Barnstaple and its neighbor Bideford are today quiet market centers and
summer resorts. In the 17th and early 18th centuries, by contrast, they
were deeply involved in trade with America and with the whole West of
England interest in colonial settlement. Bideford was the home of Sir
Richard Grenville, who, with Sir Walter Raleigh, was one of the first
explorers of Virginia. As the leading citizen of Bideford, Grenville
obtained from Queen Elizabeth a modern charter of incorporation for the
town. Consequently, according to the town's 18th-century chronicler,
"Bideford rose so rapidly as to become a port of importance at the latter
end of Queen Elizabeth's reign ... when the trade began to open between
England and America in the reign of King James the First, Bideford early
took a part in it."[4] Its orientation for a lengthy period was towards
America, and the welfare of its inhabitants was therefore largely
dependent upon commerce with the colonies.
In common with other West of England ports, Barnstaple and Bideford
engaged heavily in the Newfoundland fishing trade. However, "the principal
part of foreign commerce that Bideford was ever engaged in, was to
Maryland and Virginia for tobacco.... Its connections with New England
were also very considerable."[5]
During the first half of the 18th century Bideford's imports of tobacco
were second only to London's, but the wars with France caused a decline
about the year 1760.[6] Barnstaple, situated farther up the River Taw,
followed the pattern of Bideford in the rise and decline as well as the
nature of its trade. Although rivals, both towns functioned in effect as a
single port; Barnstaple and Bideford ships sailed from each other's
wharves and occasionally the two ports were listed together in the Port
Books. As early as 1620 seven ships, some of Bideford and some of
Barnstaple registry, sailed from Barnstaple for America,[7] but the height
of trade between North Devon and the colonies occurred after the
Restoration and lasted until the early part of the 18th century. In 1666,
for example, the _Samuel_ of Bideford and the _Philip_ of Barnstaple
sailed for Virginia, despite the dangers of Dutch warfare.[8] The
following year, on August 13, 1667, it was reported that 20 ships of the
Virginia fleet, "bound to Bideford, Barnstaple, and Bristol have passed
into the Severn in order to escape Dutch men-of-war."[9] Later, in 1705,
we find that the _Susanna_ of Barnstaple, as well as the _Victory_,
_Zunt_, _Devonshire_, _Laurell_, _Blackstone_, and _Mary and Hannah_, all
of Bideford, were anchored in Hampton Roads off Kecoughtan. They comprised
one-ninth of a fleet of 63 ships from various English ports.[10]
[Illustration: FIGURE 4.--Old pottery in Torrington Lane (formerly
Potter's Lane), East-the-Water section of Bideford. The photo was taken in
1920, just before the buildings were razed. (_Courtesy of Miss M. E.
Jenkinson._)]
Aside from such indications of a well-established mercantile trade, the
entrenchment of North Devon interests in the colonies is repeatedly shown
in other ways. Before 1645, Thomas Fowle, a Boston merchant, was doing
business with his brother-in-law, Vincent Potter, who lived in
Barnstaple.[11] In 1669, John Selden, a Barnstaple merchant, died after
consigning a shipment of goods to William Burke, a merchant of Chuckatuck,
Virginia. John's widow and administratrix, Sisely Selden, brought suit to
recover these goods, which were "left to the sd. W{m} Burke, &c, for the
use of my late husband."[12] Burke was evidently an agent, or factor, who
acted in Virginia on Selden's behalf. In Northampton County, alone, there
resided six Bideford factors, remarkable when one considers the isolated
location of this Virginia Eastern Shore county and the sparseness of its
population in the 17th century.[13] John Watkins, the Bideford historian,
adds further evidence of mercantile involvement with the colonies, stating
of Bideford that "some of its chief merchants had very extensive
possessions in Virginia and Maryland."[14] Both in New England and the
southern colonies, local merchants acted as resident agents for merchants
based in the mother country. Often tied to the latter by bonds of family
relationship, the factors arranged the exchange of American raw materials
for the manufactured goods in which their English counterparts
specialized.
That there was a large and important commerce in North Devon earthenware
to account for many of the relationships between Bideford, Barnstaple, and
the colonies seems to have remained unnoticed. Indeed, the fact that the
two towns comprised an important center of earthenware manufacture and
export in the 17th century has hitherto received little attention from
ceramic historians, and then merely as sources of picturesque folk
pottery. Yet in the excavations of colonial sites and in the British
Public Records Office are indications that the North Devon potters, for a
time at least, rivaled those of Staffordshire.
The earliest record of North Devon pottery reaching America occurs in the
Port Book entry for Barnstaple in 1635, when the _Truelove_, Vivian
Limbry, master, sailed on March 4 for New England with "40 doz.
earthenware," consigned to John Boole, merchant.[15] The following year
the same ship sailed for New England with a similar amount. After the
Stuart restoration larger shipments of earthenware are recorded, as
illustrated by sample listings (below) chosen from Port Books in the
British Public Records Office.