Bibliography - Ruth Rhynas Brown
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Notes on Wealden Furnaces - Board of Ordnance Records 1660-1700, by R. Rhynas Brown, published 1993 in Wealden Iron Research Group (Second Series No. 13, article, pp.20-30, ISSN: 0266-4402) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 16400] & The Keep [LIB/506560]   Download PDF

One of the most important sources of information on the founders of the Weald are the records of the Board of Ordnance, who supplied guns, ammunition and other stores to the armed forces on land and sea. The two important series, presently in the Public Record Office at Kew, are WO 51, the Bill Books, which form a virtually complete record of the payments from the Board to its suppliers and officials from 1660 onwards, and WO 47, the Minute Books which form an incomplete and unhomogenous series in the last 40 years of the seventeenth century. These record the meetings of the Board in varying detail. Although most of the references are to founders, there are several to specific furnaces, not only indicating who was using them, but also how they were used. The following extracts show such information. Career details of the founders are compiled from the Bill Books and the Minute Books. Further information on the furnaces may be found in the gazetteer of water-powered sites in Cleere H. and Crossley D., The Iron Industry of the Weald (Leicester, 1985) and on furnaces outside the Weald in Riden P., A Gazeteer of Charcoal-fired Blast Furnaces in Great Britain in use since 1660 (Cardiff, 1987).

Wealden ironmasters and the Board of Ordnance after 1770, by R. R. Brown, published 1994 in Wealden Iron Research Group (Second Series No. 14, article, pp.31-47, ISSN: 0266-4402) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 16400] & The Keep [LIB/506561]   Download PDF

The date 1770 is often taken as a watershed in the history of the iron industry in the Weald. Certainly after this date other areas are increasingly important as a source of iron guns for the Board of Ordnance, which bought stores for the British forces. However there are still a number of references in the Board papers which throw light on the last years of the Sussex iron industry. As in my previous paper I have selected entries which show specific founders or ironworks and which by no means exhaust the references to Wealden iron in the public records.

Notes from the Board of Ordnance Papers 1705-1720, by Ruth Rhynas Brown, published 1999 in Wealden Iron Research Group (Second Series No. 19, article, pp.34-46, ISSN: 0266-4402) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 16400] & The Keep [LIB/506566]   Download PDF

The Board of Ordnance papers for the period 1700-1750 are much less informative than the others dealt with in my previous articles, since there are gaps of many years in the series of surviving Minute Books until 1749. I have chosen a series of extracts which show relations between the Board and the gunfounders; first, the Board's attempts to control the weights of guns and then how they introduced a new gun pattern while attempting to reduce the price of iron. Inevitably the records dwell on times when matters go wrong rather than well, so that these details may be misleading about successful gunfounding business. However they do reflect the growing pattern of control which the Board would increasingly pursue during the 18th century.

Notes from the Office of the Ordnance: the 1650s, by Ruth Rhynas Brown, published 2000 in Wealden Iron Research Group (Second Series No. 20, article, pp.39-55, ISSN: 0266-4402) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/506567]   Download PDF

Although the Office of the Ordnance's records for the Civil War and the Protectorate are incomplete, two volumes in the Minute Book series covering the First Dutch War have survived. In many ways this was the first test of the Wealden iron industry. Although the number of ships in the Navy had been gradually growing in the first half of the 17th century, here was an emergency when guns were needed fast, needed regularly and needed often, then not needed until the next emergency, a pattern repeated over the next hundred years. There was one major difference since the government had money from the estates of delinquent royalists; this large purse and prompt payment would be missing from the future pattern. The Navy was the true consumer of the Wealden iron industry; one ship could carry as many guns as a civil war army. The last time that England had fought at sea in strength was during the Spanish threats in the age of Elizabeth, more than 60 years before. This was also the time when the balance changed irrevocably from brass guns for ships to iron; the Navy would never again carry more brass than iron guns.

Extracts from the Debenture Books of the Office of Ordnance 1593-1610, by Ruth Brown, published 2001 in Wealden Iron Research Group (Second Series No. 21, article, pp.14-20, ISSN: 0266-4402) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/506568]   Download PDF

A series of Debenture Books for the Office of the Ordnance survive in the Public Record Office. The series, beginning in 1593, is neither complete nor consistent; some years are completely missing, while others are covered by two or even three volumes. The books record items received by the Ordnance and what they cost; some also record movements to and from stores. A few volumes have entries that include the signature or mark of the contractor. Some of the earliest volumes are damaged and difficult to read. As with earlier extracts, I have expanded the abbreviations for ease of comprehension.

Mortars for Gibraltar, by Ruth Brown, published 2001 in Wealden Iron Research Group (Second Series No. 21, article, pp.31-35, ISSN: 0266-4402) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/506568]   Download PDF

In an earlier article I mentioned a series of 13-inch iron mortars, amongst the last guns that can be identified as being cast in the Weald for the British government. For the greater part of 18th century the Board of Ordnance had most of its mortars cast in bronze, except for the 13-inch mortars for Gibraltar. In 1718-9 Stephen Peters had provided 12 mortars for the recently gained colony and in 1745 these had been replaced by another 13 cast by William Bowen. Twenty-five years later they were in need of replacement.

The Ordnance Records: Thomas Browne, by Ruth R. Brown, published 2004 in Wealden Iron Research Group (Second Series No. 24, article, pp.16-25, ISSN: 0266-4402) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/506571]   Download PDF

John Browne, Gunfounder to the Stuarts, by Ruth Brown, published 2005 in Wealden Iron Research Group (Second Series No. 25, article, pp.38-61, ISSN: 0266-4402) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/506572]   Download PDF

John Browne, the son of Thomas Browne, Queen Elizabeth's gunfounder, claimed in his will to have been born at Chiddingstone in Kent, where his father, Thomas Browne, owned the Red House from 1593 to 1597 and had been living in the parish at an earlier date. We know little of his education except that he wrote in 1621 'at the request of the ordnance officers, and the East India Company, I was put to the trade, that I continue if my father failed' (CSPD, James I, vol 5, 639).
In August 1615, he was granted the office of Gunstone Maker for life (CSPD James I, vol 2, 301). From this period he appears to have been actively involved in running the iron business which his father had built up.

John Browne, Gunfounder to the Stuarts - Part 2: Bronze and Iron Guns 1630-45, by Ruth Brown, published 2006 in Wealden Iron Research Group (Second Series No. 26, article, pp.31-50, ISSN: 0266-4402) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/506573]   Download PDF

John Browne, Gunfounder to the Stuarts - Part 3, by Ruth Brown, published 2008 in Wealden Iron Research Group (Second Series No. 28, article, pp.23-33, ISSN: 0266-4402) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/506575]   Download PDF