they make more profitable retornes, then Bristow wythe theire great shipping and Laufull wares canne doe’.[85] This view was however endorsed by the mayor and burgesses of Gloucester in their action against Barston, the deputy customer of the port. Evidence submitted in this case portrayed the port as one where avoidance of customs was rife and systemic. It was alleged that prior to his appointment Barston was,
one of the most comon and greatest dealers in ladinge and caredge of comodities uppon seaverne; .....that he comonly passed prohibited wares for himselfe and his partners wthout answeringe her majesties customs; ...that he was a comon dealer or factor with or for marchants of Bristoll, Barstaple, Bridgwater or other places for furnishinge and providinge for them of corne lether calve skynnes and other prohibited wares and comodites
and that,
... since his beinge deputie customer he hath bin a factor or purveyor of corne and other comodities for other men or traded beyond the seas or by seaverne any comodities to his owne use or as partner wth others or under the names of other men.[86]
Subsequent detail included allegations that Barston had a secret agreement with the late deputy customer to circumvent customs; that he had conspired with another Tewksbury merchant in concealing twenty quarters more wheat than was declared to customs aboard a trow rendezvousing with a Bristol ship bound overseas; that since becoming deputy customer he had shipped eight weys of rye ostensibly to Dovey in Wales, but actually from there to Ireland; and that he had been complicit in the lading of two weys more wheat than had been declared to customs to a ship riding in or near the port of Bristol.[87]
Edward Barston was not the only customs officer accused of malfeasance. In 1586 Robert Robinson the searcher was accused not only of compounding with merchants to allow the unlicensed passage of grain as described above, but also of dealing in this way on his own account. Richard Edwards a Gloucester vintner was one of many who supported the allegation claiming that within a seven month period over 1,000 quarters of grain (166 weys) had been shipped ‘without any license or warrant at all’. [88]
The testimony described above has particularly weight as Barston himself subsequently confessed to these and other allegations made against him. In particular he acknowledged that he had taken bribes in place of issuing cockets for cargoes valued at over £10.[89] The most valuable and largest arm of the port’s trade would therefore have escaped recording in the port books. The combination of the ease with which goods could be despatched without the awareness of customs officers from the Severn below Gloucester, along with the willingness of Barston to overlook customs procedures for goods passing from the upper reaches of the river throws into question the extent to which the Exchequer records can be used as a guide to real levels of trade in the port.
It is obviously far from easy to quantify the scale of real trade, as opposed to trade which was declared and was liable to duty. Consideration of the motivations and actions of the customs officers however suggests that it must have been very considerable indeed. Customs officers were remunerated by the payment of a small stipend, and by the levying of charges for the issuing of cockets. Based on the fees outlined in a 1585 case and the number of cockets granted in 1592/93, the income accruing to the customer from fees can generously be calculated as being worth £72 for the year.[90] This was a gross figure out of which the customer was required to pay his expenses. This was a respectable sum, but it is hardly sufficient to explain the zeal with which Gloucester had pursued the cause of gaining an independent customs jurisdiction, nor the costly gifts and litigation which they had underwritten. Peter Clark identified an increase in corruption and abuses amongst Gloucester aldermen in the later sixteenth century, and described how many aldermen ‘endeavoured to compensate themselves for the burdens of office by selling city posts and alehouse licences, taking bribes for securing leases of town lands, and other profiteering.’[91] The attempt by Gloucester to secure its own customs jurisdiction must be seen in this context, and indeed can only be understood from this perspective given the relatively small official revenue streams which accrued from the port’s customs. Rather, the motivation of those who sought the customs offices was that the holder was able to supplement his income by wielding the threat of state action to extort payments from those engaged in illicit trade from the port. Thus in 1585 Edward Estuppe described how he had to give the searcher £2 10 shillings immediately, and then a further £2 10 shillings in order to secure a promise that the searcher would not ‘molest or trouble him in any way’.[92] Similarly, William Swanley, a sailor from Newnham, shipping malt for a Gloucester merchant to Carmarthen in contravention of an embargo on the shipping of grain, described how the searcher had stopped his passage at Gatcombe and had required £4 to allow him to proceed.[93] Even normal and legitimate trade was subject to harassment and extortion on the part of the searcher. Thomas Awyntle, a Westbury fisherman, felt it expedient to tip the searcher a barrel of herring ‘of his goodwill’ when he went fishing to Ireland taking with him two or three weys of malt even though he had a cocket.[94] In 1593 Arthur Frith, a Gloucester cook, attested that he and his partner had to pay a fee of ten shillings yearly to allow them to have free passage through the port with glass.[95] It is no wonder that it should have been reported of the searcher that he had ‘of late years being growen vearie ritche’.[96]
There was an additional advantage gained by the customs officers at Gloucester in that they were able to use the office to further their own commercial activities. Barston and Robinson had been grain merchants prior to taking up their posts, and in contravention of the law had continued to trade in this way through third parties since their appointment.[97] Barston’s activities in particular were extensive and he was said to have traded aboard his own ships to Spain and Ireland.[98] These men were not only able to demand payment for the passage of goods through the port, but were additionally able to use their power to frustrate the trading activities of their competitors. A Gloucester merchant recounted how his brother in law had intended to ship twelve weys of peas to Padstow, but the customs officers refused to give him a cocket to facilitate the passage, as a result of which their price fell. The searcher then bought the peas and shipped them to Padstow himself, ‘to a greater gayne’.[99] As well as hindering their competitors, the customs officers were able to facilitate their own illegal trading both by removing the possibility of being caught, and by removing the need to pay protection money to others. By these means the customs officers secured a very strong commercial position and were able to control the marketing of grain and other goods which passed down the Severn. This provides the context and rationale for the dispute between Gloucester and Bristol, and for the subsequent suite bought by Gloucester’s aldermen against the port’s customs officers. Trade, local politics, and the exercise of customs control were all therefore inextricably linked. In order to fully understand the information contained (and omitted) in the customs accounts it is also necessary to understand the local political context in which the merchants and customs officers operated.
Leather
The port books show that tanned animal skins were the most frequently occurring export item after corn. Eight out of ten entries in the accounts relating to animal skins referred specifically to calf skins, the rest to either tanned skins or to leather. Using the values from the 1582 Book of Rates, exports of calves’ skins in 1581/82 can be calculated at £722 compared to a combined value of £3,012 for the exports of grain listed in Table 4.6 for the same year. There is no data for equivalent years to be able to make a direct comparison to other ports, but Gloucester shipped around 23 times more calf skins in 1592/93 than Bridgwater had in the first six months of 1588/89, or eleven times more than the north Devon ports in 1595/96. Unlike these other ports, Gloucester had a regular trade in the product which was an important industry in the city employing twelve percent of the men listed in the 1608 muster roll.[100] Oak bark from the Forest of Dean was used to tan hides sourced from a wide area served by the upper and lower reaches of the Severn.[101] Although the customs accounts principally list the export of basic tanned hides and skins, evidence of a secondary industry can be found in two shipments made to Dublin in 1576 which included leather girdles and horse girths.[102]
Table 4.7 indicates a rising trend reflecting the vitality of this aspect of the local economy. In contrast to shipments of grain and other products, all but one shipment of animal skins in the accounts sampled were nominally despatched to Bristol which had secured a monopoly licence for the export of leather.[103]
Table 4.7 Port of Gloucester: outbound coastal shipments of calf skins (dozen) .
|
Period |
Dozen |
|
1575/76 |
180 |
|
1581/82 |
1,444 |
|
1592/93 |
1,408 |
|
1597/98 |
2,107 |
|
1599/00 |
3,280 |
As with the shipments of grain described above, there were found to be a material number of discrepancies between the outward record of shipments of leather from the port with the corresponding inward records at Bristol. Whereas with shipments of grain it was suggested that such discrepancies may be partly attributed to anomalies of an administrative nature, this explanation is less convincing for leather as the order of magnitude of difference was very much greater. In the first half of 1597/98 for instance Gloucester recorded 1,075 dozen calf skins outward to Bristol, but Bristol recorded only 254 dozen inwards from Gloucester. As with grain, there was a strong incentive to evade customs when exporting leather, and the practice was known to be rife.[104] One vessel at least was recorded as having sailed overseas rather than to Bristol. The Mary Slugg had entered for customs from Gloucester for Bristol with a cargo of ten dickers of leather but had actually sailed to Galicia.[105]
Much of the evidence relating to smuggling leather from the port has already been referred to in connection with the illicit export of grain. For instance the commission of enquiry investigating the activities of twenty merchants trading grain aboard nineteen named ships mentioned earlier also sought to ascertain how many dickers of calf skins had been shipped illicitly by these men.[106] There are further references however which indicate that the practice was especially prevalent along the northern shore of the part of the Severn estuary which lay within the port. Jean Vanes described relations between Bristol and Lydney as being particularly strong, and identified Gatcombe and Lydney as centres for the illegal export of leather by Bristol merchants, including the prominent Bristol merchants John Smythe and William Tyndall.[107] A further instance of leather being illicitly despatched occurred in July 1587 when a Forest of Dean tanner was set upon by a party of men from Bristol as he loaded a boat with hides and skins for carriage to a ship which was lying in Kingroad off Bristol.[108] Such evidence supports the supposition that the discrepancies in the port books relating to leather are representative of a substantial illicit overseas trade. Indeed the indications are that more leather was shipped illicitly overseas than was shipped licitly and domestically.
Conclusion
There are good grounds for supposing that by the final quarter of the sixteenth century a significant part of Gloucester’s overseas export trade, perhaps even the major part, was conducted illegally, and as such was not represented in the overseas customs accounts. Gloucester’s overseas trade in leather and grain were not miniscule as these documents would lead us to believe, but were integral to the trading activities of merchants both within the port and within the wider region. There is a compelling body of evidence which shows that the scale of smuggling in corn of one sort or another was very considerable, and that evasion of overseas customs was an entrenched practice, not only by local merchants but by the customs officers themselves. The amount of overseas trade described in Table 4.6 therefore represents only a small portion of that which was actually conducted from the port. Moreover in terms of receipts to the Exchequer, even the quantities recorded as having been shipped overseas in Table 4.6 represent an exaggeration, as of these the majority were not liable for duty as they were for provisioning the army. Consequently in value terms as recorded in the overseas customs accounts the trade from the port appears so small as to be negligible. In the half year from Michaelmas to Easter 1592/93 for example duty was levied on only some £41 worth of goods outbound from Gloucester, compared to £6,653 worth outbound from Bristol in 1594/95. Those that use overseas customs accounts alone to determine the respective size of overseas trade from the ports of Bristol and Gloucester therefore risk gaining a seriously misleading impression.
Bristol’s merchants were also engaged in smuggling these commodities of course, and their illicit activities would also not be apparent from customs records.[109] Although Gloucester and Bristol were adjacent ports, and had previously been under common control, the argument made here is that Gloucester’s overseas accounts under-represent the true level of overseas trade from the port to a much greater degree than those of Bristol. Although customs officers at Bristol were certainly complicit with an elite group of merchants in facilitating an illegal export trade, they were not themselves merchants or directly engaged in trade.[110] At Gloucester however, the position of the customs officers was so interwoven with their own commercial activities that the scope for evasion was considerably higher. Merchants who managed to secure posts in the customs were able to gain a decisive commercial advantage, and could conduct their trade without making any returns to the Exchequer. At the same time they were able to further enrich themselves by requiring protection money from their rivals. This provides the rationale for the contested nature of the port’s jurisdiction, and indicates that the farming of illicit trade from the port was considered to be a significant prize by all parties concerned. It must therefore have been substantial. Additionally, the topography of the lower reaches of the port was particularly suited to the ready shipping of prohibited commodities out to sea-going ships waiting in the Severn estuary; this was especially so for grain and leather carried from the northern shore along the banks of the Forest of Dean.
The profile of Gloucester as a port is raised still further when consideration is given to the data in the coastal customs accounts, rather than just their overseas counterparts. Shipments of grain and pulses made coastwise from the port were seen to have been considerable, and were important for provisioning towns in the Bristol Channel and South West. There were also a notable number of cargoes of wax, and of a mead based beverage called metheglin which were shipped down the Severn to Bristol via the port. Linen was another commodity which became a frequently occurring domestic cargo in the 1590s. Furthermore, a coastal trade which was not recorded in the coastal customs accounts, but which was nonetheless being legitimately conducted, was found to have been taking place in wine and probably iron by the end of the century. In particular the dramatic and substantial fall in recorded wine imports to the port was found to be apparent and not real. Wine and iron were not the only commodities shipped through the port which were unrecorded in the coastal accounts. Hoskins believed that coal was first transported down the Severn in 1520 and became the most important commodity shipped down the river during the reign of Henry VIII.[111] Salt was produced from brine springs in Cheshire, and Camden records that Worcestershire was similarly supplied with many salt springs, and salt must also therefore have been a frequently occurring downstream cargo.[112] This would provide an explanation for the comparatively small amounts of salt which were recorded arriving from overseas in Gloucester’s accounts. For instance, only twelve weys were imported from Easter to Michaelmas 1583, compared to 118 weys at Bridgwater for the same period; or twenty weys in 1581/2 compared to 133 at the north Devon ports. Salt was needed for tanning amongst other uses and so these figures are unlikely to have represented the port’s total requirements. Another significant trade which escaped the port books was that in fruit. Gloucester was noted for its annual shipments of fruit down the Severn to the Bristol Channel ports. Fruit from the Forest of Dean was specifically mentioned in a contemporary record of trade in Pembrokshire, and between three and twelve boats from the creeks of Minsterworth, Elmore and Westbury were recorded bringing between 22 and 160 tons of apples to Haverfordwest annually from 1586.[113] Consideration of these branches of trade which were important, but not liable for customs control, counterbalances the impression gained through study of the overseas accounts alone that the upstream Severn ports played an insignificant economic role, or that they were in some way peripheral to the real action which was taking place at Bristol.
The trade of the city of Gloucester itself was also seen to have been independent from Bristol to a surprising extent. Gloucester’s trade was no mere appendage of Bristol’s, neither were its merchants reliant on Bristol for marketing of their produce, nor for overseas imports. Gloucester’s merchants sought to distance themselves from their rivals at Tewksbury and had established a successful alternative market for their grain at Carmarthen and other Welsh ports. A further bilateral trading relationship which operated without reference to Bristol was found in the shipment of pulses to Cornwall. On the other hand Gloucester’s exports of linen were all routed to Bristol, and by the 1590s the earlier aversion to trading with Bristol in grain had begun to break down. Such trading relationships were therefore dynamic and complex, and are perhaps a reflection of the factionalism which has been identified amongst the city’s elite.[114]
It has been argued that Gloucester’s response to the decline of the cloth industry had been to retreat from manufacturing and to establish itself as a distributive and marketing centre.[115] Clark has characterised the city as having had its overseas commerce ‘poached by Bristol’, and as one which became increasingly reliant on inland trade, and on shipping grain and malt down the Severn to Bristol and the South West.[116] Willan has gone so far as to suggest that Gloucester effectively withdrew from overseas trade in the second half of the sixteenth century.[117] More recently Sacks and Lynch characterised the port as one which was ‘almost exclusively involved in domestic trade’.[118] These interpretations look overstated. Whilst Gloucester’s overseas exports of cloth undoubtedly did decline, they were substituted by an illicit overseas trade in grain and leather. On the import side, direct overseas trade had never played a major role in the city’s trade figures because of the navigational difficulties of its location, but there is no reason to suppose that indirect imports were any less in the later century than they had been previously despite evidence to the contrary in the coastal accounts. The city’s merchant elite does not seem to have responded to the decline in the cloth and clothing trades simply by retreating to the role of distributors in the way suggested by Clark and Herbert. New branches of commerce and new specialisations were developed. The manufacture of linen and the leather trades were both shown to have expanded after 1575; there were signs of the emergence of a domestic fishing fleet; and the preponderance of malt rather than unprocessed grain in outbound shipments needs to be recognised for what it is - a sought after, added-value product, the manufacture of which still requires considerable expertise. To characterise the city as simply a conduit for the freighting of the region’s grain is to miss this important point.
Finally, this study of Gloucester’s maritime trade has illuminated how the customer was not immune from the political and commercial factional world in which he operated. The civic elite of the city of Gloucester struggled to impose their control over the administration of the local customs, and the ensuing legal disputes make explicit in the written record tensions and agendas which add to our understanding of the information both contained in, and omitted from, the port books. The following two chapters will bear out that recognition of the local political context in which the port books were compiled is essential to a full understanding of the trade which they describe.