Bibliography - Industry and work: Cannon manufacture and production
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Cannon Made at Buxted , by K. H. Macdermott, published February 1927 in Sussex Notes & Queries (vol. I no. 5, note, p.156) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 8950] & The Keep [LIB/500203] & S.A.S. library

Cannon Made at Buxted , by Ernest Straker, published May 1927 in Sussex Notes & Queries (vol. I no. 6, note, p.188) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 8950] & The Keep [LIB/500203] & S.A.S. library

Cannon-Manufacture at Pippingford, Sussex: The Excavation of Two Iron Furnaces of c. 1717, by David Crossley, published 1975 in The Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology (vol. 9, article, pp.1-37) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/502341]   View Online

Two blast furnaces produced iron at Pippingford Park, Sussex (TQ/4503l6) in the early 18th century. At the first to be built (the west furnace) guns were cast; this was excavated in 1974, although its surroundings remain to be explored. A boring mill was sited close to the east furnace, the wheels of the boring carriage being in situ on their tracks. The east furnace was construded during the life of the west site, and the surviving casting beds showed that pig iron had been produced. Robbing of stone had been severe in the case of the east furnace, in contrast to its predecessor, whose rubble core survived 1-1.5 m. in height, and whose gun-casting pit was in good order.

A Wealden Cannon-Boring Bar [at Stream Mill, Chiddingly], by D. S. Butler and C. F. Tebbutt, published 1975 in The Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology (vol. 9, article, pp.38-41)   View Online

Sussex Cannon in East Africa, by C. F. Tebbutt, published 1975 in Wealden Iron Research Group (First Series No. 8, article, p.45) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 16400] & The Keep [LIB/506558]   Download PDF

The Pippingford Cannon: New Data, by D. W. Crossley, published 1977 in The Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology (vol. 11, article, p.106)   View Online

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

The Impact on the Weald of Boring Cannon from the Solid, by Douglas Braid, published 1987 in Wealden Iron Research Group (Second Series No. 7, article, pp.33-34, ISSN: 0266-4402) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 16400] & The Keep [LIB/506560]   Download PDF

A number of reasons for the demise of the Wealden cannon-founding industry have been formulated in the past, but the most obvious is the fact that the Board of Ordnance ordered a letter to be written, June 7, 1774 asking all their suppliers "whether they will engage to provide guns bored out of the solid at the same rate in case the Board should prefer those kind of guns to them for which they are already contracted".

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

Wealden Cannon on a Dutch East Indiaman, by J. S. Hodgkinson, published 1992 in Wealden Iron Research Group (Second Series No. 12, article, pp.13-16, ISSN: 0266-4402) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 16400] & The Keep [LIB/506560]   Download PDF

Seven iron guns of English manufacture have been recovered from the wreck of the Mauritius, a Dutch East Indiaman, off Gabon in West Africa. They were excavated by a team led by M.L Hour and L. Long, sponsored by the Elf-Gabon Petroleum Company.

The Mayfield cannon - a reappraisal, by C. J. N. Trollope, published 1994 in Wealden Iron Research Group (Second Series No. 14, article, pp.16-19, ISSN: 0266-4402) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 16400] & The Keep [LIB/506561]   Download PDF

As part of the Queen's Silver Jubilee celebrations in 1977, a cannon which had formerly been dug from the slag heap of Mayfield Furnace, and had subsequently become the property of the Convent which occupied the old Archbishops' palace in the village, was mounted on a plinth in the High Street. A plaque fixed to it suggests that it was made in the mid-17th century.

Gunfounding in the Weald, by J. Hodgkinson, published 2000 in Journal of the Ordnance Society (vol. 12, article, pp.31-47)

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.

Modelling business performance of a mid 18th-century cannon manufacturer, by Alan F. Davies, published 2012 in Wealden Iron Research Group (Second Series No. 31, article, pp.35-56, ISSN: 0266-4402) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/506579]   Download PDF

Even though historical iron cannon-making technology is widely described, very little information is published about overall business performance of cannon manufacturers. Instances of surviving trade and financial records provide insights into iron production and consumption. Unfortunately they give neither a sufficiently broad picture nor information uniquely about gun manufacturing. Furthermore mid 18th-century business financial recording methods were aligned more towards estate accounting practices focusing on recording and managing payments and receipts, reporting trading margins and cash accumulation in excess of any initial investment.

Estimating 18th-century cannon boring times, costs and throughputs, by Alan F. Davies, published 2013 in Wealden Iron Research Group (Second Series No. 33, article, pp.38-47, ISSN: 0266-4402) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/507841]   Download PDF

A previous article (Davies 2012) describes how a computer model, using information from The Fuller Letters 1728-1755, explored business performance of a mid 18th-century Wealden gun manufacturer. A linked subsidiary model provided estimated cannon boring times and costs as part of direct manufacturing costs in the main model. This showed boring process represented around 1% of direct campaign costs compared with, for example, cast metal costs of about 80%. Good technical control of boring and effective throughput helped ensure timely deliveries for proofing and debenture incomes.
This article describes development and use of this subsidiary model. It explores interactions between key variables to estimate operating limits for cannon boring times, direct labour costs and mill throughput performance. Model results are validated against several of the Fullers' Letters commenting on cannon delivery times.

Issues, emotions and achievements - managers and agents of a mid 18th-century cannon manufacturer, by Alan F. Davies, published 2013 in Wealden Iron Research Group (Second Series No. 33, article, p.48, ISSN: 0266-4402) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/507841]   Download PDF

A previous article1 describes modelling of information in The Fuller Letters 1728 - 1755 to show how differing combinations of factors about gun demand, manufacturing and management decisions affected the performance of the Fullers' cannon business.
This study extends analysis of the Letters data, using a different modelling approach, to seek some initial insights of what it was like practically and emotionally for father and son Fuller to run their businesses under varying economic, operational and financial conditions.
Comparisons are made of how each Fuller reacted to conditions as well as the role effectiveness of their agent in influencing performance.