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To add to the complication William Crawshay the First was chief partner in the selling agency of Richard and William Crawshay & Co., the 'London House' which operated from Upper Thames Street. In this concern he had for partners Robert Moser, William Routh, and his eldest son, Richard Crawshay. As Hall sought to use Cyfarthfa for the advantage of Romney, so William Crawshay the First sought to use the London House for the advancement of Cyf- arthfa, in which his Thames Street colleagues had no interest. Or rather, he con- ceived of Cyfarthfa, the manufacturing unit, and the London House, the sales unit, as specialist parts of one common enterprise, and desired to vary the emphasis as any modern entrepreneur would now do, now on the one and now on the other, to obtain the maximum balance of advantages for his enterprises as a single entity. The complicated relationships between Cyfarthfa and Romney, and Cyfarthfa and the London House, were serious obstacles to the achievement of his purpose. The elimination of Hall was essential to the policy of integrating the two units. But Benjamin Hall was too shrewd to be easily induced to sell his interests, and it was not until some period between 1817 and 1819 that William Crawshay I secured the sole ownership of his father's works. The transaction seems to have taken place quite voluntarily. The younger William Crawshay, the manager of Cyfarthfa, undoubtedly hated Hall and had to be restrained from rash conduct and litigatious words, but the father himself behaved with equable uprightness towards his unwanted partner. 'While I am obliged to be a Partner with Mr. Hall or any other man', he wrote to his son, 'I must treat him as a Partner and as I would expect him to treat me you cannot less love or esteem Hall than I do, but we must not in our Hate overleap Moderation and Prudence'. Legitimate pressure was put upon Hall to clear away the Romney debt and the Canal debt, but otherwise he was not pressed. Between February and April, 1814, he was offered sums ranging between forty and fifty thousand pounds for his share in the concern, and was thereafter left at rest. This was in extreme contrast to the second William's subsequent treatment of his brothers in the dissolution of their partnership in the London House. The first William Crawshay rather sought to quieten than exacerbate his partner. A potent source of mischief between them lay in the first William Crawshay's purchase of Anthony Bacon's claim to the mineral rents (royalties) of Cyfarthfa. Expansion of output could be interpreted as an attempt on the part of the elder Crawshay to force a greater income from this source, and Hall could reasonably fear ill-timed and excessive expansion. He did in fact suspect sinister motives for the immediate expansion upon the conclusion of the purchase from Bacon (vide below). William Crawshay's answer was to offer to make the purchase of the surplus rents a joint affair in proportion to their hold- ings in the firm of Crawshay and Hall, and he further conceded what he had in vain demanded of Bacon, a 50% reduction in the royalty. This offer Hall accepted. When he ultimately seceded from the concern, it is probable that the great depression of 1816, the financial crises, and the labour troubles of the time actuated his retirement, rather than untoward pressure.