Flour Bag Seal, E. Marriage & Son
Flour Bag Seal, E. Marriage & Son, Colchester, Image from Plomb-de-scellé.
Found in Méreau, France, diameter 19mm.
Two seals with the letter S in a raised circle on one side and E. MARRIAGE curved around the top with & SON straight across the middle with a dash dot dash design beneath and .COLCHESTER. curved upwards along the bottom all in a raised circular border.
From British History Online:- East mill, on the Colne at East bridge, was held by St. Botolph's in 1311, and remained in the priory's possession until the Dissolution when it was granted to Sir Thomas Audley. It worked as a corn mill until the mid 15th century or later, but was a fulling mill in 1552. Audley conveyed it in 1536 to John Christmas, whose son George sold it in 1554 to John Maynard. The mill was a fulling mill in 1569 and in 1582 when it was run by Maynard's widow Alice. In 1624 it comprised both corn and fulling mills. The corn mills were expanded by Henry and John Dunnage, millers in the late 18th century, and when **Edward Marriage bought the mill in 1840** it was a breast or overshot mill with six pairs of stones. An auxiliary steam engine was installed in 1844. In 1865 Marriage improved the river above the Hythe to enable London barges to reach the mills. In the 1870s further improvements were made to the mills and their machinery, including the installation of a second steam engine and the introduction of roller mills. Between 1885 and 1893 the mills were almost completely rebuilt and extended to accommodate a 6-sack roller plant, besides the old mill stones. Warehousing was extended. The mills were renovated in 1930-1, the mill stones and water wheel being dismantled. The mill, then owned by Rank Hovis McDougall which had taken over the Marriage firm, was closed in 1976 and converted into an hotel in 1979."
E. Marriage & Son Ltd., Colchester and Felixstowe, The Annals of 100 Years of Flour Milling, 1840 - 1872 Edward Marriage, 1872 - 1900 E. Marriage & Son, 1900 - 1940 E. Marriage & Son, Ltd. copy in Essex County Library, Colchester. This publication has a full history of the firm and its family origins - originally Huguenots from France.
The inscription E. Marriage & Son without Ltd. suggests a date between 1872 and 1900.
|
Full size:
679x644
|