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INDUSTRIES company under the title of East's Boat Building Company, Limited. Edward J. Cawston makes boats at his works situated in the Caversham Road, and has been established at Reading since 1871. He earned fame in his young days by building the ' Rob Roy ' canoe, in which Mr. McGregor crossed the Atlantic and performed other adventurous voyages. Mr. Edward G. L. Marsh, William Moss, John Tims & Sons, who also have works at Staines, are among the number of the Reading boat builders. At Bisham there is the well known firm of Messrs. Meakes & Redknap. At Wargrave Mr. Henry Butcher is a builder of boats, and Cookham has an old-established building- yard, owned and worked by Mrs. William Lacey. At Streatley the executors of Mrs. Arthur E. Saunders and Mr. Henry Saunders represent the boat-building trade. Abingdon can boast of two firms of boat builders. Gabriel Davis owns the St. Helen's Works at the Thames Wharf, which establish- ment has now been converted into a company and is known as the Davis Engineering & Launch Building Company, Limited. The other Abingdon boat builder is Mr. James Stevens, who makes also punts and canoes at the St. Helen's Wharf and the Abingdon bridge. At Wallingford Bridge Mr. G.F.W. Corneby builds boats, punts and canoes, and Mr. P. Turner is established at the Lower Wharf. Thus all along the banks of the Thames have been established these numerous centres of a thriving industry, which those who love to take their pleasure on the river, and the competitors for rowing championships have called into being. Each summer seems to increase the numbers of those who frequent the aquatic pageants of Henley and other regattas, or who row gently along the stream on a summer's day, or glide along in electric launches. Hence the industry of boat build- ing shows no prospect of decaying, and the phenomenal progress which it has made during the last few years is likely to be abun- dantly maintained. CLOTH-MAKING The clothing industry of Berkshire was during the Tudor period one of the most important in the county, and the trade carried on in the chief towns and neighbour- ing villages must have been very considerable. Newbury, Reading and Abingdon were the principal centres of the industry which pro- vided work not only for the townsfolk, but for the neighbouring villagers. It has al- ready been noticed that the extensive range of downland on the chalk hills of Berkshire furnishes excellent pasturage for sheep, which provided the rich fleeces and laid the found- ations of its success as a flourishing cloth- making county. If we might take as evidence of the anti- quity of the industry the fanciful romance of Thomas Deloney entitled The Pleasant His- tory of Thomas of Reading or the SixeWorthie Teamen of the West an assumption which is scarcely warrantable we should conclude that cloth-making was in a very flourishing state as early as the days of Henry I. The hero of this tale is a certain Thomas Cole, cloth-maker of Reading, whose numerous wains laden with cloth arrested the progress of the king and drivers of his nobility as they rode from London towards Wales. He de- manded of the men whose wains they were. They answered ' Cole's of Reading.' The king was much interested in ' his worthy yeoman,' and when he died he ' desired to be buried near his good clothiers who living were his heart's delight.' The evidence of the existence of the trade in the time of Henry I. is extremely doubtful, but Deloney's description of clothing industry as it existed in his own days may be taken as fairly accurate. ' The Art,' he says, ' was held in high reputation both in respect of the great riches that thereby were gotten, as also of the benefit it brought to the common- wealth. Among all crafts this was the only chief, for that it was the greatest merchan- dise, by the which our country became famous throughout all nations. And it was wisely thought that the on half of the people in the land lived in those days thereby, and in such good sort, that in the commonwealth there were few or no beggars at all ; poor people whom God had blessed with most children did by means of this occupation so order them that when they were come to five or seven years of age they were able to get their own bread. Therefore it was not without cause that clothiers were then both honoured and loved.' i The early notices of the existence of fulling mills in different parts of the county show 1 Deloney, Pleasant History of Thomas of Reading, Introduction. 387