Richard Weston

Portrait of Sir Richard Weston, attributed to Cornelis de Neve, c. 1630 Sir Richard Weston (1591–1652) was an English canal builder and agricultural improver. He instigated the construction of the Wey Navigation—one of the first man-made navigations in Britain—and introduced new plants and systems of crop rotation.

Biography

Weston was born in 1591, the eldest son of Sir Richard Weston (1564-1613) of Sutton Place, Surrey, by Jane Dister (d.1625), daughter of John Dister of Bergholt, Essex. He was the great-great-grandson of Sir Richard Weston (1465-1541), builder of Sutton Place.

He was educated, or spent part of his early life, in Flanders. In 1613, he succeeded to the family estates at Sutton and Clandon and was knighted on 27 July 1622 at Guildford.

Sir Richard Weston was ambassador from England to Frederic the fifth, Elector Palatine, and King of Bohemia, in 1619. He was present at the famous battle of Prague in 1620.

In the early 1630s, Weston decided to copy the canal and lock system prevalent in The Netherlands to make the River Wey navigable between Weybridge and Guildford. He was appointed one of the Royal Commissioners to oversee the work in 1635. During the English Civil War (1642–1651), his property was sequestrated and he went into exile.

In 1644, he visited Ghent, Bruges and Antwerp and studied agricultural methods in use there. By 1649 he was back in England and instigated a bill in parliament to authorise the construction of the navigation which became an Act of Parliament in 1651. Weston immediately set to work on construction, although he died before the scheme reached completion.

One of his first agricultural schemes was to increase the hay yield, by introducing a new strain of hay and by irrigation schemes. He also introduced from Flanders a crop rotation scheme based on clover, flax and turnips. In 1645 he had written an account of Flemish husbandry which formed the basis of the "Discours" published in various versions in 1651 and 1652.

Weston died aged 61 and was buried at Trinity Chapel Guildford. He married Grace Harper of Cheshunt and by her had seven sons and two daughters.

Work Canal building Sir Richard Weston was the first to introduce, at any rate into the Surrey district, the system, long prevalent in Holland, of rendering rivers and canals navigable by means of locks. He attempted by this means to make the River Wey navigable from Guildford to its junction with the Thames at Weybridge. In 1635 he was appointed one of the royal commissioners for the prosecution of the work. It was perhaps the expenditure necessitated by his canal scheme which forced him in 1641 to sell Temple Court Farm at Merrow, with the mansion at West Clandon, to Sir Richard Onslow, MP for Surrey in the Long Parliament.

Sir Richard's irrigated meadows are referred to by a contemporary writer:

Speed also refers to another improvement of Sir Richard's, the most characteristic of all: his introduction of a new system of crop rotation founded on the cultivation of clover, flax, and turnips. This Sir Richard brought from Flanders, where he had noticed its practice during his exile. A full account of the Flemish husbandry, written about 1645, he had addressed to his sons from abroad. This seems to have been circulated in manuscript, but there is no evidence that it was ever printed until 1650, when an imperfect copy was published by Samuel Hartlib, with a dedication to the council of state, and with the date 1605 (evidently a mistake for 1650, and so corrected in manuscript in many copies). Hartlib did not at this time know who the author was.

His directions for the cultivation of clover are better than was to be expected. It thrives best, he says, when you sow it on the worst and barrenest ground, such as our worst heath ground is in England. The ground is to be pared and burnt, and unslacked lime must be added to the ashes. It is next to be well ploughed and harrowed; and about ten pounds of clover seed must be sown on an acre in April or the end of March.

If you intended to preserve seed, then the second crop must be let stand till it come to a full and dead ripeness, and you shall have at the least five bushels per acre. Being once sown, it will last five years; and then being ploughed, it will yield, three or four years together, rich crops of wheat, and after that a crop of oats, with which clover seed is to be sown again. It is in itself an excellent manure, Weston adds; and so it should be, to enable land to bear this treatment. In less than ten years after its introduction, that is, before 1655, the culture of clover, exactly according to the present method, seems to have been well known in England, and it had also made its way to Ireland.

Selected publications Sir Richard Weston (1645) Discourse on the Husbandry of Brabant and Flanders, published by Samuel Hartlib, 24 pages. Richard Weston, Samuel Hartlib (1655) Discourse on the Husbandry of Brabant and Flanders, enlarged edition.