A NEW METHOD OF TANNING LEATHER
Year: 1770

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JOHN
JOHNSON, of Ludham, in the County of Norfolk, Tanner, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Maty King George the Third did, by
His Letters Patent, under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date the
Twenty-third day of May, in the tenth year of His reign, give and grant unto
me, the said John Johnson, bis especial licence, that I, the said John Johnson,
during the term of years therein expressed, should and lawfully might use,
exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and Town of Berwick-upon-
Tweed, my Invention of "A NEW METHOD OF TANNING LEATHER;" in which said
Letters Patent there is contained a proviso, obliging me, the said John
Johnson, under my hand and seal, to cause a particular description of the
nature of my said Invention, and how the same is to be performed, to be
inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within four calendar
months after the date of the said recited Letters Patent, as in and by the same
(relation being thereunto had) may more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said provisoe, I, the said
John Johnson, doe hereby declare, that my said Invention of a New Method
of Tanning Leather is described in the manner following (that is to say) :-
Into a scouring vatt, which will contain about six barrells, is put five
barrells of water as it comes from the pump or spring. Into that quantity of
water I put seven pounds of the spirit of vitriol, or the same quantity of either
the spirit of sea salt or aqua fortis, tho' I more frequently make use of the
vitriol only. When the scouring is thus made, the hides that are designed for

page_text: sole leather are put into it for working, or more generally in an older scouring
first, and if kept with handling and shifting, as in the common way of working
of soles, will be compleatly wrought in twenty-four hours; a worker thus
made will compleatly work six, sometimes seven, sole hides. When the
hides are thus wrought, they are laid away with bark, and treated as in the
common way of tanning, until they come into the second layer of bark. Then,
before the leather is laid into the vatts that will hold fifteen sole hides, when
barked down with about fifteen bushels of bark into fourteen barrells of wooze,
I put seven pounds, or, if necessary, ten pounds of the spirit of vitriol, or the
same quantity of the spirit of sea salt or aqua fortis, though I in this case more
frequently make use of the vitriol only. When the vatt of leather is thus laid
down in the second layer, it lays still for at least ten or twelve weeks. When it
has laid that time, the leather is taken out of that vatt and laid into another
vatt, where soles of the third layer have been drawn out for sale, in the same
manner as they were laid into the second layer. When they have laid about
twelve or fourteen weeks in the third layer, they are drawn out of the vatt, in
order to be dryed for sale, compleatly tanned.
As to what we called crop leather, when the hides are woozed enough for
laying away I have a very strong wooze drawn from them. Into a handler
that will contain fifteen hides I put seven pounds of the spirit of vitriol, or
the same quantity either of the spirit of sea salt or aqua fortis, though here
I more frequently use the spirit of vitriol only, as it does the business as
effectually, and at much less expence. When I have put the above quantity
of vitriol into the handler, the hides are put into it with the dust or bark, as
in the common way of tanning, and kept, with handling two or three times a
day, for seven or eight days; after that time they are laid into a layer vatt with
upper leather hides, and proceeded with as in the usual way of tanning, until
they are laid into the last layer. Into a vatt that will contain forty hides, when
laid down with bark, I put seven pounds, sometimes ten pounds, of the spirit
of vitriol, or the same quantity of the spirit of sea salt or aqua fortis, but I
prefer the spirit of vitriol, for the reason before given.
In calf-skin tanning, I do not go out of the common way of tanning until the
last layer, when into a vatt that will hold twelve dozen skins I put the same
quantity that I put for forty hides of the spirit of vitriol, or the spirit of sea
salt or aqua fortis.
In witness whereof, I, the said John Johnson, have hereunto set my hand
and seal, the Fourth day of August, One thousand seven hundred and
JOHN JOHNSON. (L.S.)

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBRED, that on the same fourth day of August, in
the year above said, the aforesaid John Johnson came before our said Lord
the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification aforesaid, and
all and every thing therein contained, in form above written. And also the Spe-
cification aforesaid was stampt according to the tenor of the Statute made
in the sixth year of the reign of the late King and Queen William and Mary
of England, & so forth.
Inrolled the Ninth day of August, in the year above said.