Constance family, a History of Longhope's Saw Mills . (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Monday, May 16, 2016, 17:07 (3107 days ago) @ Jefff

I found this history of Longhope's Saw Mills on the internet a few years back, but then lost it within my PC !, I don't think it is still available online. It's effectively a draft copy of the text that may now be found within the 2010 Edition of the Victoria County History of Gloucestershire, Volume XII, "Newent and May Hill". Unlike the sections about Westbury on Severn and the Forest of Dean, this latest addition to the Gloucestershire History is unfortunately not yet free-to-view on the British History website.

http://www.victoriacountyhistory.ac.uk/counties/gloucestershire/publications

"WOODLAND CRAFTS AND SAW MILLS

Longhope’s woodland has supported a variety of crafts and trades other than charcoal burning. In 1608 a cooper, a turner, and two sawyers lived in Longhope and in the mid 18th century the parish was an important producer of handles for mops, brooms, and rakes, hoops for casks and barrels, and laths, many of the products being sent for sale to Bristol and Bewdley (Worcs.) as well as Gloucester.
Theophilus Constance was a turner at the turn of the century and his son James (d. 1890), who in 1835 ran the family’s workshop by the Longhope brook north of the village centre (in the later Church Road), had 20 employees in 1851. At that time, when perhaps as many labourers were employed in wood turning and other woodland crafts as were in agricultural work, Peter Constance ran a smaller turnery. Earlier, in 1821, in a short-lived venture Benjamin Constance operated a paper mill in Longhope. James Constance’s business mostly making handles for domestic, garden, and agricultural tools grew after the opening of the railway. The mill in the village street (Church Road) was enlarged and at the end of the century, under S.W. Constance, most of its products were for markets outside the county. Another saw mill operated south of the Monmouth road on the site of a water mill and hoop and hurdle making continued in the early 20th century next to the railway station.
The firm of James Constance & Sons, which absorbed a number of smaller local businesses, increased its workforce in the late 1920s and, having been sold in the 1940s, employed 40 men and women in the early 1970s. The mill, which mainly used birch wood, ceased to be a turnery in 1981 and its site was adapted as an industrial estate. In the 1960s, when a number of other businesses, two of them new in 1953, made ladders and interwoven fencing, there were saw mills by the Ross road west of Dursley Cross and at Upper End as well as that by the Monmouth road. A timber merchant had been based at Upper End in the 1920s and 1930s."

Thanks to (VCH COUNTY Texts in Progress (Gloucestershire, Volume 12) – 08/07 - © University of London )

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This site carries the Kelly's Directory of 1879, which lists three Constances within the Longhope area.
http://www.forest-of-dean.net/joomla/resources/kelly-s-directory-1879/60-longhope

The Morris & Co. Commercial Directory & Gazetteer of 1876 includes them and more;
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cbennett/longhope1876.htm

Clergy, Gentry and Private Residents;

CONSTANCE Mr. James, Steps farm

CONSTANCE Mrs. Maria

Trades and Professions;

CONSTANCE Eli, wood turner

CONSTANCE James and Sons, wood turners and manufacturers of garden rake, broom, mop, paddle, and hoe handles, prong stems, hay rakes, and adze, axe, pickaxe, sneads, and scythe handles, Steam Saw mills

CONSTANCE James (firm of James Constance and Sons); h. Springfield house

CONSTANCE John, farmer, Hill house

CONSTANCE Mrs. Mary Ann, farmer, Court farm

CONSTANCE Stephen William (firm of Jas. Constance and Sons); The Walk

CONSTANCE Theophilus Harris (firm of Jas. Constance and Sons), timber merchant; h. Olive cottage