History of corn milling .. - Centrostudirpinia.it

112 HISTORY OF CORN MILLING: vol. iv.
DEE^MTLTS ^^^^^^^ ^^ whIch they conjointly engaged resulted
CHESTER.' in a defeat that still further disintegrated the com-
27. Waterworks P'jlsory soke. The alliance of the mill with Tyrer's
Dispute, waterworks had continued from the time of Edmund
^
^'**
Harl. MSS., that ''
20 3. 450.
Gamull, and Tyrer faithfully carried out his part of
the bargain in refusing water from his pumpingworks
to absentees from the mills. That he did so,
occurs frequently in evidence ; in the pleadings of
one, Thomas Webster (1637), for instance, he states
fomierlie he in curtasie and upon threats to take
away the water from him did grinde at Dee Milnes,
where he receyved greate wrong and prejudice.'*
Whitby must surely have seen that this attractive but
illusory scheme of co-operation could only expose the
frailty of the soke of the mill ; but he seems to have
preferred pinning the citizens to the mills at one operation
by the agency of Tyrer to encountering them
singly in costly law suits. The plan succeeded till the
death of Tyrer in or about 1634, and the opening of
negotiations with his son by Francis Gamull and
Whitby for the purchase of the waterworks. This step
may have been due to the injudicious management of
Ibid., 2082. 34\ Tyrer junior; as in 1634 Randle Holmes is found
petitioning Gamull, then mayor, complaining that the
proprietors of the waterworks were charging greater
rents than before, and had wrongfully cut off the
service-pipes. Others, however, had an eye to the
purchase of the coercive milling factor ; and during
Gamull's absence from Chester the concern was ac-
quired in the public interest by Sir R. Mainwaring,
ex-alderman of Chester, and friends ; the agreement
stipulating that the purchasers should of the mills a
pay the owners
rental of ;^io per annum on a lease
of ten years. But Mainwaring and his partners at
once cut the tie that bound the waterworks to the
"
uttering and giving out speeches against
the
mill ;