Bibliography - Brian G. Awty
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Denization Returns and Lay Subsidy Rolls as Sources for French Iron-workers in the Weald, by B. G. Awty, published 1978 in Wealden Iron Research Group (First Series No. 13, article, pp.17-19) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 16400] & The Keep [LIB/506558]   Download PDF

Provisional identifications of ironworkers among French immigrants listed in the Denization rolls of 1541 and 1544, by Brian G. Awty, published 1979 in Wealden Iron Research Group (First Series No. 16, article, pp.2-11) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 16400] & The Keep [LIB/506558]   Download PDF

Identification of places of origin of French Ironworks, by Brain G. Awty, published 1980 in Wealden Iron Research Group (First Series No. 17, article, pp.2-6) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 16400] & The Keep [LIB/506558]   Download PDF

French Immigrant Ironworkers in Sussex, 1541-44, by Brian Awty, published December 1980 in Sussex Genealogist and Family Historian (vol. 2 no. 3, article, pp.102-110) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 8671] & The Keep [LIB/501188] & CD SXGS from S.F.H.G.

The Continental Origins of Wealden Ironworkers, 1451-1544, by Brian G. Awty, published November 1981 in The Economic History Review (vol. 34 issue 4, article, pp.524-539)   View Online

The Pays de Bray in northern France is shown to be the area whence many ironworkers came to the Weald after 1490. The records of denization (1544) and contemporary Subsidy Rolls are used to show the French places of origin and where in the Weald surviving immigrants were working.

Aliens in the ironworking areas of the Weald: The Subsidy Rolls 1524-1603, by Brian G. Awty, published 1984 in Wealden Iron Research Group (Second Series No. 4, article, pp.13-78, ISSN: 0266-4402) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 16400] & The Keep [LIB/506559]   Download PDF

According to Giuseppi's Guide to the Public Records the Subsidy was 'a tax which from the reign of Richard II was imposed on persons according to the reputed value (on a very moderate estimate) of their estates, at the rate of 4s. in the pound for lands and 2s. 8d. for goods, those of aliens being valued at a double rate'. In practice things were not always so simple. In the mid-1520s, the Subsidy was combined with a kind of poll tax, resulting in the most comprehensive assessment of the century for Sussex. It gave rise to the sort of complexities and anomalies described by J. Cornwall in the introduction to his Sussex Record Society volume on that Subsidy. Later, during the financial crisis of Edward VI's reign we are looking at what are in fact 'reliefs' rather than subsidies. In some cases the rolls record only the amounts contributed, so that the actual assessment can only be arrived at by calculation. Because of this and because only just over ten per cent of the aliens were affluent enough to pay on goods, it seems simpler to reverse Cornwall's procedure by stating the tax paid rather than the value assessed. The proportion of aliens qualifying to pay on land was minute - Nicholas Jarrett is the only one who springs to mind.

Richard and Joan Isted, Ironmasters, by Brian G. Awty, published 1986 in Wealden Iron Research Group (Second Series No. 6, article, pp.45-49, ISSN: 0266-4402) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 16400] & The Keep [LIB/506559]   Download PDF

A Cast-Iron Cannon of the 1540s, by Brian G. Awty, published 1987 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 125, article, pp.115-124) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 9994] & The Keep [LIB/500304] & S.A.S. library

Parson Levett and English Cannon Founding, by Brian G. Awty, published 1989 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 127, article, pp.133-146) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 10604] & The Keep [LIB/500302] & S.A.S. library

A New Forgemaster, William Bassett and an Old Name, Grubsbars, for Crowborough Forge, by Brian G. Awty, published 1989 in Wealden Iron Research Group (Second Series No. 9, article, pp.33-37, ISSN: 0266-4402) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 16400] & The Keep [LIB/506560]   Download PDF

The Indirect Process in the Pays de Bray, by Brian G. Awty, published 1990 in Wealden Iron Research Group (Second Series No. 10, article, pp.7-11, ISSN: 0266-4402) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 16400] & The Keep [LIB/506560]   Download PDF

The term fonderie ou feronnerie was used in 1454 to describe the ironworks built shortly before that date by two Walloons on land belonging to the Bishop of Beauvais on the river Avelon in the eastern or Picard part of the Pays de Bray. All documents from the Pays de Bray subsequently keep to fonderie as the term used to denote a blast furnace during the 15th and 16th centuries.

Gun-casting Pits, by Brian G. Awty, published 1991 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 129, historical note, p.252) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 11694] & The Keep [LIB/500295] & S.A.S. library

Henry VII's First Attempt to Exploit Iron in Ashdown Forest, by Brian G. Awty, published 1991 in Wealden Iron Research Group (Second Series No. 11, article, pp.11-14, ISSN: 0266-4402) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 16400] & The Keep [LIB/506560]   Download PDF

Rhys Jenkins showed that it was in preparation for his war with Scotland that Henry VII commissioned Henry Fyner to erect ironworks in the royal Forest of Ashdown in 1496. A recently calendared document in the Public Record Office shows that the building of ironworks in the forest and the employment of artificers from overseas had been contemplated by Henry five years earlier.

English Cast-iron Ordnance of 1564, by Brian G. Awty, published 1991 in Wealden Iron Research Group (Second Series No. 11, article, pp.14-17, ISSN: 0266-4402) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 16400] & The Keep [LIB/506560]   Download PDF

These lists of cast-iron guns are both preserved in State Papers Domestic for October 1564. The first, concerning purchases of guns, was noted by Dr Teesdale in his book on Ralph Hogge. It comes from a time just over ten years after Hogge had succeeded Parson Levett as the principal founder of cannon in the Weald, though the document makes no reference to the person by whom these guns were cast.

The Lordship of Canterbury, iron-founding at Buxted, and the continental antecedents of cannon-founding in the Weald, by Brian G. Awty and Chistopher Whittick, published 2002 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 140, article, pp.71-81) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 15109] & The Keep [LIB/500299] & S.A.S. library   View Online

Queenstock Furnace in Buxted is shown to have been built under the auspices of Archbishop John Morton, probably in 1490. The site was at Iron Plat on the Uckfield Stream, within Morton's lordship of South Malling. The furnace was out of blast in 1509, and also apparently in 1537, but it was mentioned again in the 1570s, when it will have been the Buxted site used by the gun founder Ralph Hogge. The furnace had most probably been put in blast again around 1512, will have been the Buxted 'iron mill' used by the Rotherfield ironmaster Roger Machyn in 1524 and was the probable source of the iron railings supplied for Rochester Bridge by Archbishop Warham, who died in 1532. Queenstock, and not Oldlands, was the site at which William Levett cast guns from 1543 onwards. The technique of casting iron guns vertically in stave-lined pits had been used in the duchy of J?lich in 1539 and 1540, and it is suggested that it was brought to Normandy in 1540 and to the Weald in 1543, as a result of the alliances of both Francis I and Henry VIII with William de La Marck, duke of Cleves. In the case of the Weald the intermediary could have been Nicholas Wotton, who in 1539 led the negotiations for Henry's marriage to Anne of Cleves, and did not return to England until July 1541, when he took up the office of dean of Canterbury.

The Queenstock furnace at Buxted, Sussex: the earliest in England?, by Brian Awty, published 2003 in Historical metallurgy (vol. 37, part 1, article, pp.51-52)

Crookford Furnace: not Cotchford but Worth, by B. G. Awty, published 2003 in Wealden Iron Research Group (Second Series No. 23, article, pp.21-23, ISSN: 0266-4402) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/506570]   Download PDF

Iron and brass ware in East Sussex in the 1540s, by Brian G. Awty, published 2006 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 144, short article, pp.215-219) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 15759] & The Keep [LIB/500362] & S.A.S. library   View Online