The introduction of edge-runner incorporating mills in the British gunpowder industry

In Britain, pestle mills had been largely replaced by edge runners for the incorporation of gunpowder by 1772, when they were in general made illegal by Act of Parliament. The earliest known evidence has until recently placed the beginning of this change at c.1720 in mills which supplied private markets. New documentary evidence indicates that the new technology was adopted earlier by powder makers under contract to the government in time of war. This new evidence, in particular inventories of Sir Polycarpus Wharton's powdermills at Sewardstone in Essex, significantly moves forward our knowledge of gunpowder technology in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Its implications are discussed and transcripts of the Sewardstone inventories are given in an appendix.

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• The Development of the Chilworth Gunpowder Works, Surrey, from the Mid-19th Century

  Wayne Cocroft, Wayne D Cocroft et al.•Industrial Archaeology Review•2005

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