Hounslow Sword Factory

Sectors:

  • Fabricated metal products manufacture Sword, pikes, etc, making

Notes:

Established in 1629 and employed blade makers from Solingen, Germany, who had been brought to England possibly by Charles II and Sir William Heydon in an attempt to improve sword making in England. By early 1630s Benjamin Stone, a merchant cutler, appears to have been in control of the factory and supplied swords of good quality and in large numbers to the Ordnance Office with which he became closely associated. He built a water powered grinding and polishing mill for the purpose. Stone was at work from c1605 to at least c1643. During the Civil War the factory relocated, at least in part, to Wolvercote, Oxfordshire.

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