The work on the origin and uses of the tower is not the only research that has resulted in a reworking of the history of the powder mills. It was known that John Butts was the proprietor between Edmund Hill who died in 1809 and William Harvey who took over in 1817. In 1804 John Butts had taken an 18 year lease on land on the south side of the River Crane which had been allocated as church glebe land in the Hanworth enclosure award. The farm on this land became known as Butts Farm, a name that has continued down to the present day, becoming the name of the large housing estate that was developed on the land in the 1950's.

It was naturally assumed that John Butts was a local farmer, rustic- and possibly jolly, who almost by accident took charge of the mills for 8 years between the occupation of the experts, Hill and Harvey. The first indication that this history was incomplete was to be found in the will written by Edmund Hill in 1805, 4 years before his death, in which the bequests made to members of his former workforce suggested that he was by then no longer the owner. Land charge records show that John Butts was in possession in 1804, but is not mentioned earlier. The Powder Mills are not listed before that date, but might possibly be included as part of Edmund Hill's other holdings in the parish.

From the payments by the Ordnance Office for powder (TNA WO 48 series) the most likely date for this transfer is 1798. Edmund Hill's final contract to supply gunpowder to the Ordnance Office was completed in July 1797. There were no contracts for the Hounslow Mills in 1798, then John Butts took on contracts. The first 500 barrels were delivered in April 1799, and further 500s in June, July and August. The tragedies of two explosions of corning houses that July, claiming 7 lives, with a narrow escape for a manager, possibly John Butts himself, meant that it was February 1800 before a further 500 barrels could be completed.

The original lease in November 1757 to John and Edmund Smyth from the then Earl of Northumberland was for 61 years, transferred, with additional land and mills, to Edmund Hill,- and subsequently to John Butts. A copy of this original lease is annotated with his name and the termination date, November 10th 1818.

The lease of the Hanworth glebe land can now be seen in a new context, Already well established as the proprietor of the mills, and becoming wealthy from sales to the Ordnance Office, John Butts would have been concerned that the future occupier of the enclosed former common land across the River Crane from his works might have the potential to limit his production and generally damage his interests. His solution? He took on an 18 year lease himself, putting in a tenant farmer to develop the land. He also bought from Edmund Hill the land allocated to him next to the Crane between the Glebe land and the Hanworth Rd.

Through the Napoleonic Wars the Hounslow Mills were the biggest private supplier of gunpowder, supplementing the Ordnance owned mills at Faversham and Waltham Abbey. The seven private merchants increased to nine by 1813, but only Pigou and Wilks from Dartford mills- in some years- could match the supplies from the Hounslow mills. Following similar expansion at Waltham Abbey, seven Horse mills for incorporation had been added to the ten water mills at Hounslow, increasing production to 15,000 barrels a year-out of a national 80,000 barrels. Between 1812 and 1814 John Butts was paid in total almost £120.000,- worth over £20 million today. He retired with a significant fortune in 1817, with the completion of the last contract agreed two years earlier after Napoleon's escape from Elba to meet the possible demand from sieges of fortified cities. In the event Napoleon staked all on the battle of Waterloo. see page18 note iii

The unused powder at the Ordnance meant that the market was heavily overstocked, and the new partnership of William Gillmore Harvey and Stephen Grueber which took over the Hounslow works in 1817 had to be rescued financially in 1820 by Sir William Curtis, a city financier and friend of John Butts.

Both were freemen of the city and members of the prominent Drapers Company; John Butts had been a member of the Livery Court since 1791, Warden for 3 years and Master in 1805 and 1819. He was born in 1745, named after his father, whose family came from Oxfordshire. John senior became apprenticed as a member of the Drapers company in 1736, he married Rachel Mary Sturges in June 1744: John was born in May 1745, and Elizabeth, who lived only 3 days, in June 1746. John senior, now a coppersmith in Fetter lane had been made a freeman in March of that year, but was to die 9 months later at the end of December

Rachel Mary, had become known as Mary, possibly as her mother-in-law was also Rachel, and as the widow of a freeman was an accepted member of the Drapers Company. Land Tax returns for 1747 show her in Fleet Street, taking over an Ironmongers business. She was master to a series of apprentices, beginning with Thomas Buckle in 1754, and then her son John in 1759, when he was 14 years old. He became a Freeman in 1767. Mary continued to manage the ironmongers business at 153 Fleet St until 1781. From 1764 until 1777 the firm was known as Butts and Cooke, occupying 153 and 155 Fleet St. John Butts took over 153 in 1778, and both premises from 1782. From 1780 he was in partnership with Christopher Hand, who had been apprenticed to Mary Butts between 1763 and 1771. The firm were listed as Ironmongers, Braziers and Founders and continued until Christopher Hand left to marry a Cambridgeshire heiress in 1788.

John Butts was by then a married man with a family. On the 28th July 1781 he married Mary Martha Godin at the parish church of St Mary the Virgin, Twickenham. Mary Martha had been baptised at St Leonard. Heston in 1757 to William and Sarah Godin, but the Godin family roots were in Twickenham. Mary Martha's brother, also William, was employed at the Hounslow Powder Mills, becoming manager, and was later to die at the mills in July 1796 in the explosion of a corning house. The ironmongery stock included small barrels of gunpowder, and it is possible that John Butts met his wife on visits to Hounslow to discuss purchases. John and Mary Martha had three daughters- Mary Ann (1782), Frances (1784) and Harriet (1785), all baptised at St Dunstan in the West, Fleet St.