This text has been generated as a means to explore the history of an hither too unknown family of boatbuilders, back into the remoteness of antiquity. I have focused upon my family and its kith and kin not just for reasons of self interest, the morale of these tales being preserved in the deeds of those mentioned. These stories invoke in me a sense of lost past, times history would rather forget, but somehow that despicable job of rat~catcher has come down to me!

 The earliest chronological reference I have yet found in history to any Shipwright bearing the name ‘Holb(o/u)rn(e)’ is that of Robert Holborn who was granted ‘Letters Patent’, along with Peter Pett and others skilful in shipbuilding, in 1543. The authority for the letters patent not being by the usual Writ of Privy Seal, but ‘Per Ipsum Regent’, i.e, by ‘direct motion of the King’, Henry VIII.th The ‘Anchorsmith’ Richard Osborn was also cited in this bill. The implication for this period, regarding the activity of early English Shipwrights, is that they would appear to have been relatively few in number, and consequently lacking the direction of succeeding years. For this reason, more than any other I can suppose the craft was not then held in such high esteem as it was in the days of Mathew Baker, when Shipwrights were men of some importance. Only one reference to the position of ‘King’s Master Shipwright’ being at hand for the medieval period, this being for William Ussher, dating from 1401 after which his name does not reappear. ‘Few Shipbuilding treatises survive from the middle ages; all date from the Fifteenth Century, and all of them are Italian (specifically, Venetian). The earliest detailed English treatise on ship design is by the Elizabethan Master Shipwright Mathew Baker,’^ the son of James Baker.

 The position of first Royal Master Shipwright to the King is often claimed to have been instituted with the granting to James Baker in 1537, an annuity for life. An early Grant was ordered however in the case of John Hoggekyn, the Master Shipwright engaged between 1416~1418 for the construction at Southampton of the ‘Grace Dieu’, where their were so few Shipwrights, that Orders had to be dispatched as far afield as the West Counrty. Hoggekin was an exceptional man and was given a pension in 1420. This was a time in which the Country had been swept by the ‘Black Death’ and population figures were low, ‘England in 1512 had from one half to two thirds fewer people than in 1295’ and amongst the population, Shipwrights saw a time when their trade was at its all time low. During this period in 1298/9 an influential figure, Henry Hellewarde, already a Master Shipwright was employed as a ‘Master Carpenter’ on the repair of a Royal Barge at the long lost port of Ravenserod, on the Humber Estuary.

 Shipwrights were later to be granted direct employment by the Crown, the first list of ‘Master Shipwrights’ appointed ‘by Patent’ by Henry VIIIth included ‘John Smyth, Robert Holborn, Richard Bull and James Baker’ and again Peter Pett the son of John was summoned from his place of residence, then at Harwich to work on the King’s Ships at Portsmouth, in 1543 Pett was granted a wage and fee for life (vadium et feodum) . On the 23rd April 1548 Robert Holborn, Smyth and Bull received similar Patents, the very fact of which should be considered of some significance, and it was added as Shipwrights they should instruct others, by reason of their long and good service. It is recorded that unlike Pett, Holborn and Smythe were more skilled mechanics than designers of ships, yet it has been acknowledged that this may simply be due to the ‘scantiness’ of the records available for those times. The Master Shipwright was responsible for the overall design of a vessel and the conduct of the work. The many names of the different types of Shipwrights, all with differing rates of pay is said to imply that the craft had already evolved a distinctive structure in the Thirteenth Century, through into the Fifteenth. Although Robert Holborn was then living in Harwich along with Peter Pett they were all employed at Portsmouth, then England’s Premier Dockyard, in repairing the King’s Ships.

 As but an example, amongst their numerous works, it is recorded that Peter Pett built the ‘Elizabeth Jonas’, the ‘Swiftsure’ and the ‘Rainbow’ and that Mathew Baker built the ‘Dreadnought’, the ‘Vanguard’ and the ‘Merhonour,’ whilst Richard Chapman built the ‘Terminate’, the ‘Ark Royal’ and the ‘Garland.’ The Treasurer of the Navy’s accounts rendered to the King’s Exchequer for the year 1544 identifies Deptford as the Dockyard that carried out all the major repairs to the King’s Ships that year. Peter Pett was appointed first ‘Master Shipwright’ for Chatham in about 1545.

 In 1547, when the next account was presented, ‘Jillingham water’ as Chatham Dockyard was then known, is mentioned as second only in its importance to Deptford. These changes having occurred as a result of Chatham’s greater nearness to London, and particularly the ‘King’s Palace’ of Greenwich. Following which Woolwich, Portsmouth, Harwich and the small concern at Colne being mentioned in that order of succeeding importance. By 1550 the ships that were then lying off Portsmouth were ordered, by reason of its superior strategic location to be harboured in ‘Gillingham Water’.

 The Shipwright Robert Holborn who was granted ‘Letters Patent’ in 1548 was described more a mechanic than as a designer of ships. It is therefore plausible to enquire if he might have found due reason for staying around the coastal area of the Sussex Weald as a participant in the then growing Iron industry of that area, and could have employed himself in the construction of the new forges that were being used to improve on the output of Wrought iron. This might reasonably explain why he does not readily find mention in London where his colleagues appear to have settled after their commission from the King. However we do have a will, that of Jone of Erith, who was a widow before 1562. Standing alone this document tells us scarecly nothing about the possibility of an assocation with Robert, but, in the context of several other wills made by the same family it lures me to consider that perhaps Robert did follow his companions, and there for a while at least raised a son into his trade. No mention of Robert appears in the will or from after this time, but it seems reasonable to assume a possible association may nevertheless follow, and in looking at the other wills of the family of Jone Hoborn it is evident that here rests the illusive conection to the Pett family, under investigation.

 Early on in my long search for the family of shipwrights who were known to have married into the ‘Pett dynasty’ my first consideration was to nominate John Hoborne, born at Shoreham in the summer of 1576 as our candidate, cited as a son of a Richard on the I.G.I., he lived not so far from Chichester, near to where later settled Nicholas Holborne the Lawyer, but no evidence presently forthcoming places him near Chatham. This Richard may yet prove to be in some way related, but it is certainly an interesting consideration to note that in 1968, in a letter to a fellow genealogist from the director of research at ‘The Surname Archive’ (an institution in Sussex), places the name Holborn as ‘very much an East Sussex surname’. Mr. Leason substantiated his opinion on the origin of this topographical variant of the name adding : “Reany mentions Holban’s Farm in Heathfield as an instance of Holben. Quite a number of Holbeme’s and Holbene’s occur in the general area in the 1524/5 Subsidy Rolls, but there is a Richard Holborne in Mayfield, the neighbouring parish to Heathfield in the same Subsidy” and “there is a John Holborne in Donnington, near Chichester, on the other side of the county” but that “no Holborne’s seem to have survived into the 19th century.” With this in mind it is clear that ‘John of Shoreham’ seems to have been local to the area and had kin before him living as indigenous to the population. Although this of itself does not totally eliminate him from our enquire, it does suggest he may not have been a Shipwright, for as such these craftsmen, then in relatively short supply, tended to be migratory, following work, wherever it presented itself. With Portsmouth, Chichester, Shoreham, Hythe, Folkestone and Margate all in reach of one another, and as Ports, practically neighbours, being a fact that still lends itself to my proposition of some probable connection between the several recorded families in these towns, all bearing substantially similar names, we must continue our search.

 Peter Pett and Mathew Baker were both at Deptford with the launch of a new design of oceanic type of warship in 1575, the ‘Revenge’ representing a departure from anything ever seen before. The origin of the ‘Sailing Ship of the Line’, and the design that was to hail the mastery of the seas so often associated with this diminutive Island. The ‘Revenge’, not a giant at 500 tons was fast and dangerous. Heavily armed, it’s chief advantage was in that it could remain at sea for long periods, and was easily manoeuvrable in a tight spot against an aggressor. ‘Peter Pett of Deptford’, Master Shipwright who died in 1589 was the grandfather of the famous Commissioner Pett of Chatham. In having concluded their services at Portsmouth for King Henry VIIIth those Shipwrights above mentioned followed the work presented with the development of the Dockyards.

 Upon his death King Henry provided a legacy to the nation with the most powerful Naval force assembled in Europe dominated by it’s three masted vessels armed on the broadside. This had been possible under the initiative of the King, in that Shipwrights were employed for the first time as a permanent body of men, with a fixed salary. Men like Peter Pett and James Baker were able to better bring their expertise to bare with more certainty than their forefathers who would have been paid by the job. This development proved to be an innovation with far reaching consequences, not just for the Shipwright, but also for the defence of the very Realm. These men were foremost among England’s first Dockyard workers and would labour to meet these needs from dawn to dusk, with but one break ; ‘in the middle of the forenoon for cheese and beer.’* 2

 During the years 1612~13 a dispute arose between the Shipwrights of London who were chiefly responsible for managing this growth. On May the 6th of 1612 the ‘Foreign’ Shipwrights, thus referred to because they worked outside the ‘Liberties of the City of London’ and on the opposite side of the river at Redrithe or Rotherhithe, had obtained a Royal Charter of Incorporation, and Phineas Pett, the King’s Shipwright was elected the first Master. By this Charter they proceeded to employ a system of fines and duties upon the Free neighbouring Shipwrights of Ratcliffe who had themselves previously expanded the business of boatbuilding beyond the City on account of the noise created by their craft and also from fear of fire in the much built up environment of the yards.

 `The Free Shipwrights at Ratcliffe naturally resented this move and commenced a case to the Court of Aldermen, an item from which illustrates the origins of their Company. : “Whereas the Company of Shipwrights, Freemen of this City made their humble petition to this Court shewing thereby that tyme out of mynde they have bin and continued an ancient Guild or Fraternitie within the said City, and have been ever governed and ordered by the Lord Maior and Court of Aldermen as other the Guilds and Fraternities thereof have used to be, as by certain ordynaunces instituted for the good government of the said Guilde in the XXXVth yere of the reigne of King Henry the sixt, may more at lardge appeare, etc,” ; thereafter complaining about the endeavours of the ‘Foreign Shipwrights’ efforts to impose their ordinances upon them.

 The subsequent Aldermen’s report gave a clear account of the rise and progress of the Company of Free Shipwrights describing that they had always preserved their ‘Freedoms of the City’ even after leaving the yards adjoining the Thames and relocated beyond the Cities Liberties to Ratcliffe. Upon examination it is revealed that the trades carried on by the ‘Free’ and the ‘Foreign’ Shipwrights were actually quite different from one another and were ‘reputed as two severall distinct trades’. The report concluded with the recommendation that the City support the case of the Free Shipwrights, and further sustained any expenses incurred by them in defending themselves from their neighbours ‘provided they did not exceed the sum of £30/~’.

 The principal Shipwrights mentioned in the times of Queen Elizabeth I were Peter Pett, Mathew Baker (the son of James, who designed the means of mounting cannon in the ship’s lower levels rather than on the top deck, an idea credited to Henry VIIIth), and Richard Chapman. Richard’s mother had been born as Ann Pett, the Chapman family however included several Mariners whose origins appear to be in the County of Devon, and the Shipwrights who lived at Greenwich, and who had worked at this craft since the reign of the King Edward I (1272-1307).

 At the time of Queen Elizabeth I. Richard Chapman is described as the owner of a private shipyard at Deptford, and had the title of the ‘Queen's Master Shipwright’, and had been involved in the construction of river defences along the Thames with Pett and Baker. Richard’s son Edmund Chapman had also become ‘Chief Joiner’ to the Queen and owned significant property in Greenwich. Edmund provided the lands for the building of the almshouses named the ‘Queen Elizabeth Collage’, which was founded in 1574, and himself lived at ‘Swanne House’.

 A generation or so later during the reign of King James I, “an order was issued for paying to John de Crites, the King’s ‘Serjeant’ Painter, Maximilian Colt, a Carver, William Bourdman, the Royal Locksmith and Clement Chapman.” referred to only as a ‘Joiner’ £200/~ in part payment of £400/~ for building and finishing a Privy barge for the King’s service during the Parliament of 1621

 It is clear that their must have been many men from Greenwich and Deptford helping to either construct or man the ships that were built in Elizabethan times, for the whole nation had been inspired by the news of ‘Spanish Gold’, yet it was perhaps at Greenwich that the greatest sea knowledge and the richest patronage co~existed. Of these Greenwich boatbuilders the skilled hands were housed in small trim cottage terraces, the slightly grander double fronted houses off to the side streets were the preserve of ‘the mates’ and the Shipwrights, as well as the ‘all important’ shipping clerks. Frobisher’s voyage of 1577 had been financed substantially through ‘local’ patronage. Thus, with two of his three ships being provided by Ambrose Dudley, the third was paid for by the Queen. Ambrose’s younger brother ‘Leycester’ also owned considerable property at Greenwich.

 Francis Drake was in Deptford in 1549 where he joined the fleet of fellow Devonian John Hawkins and it is suggested they must certainly have met Pett, Baker and Chapman, being as they were the innovators in the design and building techniques that led directly to the ships available to beat off the ‘Spanish Armada.’1

 With John Hawkins reformed naval administration underway, the new generation of Shipwrights began to bring the ancient craft to rule. Perhaps the greatest architect of Hawkins Navy was the son of James Baker, Mathew who, having served apprentice to his father and grown up in the busy aromatic surrounds of the Dockyard environment was himself appointed Master Shipwright in 1572, aged 42. As his father had been before him and who had been responsible for many of the designs and the construction of King Henry VIIIths fleet, so Mathew, who was known to dislike a certain Phineas Pett, competed to become the chief engineer of Elizabeth’s Navy. His success was achieved when he became the first ever known Shipwright to evolve the closely guarded secret of ‘laying down the lines’ for a ship, not as was traditional at the site of construction, but on paper, so that scale models were no longer the only means of understanding the lore of the Shipwright. By this method it became possible to discuss and modify the plans with the patron.

 The Master Shipwright had more than designing and constructing his own ships in hand, he was in fact in overall charge, under the Admiralty of the entire Dockyard to which he had been appointed, with the maintenance of it’s installations and the welfare of it’s workers to contend with. The Wharves, Storehouses and Dockyard Police were all under his supervision.

 With the money amassed by his father’s tax collectors, chiefly Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley, Henry VIIIth having squandered their lives, also inherited upon his succession at least five good ships, including the ‘Regent’, and the ‘Soverign’, each of 1000 tons and it is acknowledge fact that he increased this capacity still further throughout his reign. In the first year of which he had built the ‘Mary Rose’ (of 600 tons) and the lesser known ‘Peter Pomegranate’ ships (of 450 tons). The ‘Henry Grace a Dieu’ followed in 1514, Thomas Pett, William Chapman and Robert Baker were all associated with its construction as designers, rather than carpenters for the King. What vessel he did not personally commission Henry was ready to purchase at home or abroad, Italy being the greatest centre for learning to the Shipwright. He further retained the time served tradition of hiring ‘merchant men’ when he needed them. Less able, however, than his Father in distinguishing between ‘practical gains and lordly pretensions’ he was often seen as a contemptuous and jealous monarch, although confidant in his strength, having later stood foursquare to the World, the Pope and the Emperor, by the close of his reign the old enemy France was much strengthened whilst incessantly short of funds the English Government had neglected to maintain its armed forces.

 So run down and out of date had the navy become during the latter years of the reign of Elizabeth, that when John, (born about 1570) the son of William Hawkins (a confidant of Henry VIII) assumed control over the reluctant profiteers of the Naval Board, so far reaching were the consequences of his renovations, that those who thought themselves his betters, and who had been put out of pocket by his careful regulation of the ‘Pipe Office’ accounts, (funds intended for the renovation and refitting of naval vessels, but that were finding their way into private purses), the lamentably corrupt found a voice to finally aire there grievances. It was the then ageing Sir William Wynter, who had previously sent Hawkins on a voyage to the other side of the globe in the ‘Jesus of Lubeck’, even then an ancient ship, who wrote in a letter to Lord Burghley ; ‘He careth not to whom he speaketh, nor what he sayeth, blushe he will not.’ Protesting that the ships in Hawkins charge were rotten and un~seaworthy. It was finally in 1583 that a Royal Commission was assembled to deal with the situation, composed of men like Raleigh, Frobisher and Drake, Hawkins was vindicated, and the allegations against him dismissed.

 Hawkins is reported as a man whom stuck to his business, avoiding politics, he was able to trade with Spanish ports without offending the Holy Office and thus formed intimacies and connections with the Canary Islands especially, where it is said “he grew much in love and favour with the people”. In recent years Hawkins name has been again tainted by its association with the slave trade, during which times he made good profit out of removing natives of Africa and the West Indies to Spain, where it has been argued they were safe from the ravages of Pagan sacrifice, to which they might have otherwise been offered up, as was common in those times. ‘We know to what the slave trade grew. We have all learnt to repent of the share which England had in it, and to abhor everyone whose hands were stained by contact with so accursed a business. ~ (and although) I do not suppose Hawkins thought much of saving (his captors) souls, he saw an opportunity of extending his business among a people with whom he was already largely connected. The traffic was established (and) it had the sanction of the Church. No objection had (yet) been raised to it anywhere on the score of morality.*’ His involvement with this trade almost ruined him, but as Froude points out ‘we have no right to heap violent censures upon him, because he was no more enlightened than the wisest of his contemporaries’ From amongst the leading citizens of London Hawkins then formed an African company for this undertaking. The three vessels he had fitted out as Commander and part owner were named the ‘Solomon’, the ‘Swallow’ and the ‘Jonas.’ The expedition set sail in October of 1562. Although Cecil disliked such semi~piratical enterprises Elizabeth, in need of money saw matters in a different light, encouraging the adventurous disposition of her subjects, whom she saw as fighting the States battles at their own cost and risk.

  Despite the ongoing feuds between prominent families engaged in boatbuilding, John Hawkins was determined that his navy, as well as having the best fleet of ships in the world, would also have the best quality of seamen, and so petitioned and won a pay increase for his Sailors, arguing that a smaller number of well motivated better paid men would acheive substantially more than a larger group of disinterested men.

 During the late 16th to mid 17th Centuries only a small proportion of the population of Kent were engaged in the practice of developing specialised skills, initially between 10~15% of their neighbours would thus share with them this development, most of them working in Textile manufacturing and Shipbuilding. Their was considerable competition I should imagine for the Counties abundant supply of timber. The Iron Industry of the Weald developed with most of the furnaces and forges belonging to the larger landowners. It is interesting that at the first mention of the furnace and forge in Southfrith in 1552, it is revealed to be then part of the estate of the Duke of Northumberland, at this time Lord John Dudley and may have been built at his orders in preparation for his planned take-over of the Throne. One of the most powerful men in the Country at the time his own munitions supply might come in useful, but for his failure to establish a lasting marriage between his son Guilford and the Lady Jane Grey. Northumberland’s illegitimate relative Dud Dudley from Balliol, was fortunate at least in his industrial mindedness and supervised the Earl’s metal workings

 His Kent Armoury was also well located to develop, based as it was on the local abundance of oare, the use of which contributed considerably, like Shipbuilding to, (and for much the same reasons) the depletion of the woodlands within the Weald, like the Textile manufacturing industry. Each reliant upon the use of wood taken locally from the then abundant woodlands, although, (and more so as stocks became depleted) with the inevitable and age old dilemma of the industrial mismanagement of resource looming these craftsmen turned to the use of coal, much of which was imported from Northumberland directly to the home ports at Thanet and about the extensive Kent shoreline, particularly along the Thames estuary. The foundries of Sussex and Kent were able to supply guns to the Continent and the coal trade from Newcastle saw astounding growth, multiplying ten fold between 1545~1625. During this same period Naval Tonnage doubled with the growth of merchant shipping at least half that again.

 Along with the growth of the Shipbuilding Industry, the Iron Smelters also flourished. In the October of 1620 the Commissioners of the Treasury received a petition ‘for a warrant to ship diverse pieces of ordinance of his manufacture from the seaside in Sussex, in order to bring them to the market at Tower Hill’. Continuing developments in expanding the trade were made, so that a Patent was issued to Mr. Sackville Crow ‘for the soul manufacture of iron ordinance for the shipping of the Kingdoms, excepting that of the King’s Service, on condition of his setting unemployed bow~makers to work, keeping the market on Tower Hill supplied, and not raising the price above £13/~ per ton.’ Medieval iron smelting across the Weald of Kent and Sussex has its roots in pre~Roman and Celtic history. It was not until the end of the Fifteenth Century that the small scale of its industry, based as it was on the simple furnace, in which charcoal and iron ore were layered to form a circular mound, of up to several feet in height on a central stone hearth, progressed to anything like the scale and significance that was to follow.

 This original technique for smelting was completed with the layered mound then being encased in clay and ignited, air would then be bellowed in at the base. It would take anything up to several days to produce the molten iron which was collected from the hearth. The raw material was then cut and hammered at the forge into the required shape. This work was undertaken by one or two families with support from others who would be responsible for the production and provision of the charcoal and iron oare. At this stage in the Industries development only a couple of hundred people would have been involved in the entire laborious process from start to finish. The new technique that was introduced into the Weald toward the end of the Fifteenth Century was imported from the continent. Simple as it was, this involved constructing a permanent structure with a wide chimney and a large furnace chamber into which the larger bellows were fitted. The real advantage of this furnace was that the bellows could be systematically compressed by means of a rotating wheel, often water driven, although it could be operated by attaching Oxen or Horses to a link with the wheel. By these means the Ironmaster could produce his metal perhaps twenty or thirty times as more efficiently as before, and output was much increased allowing for iron to be sufficiently available for it to be cast in moulds. So successful were these new developments, particularly in Sussex that a Royal Commission was set up in 1573, which concluded :

‘Besides these furnaces aforesaid, there are not so few as a hundred furnaces and Iron Mylles in Sussex, Surrey and Kent, which is greatlie to the decaie, spoile and overthrowe of woods and principle tymber, with a great decaye also of tillage for that they are continuallie employed in caring of furniture for the said workes, and likewise a great decaie of the highways because they carrie all the wintertyme.’

 The following year the Queens Privy Council thus compelled all Ironmasters to enter into bonds not to manufacture or sell without licence from Elizabeth. This may have helped stall the treasury deficit but did little to slow the continuing progress of the rapidly developing Iron Industry and its devastation of the woodlands thereabouts. Therefore in 1581 an Act was passed to check the depletion of timber near London and the Thames which was seen to be needed for Shipbuilding. For the same reason it was prohibited to use the woods for iron smelting, that came within twelve miles of the coast. It is clearly for these reasons that the Weald was eventually left all but barren of woodlands at all. The available forests of the Weald consumed by the furnaces to such an extent that it was recorded in 1547, of the iron works at Worth in Surrey that during the previous two years nearly 6000 ‘cords’ of wood were cut for the furnace with nearly a further 3000 for the forge, a cord representing about two tons.