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The Wey Navigation
Richard Scotcher complains that within a fortnight of the signing of the agreement on 14th August. 1651. Pitson, without the knowledge or consent of Scotcher or Darnelly, made a private bargain with Weston that if he returned to Pitson £1,000 he (Pitson) would buy the land for the wharfs and build the houses on them. In addition he would pay Weston a private commission of £500. Scotcher declares "the which was never bought at above £100 charge for all the buildings he built, and not above £7.10s charge for all the land he purchased for them, but the wharff at Guildford was made and built at the other partners' charge which was a great damage to them".
The quarrels continued, Pitson being accused of double-dealing, of taking money from Weston or from others whom he persuaded to add capital, and of making and keeping no accounts of what was done with this money. In the meantime, Sir Richard Weston went ahead with the work, seemingly spending £4,000 of his own money, using timber from his own estate to the value of £2,000 and agreeing to raise yet another £1,000 himself. Some of Sir Richard's money was spent on buying bricks and stones from Oatlands Palace, which Parliament had sold to Robert Turbridge of St. Martin's-in-the-Field, on condition that he demolished the buildings. The money paid by Turbridge was used to pay the Parliamentary army and Turbridge recouped it by selling the fabric of the Palace as building material, a Parliamentary Commission having previously valued this at £4,023.18s.0d.
The bricks and stones were used to build locks, bridges and lock cottages. Some of the higher locks were built with turf banks, but certainly the lower locks were built of the narrow red Tudor bricks from the Palace of Oatlands. This was confirmed in the 1930's when a barge ran into the side of the Weybridge Lock knocking off the facing of the sides, so that the old brickwork was exposed beneath the modern. Dr. Eric Gardner, a former Curator of the Weybridge Museum, went along to see this and confirmed that the original brickwork had been laid in Tudor bricks.
Sir Richard Weston died on 7th May, 1652, nine months after the work had begun, and in that time some ten miles of the planned fourteen miles of canalisation had been completed. Sir Richard had appointed his son George to carry on his work; George Weston had no option but to trust in James Pitson who promised to raise further money for him. Scotcher recalls that Pitson sold shares, but still asked George Weston for £300 in order to buy extra land. The affairs of the Navigation partners seem generally to be confused. The shareholders were forced to spend more money than they had raised, until they could not pay the interest on money borrowed, nor pay for the land they had contracted to buy, nor indeed pay the workmen who dug the cut and it is not surprising that George Weston was arrested for his father's debts in November of 1652 after completing the work to within a mile of the Thames. James Pitson and Richard Scotcher completed the Navigation, the bulk of the work (and the debts) falling on Scotcher although Pitson took the credit. Pitson also seems to have continued to take money out of the capital. The Navigation was officially opened in 1653, immediately producing £800 from the tolls on goods carried along it; this sum quickly rose to £15,000 a year, which should have been shared by the various partners in the concern, now numbering nine (George Weston having taken over his father's share). In 1654 the shareholders, led by Richard Scotcher, took Pitson to court for settlement of the partnerships affairs and debts, declaring that there had not at any time been "playne dealling" by Major James Pitson in the contracts made in the name of the partnership. The outcome of this suit was a deed, dated 10th August, 1654, which empowered one William Wetton to manage and govern the river and navigation for two years, provided he reimbursed Richard Scotcher, Richard Darnelly and the other partners for debts they had contracted in purchasing lands and wharfs for the use of the Navigation. The document written by Richard Scotcher in 1657 pleads that the case be heard again "and I shall justify-what I have heer writ if I may come to a ffaire tryall for it".
