MAKING OF SNUFF

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20673, 11 March 1937, Page 13

MAKING OF SNUFF

ENGLISH FIRM’S WORK MACHINERY 200 YEARS OLD Power-driven machinery, which is in use to-day for its original manufacturing purpose and has been continuously operated for 200 years, must be unique in this country, and possibly in any country, says a writer in “The Times” of January 23. It exists in Kendal in the Sandes Avenue snuff mill of Samuel Gawith and Co., Ltd., the makers of the “original Kendal Brown,” and it was doing its daily work of grinding down tobacco stalk, tobacco “shorts” and “smalls," the by-products of other tobacco manufacturing processes, to the’ varying degrees of fineness required for the original Kendal Brown and for no fewer than fiftythree other varieties of snuff manufactured on these premises. The interest of a visit to the works of this firm at Kendal and at Penrith earlier in the day was due partly to the machinery as a remarkable instance of long survival in effective use of a very ancient-looking piece of Scottish engineering, but it was also claimed by remarkable evidences of a modern revival of the demand for snuff.

To deal with the machinery the Eastern Counties, where carpets and some fine textiles are woven, could no doubt show in use spinning and weaving appliances even more than 200 years old, but such machinery is hand and foot operated. The snuff mil' at Kendal, for which a credible longevity of 200 years, and an actually recorded life of 145 years in the possession of the present firm, is claimed, is, however, and always has been, power driven. It was built and worked in Kendal until a few years ago by a water wheel. That was at the firm’s former factory at Meal Bank. Then it was taken down, carefully transported, and reerected in the Sandes Avenue mill, without any change or replacement of parts except that its shafting was adapted to driving by an electric motor. Brought from Scotland. An old-type snuff mill is essentially a set of large heavy mechanicallyoperated pestles, rolling in large mortars, which are either of solid oak or of cast iron. The pestles are iron bars about 2ft long and of 6in diameter. They grind, not by a pounding motion, but simply by revolving through a crank obliquely round the concave sides of the cone-shaped mortar. The machinery was installed in the firm’s Meal Bank water mill, just outside Kendal, in 1792, when the firm started business as snuff manufacturers. The records of the firm show that Samuel Gawith the first, their founder, went up to the Scottish Highlands about 1790, and returned from there the purchaser of a dismantled plant which had been used for the grinding of Scotch snuff, then much in demand in both countries.

The firm's present snuff-making manager, who has been with the firm for 58 years, followed his father who had been with the firm for 40 years, and the father told his son that he had known a man who was at the mill when the pestle and mortar mills from Scotland were installed in 1792. That worthy, three generations back, was the transmitter of the further information, which there is no reason to doubt but every reason to believe, when the rough timber framing and the cast iron shafting and gearing are carefully inspected, that the plant from Scotland was 50 or 60 years old when it was brought across the border. This is the machinery still in economic use in 1937. Could Not be Bettered. When it had been brought into the newer premises in the centre of Kendal to be operated electrically, it was examined one day by the representative of a firm supplying the motors of a new grinding mill which the company were putting in. This authority, who certainly could not be accused of a bias in favour of the old, stated that for the particular purpose of snuffgrinding the old pestles and mortars could not be Improved on, and that there could be no point in discarding them for modern plant. More recently another engineer was requested to inspect the old plant, and while this authority would not commit himself to the statement that it was good for anoher 200 years, he was confident that it would outlast anybody now alive. The 200-year-old mills have, it is roughly estimated, turned out about 5000 tons of snuff since being installed by the first Samuel Gawith in 1792. They have survived not only their purchaser, but also Samuel Gawith the second and Samuel Gawith the third as actual operators of the business, though the last-named happily remains to match the modern developments of the business.

For distribution snuff is packed in 11b tins, of which over 11,000,000 have been supplied by the old grinding mills. Those of the best quality are sold to the trade at from 10- to 13/a lb, with cheaper grates at 8/8 to 9/a lb. It is retailed normally by the quarter ounce at 2id to 3d, a price due, of course, to the high excise duty on tobacco in all forms. Big Sum in Duty. The firm uses predominantly Em-pire-grown tobaccos, which enjoy a preferential rate, but even so stalks per 10001 b cask, value about £l7, require the Arm to put down £375 every time they move a cask from the Kendal bonded warehouse to their own premises. If it was foreign tobacco the duty per 10001 b cask would be £475. At the firm's mill on the River Eamont at Penrith, twenty-six miles away, to which I was taken to see water-power still in use as a prime mover, there were a number of snuff mills in operation that were about 100 years old. These were of the same general type and appearance as the mills twice their age in the factory at Kendal. The river was in flood. A great volume of water was rushing over the weir, and only a small fraction of the flow was passing into the mill race. It was only by chance that this mill was seen working, for too much water stops the wheel as effectually as too little, owing to the flooding of the tail-race. To the firm’s great regret modern demands for concenrtatlon necessitate the early stoppage of the interesting (Continued In Previous Column)