Trade and Industry in Newport 1750-1914

1750-1850

Newport is a planned town sited on the border with Staffordshire, meeting the roads north to Wales and Ireland, and it is on a crossing of the River Strine and the marsh lands. It was a perfect site for trade. These wetlands also provided a fishing industry giving the town its coat of arms of three fishes. It served an agricultural area stretching from Donnington in the west to Gnosall in Staffordshire and also the many travellers along the highway from London to Chester. It was a market town: people bought and sold livestock, cattle, horses, pigs and provisions, such as butter and cheese hence the ‘Butter Cross’. This cross, originally called the Puleston Cross in medieval times, was where a butter market was held.

By 1800 Newport was surrounded by large estates at Chetwynd, Aqualate, Lilleshall, Longford and Woodcote, which brought work to the town. Workers would travel from Newport to work on the tenants farms. There were large commercial fairs in May and at Christmas. There were specialist Horse Fairs, which were held on a site behind where the Literary Institute is now. There were pig sales at the Pigfold at westerly end of where New Street is now. Small businesses processed agricultural produce: the tannery in Tan Bank tanned hides; the chandlers made and sold candles using animal fat. There were timber yards which processed timber from the local plantations and made furniture, barrels, horse-drawn vehicles and domestic utensils. There were two windmills for grinding corn. People grew flax and hemp; the hemp fields were called ‘hemp butts’. Flax and hemp were used for weaving and hemp was also used for making rope. There is still a cottage in Edgmond known as Flax Cottage and a gate into the churchyard called Hempport. A rope makers 'walk' still exists at the back of St Mary Street - although now overgrown. Basket makers used the local osiers (reeds) to make baskets and containers. Some of the crafts, that had disappeared by 1850, were staymaking for ladies dresses, peruke (wigs) making, woolcombing, stocking weaving, felt hat making (a dangerous trade - hence the Mad Hatter!) and leather breeches (trouser) making. Important crafts were making horseshoes, nails, saddles and harnesses.

1850-1914

By 1850 Newport was linked by canal and railway and much that had been produced in town was now imported. For example clocks labelled ‘Newport’ were constructed of parts made in Birmingham. The town was now prosperous and improved with a new Market Hall and livestock market, built in 1860. This took cattle off the High Street and all the mess that their being herded there entailed. Industry came to Newport. William Scott Underhill took over his father's ironmongery business and developed a factory in St Mary Street making agricultural machinery and portable steam engines. He exhibited all over England and in Paris, and he moving the heavy machinery by rail. In 1870 he opened a new factory in Avenue Road by the gas works; the site is still there. The company moved into the production of bicycles when agriculture declined. By 1900 this company had gone, but was eventually replaced by Audley Engineering, later Serck Audco the world famous producer of valves. This closed in 1998. Masseys also had a foundry in Lower Bar, which manufactured hydraulic rams for pumping water.

Meanwhile Richard Brittain was building up a chain of grocers shops; buying wholesale locally and from abroad - the beginnings of the supermarket. By 1900 many shops had installed large plate-glass windows which improved the shopping experience. Newport had its own brewery and malthouse from 1898 in Springfields lane, off Station Road. The power for these factories were coal-fired steam engines from which drive-shafts, pulleys and belts transferred power to machinery.

There were still some hand-made crafts: baskets, saddles, harnesses, braziery and boot & shoe makers. By 1900 times were getting hard, and agriculture was in a deep depression.

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