The alum works were much earlier -
The book “The Alum Farm” by R B TURTON, printed by Horne & Son, Ltd, Whitby in 1938 says that the CHALONER family became involved in the mining of Alum in Ireland, Dorset and the Isle of Wight in Elizabethan times.
By the early 1600s Alum was being mined in Cleveland and mention is made of Sandsend and Asholme. (Asholme if I remember right was where they mined the Alum ore in Mulgrave woods.)
Page 79 “a warrant directing the arrears to be paid on the 1st May 1617” ~~~ “The spiritual needs of the workmen and the education of their children were not neglected. William WARD, minister at Guisborough, preached at the works in his neighbourhood at a yearly salary of eighty marks, and Richard LEAKE, minister at Lyth, preached at Asholme and Sandsend at a salary of £40.”