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Industrial Biography
by Samuel Smiles
January, 1995 [Etext #404]
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INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY
Iron Workers and Tool Makers
by Samuel Smiles
(this etext was produced from a reprint of the 1863 first edition)
PREFACE.
The Author offers the following book as a continuation, in a more generally accessible form, of the Series of Memoirs of Industrial Men introduced in his Lives of the Engineers. While preparing that work he frequently came across the tracks of celebrated inventors, mechanics, and iron-workers--the founders, in a great measure, of the modern industry of Britain--whose labours seemed to him well worthy of being traced out and placed on record, and the more so as their lives presented many points of curious and original interest. Having been encouraged to prosecute the subject by offers of assistance from some of the most eminent living mechanical engineers, he is now enabled to present the following further series of memoirs to the public.
Without exaggerating the importance of this class of biography, it may at least be averred that it has not yet received its due share of attention. While commemorating the labours and honouring the names of those who have striven to elevate man above the material and mechanical, the labours of the important industrial class to whom society owes so much of its comfort and well-being are also entitled to consideration. Without derogating from the biographic claims of those who minister to intellect and taste, those who minister to utility need not be overlooked. When a Frenchman was praising to Sir John Sinclair the artist who invented ruffles, the Baronet shrewdly remarked that some merit was also due to the man who added the shirt.
A distinguished living mechanic thus expresses himself to the Author on this point: - "Kings, warriors, and statesmen have heretofore monopolized not only the pages of history, but almost those of biography. Surely some niche ought to be found for the Mechanic, without whose skill and labour society, as it is, could not exist. I do not begrudge destructive heroes their fame, but the constructive ones ought not to be forgotten; and there IS a heroism of skill and toil belonging to the latter class, worthy of as grateful record,--less perilous and romantic, it may be, than that of the other, but not less full of the results of human energy, bravery, and character. The lot of labour is indeed often a dull one; and it is doing a public service to endeavour to lighten it up by records of the struggles and triumphs of our more illustrious workers, and the results of their labours in the cause of human advancement."
As respects the preparation of the following memoirs, the Author's principal task has consisted in selecting and arranging the materials so liberally placed at his disposal by gentlemen for the most part personally acquainted with the subjects of them, and but for whose assistance the book could not have been written. The materials for the biography of Henry Maudslay, for instance, have been partly supplied by the late Mr. Joshua Field, F.R.S. (his partner), but principally by Mr. James Nasmyth, C.E., his distinguished pupil. In like manner Mr. John Penn, C.E., has supplied the chief materials for the memoir of Joseph Clement, assisted by Mr. Wilkinson, Clement's nephew. The Author has also had the valuable assistance of Mr. William Fairbairn, F.R.S., Mr. J. O. March, tool manufacturer (Mayor of Leeds), Mr. Richard Roberts, C.E., Mr. Henry Maudslay, C.E., and Mr. J. Kitson, Jun., iron manufacturer, Leeds, in the preparation of the other memoirs of mechanical engineers included in this volume.
The materials for the memoirs of the early iron-workers have in like manner been obtained for the most part from original sources; those of the Darbys and Reynoldses from Mr. Dickinson of Coalbrookdale, Mr. William Reynolds of Coed-du, and Mr. William G. Norris of the former place, as well as from Mr. Anstice of Madeley Wood, who has kindly supplied the original records of the firm. The substance of the biography of Benjamin Huntsman, the inventor of cast-steel, has been furnished by his lineal representatives; and the facts embodied in the memoirs of Henry Cort and David Mushet have been supplied by the sons of those inventors. To Mr. Anderson Kirkwood of Glasgow the Author is indebted for the memoir of James Beaumont Neilson, inventor of the hot blast; and to Mr. Ralph Moore, Inspector of Mines in Scotland, for various information relative to the progress of the Scotch iron manufacture.
The memoirs of Dud Dudley and Andrew Yarranton are almost the only ones of the series in preparing which material assistance has been derived from books; but these have been largely illustrated by facts contained in original documents preserved in the State Paper Office, the careful examination of which has been conducted by Mr. W. Walker Wilkins.
It will thus be observed that most of the information embodied in this volume, more especially that relating to the inventors of tools and machines, has heretofore existed only in the memories of the eminent mechanical engineers from whom it has been collected. The estimable Joshua Field has died since the date at which he communicated his recollections; and in a few more years many of the facts which have been caught and are here placed on record would, probably, in the ordinary course of things, have passed into oblivion. As it is, the Author feels that there are many gaps yet to be filled up; but the field of Industrial Biography is a wide one,and is open to all who will labour in it.
London, October, 1863.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
IRON AND CIVILIZATION.
The South Sea Islanders and iron
Uses of iron for tools
The Stone, Bronze, and Iron ages
Recent discoveries in the beds of the Swiss lakes
Iron the last metal to come into general use, and why
The first iron smelters
Early history of iron in Britain
The Romans
Social importance of the Smith in early times
Enchanted swords
Early scarcity of iron in Scotland
Andrea de Ferrara
Scarcity of iron in England at the time of the Armada
Importance of iron for national defence
CHAPTER II.
BEGINNINGS OF THE IRON-MANUFACTURER IN BRITAIN.
Iron made in the Forest of Dean in Anglo-Saxon times
Monkish iron-workers
Early iron-smelting in Yorkshire
Much iron imported from abroad
Iron manufactures of Sussex
Manufacture of cannon
Wealthy ironmasters of Sussex
Founder of the Gale family
Extensive exports of English ordnance
Destruction of timber in iron-smelting
The manufacture placed under restrictions
The Sussex furnaces blown out
CHAPTER III.
IRON SMELTING BY PIT-COAL--DUD DUDLEY.
Greatly reduced production of English iron
Proposal to use pit-coal instead of charcoal of wood in smelting
Sturtevant's patent
Rovenson's
Dud Dudley; his family his history
Uses pit-coal to smelt iron with success
Takes out his patent
The quality of the iron proved by tests
Dudley's works swept away by a flood
Rebuilds his works, and they are destroyed by a mob
Renewal of his patent
Outbreak of the Civil War
Dudley joins the Royalists, and rises to be General of artillery
His perilous adventures and hair-breadth escapes
His estate confiscated
Recommences iron-smelting
Various attempts to smelt with pit-coal
Dudley's petitions to the King
His death
CHAPTER IV.
ANDREW YARRANTON.
A forgotten patriot
The Yarranton family
Andrew Yarranton's early life
A soldier under the Parliament
Begins iron works
Is seized and imprisoned
His plans for improving internal navigation
Improvements in agriculture
Manufacture of tin plate
His journey into Saxony to learn it
Travels in Holland
His views of trade and industry
His various projects
His 'England's Improvement by Sea and Land'
His proposed Land Bank
His proposed Registry of Real Estate
His controversies
His iron-mining
Value of his labours
CHAPTER V.
COALBROOKDALE IRON WORKS--THE DARBYS AND REYNOLDSES.
Failure in the attempts to smelt iron with pit-coal
Dr. Blewstone's experiment
Decay of the ironmanufacture
Abraham Darby
His manufacture of cast-iron pots at Bristol
Removes to Coalbrookdale
His method of smelting iron
Increased use of coke
Use of pit-coal by Richard Ford
Richard Reynolds joins the Coalbrookdale firm
Invention of the Craneges in iron-refining
Letter of Richard Reynolds on the subject
Invention of cast-iron rails by Reynolds
Abraham Darby the Second constructs the first iron bridge
Extension of the Coalbrookdale Works
William Reynolds: his invention of inclined planes for working canals
Retirement of Richard Reynolds from the firm
His later years, character, and death
CHAPTER VI.
INVENTION OF CAST STEEL - BENJAMIN HUNTSMAN.
Conversion of iron into steel
Early Sheffield manufactures
Invention of blistered steel
Important uses of cast-steel
Le Play's writings on the subject
Early career of Benjamin Huntsman at Doncaster
His experiments in steel-making
Removes to the neighbourhood of Sheffield
His laborious investigations, failures, and eventual success
Process of making cast-steel
The Sheffield manufacturers refuse to use it
Their opposition foiled
How they wrested Huntsman's secret from him
Important results of the invention to the industry of Sheffield
Henry Bessemer and his process
Heath's invention
Practical skill of the Sheffield artisans
CHAPTER VII.
THE INVENTIONS OF HENRY CORT.
Parentage of Henry Cort
Becomes a navy agent
State of the iron trade
Cort's experiments in iron-making
Takes a foundry at Fontley
Partnership with Jellicoe
Various improvers in iron-making: Roebuck, Cranege, Onions
Cort's improved processes described
His patents
His inventions adopted by Crawshay, Homfray, and other ironmasters
Cort's iron approved by the Admiralty
Public defalcations of Adam Jellicoe, Cort's partner
Cort's property and patents confiscated
Public proceedings thereon
Ruin of Henry Cort
Account of Richard Crawshay, the great ironmaster
His early life
Ironmonger in London
Starts an iron-furnace at Merthyr Tydvil
Projects and makes a canal
Growth of Merthyr Tydvil and its industry
Henry Cort the founder of the iron aristocracy, himself unrewarded
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SCOTCH IRON MANUFACTURE--Dr. ROEBUCK--DAVID MUSHET.
Dr. Roebuck, a forgotten public benefactor
His birth and education
Begins business as a physician at Birmingham
Investigations in metallurgy
Removes to Scotland, and begins the manufacture of chemicals, &c.
Starts the Carron Iron Works, near Falkirk
His invention of refining iron in a pit-coal fire
Embarks in coal-mining at Boroughstoness
Residence at Kinneil House
Pumping-engines wanted for his colliery
Is introduced to James Watt
Progress of Watt in inventing the steam-engine
Interviews with Dr. Roebuck
Roebuck becomes a partner in the steam-engine patent
Is involved in difficulties, and eventually ruined
Advance of the Scotch iron trade
Discovery of the Black Band by David Mushet
Early career of Mushet
His laborious experiments
His inventions and discoveries in iron and steel, and death
CHAPTER IX.
INVENTION OF THE HOT BLAST--JAMES BEAUMONT NEILSON.
Difficulty of smelting the Black Band by ordinary process until the
invention of the hot blast
Early career of James Beaumont Neilson
Education and apprenticeship
Works as an engine-fireman
As colliery engine-wright
Appointed foreman of the Glasgow Gas-works; afterwards manager and engineer
His self-education
His Workmen's Institute
His experiments in iron-smelting
Trials with heated air in the blast-furnace
Incredulity of ironmasters
Success of his experiments, and patenting of his process
His patent right disputed, and established
Extensive application of the hot blast
Increase of the Scotch iron trade
Extraordinary increase in the value of estates yielding Black Band
Scotch iron aristocracy
CHAPTER X.
MECHANICAL INVENTIONS AND INVENTORS.
Tools and civilization
The beginnings of tools
Dexterity of hand chiefly relied on
Opposition to manufacturing machines
Gradual process of invention
The human race the true inventor
Obscure origin of many inventions
Inventions born before their time
"Nothing new under the sun"
The power of steam known to the ancients
Passage from Roger Bacon
Old inventions revived
Printing
Atmospheric locomotion
The balloon
The reaping machine
Tunnels
Gunpowder
Ancient firearms
The steam gun
The Congreve rocket
Coal-gas
Hydropathy
Anaesthetic agents
The Daguerreotype anticipated
The electric telegraph not new
Forgotten inventors
Disputed inventions
Simultaneous inventions
Inventions made step by step
James Watt's difficulties with his workmen
Improvements in modern machine-tools
Their perfection
The engines of "The Warrior"
CHAPTER XI.
JOSEPH BRAMAH.
The inventive faculty
Joseph Bramah's early life
His amateur work
Apprenticed to a carpenter
Starts as cabinet-maker in London
Takes out a patent for his water-closet
Makes pumps and ironwork
Invention of his lock
Invents tools required in lock-making
Invents his hydrostatic machine
His hydraulic press
The leathern collar invented by Henry Maudslay
Bramah's other inventions
His fire-engine
His beer-pump
Improvements in the steam-engine
His improvements in machine-tools
His number-printing machine
His pen-cutter
His hydraulic machinery
Practises as civil engineer
Altercation with William Huntington, "S.S."
Bramah's character and death
CHAPTER XII.
HENRY MAUDSLAY.
The Maudslays
Henry Maudslay
Employed as powder-boy in Woolwich Arsenal
Advanced to the blacksmiths' shop
His early dexterity in smith-work
His "trivet" making
Employed by Bramah
Proves himself a first-class workman
Advanced to be foreman of the works
His inventions of tools required for lock-making
His invention of the leathern collar in the hydraulic press
Leaves Bramah's service and begins business for himself
His first smithy in Wells Street
His first job
Invention of the slide-lathe
Resume of the history of the turning-lathe
Imperfection of tools about the middle of last century
The hand-lathe
Great advantages of the slide rest
First extensively used in constructing Brunel's Block Machinery
Memoir of Brunel
Manufacture of ships' blocks
Sir S. Bentham's specifications
Introduction of Brunel to Maudslay
The block-machinery made, and its success
Increased operations of the firm
Improvements in the steam-engine
Invention of the punching-machine
Further improvements in the slide-lathe
Screw-cutting machine
Maudslay a dexterous and thoughtful workman
His character described by his pupil, James Nasmyth
Anecdotes and traits
Maudslay's works a first-class school for workmen
His mode of estimating character
His death
CHAPTER XIII.
JOSEPH CLEMENT.
Skill in contrivance a matter of education
Birth and parentage of Joseph Clement
Apprenticed to the trade of a slater
His skill in amateur work
Makes a turning-lathe
Gives up slating, and becomes a mechanic
Employed at Kirby Stephen in making power-looms
Removes to Carlisle
Glasgow
Peter Nicholson teaches him drawing
Removes to Aberdeen
Works as a mechanic and attends College
London
Employed by Alexander Galloway
Employed by Bramah
Advanced to be foreman
Draughtsman at Maudslay and Field's
Begins business on his own account
His skill as a mechanical draughtsman
Invents his drawing instrument
His drawing-table
His improvements in the self-acting lathe
His double-driving centre-chuck and two-armed driver
His fluted taps and dies
Invention of his Planing Machine
Employed to make Babbage's Calculating Machine
Resume of the history of apparatus for making calculations
Babbage's engine proceeded with
Its great cost
Interruption of the work
Clement's steam-whistles
Makes an organ
Character and death
CHAPTER XIV.
FOX OF DERBY--MURRAY OF LEEDS--ROBERTS AND WHITWORTH OF MANCHESTER.
The first Fox of Derby originally a butler
His genius for mechanics
Begins business as a machinist
Invents a Planing Machine
Matthew Murray's Planing Machine
Murray's early career
Employed as a blacksmith by Marshall of Leeds
His improvements of flax-machinery
Improvements in steam-engines
Makes the first working locomotive for Mr. Blenkinsop
Invents the Heckling Machine
His improvements in tools
Richard Roberts of Manchester
First a quarryman, next a pattern-maker
Drawn for the militia, and flies
His travels
His first employment at Manchester
Goes to London, and works at Maudslay's
Roberts's numerous inventions
Invents a planing machine
The self-acting mule
Iron billiard-tables
Improvements in the locomotive
Invents the Jacquard punching machine
Makes turret-clocks and electro-magnets
Improvement in screw-steamships
Mr. Whitworth's improvement of the planing machine
His method of securing true surfaces
His great mechanical skill
CHAPTER XV.
JAMES NASMYTH.
Traditional origin of the Naesmyths
Alexander Nasmyth the painter, and his family
Early years of James Nasmyth
The story of his life told by himself
Becomes a pupil of Henry Maudslay
How he lived and worked in London
Begins business at Manchester
Story of the invention of the Steam Hammer
The important uses of the Hammer in modem engineering
Invents the steam pile-driving machine
Designs a new form of steam-engine
Other inventions How he "Scotched" a strike
Uses of strikes
Retirement from business
Skill as a draughtsman
Curious speculations on antiquarian subjects
Mr. Nasmyth's wonderful discoveries in Astronomy
described by Sir John Herschel
CHAPTER XVI.
WILLIAM FAIRBAIRN.
Summary of progress in machine-tools
William Fairbairn's early years
His education
Life in the Highlands
Begins work at Kelso Bridge
An apprentice at Percy Main Colliery, North Shields
Diligent self-culture
Voyage to London
Adventures
Prevented obtaining work by the Millwrights' Union
Travels into the country, finds work, and returns to London
His first order, to make a sausage-chopping machine
Wanderschaft
Makes nail-machinery for a Dublin employer
Proceeds to Manchester, where he settles and marries
Begins business
His first job
Partnership with Mr. Lillie
Employed by Messrs. Adam Murray and Co.
Employed by Messrs. MacConnel and Kennedy
Progress of the Cotton Trade
Memoir of John Kennedy
Mr. Fairbairn introduces great improvements in the gearing, &c.
of mill machinery
Increasing business Improvements in water-wheels
Experiments as to the law of traction of boats
Begins building iron ships
Experiments on the strength of wrought iron
Britannia and Conway Tubular Bridges
Reports on iron
On boiler explosions
Iron construction
Extended use of iron
Its importance in civilization
Opinion of Mr. Cobden
Importance of modern machine-tools
Conclusion
INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY.
CHAPTER I.
IRON AND CIVILIZATION.
"Iron is not only the soul of every other manufacture, but the main spring perhaps of civilized society."--FRANCIS HORNER.
"Were the use of iron lost among us, we should in a few ages be unavoidably reduced to the wants and ignorance of the ancient savage Americans; so that he who first made known the use of that contemptible mineral may be truly styled the father of Arts and the author of Plenty."--JOHN LOCKE.
When Captain Cook and the early navigators first sailed into the South Seas on their voyages of discovery, one of the things that struck them with most surprise was the avidity which the natives displayed for iron. "Nothing would go down with our visitors," says Cook, "but metal; and iron was their beloved article." A nail would buy a good-sized pig; and on one occasion the navigator bought some four hundred pounds weight of fish for a few wretched knives improvised out of an old hoop.
"For iron tools," says Captain Carteret, "we might have purchased everything upon the Freewill Islands that we could have brought away. A few pieces of old iron hoop presented to one of the natives threw him into an ecstasy little short of distraction." At Otaheite the people were found generally well-behaved and honest; but they were not proof against the fascinations of iron. Captain Cook says that one of them, after resisting all other temptations, "was at length ensnared by the charms of basket of nails." Another lurked about for several days, watching the opportunity to steal a coal-rake.
The navigators found they could pay their way from island to island merely with scraps of iron, which were as useful for the purpose as gold coins would have been in Europe. The drain, however, being continuous, Captain Cook became alarmed at finding his currency almost exhausted; and he relates his joy on recovering an old anchor which the French Captain Bougainville had lost at Bolabola, on which he felt as an English banker would do after a severe run upon him for gold, when suddenly placed in possession of a fresh store of bullion.
The avidity for iron displayed by these poor islanders will not be wondered at when we consider that whoever among them was so fortunate as to obtain possession of an old nail, immediately became a man of greater power than his fellows, and assumed the rank of a capitalist. "An Otaheitan chief," says Cook, "who had got two nails in his possession, received no small emolument by letting out the use of them to his neighbours for the purpose of boring holes when their own methods failed, or were thought too tedious."
The native methods referred to by Cook were of a very clumsy sort; the principal tools of the Otaheitans being of wood, stone, and flint. Their adzes and axes were of stone. The gouge most commonly used by them was made out of the bone of the human forearm. Their substitute for a knife was a shell, or a bit of flint or jasper. A shark's tooth, fixed to a piece of wood, served for an auger; a piece of coral for a file; and the skin of a sting-ray for a polisher. Their saw was made of jagged fishes' teeth fixed on the convex edge of a piece of hard wood. Their weapons were of a similarly rude description; their clubs and axes were headed with stone, and their lances and arrows were tipped with flint. Fire was another agency employed by them, usually in boat-building. Thus, the New Zealanders, whose tools were also of stone, wood, or bone, made their boats of the trunks of trees hollowed out by fire.
The stone implements were fashioned, Captain Cook says, by rubbing one stone upon another until brought to the required shape; but, after all, they were found very inefficient for their purpose. They soon became blunted and useless; and the laborious process of making new tools had to be begun again. The delight of the islanders at being put in possession of a material which was capable of taking a comparatively sharp edge and keeping it, may therefore readily be imagined; and hence the remarkable incidents to which we have referred in the experience of the early voyagers. In the minds of the natives, iron became the representative of power, efficiency, and wealth; and they were ready almost to fall down and worship their new tools, esteeming the axe as a deity, offering sacrifices to the saw, and holding the knife in especial veneration.
In the infancy of all nations the same difficulties must have been experienced for want of tools, before the arts of smelting and working in metals had become known; and it is not improbable that the Phoenician navigators who first frequented our coasts found the same avidity for bronze and iron existing among the poor woad-stained Britons who flocked down to the shore to see their ships and exchange food and skins with them, that Captain Cook discovered more than two thousand years later among the natives of Otaheite and New Zealand. For, the tools and weapons found in ancient burying-places in all parts of Britain clearly show that these islands also have passed through the epoch of stone and flint.
There was recently exhibited at the Crystal Palace a collection of
ancient European weapons and implements placed alongside a similar
collection of articles brought from the South Seas; and they were in
most respects so much alike that it was difficult to believe that
they did not belong to the same race and period, instead of being the
implements of races sundered by half the globe, and living at periods
more than two thousand years apart. Nearly every weapon in the one
collection had its counterpart in the other,--the mauls or celts of
stone, the spearheads of flint or jasper, the arrowheads of flint or
bone, and the saws of jagged stone, showing how human ingenuity,
under like circumstances, had resorted to like expedients. It would
also appear that the ancient tribes in these islands, like the New
Zealanders, used fire to hollow out their larger boats; several
specimens of this kind of vessel having recently been dug up in the
valleys of the Witham and the Clyde, some of the latter from under
the very streets of modern Glasgow.*
[footnote...
"Mr.John Buchanan, a zealous antiquary, writing in 1855, informs us
that in the course of the eight years preceding that date, no less
than seventeen canoes had been dug out of this estuarine silt [of the
valley of the Clyde], and that he had personally inspected a large
number of them before they were exhumed. Five of them lay buried in
silt under the streets of Glasgow, one in a vertical position with
the prow uppermost, as if it had sunk in a storm.... Almost every one
of these ancient boats was formed out of a single oak-stem, hollowed
out by blunt tools, probably stone axes, aided by the action of fire;
a few were cut beautifully smooth, evidently with metallic tools.
Hence a gradation could be traced from a pattern of extreme rudeness
to one showing great mechanical ingenuity.... In one of the canoes a
beautifully polished celt or axe of greenstone was found; in the
bottom of another a plug of cork, which, as Mr. Geikie remarks,
'could only have come from the latitudes of Spain, Southern France,
or Italy.'"-- Sir C. LYELL, Antiquity of Man, 48-9.
...]
Their smaller boats, or coracles, were made of osiers interwoven,
covered with hides, and rigged with leathern sails and thong tackle.
It will readily be imagined that anything like civilization, as at present understood, must have been next to impossible under such circumstances. "Miserable indeed," says Carlyle, "was the condition of the aboriginal savage, glaring fiercely from under his fleece of hair, which with the beard reached down to his loins, and hung round them like a matted cloak; the rest of his body sheeted in its thick natural fell. He loitered in the sunny glades of the forest, living on wild fruits; or, as the ancient Caledonians, squatted himself in morasses, lurking for his bestial or human prey; without implements, without arms, save the ball of heavy flint, to which, that his sole possession and defence might not be lost, he had attached a long cord of plaited thongs; thereby recovering as well as hurling it with deadly, unerring skill."
The injunction given to man to "replenish the earth and subdue it" could not possibly be fulfilled with implements of stone. To fell a tree with a flint hatchet would occupy the labour of a month, and to clear a small patch of ground for purposes of culture would require the combined efforts of a tribe. For the same reason, dwellings could not be erected; and without dwellings domestic tranquillity, security, culture, and refinement, especially in a rude climate, were all but impossible. Mr. Emerson well observes, that "the effect of a house is immense on human tranquillity, power, and refinement. A man in a cave or a camp--a nomad--dies with no more estate than the wolf or the horse leaves. But so simple a labour as a house being achieved, his chief enemies are kept at bay. He is safe from the teeth of wild animals, from frost, sunstroke, and weather; and fine faculties begin to yield their fine harvest. Inventions and arts are born, manners, and social beauty and delight." But to build a house which should serve for shelter, for safety, and for comfort--in a word, as a home for the family, which is the nucleus of society--better tools than those of stone were absolutely indispensable.
Hence most of the early European tribes were nomadic: first hunters, wandering about from place to place like the American Indians, after the game; then shepherds, following the herds of animals which they had learnt to tame, from one grazing-ground to another, living upon their milk and flesh, and clothing themselves in their skins held together by leathern thongs. It was only when implements of metal had been invented that it was possible to practise the art of agriculture with any considerable success. Then tribes would cease from their wanderings, and begin to form settlements, homesteads, villages, and towns. An old Scandinavian legend thus curiously illustrates this last period: -- There was a giantess whose daughter one day saw a husbandman ploughing in the field. She ran and picked him up with her finger and thumb, put him and his plough and oxen into her apron, and carried them to her mother, saying, "Mother, what sort of beetle is this that I have found wriggling in the sand? " But the mother said, "Put it away, my child; we must begone out of this land, for these people will dwell in it."
M. Worsaae of Copenhagen, who has been followed by other antiquaries, has even gone so far as to divide the natural history of civilization into three epochs, according to the character of the tools used in each. The first was the Stone period, in which the implements chiefly used were sticks, bones, stones, and flints. The next was the Bronze period, distinguished by the introduction and general use of a metal composed of copper and tin, requiring a comparatively low degree of temperature to smelt it, and render it capable of being fashioned into weapons, tools, and implements; to make which, however, indicated a great advance in experience, sagacity, and skill in the manipulation of metals. With tools of bronze, to which considerable hardness could be given, trees were felled, stones hewn, houses and ships built, and agriculture practised with comparative facility. Last of all came the Iron period, when the art of smelting and working that most difficult but widely diffused of the minerals was discovered; from which point the progress made in all the arts of life has been of the most remarkable character.
Although Mr. Wright rejects this classification as empirical, because
the periods are not capable of being clearly defined, and all the
three kinds of implements are found to have been in use at or about
the same time,*
[footnote...
THOMAS WRIGHT, F.S.A., The Celt, The Roman, and The Saxon,
ed. 1861.
...]
there is, nevertheless, reason to believe that it is, on the whole,
well founded. It is doubtless true that implements of stone continued
in use long after those of bronze and iron had been invented, arising
most probably from the dearness and scarcity of articles of metal;
but when the art of smelting and working in iron and steel had
sufficiently advanced, the use of stone, and afterwards of bronze
tools and weapons, altogether ceased.
The views of M. Worsaae, and the other Continental antiquarians who
follow his classification, have indeed received remarkable
confirmation of late years, by the discoveries which have been made
in the beds of most of the Swiss lakes.*
[footnote...
Referred to at length in the Antiquity of Man, by Sir C. Lyell, who
adopts M. Worsaae's classification.
...]
It appears that a subsidence took place in the waters of the Lake of
Zurich in the year 1854, laying bare considerable portions of its
bed. The adjoining proprietors proceeded to enclose the new land, and
began by erecting permanent dykes to prevent the return of the
waters. While carrying on the works, several rows of stakes were
exposed; and on digging down, the labourers turned up a number of
pieces of charred wood, stones blackened by fire, utensils, bones,
and other articles, showing that at some remote period, a number of
human beings had lived over the spot, in dwellings supported by
stakes driven into the bed of the lake.
The discovery having attracted attention, explorations were made at other places, and it was shortly found that there was scarcely a lake in Switzerland which did not yield similar evidence of the existence of an ancient Lacustrine or Lake-dwelling population. Numbers of their tools and implements were brought to light--stone axes and saws, flint arrowheads, bone needles, and such like--mixed with the bones of wild animals slain in the chase; pieces of old boats, portions of twisted branches, bark, and rough planking, of which their dwellings had been formed, the latter still bearing the marks of the rude tools by which they had been laboriously cut. In the most ancient, or lowest series of deposits, no traces of metal, either of bronze or iron, were discovered; and it is most probable that these lake-dwellers lived in as primitive a state as the South Sea islanders discovered by Captain Cook, and that the huts over the water in which they lived resembled those found in Papua and Borneo, and the islands of the Salomon group, to this day.
These aboriginal Swiss lake-dwellers seem to have been succeeded by a race of men using tools, implements, and ornaments of bronze. In some places the remains of this bronze period directly overlay those of the stone period, showing the latter to have been the most ancient; but in others, the village sites are altogether distinct. The articles with which the metal implements are intermixed, show that considerable progress had been made in the useful arts. The potter's wheel had been introduced. Agriculture had begun, and wild animals had given place to tame ones. The abundance of bronze also shows that commerce must have existed to a certain extent; for tin, which enters into its composition, is a comparatively rare metal, and must necessarily have been imported from other European countries.
The Swiss antiquarians are of opinion that the men of bronze suddenly
invaded and extirpated the men of flint; and that at some still later
period, another stronger and more skilful race, supposed to have been
Celts from Gaul, came armed with iron weapons, to whom the men of
bronze succumbed, or with whom, more probably, they gradually
intermingled. When iron, or rather steel, came into use, its
superiority in affording a cutting edge was so decisive that it seems
to have supplanted bronze almost at once;*
[footnote...
Mr. Mushet, however, observes that "the general use of hardened
copper by the ancients for edge-tools and warlike instruments, does
not preclude the supposition that iron was then comparatively
plentiful, though it is probable that it was confined to the ruder
arts of life. A knowledge of the mixture of copper, tin, and zinc,
seems to have been among the first discoveries of the metallurgist.
Instruments fabricated from these alloys, recommended by the use of
ages, the perfection of the art, the splendour and polish of their
surfaces, not easily injured by time and weather, would not soon be
superseded by the invention of simple iron, inferior in edge and
polish, at all times easily injured by rust, and in the early stages
of its manufacture converted with difficulty into forms that required
proportion or elegance."--(Papers on Iron and Steel, 365-6.) By some
secret method that has been lost, perhaps because no longer needed
since the invention of steel, the ancients manufactured bronze tools
capable of taking a fine edge. in our own time, Chantrey the
sculptor, in his reverence for classic metallurgy, had a bronze razor
made with which he martyred himself in shaving; but none were found
so hardy and devoted as to follow his example.
...]
the latter metal continuing to be employed only for the purpose of
making scabbards or sword-handles. Shortly after the commencement of
the iron age, the lake-habitations were abandoned, the only
settlement of this later epoch yet discovered being that at Tene, on
Lake Neufchatel: and it is a remarkable circumstance, showing the
great antiquity of the lake-dwellings, that they are not mentioned by
any of the Roman historians.
That iron should have been one of the last of the metals to come into
general use, is partly accounted for by the circumstance that iron,
though one of the most generally diffused of minerals, never presents
itself in a natural state, except in meteorites; and that to
recognise its ores, and then to separate the metal from its matrix,
demands the exercise of no small amount of observation and invention.
Persons unacquainted with minerals would be unable to discover the
slightest affinity between the rough ironstone as brought up from the
mine, and the iron or steel of commerce. To unpractised eyes they
would seem to possess no properties in common, and it is only after
subjecting the stone to severe processes of manufacture that usable
metal can be obtained from it. The effectual reduction of the ore
requires an intense heat, maintained by artificial methods, such as
furnaces and blowing apparatus.*
[footnote...
It may be mentioned in passing, that while Zinc is fusible at
3 degrees of Wedgwood's pyrometer, Silver at 22 degrees, Copper at
27 degrees, and Gold at 32 degrees, Cast Iron is only fusible at
130 degrees. Tin (one of the constituents of the ancient bronze) and
Lead are fusible at much lower degrees than zinc.
...]
But it is principally in combination with other elements that iron is
so valuable when compared with other metals. Thus, when combined with
carbon, in varying proportions, substances are produced, so
different, but each so valuable, that they might almost be regarded
in the light of distinct metals,--such, for example, as cast-iron,
and cast and bar steel; the various qualities of iron enabling it to
be used for purposes so opposite as a steel pen and a railroad, the
needle of a mariner's compass and an Armstrong gun, a surgeon's
lancet and a steam engine, the mainspring of a watch and an iron
ship, a pair of scissors and a Nasmyth hammer, a lady's earrings and
a tubular bridge.
The variety of purposes to which iron is thus capable of being applied, renders it of more use to mankind than all the other metals combined. Unlike iron, gold is found pure, and in an almost workable state; and at an erly period in history, it seems to have been much more plentiful than iron or steel. But gold was unsuited for the purposes of tools, and would serve for neither a saw, a chisel, an axe, nor a sword; whilst tempered steel could answer all these purposes. Hence we find the early warlike nations making the backs of their swords of gold or copper, and economizing their steel to form the cutting edge. This is illustrated by many ancient Scandinavian weapons in the museum at Copenhagen, which indicate the greatest parsimony in the use of steel at a period when both gold and copper appear to have been comparatively abundant.
The knowledge of smelting and working in iron, like most other arts,
came from the East. Iron was especially valued for purposes of war,
of which indeed it was regarded as the symbol, being called "Mars" by
the Romans.*
[footnote...
The Romans named the other metals after the gods. Thus Quicksilver
was called Mercury, Lead Saturn, Tin Jupiter, Copper Venus, Silver
Luna, and so on; and our own language has received a colouring from
the Roman nomenclature, which it continues to retain.
...]
We find frequent mention of it in the Bible. One of the earliest
notices of the metal is in connexion with the conquest of Judea by
the Philistines. To complete the subjection of the Israelites, their
conquerors made captive all the smiths of the land, and carried them
away. The Philistines felt that their hold of the country was
insecure so long as the inhabitants possessed the means of forging
weapons. Hence "there was no smith found throughout all the land of
Israel; for the Philistines said, Lest the Hebrews make them swords
or spears. But the Israelites went down to the Philistines, to
sharpen every man his share, and his coulter, and his axe, and his
mattock."*
[footnote...
I. Samuel xiii. 19, 20.
...]
At a later period, when Jerusalem was taken by the Babylonians, one
of their first acts was to carry the smiths and other craftsmen
captives to Babylon.*
[footnote...
II. Kings xxiv. 16.
...]
Deprived of their armourers, the Jews were rendered comparatively
powerless.
It was the knowledge of the art of iron-forging which laid the foundation of the once great empire of the Turks. Gibbon relates that these people were originally the despised slaves of the powerful Khan of the Geougen. They occupied certain districts of the mountain-ridge in the centre of Asia, called Imaus, Caf, and Altai, which yielded iron in large quantities. This metal the Turks were employed by the Khan to forge for his use in war. A bold leader arose among them, who persuaded the ironworkers that the arms which they forged for their masters might in their own hands become the instruments of freedom. Sallying forth from their mountains, they set up their standard, and their weapons soon freed them. For centuries after, the Turkish nation continued to celebrate the event of their liberation by an annual ceremony, in which a piece of iron was heated in the fire, and a smith's hammer was successively handled by the prince and his nobles.
We can only conjecture how the art of smelting iron was discovered.
Who first applied fire to the ore, and made it plastic; who
discovered fire itself, and its uses in metallurgy? No one can tell.
Tradition says that the metal was discovered through the accidental
burning of a wood in Greece. Mr. Mushet thinks it more probable that
the discovery was made on the conversion of wood into charcoal for
culinary or chamber purposes. "If a mass of ore," he says,
"accidentally dropped into the middle of the burning pile during a
period of neglect, or during the existence of a thorough draught, a
mixed mass, partly earthy and partly metallic, would be obtained,
possessing ductility and extension under pressure. But if the
conjecture is pushed still further, and we suppose that the ore was
not an oxide, but rich in iron, magnetic or spicular, the result
would in all probability be a mass of perfectly malleable iron. I
have seen this fact illustrated in the roasting of a species of
iron-stone, which was united with a considerable mass of bituminous
matter. After a high temperature had been excited in the interior of
the pile, plates of malleable iron of a tough and flexible nature
were formed, and under circumstances where there was no fuel but that
furnished by the ore itself."*
[footnote...
Papers on Iron and Steel, 363-4.
...]
The metal once discovered, many attempts would be made to give to that which had been the effect of accident a more unerring result. The smelting of ore in an open heap of wood or charcoal being found tedious and wasteful, as well as uncertain, would naturally lead to the invention of a furnace; with the object of keeping the ore surrounded as much as possible with fuel while the process of conversion into iron was going forward. The low conical furnaces employed at this day by some of the tribes of Central and Southern Africa, are perhaps very much the same in character as those adopted by the early tribes of all countries where iron was first made. Small openings at the lower end of the cone to admit the air, and a larger orifice at the top, would, with charcoal, be sufficient to produce the requisite degree of heat for the reduction of the ore. To this the foot-blast was added, as still used in Ceylon and in India; and afterwards the water-blast, as employed in Spain (where it is known as the Catalan forge), along the coasts of the Mediterranean, and in some parts of America.
It is worthy of remark, that the ruder the method employed for the
reduction of the ore, the better the quality of the iron usually is.
Where the art is little advanced, only the most tractable ores are
selected; and as charcoal is the only fuel used, the quality of the
metal is almost invariably excellent. The ore being long exposed to
the charcoal fire, and the quantity made small, the result is a metal
having many of the qualities of steel, capable of being used for
weapons or tools after a comparatively small amount of forging.
Dr. Livingstone speaks of the excellent quality of the iron made by
the African tribes on the Zambesi, who refuse to use ordinary English
iron, which they consider "rotten."*
[footnote...
Dr. Livingstone brought with him to England a piece of the Zambesi
iron, which he sent to a skilled Birmingham blacksmith to test.
The result was, that he pronounced the metal as strongly resembling
Swedish or Russian; both of which kinds are smelted with charcoal.
The African iron was found "highly carbonized," and "when chilled it
possessed the properties of steel."
...]
Du Chaillu also says of the Fans, that, in making their best knives
and arrow-heads, they will not use European or American iron, greatly
preferring their own. The celebrated wootz or steel of India, made in
little cakes of only about two pounds weight, possesses qualities
which no European steel can surpass. Out of this material the famous
Damascus sword-blades were made; and its use for so long a period is
perhaps one of the most striking proofs of the ancient civilization
of India.
The early history of iron in Britain is necessarily very obscure. When the Romans invaded the country, the metal seems to have been already known to the tribes along the coast. The natives had probably smelted it themselves in their rude bloomeries, or obtained it from the Phoenicians in small quantities in exchange for skins and food, or tin. We must, however, regard the stories told of the ancient British chariots armed with swords or scythes as altogether apocryphal. The existence of iron in sufficient quantity to be used for such a purpose is incompatible with contemporary facts, and unsupported by a single vestige remaining to our time. The country was then mostly forest, and the roads did not as yet exist upon which chariots could be used; whilst iron was too scarce to be mounted as scythes upon chariots, when the warriors themselves wanted it for swords. The orator Cicero, in a letter to Trebatius, then serving with the army in Britain, sarcastically advised him to capture and convey one of these vehicles to Italy for exhibition; but we do not hear that any specimen of the British war-chariot was ever seen in Rome.
It is only in the tumuli along the coast, or in those of the
Romano-British period, that iron implements are ever found; whilst in
the ancient burying places of the interior of the country they are
altogether wanting. Herodian says of the British pursued by Severus
through the fens and marshes of the east coast, that they wore iron
hoops round their middles and their necks, esteeming them as
ornaments and tokens of riches, in like manner as other barbarous
people then esteemed ornaments of silver and gold. Their only money,
according to Caesar, consisted of pieces of brass or iron, reduced to
a certain standard weight.*
[footnote...
HOLINSHED, i. 517. Iron was also the currency of the Spartans, but it
has been used as such in much more recent times. Adam Smith, in his
Wealth of Nations (Book I. ch. 4, published in 1776), says, "there is
at this day a village in Scotland where it is not uncommon, I am
told, for a workman to carry nails, instead of money, to the baker's
shop or the alehouse."
...]
It is particularly important to observe, says M. Worsaae, that all
the antiquities which have hitherto been found in the large burying
places of the Iron period, in Switzerland, Bavaria, Baden, France,
England, and the North, exhibit traces more or less of Roman
influence.
[footnote...
Primeval Antiquities of Denmark. London, 1849, p. 140.
...]
The Romans themselves used weapons of bronze when they could not
obtain iron in sufficient quantity, and many of the Roman weapons dug
out of the ancient tumuli are of that metal. They possessed the art
of tempering and hardening bronze to such a degree as to enable them
to manufacture swords with it of a pretty good edge; and in those
countries which they penetrated, their bronze implements gradually
supplanted those which had been previously fashioned of stone. Great
quantities of bronze tools have been found in different parts of
England,--sometimes in heaps, as if they had been thrown away in
basketfuls as things of little value. It has been conjectured that
when the Romans came into Britain they found the inhabitants,
especially those to the northward, in very nearly the same state as
Captain Cook and other voyagers found the inhabitants of the South
Sea Islands; that the Britons parted with their food and valuables
for tools of inferior metal made in imitation of their stone ones;
but finding themselves cheated by the Romans, as the natives of
Otaheite have been cheated by Europeans, the Britons relinquished the
bad tools when they became acquainted with articles made of better
metal.*
[footnote...
See Dr. Pearson's paper in the Philosophical Transactions, 1796,
relative to certain ancient arms and utensils found in the river
Witham between Kirkstead and Lincoln.
...]
The Roman colonists were the first makers of iron in Britain on any
large scale. They availed themselves of the mineral riches of the
country wherever they went. Every year brings their extraordinary
industrial activity more clearly to light. They not only occupied the
best sites for trade, intersected the land with a complete system of
well-constructed roads, studded our hills and valleys with towns,
villages, and pleasure-houses, and availed themselves of our
medicinal springs for purposes of baths to an extent not even
exceeded at this day, but they explored our mines and quarries, and
carried on the smelting and manufacture of metals in nearly all parts
of the island. The heaps of mining refuse left by them in the valleys
and along the hill-sides of North Derbyshire are still spoken of by
the country people as "old man," or the "old man's work." Year by
year, from Dartmoor to the Moray Firth, the plough turns up fresh
traces of their indefatigable industry and enterprise, in pigs of
lead, implements of iron and bronze, vessels of pottery, coins, and
sculpture; and it is a remarkable circumstance that in several
districts where the existence of extensive iron beds had not been
dreamt of until within the last twenty years, as in Northamptonshire
and North Yorkshire, the remains of ancient workings recently
discovered show that the Roman colonists were fully acquainted with
them.
But the principal iron mines worked by that people were those which
were most conveniently situated for purposes of exportation, more
especially in the southern counties and on the borders of Wales. The
extensive cinder heaps found in the--Forest of De an--which formed
the readiest resource of the modern iron-smelter when improved
processes enabled him to reduce them--show that their principal iron
manufactures were carried on in that quarter*
[footnote...
"In the Forest of Dean and thereabouts the iron is made at this day
of cinders, being the rough and offal thrown by in the Roman time;
they then having only foot-blasts to melt the ironstone; but now, by
the force of a great wheel that drives a pair of Bellows twenty feet
long, all that iron is extracted out of the cinders which could not
be forced from it by the Roman foot-blast. And in the Forest of Dean
and thereabouts, and as high as Worcester, there ave great and
infinite quantities of these cinders; some in vast mounts above
ground, some under ground, which will supply the iron works some
hundreds of years; and these cinders ave they which make the prime
and best iron, and with much less charcoal than doth the
ironstone."--A. YARRANTON, England's Improvement by Sea and Land.
London, 1677.
...]
It is indeed matter of history, that about seventeen hundred years
since (A.D. 120) the Romans had forges in the West of England, both
in the Forest of Dean and in South Wales; and that they sent the
metal from thence to Bristol, where it was forged and made into
weapons for the use of the troops. Along the banks of the Wye, the
ground is in many places a continuous bed of iron cinders, in which
numerous remains have been found, furnishing unmistakeable proofs of
the Roman furnaces. At the same time, the iron ores of Sussex were
extensively worked, as appears from the cinder heaps found at
Maresfield and several places in that county, intermixed with Roman
pottery, coins, and other remains. In a bed of scoriae several acres
in extent, at Old Land Farm in Maresfield, the Rev. Mr. Turner found
the remains of Roman pottery so numerous that scarcely a barrow-load
of cinders was removed that did not contain several fragments,
together with coins of the reigns of Nero, Vespasian, and
Dioclesian.*
[footnote...
M. A. LOWER, Contributions to Literature, Historical, Antiquarian,
and Metrical. London, 1854, pp. 88-9.
...]
In the turbulent infancy of nations it is to be expected that we
should hear more of the Smith, or worker in iron, in connexion with
war, than with more peaceful pursuits. Although he was a nail-maker
and a horse-shoer--made axes, chisels, saws, and hammers for the
artificer -- spades and hoes for the farmer--bolts and fastenings for
the lord's castle-gates, and chains for his draw-bridge--it was
principally because of his skill in armour-work that he was esteemed.
He made and mended the weapons used in the chase and in war--the
gavelocs, bills, and battle-axes; he tipped the bowmen's arrows, and
furnished spear-heads for the men-at-arms; but, above all, he forged
the mail-coats and cuirasses of the chiefs, and welded their swords,
on the temper and quality of which, life, honour, and victory in
battle depended. Hence the great estimation in which the smith was
held in the Anglo-Saxon times. His person was protected by a double
penalty. He was treated as an officer of the highest rank, and
awarded the first place in precedency. After him ranked the maker of
mead, and then the physician. In the royal court of Wales he sat in
the great hall with the king and queen, next to the domestic
chaplain; and even at that early day there seems to have been a hot
spark in the smith's throat which needed much quenching; for he was
"entitled to a draught of every kind of liquor that was brought into
the hall."
The smith was thus a mighty man. The Saxon Chronicle describes the
valiant knight himself as a "mighty war-smith." But the smith was
greatest of all in his forging of swords; and the bards were wont to
sing the praises of the knight's "good sword " and of the smith who
made it, as well as of the knight himself who wielded it in battle.
The most extraordinary powers were attributed to the weapon of steel
when first invented. Its sharpness seemed so marvellous when compared
with one of bronze, that with the vulgar nothing but magic could
account for it. Traditions, enshrined in fairy tales, still survive
in most countries, illustrative of its magical properties. The weapon
of bronze was dull; but that of steel was bright--the "white sword of
light," one touch of which broke spells, liberated enchanted
princesses, and froze giants' marrow. King Arthur's magic sword
"Excalibur" was regarded as almost heroic in the romance of
chivalry.*
[footnote...
This famous sword was afterwards sent by Richard I. as a present to
Tancred; and the value attached to the weapon may be estimated by the
fact that the Crusader sent the English monarch, in return for it,
"four great ships and fifteen galleys."
...]
So were the swords "Galatin" of Sir Gawain, and "Joyeuse" of
Charlemague, both of which were reputed to be the work of Weland the
Smith, about whose name clusters so much traditional glory as an
ancient worker in metals.*
[footnote...
Weland was the Saxon Vulcan. The name of Weland's or Wayland's Smithy
is still given to a monument on Lambourn Downs in Wiltshire. The
place is also known as Wayland Smith's Cave. It consists of a rude
gallery of stones.
...]
The heroes of the Northmen in like manner wielded magic swords. Olave
the Norwegian possessed the sword "Macabuin," forged by the dark
smith of Drontheim, whose feats are recorded in the tales of the
Scalds. And so, in like manner, traditions of the supernatural power
of the blacksmith are found existing to this day all over the
Scottish Highlands.*
[footnote...
Among the Scythians the iron sword was a god. It was the image of
Mars, and sacrifices were made to it. "An iron sword," says Mr.
Campbell, really was once worshipped by a people with whom iron was
rare. Iron is rare, while stone and bronze weapons are common, in
British tombs, and the sword of these stories is a personage. It
shines, it cries out -- the lives of men are bound up in it. And so
this mystic sword may, perhaps, have been a god amongst the Celts, or
the god of the people with whom the Celts contended somewhere on
their long journey to the west. It is a fiction now, but it may be
founded on fact, and that fact probably was the first use of iron."
To this day an old horse-shoe is considered a potent spell in some
districts against the powers of evil; and for want of a horse-shoe a
bit of a rusty reaping-hook is supposed to have equal power, "Who
were these powers of evil who could not resist iron--these fairies
who shoot STONE arrows, and are of the foes to the human race? Is all
this but a dim, hazy recollection of war between a people who had
iron weapons and a race who had not--the race whose remains are found
all over Europe? If these were wandering tribes, they had leaders; if
they were warlike, they had weapons. There is a smith in the Pantheon
of many nations. Vulcan was a smith; Thor wielded a hammer; even
Fionn had a hammer, which was heard in Lochlann when struck in
Eirinn. Fionn may have borrowed his hammer from Thor long ago, or
both may have got theirs from Vulcan, or all three may have brought
hammers with them from the land where some primeval smith wielded the
first sledge-hammer; but may not all these 'smith-gods be the smiths
who made iron weapons for those who fought with the skin-clad
warriors who shot flint-arrows, and who are now bogles, fairies , and
demons? In any case, tales about smiths seem to belong to mythology,
and to be common property."--CAMPBELL, Popular Tales of the West
Highlands, Preface, 74-6.
...]
When William the Norman invaded Britain, he was well supplied with
smiths. His followers were clad in armour of steel, and furnished
with the best weapons of the time. Indeed, their superiority in this
respect is supposed to have been the principal cause of William's
victory over Harold; for the men of both armies were equal in point
of bravery. The Normans had not only smiths to attend to the arms of
the knights, but farriers to shoe their horses. Henry de Femariis, or
Ferrers, "prefectus fabrorum," was one of the principal officers
entrusted with the supervision of the Conqueror's ferriery
department; and long after the earldom was founded his descendants
continued to bear on their coat of arms the six horse-shoes
indicative of their origin.*
[footnote...
BROOK, Discovery of Errors in the Catalogue of the Nobility, 198.
...]
William also gave the town of Northampton, with the hundred of
Fackley, as a fief to Simon St. Liz, in consideration of his
providing shoes for his horses.*
[footnote...
MEYRICK, i. 11.
...]
But though the practice of horse-shoeing is said to have been
introduced to this country at the time of the Conquest, it is
probably of an earlier date; as, according to Dugdale, an old Saxon
tenant in capite of Welbeck in Nottinghamshire, named Gamelbere, held
two carucates of land by the service of shoeing the king's palfrey on
all four feet with the king's nails, as oft as the king should lie at
the neighbouring manor of Mansfield.
Although we hear of the smith mostly in connexion with the fabrication of instruments of war in the Middle Ages, his importance was no less recognized in the ordinary affairs of rural and industrial life. He was, as it were, the rivet that held society together. Nothing could be done without him. Wherever tools or implements were wanted for building, for trade, or for husbandry, his skill was called into requisition. In remote places he was often the sole mechanic of his district; and, besides being a tool-maker, a farrier, and agricultural implement maker, he doctored cattle, drew teeth, practised phlebotomy, and sometimes officiated as parish clerk and general newsmonger; for the smithy was the very eye and tongue of the village. Hence Shakespeare's picture of the smith in King John:
"I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus, The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool, With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news."
The smith's tools were of many sorts; but the chief were his hammer, pincers, chisel, tongs, and anvil. It is astonishing what a variety of articles he turned out of his smithy by the help of these rude implements. In the tooling, chasing, and consummate knowledge of the capabilities of iron, he greatly surpassed the modern workman; for the mediaeval blacksmith was an artist as well as a workman. The numerous exquisite specimens of his handicraft which exist in our old gateways, church doors, altar railings, and ornamented dogs and andirons, still serve as types for continual reproduction. He was, indeed, the most "cunninge workman" of his time. But besides all this, he was an engineer. If a road had to be made, or a stream embanked, or a trench dug, he was invariably called upon to provide the tools, and often to direct the work. He was also the military engineer of his day, and as late as the reign of Edward III. we find the king repeatedly sending for smiths from the Forest of Dean to act as engineers for the royal army at the siege of Berwick.
The smith being thus the earliest and most important of mechanics, it will readily be understood how, at the time when surnames were adopted, his name should have been so common in all European countries.
"From whence came Smith, all be he knight or squire, But from the smith that forgeth in the fire?"*
[footnote...
GILBERT, Cornwall.
...]
Hence the multitudinous family of Smiths in England, in some cases vainly disguised under the "Smythe" or "De Smijthe;" in Germany, the Schmidts; in Italy, the Fabri, Fabricii,or Fabbroni; in France, the Le Febres or Lefevres; in Scotland, the Gows, Gowans, or Cowans. We have also among us the Brownsmiths, or makers of brown bills; the Nasmyths, or nailsmiths; the Arrowsmiths, or makers of arrowheads; the Spearsmiths, or spear makers; the Shoosmiths, or horse shoers; the Goldsmiths, or workers in gold; and many more. The Smith proper was, however, the worker in iron--the maker of iron tools, implements, and arms--and hence this name exceeds in number that of all the others combined.
In course of time the smiths of particular districts began to distinguish themselves for their excellence in particular branches of iron-work. From being merely the retainer of some lordly or religious establishment, the smith worked to supply the general demand, and gradually became a manufacturer. Thus the makers of swords, tools, bits, and nails, congregated at Birmingham; and the makers of knives and arrowheads at Sheffield. Chaucer speaks of the Miller of Trompington as provided with a Sheffield whittle: -
"A Shefeld thwytel bare he in his hose."*
[footnote...
Before table-knives were invented, in the sixteenth century, the
knife was a very important article; each guest at table bearing his
own, and sharpening it at the whetstone hung up in the passage,
before sitting down to dinner, Some even carried a whetstone as well
as a knife; and one of Queen Elizabeth's presents to the Earl of
Leicester was a whetstone tipped with gold.
...]
The common English arrowheads manufactured at Sheffield were long celebrated for their excellent temper, as Sheffield iron and steel plates are now. The battle of Hamildon, fought in Scotland in 1402, was won mainly through their excellence. The historian records that they penetrated the armour of the Earl of Douglas, which had been three years in making; and they were "so sharp and strong that no armour could repel them." The same arrowheads were found equally efficient against French armour on the fields of Crecy and Agincourt.
Although Scotland is now one of the principal sources from which our
supplies of iron are drawn, it was in ancient times greatly
distressed for want of the metal. The people were as yet too little
skilled to be able to turn their great mineral wealth to account.
Even in the time of Wallace, they had scarcely emerged from the Stone
period, and were under the necessity of resisting their iron-armed
English adversaries by means of rude weapons of that material. To
supply themselves with swords and spearheads, they imported steel
from Flanders, and the rest they obtained by marauding incursions
into England. The district of Furness in Lancashire--then as now an
iron-producing district--was frequently ravaged with that object;
and on such occasions the Scotch seized and carried off all the
manufactured iron they could find, preferring it, though so heavy, to
every other kind of plunder.*
[footnote...
The early scarcity of iron in Scotland is confirmed by Froissart, who
says,--"In Scotland you will never find a man of worth; they are like
savages, who wish not to be acquainted with any one, are envious of
the good fortune of others, and suspicious of losing anything
themselves; for their country is very poor. When the English make
inroads thither, as they have very frequently done, they order their
provisions, if they wish to live, to follow close at their backs; for
nothing is to be had in that country without great difficulty. There
is neither iron to shoe horses, nor leather to make harness, saddles,
or bridles: all these things come ready made from Flanders by sea;
and should these fail, there is none to be had in the country.'
...]
About the same period, however, iron must have been regarded as
almost a precious metal even in England itself; for we find that in
Edward the Third's reign, the pots, spits, and frying-pans of the
royal kitchen were classed among his Majesty's jewels.*
[footnote...
PARKER'S English Home, 77
...]
The same famine of iron prevailed to a still greater extent in the Highlands, where it was even more valued, as the clans lived chiefly by hunting, and were in an almost constant state of feud. Hence the smith was a man of indispensable importance among the Highlanders, and the possession of a skilful armourer was greatly valued by the chiefs. The story is told of some delinquency having been committed by a Highland smith, on whom justice must be done; but as the chief could not dispense with the smith, he generously offered to hang two weavers in his stead!
At length a great armourer arose in the Highlands, who was able to
forge armour that would resist the best Sheffield arrow-heads, and to
make swords that would vie with the best weapons of Toledo and Milan.
This was the famous Andrea de Ferrara, whose swords still maintain
their ancient reputation. This workman is supposed to have learnt his
art in the Italian city after which he was called, and returned to
practise it in secrecy among the Highland hills. Before him, no man
in Great Britain is said to have known how to temper a sword in such
a way as to bend so that the point should touch the hilt and spring
back uninjured. The swords of Andrea de Ferrara did this, and were
accordingly in great request; for it was of every importance to the
warrior that his weapon should be strong and sharp without being
unwieldy, and that it should not be liable to snap in the act of
combat. This celebrated smith, whose personal identity*
[footnote...
The precise time at which Andrea de Ferrara flourished cannot be
fixed with accuracy; but Sir Waiter Scott, in one of the notes to
Waverley, says he is believed to have been a foreign artist brought
over by James IV. or V. of Scotland to instruct the Scots in the
manufacture of sword-blades. The genuine weapons have a crown marked
on the blades.
...]
has become merged in the Andrea de Ferrara swords of his manufacture,
pursued his craft in the Highlands, where he employed a number of
skilled workmen in forging weapons, devoting his own time principally
to giving them their required temper. He is said to have worked in a
dark cellar, the better to enable him to perceive the effect of the
heat upon the metal, and to watch the nicety of the operation of
tempering, as well as possibly to serve as a screen to his secret
method of working.*
[footnote...
Mr. Parkes, in his Essay on the Manufacture of Edge Tools, says, "Had
this ingenious artist thought of a bath of oil, he might have heated
this by means of a furnace underneath it, and by the use of a
thermometer, to the exact point which he found necessary; though it
is inconvenient to have to employ a thermometer for every distinct
operation. Or, if he had been in the possession of a proper bath of
fusible metal, he would have attained the necessary certainty in his
process, and need not have immured himself in a subterranean
apartment.--PARKES' Essays, 1841, p. 495.
...]
Long after Andrea de Ferrara's time, the Scotch swords were famous
for their temper; Judge Marshal Fatten, who accompanied the
Protector's expedition into Scotland in 1547, observing that "the
Scots came with swords all broad and thin, of exceeding good temper,
and universally so made to slice that I never saw none so good, so I
think it hard to devise a better." The quality of the steel used for
weapons of war was indeed of no less importance for the effectual
defence of a country then than it is now. The courage of the
attacking and defending forces being equal, the victory would
necessarily rest with the party in possession of the best weapons.
England herself has on more than one occasion been supposed to be in
serious peril because of the decay of her iron manufactures. Before
the Spanish Armada, the production of iron had been greatly
discouraged because of the destruction of timber in the smelting of
the ore--the art of reducing it with pit coal not having yet been
invented; and we were consequently mainly dependent upon foreign
countries for our supplies of the material out of which arms were
made. The best iron came from Spain itself, then the most powerful
nation in Europe, and as celebrated for the excellence of its weapons
as for the discipline and valour of its troops. The Spaniards prided
themselves upon the superiority of their iron, and regarded its
scarcity in England as an important element in their calculations of
the conquest of the country by their famous Armada. "I have heard,"
says Harrison, "that when one of the greatest peers of Spain espied
our nakedness in this behalf, and did solemnly utter in no obscure
place, that it would be an easy matter in short time to conquer
England because it wanted armour, his words were not so rashly
uttered as politely noted." The vigour of Queen Elizabeth promptly
supplied a remedy by the large importations of iron which she caused
to be made, principally from Sweden, as well as by the increased
activity of the forges in Sussex and the Forest of Dean; "whereby,"
adds Harrison, "England obtained rest, that otherwise might have been
sure of sharp and cruel wars. Thus a Spanish word uttered by one man
at one time, overthrew, or at the leastwise hindered sundry privy
practices of many at another." *
[footnote...
HOLINSHED, History of England. It was even said to have been one of
the objects of the Spanish Armada to get the oaks of the Forest of
Dean destroyed, in order to prevent further smelting of the iron.
Thus Evelyn, in his Sylva, says, "I have heard that in the great
expedition of 1588 it was expressly enjoined the Spanish Armada that
if, when landed, they should not be able to subdue our nation and
make good their conquest, they should yet be sure not to leave a tree
standing in the Forest of Dean."--NICHOLS, History of the Forest of
Dean, p. 22.
...]
Nor has the subject which occupied the earnest attention of
politicians in Queen Elizabeth's time ceased to be of interest; for,
after the lapse of nearly three hundred years, we find the smith and
the iron manufacturer still uppermost in public discussions. It has
of late years been felt that our much-prized "hearts of oak" are no
more able to stand against the prows of mail which were supposed to
threaten them, than the sticks and stones of the ancient tribes were
able to resist the men armed with weapons of bronze or steel. What
Solon said to Croesus, when the latter was displaying his great
treasures of gold, still holds true: -- "If another comes that hath
better iron than you, he will be master of all that gold." So, when
an alchemist waited upon the Duke of Brunswick during the Seven
Years' War, and offered to communicate the secret of converting iron
into gold, the Duke replied: -- "By no means: I want all the iron I
can find to resist my enemies: as for gold, I get it from England."
Thus the strength and wealth of nations depend upon coal and iron,
not forgetting Men, far more than upon gold.
Thanks to our Armstrongs and Whitworths, our Browns and our Smiths, the iron defences of England, manned by our soldiers and our sailors, furnish the assurance of continued security for our gold and our wealth, and, what is infinitely more precious, for our industry and our liberty.
CHAPTER II.
EARLY ENGLISH IRON MANUFACTURE.
"He that well observes it, and hath known the welds of Sussex, Surry, and Kent', the grand nursery especially of oake and beech, shal find such an alteration, within lesse than 30 yeeres, as may well strike a feare, lest few yeeres more, as pestilent as the former, will leave fewe good trees standing in those welds. Such a heate issueth out of the many forges and furnaces for the making of iron, and out of the glasse kilnes, as hath devoured many famous woods within the welds,"-- JOHN NORDEN, Surveyors' Dialogue (1607).
Few records exist of the manufacture of iron in England in early
times. After the Romans left the island, the British, or more
probably the Teutonic tribes settled along the south coast, continued
the smelting and manufacture of the metal after the methods taught
them by the colonists. In the midst of the insecurity, however,
engendered by civil war and social changes, the pursuits of industry
must necessarily have been considerably interfered with, and the art
of iron-forging became neglected. No notice of iron being made in
Sussex occurs in Domesday Book, from which it would appear that the
manufacture had in a great measure ceased in that county at the time
of the Conquest, though it was continued in the iron-producing
districts bordering on Wales. In many of the Anglo-Saxon graves which
have been opened, long iron swords have been found, showing that
weapons of that metal were in common use. But it is probable that
iron was still scarce, as ploughs and other agricultural implements
continued to be made of wood,--one of the Anglo-Saxon laws enacting
that no man should undertake to guide a plough who could not make
one; and that the cords with which it was bound should be of twisted
willows. The metal was held in esteem principally as the material of
war. All male adults were required to be provided with weapons, and
honour was awarded to such artificers as excelled in the fabrication
of swords, arms, and defensive armour.*
[footnote...
WILKINS, Leges Sax. 25.
...]
Camden incidentally states that the manufacture of iron was continued
in the western counties during the Saxon era, more particularly in
the Forest of Dean, and that in the time of Edward the Confessor the
tribute paid by the city of Gloucester consisted almost entirely of
iron rods wrought to a size fit for making nails for the king's
ships. An old religious writer speaks of the ironworkers of that day
as heathenish in their manners, puffed up with pride, and inflated
with worldly prosperity. On the occasion of St. Egwin's visit to the
smiths of Alcester, as we are told in the legend, he found then given
up to every kind of luxury; and when he proceeded to preach unto
them, they beat upon their anvils in contempt of his doctrine so as
completely to deafen him; upon which he addressed his prayers to
heaven, and the town was immediately destroyed.*
[footnote...
Life of St. Egwin, in Capgrave's Nova Legenda Anglioe. Alcester was,
as its name indicates, an old Roman settlement (situated on the
Icknild Street), where the art of working in iron was practised from
an early period. It was originally called Alauna, being situated on
the river Alne in Warwickshire. It is still a seat of the needle
manufacture.
...]
But the first reception given to John Wesley by the miners of the Forest of Dean, more than a thousand years later, was perhaps scarcely more gratifying than that given to St. Egwin.
That working in iron was regarded as an honourable and useful calling in the Middle Ages, is apparent from the extent to which it was followed by the monks, some of whom were excellent craftsmen. Thus St. Dunstan, who governed England in the time of Edwy the Fair, was a skilled blacksmith and metallurgist. He is said to have had a forge even in his bedroom, and it was there that his reputed encounter with Satan occurred, in which of course the saint came off the victor.
There was another monk of St. Alban's, called Anketil, who flourished in the twelfth century, so famous for his skill as a worker in iron, silver, gold, jewelry, and gilding, that he was invited by the king of Denmark to be his goldsmith and banker. A pair of gold and silver candlesticks of his manufacture, presented by the abbot of St. Alban's to Pope Adrian IV., were so much esteemed for their exquisite workmanship that they were consecrated to St. Peter, and were the means of obtaining high ecclesiastical distinction for the abbey.
We also find that the abbots of monasteries situated in the iron districts, among their other labours, devoted themselves to the manufacture of iron from the ore. The extensive beds of cinders still found in the immediate neighbourhood of Rievaulx and Hackness, in Yorkshire, show that the monks were well acquainted with the art of forging, and early turned to account the riches of the Cleveland ironstone. In the Forest of Dean also, the abbot of Flaxley was possessed of one stationary and one itinerant forge, by grant from Henry II, and he was allowed two oaks weekly for fuel,--a privilege afterwards commuted, in 1258, for Abbot's Wood of 872 acres, which was held by the abbey until its dissolution in the reign of Henry VIII. At the same time the Earl of Warwick had forges at work in his woods at Lydney; and in 1282, as many as 72 forges were leased from the Crown by various iron-smelters in the same Forest of Dean.
There are numerous indications of iron-smelting having been conducted
on a considerable scale at some remote period in the neighbourhood of
Leeds, in Yorkshire. In digging out the foundations of houses in
Briggate, the principal street of that town, many "bell pits" have
been brought to light, from which ironstone has been removed. The new
cemetery at Burmandtofts, in the same town, was in like manner found
pitted over with these ancient holes. The miner seems to have dug a
well about 6 feet in diameter, and so soon as he reached the mineral,
he worked it away all round, leaving the bell-shaped cavities in
question. He did not attempt any gallery excavations, but when the
pit was exhausted, a fresh one was sunk. The ore, when dug, was
transported, most probably on horses' backs, to the adjacent
districts for the convenience of fuel. For it was easier to carry the
mineral to the wood--then exclusively used for smelting'--than to
bring the wood to the mineral. Hence the numerous heaps of scoriae
found in the neighbourhood of Leeds,--at Middleton, Whitkirk, and
Horsforth--all within the borough. At Horsforth, they are found in
conglomerated masses from 30 to 40 yards long, and of considerable
width and depth. The remains of these cinder-beds in various
positions, some of them near the summit of the hill, tend to show,
that as the trees were consumed, a new wind furnace was erected in
another situation, in order to lessen the labour of carrying the
fuel. There are also deposits of a similar kind at Kirkby Overblow, a
village a few miles to the north-east of Leeds; and Thoresby states
that the place was so called because it was the village of the "Ore
blowers,"--hence the corruption of "Overblow." A discovery has
recently been made among the papers of the Wentworth family, of a
contract for supplying wood and ore for iron "blomes" at Kirskill
near Otley, in the fourteenth century;*
[footnote...
The following is an extract of this curious document, which is dated
the 26th Dec. 1352: "Ceste endenture fait entre monsire Richard de
Goldesburghe, chivaler,dune part, et Robert Totte, seignour, dautre
tesmoigne qe le dit monsire Richard ad graunte et lesse al dit Robert
deuz Olyveres contenaunz vynt quatre blomes de la feste seynt Piere
ad vincula lan du regne le Roi Edward tierce apres le conqueste vynt
sysme, en sun parke de Creskelde, rendant al dit monsire Richard
chesqune semayn quatorzse soutz dargent duraunt les deux Olyvers
avaunt dist; a tenir et avoir al avaunt dit Robert del avaunt dit
monsire Richard de la feste seynt Piere avaunt dist, taunque le bois
soit ars du dit parke a la volunte le dit monsire Richard saunz
interrupcione [e le dicte monsieur Richard trovera a dit Robert urre
suffisaunt pur lez ditz Olyvers pur le son donaunt: these words are
interlined]. Et fait a savoir qe le dit Robert ne nule de soens
coupard ne abatera nule manere darbre ne de boys put les deuz olyvers
avaunt ditz mes par la veu et la lyvere le dit monsire Richard , ou
par ascun autre par le dit monsire Richard assigne. En tesmoigaunz
(sic) de quenx choses a cestes presentes endentures les parties
enterchaungablement ount mys lour seals. Escript a Creskelde le
meskerdy en le semayn de Pasque lan avaunt diste."
It is probable that the "blomes" referred to in this agreement were
the bloomeries or fires in which the iron was made; and that the
"olyveres" were forges or erections, each of which contained so many
bloomeries, but were of limited durability, and probably perished in
the using.
...]
though the manufacture near that place has long since ceased.
Although the making of iron was thus carried on in various parts of England in the Middle Ages, the quantity produced was altogether insufficient to meet the ordinary demand, as it appears from our early records to have long continued one of the principal articles imported from foreign countries. English iron was not only dearer, but it was much inferior in quality to that manufactured abroad; and hence all the best arms and tools continued to be made of foreign iron. Indeed the scarcity of this metal occasionally led to great inconvenience, and to prevent its rising in price Parliament enacted, in 1354, that no iron, either wrought or unwrought, should be exported, under heavy penalties. For nearly two hundred years--that is, throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries--the English market was principally supplied with iron and steel from Spain and Germany; the foreign merchants of the Steelyard doing a large and profitable trade in those commodities. While the woollen and other branches of trade were making considerable progress, the manufacture of iron stood still. Among the lists of articles, the importation of which was prohibited in Edward IV.'s reign, with a view to the protection of domestic manufactures, we find no mention of iron, which was still, as a matter of necessity, allowed to come freely from abroad.
The first indications of revival in the iron manufacture showed themselves in Sussex, a district in which the Romans had established extensive works, and where smelting operations were carried on to a partial extent in the neighbourhood of Lewes, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, where the iron was principally made into nails and horse-shoes. The county abounds in ironstone, which is contained in the sandstone beds of the Forest ridge, lying between the chalk and oolite of the district, called by geologists the Hastings sand. The beds run in a north-westerly direction, by Ashburnham and Heathfield, to Crowborough and thereabouts. In early times the region was covered with wood, and was known as the Great Forest of Anderida. The Weald, or wild wood, abounded in oaks of great size, suitable for smelting ore; and the proximity of the mineral to the timber, as well as the situation of the district in the neighbourhood of the capital, sufficiently account for the Sussex iron-works being among the most important which existed in England previous to the discovery of smelting by pit-coal.
The iron manufacturers of the south were especially busy during the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Their works were established near
to the beds of ore, and in places where water-power existed, or could
be provided by artificial means. Hence the numerous artificial ponds
which are still to be found all over the Sussex iron district. Dams
of earth, called "pond-bays," were thrown across watercourses, with
convenient outlets built of masonry, wherein was set the great wheel
which worked the hammer or blew the furnace. Portions of the
adjoining forest-land were granted or leased to the iron-smelters;
and the many places still known by the name of "Chart" in the Weald,
probably mark the lands chartered for the purpose of supplying the
iron-works with their necessary fuel. The cast-iron tombstones and
slabs in many Sussex churchyards,--the andirons and chimney backs*
[footnote...
The back of a grate has recently been found, cast by Richard Leonard
at Brede Furnace in 1636. It is curious as containing a
representation of the founder with his dog and cups; a drawing of the
furnace, with the wheelbarrow and other implements for the casting,
and on a shield the pincers and other marks of the blacksmith.
Leonard was tenant of the Sackville furnace at Little
Udimore.--Sussex Archaeological Collections, vol.xii.
...]
still found in old Sussex mansions and farm-houses, and such names as
Furnace Place, Cinder Hill, Forge Farm, and Hammer Pond, which are of
very frequent occurrence throughout the county, clearly mark the
extent and activity of this ancient branch of industry.*
[footnote ...
For an interesting account of the early iron industry of Sussex see
M. A. LOWER'S Contributions to Literature, Historical, Antiquarian,
and Metrical. London, 1854.
...]
Steel was also manufactured at several places in the county, more
particularly at Steel-Forge Land, Warbleton, and at Robertsbridge.
The steel was said to be of good quality, resembling Swedish--both
alike depending for their excellence on the exclusive use of charcoal
in smelting the ore,--iron so produced maintaining its superiority
over coal-smelted iron to this day.
When cannon came to be employed in war, the nearness of Sussex to
London and the Cinque Forts gave it a great advantage over the
remoter iron-producing districts in the north and west of England,
and for a long time the iron-works of this county enjoyed almost a
monopoly of the manufacture. The metal was still too precious to be
used for cannon balls, which were hewn of stone from quarries on
Maidstone Heath. Iron was only available, and that in limited
quantities, for the fabrication of the cannon themselves, and
wrought-iron was chiefly used for the purpose. An old mortar which
formerly lay on Eridge Green, near Frant, is said to have been the
first mortar made in England;*
[footnote...
Archaeologia, vol. x. 472.
...]
only the chamber was cast, while the tube consisted of bars
strongly hooped together. Although the local distich says that
"Master Huggett and his man John
They did cast the first cannon,"
there is every reason to believe that both cannons and mortars were made in Sussex before Huggett's time; the old hooped guns in the Tower being of the date of Henry VI. The first cast-iron cannons of English manufacture were made at Buxtead, in Sussex, in 1543, by Ralph Hogge, master founder, who employed as his principal assistant one Peter Baude, a Frenchman. Gun-founding was a French invention, and Mr. Lower supposes that Hogge brought over Baude from France to teach his workmen the method of casting the guns. About the same time Hogge employed a skilled Flemish gunsmith named Peter Van Collet, who, according to Stowe, "devised or caused to be made certain mortar pieces, being at the mouth from eleven to nine inches wide, for the use whereof the said Peter caused to be made certain hollow shot of cast-iron to be stuffed with fyrework, whereof the bigger sort for the same has screws of iron to receive a match to carry fyre for to break in small pieces the said hollow shot, whereof the smallest piece hitting a man would kill or spoil him." In short, Peter Van Collet here introduced the manufacture of the explosive shell in the form in which it continued to be used down to our own day.
Baude, the Frenchman, afterwards set up business on his own account,
making many guns, both of brass and iron, some of which are still
preserved in the Tower.*
[footnote...
One of these, 6 1/2 feet long, and of 2 1/2 inches bore, manufactured
in 1543, bears the cast inscription of Petrus Baude Gallus operis
artifex.
...]
Other workmen, learning the trade from him, also began to manufacture
on their own account; one of Baude's servants, named John Johnson,
and after him his son Thomas, becoming famous for the excellence of
their cast-iron guns. The Hogges continued the business for several
generations, and became a wealthy county family. Huggett was another
cannon maker of repute; and Owen became celebrated for his brass
culverins. Mr. Lower mentions, as a curious instance of the tenacity
with which families continue to follow a particular vocation, that
many persons of the name of Huggett still carry on the trade of
blacksmith in East Sussex. But most of the early workmen at the
Sussex iron-works, as in other branches of skilled industry in
England during the sixteenth century, were foreigners-- Flemish and
French--many of whom had taken refuge in this country from the
religious persecutions then raging abroad, while others, of special
skill, were invited over by the iron manufacturers to instruct their
workmen in the art of metal-founding.*
[footnote...
Mr. Lower says," Many foreigners were brought over to carry on the
works; which perhaps may account for the number of Frenchmen and
Germans whose names appear in our parish registers about the middle of
the sixteenth century ."-- Contributions to Literature, 108.
...]
As much wealth was gained by the pursuit of the revived iron
manufacture in Sussex, iron-mills rapidly extended over the
ore-yielding district. The landed proprietors entered with zeal into
this new branch of industry, and when wood ran short, they did not
hesitate to sacrifice their ancestral oaks to provide fuel for the
furnaces. Mr. Lower says even the most ancient families, such as the
Nevilles, Howards, Percys, Stanleys, Montagues, Pelhams, Ashburnhams,
Sidneys, Sackvilles, Dacres, and Finches, prosecuted the manufacture
with all the apparent ardour of Birmingham and Wolverhampton men in
modern times. William Penn, the courtier Quaker, had iron-furnaces at
Hawkhurst and other places in Sussex. The ruins of the Ashburnham
forge, situated a few miles to the north-east of Battle, still serve
to indicate the extent of the manufacture. At the upper part of the
valley in which the works were situated, an artificial lake was
formed by constructing an embankment across the watercourse
descending from the higher ground,*
[footnote ...
The embankment and sluices of the furnace-pond at the upper part of
the valley continue to be maintained, the lake being used by the
present Lord Ashburnham as a preserve for fish and water-fowl.
...]
and thus a sufficient fall of water was procured for the purpose of
blowing the furnaces, the site of which is still marked by
surrounding mounds of iron cinders and charcoal waste. Three quarters
of a mile lower down the valley stood the forge, also provided with
water-power for working the hammer; and some of the old buildings are
still standing, among others the boring-house, of small size, now
used as an ordinary labourer's cottage, where the guns were bored.
The machine was a mere upright drill worked by the water-wheel, which
was only eighteen inches across the breast. The property belonged, as
it still does, to the Ashburnham family, who are said to have derived
great wealth from the manufacture of guns at their works, which were
among the last carried on in Sussex. The Ashburnham iron was
distinguished for its toughness, and was said to be equal to the best
Spanish or Swedish iron.
Many new men also became enriched, and founded county families; the
Fuller family frankly avowing their origin in the singular motto of
Carbone et forcipibus--literally, by charcoal and tongs.*
[footnote...
Reminding one of the odd motto assumed by Gillespie, the tobacconist
of Edinburgh, founder of Gillespie's Hospital, on whose
carriage-panels was emblazoned a Scotch mull, with the motto,
"Wha wad ha' thocht it,
That noses could ha' bought it!"
It is just possible that the Fullers may have taken their motto from the words employed by Juvenal in describing the father of Demosthenes, who was a blacksmith and a sword-cutler --
"Quem pater ardentis massae fuligine lippus, A carbone et forcipibus gladiosque parante Incude et luteo Vulcano ad rhetora misit."
...]
Men then went into Sussex to push their fortunes at the forges, as they now do in Wales or Staffordshire; and they succeeded then, as they do now, by dint of application, industry, and energy. The Sussex Archaeological Papers for 1860 contain a curious record of such an adventurer, in the history of the founder of the Gale family. Leonard Gale was born in 1620 at Riverhead, near Sevenoaks, where his father pursued the trade of a blacksmith. When the youth had reached his seventeenth year, his father and mother, with five of their sons and daughters, died of the plague, Leonard and his brother being the only members of the family that survived. The patrimony of 200L. left them was soon spent; after which Leonard paid off his servants, and took to work diligently at his father's trade. Saving a little money, he determined to go down into Sussex, where we shortly find him working the St. Leonard's Forge, and afterwards the Tensley Forge near Crawley, and the Cowden Iron-works, which then bore a high reputation. After forty years' labour, he accumulated a good fortune, which he left to his son of the same name, who went on iron-forging, and eventually became a county gentleman, owner of the house and estate of Crabbett near Worth, and Member of Parliament for East Grinstead.
Several of the new families, however, after occupying a high position in the county, again subsided into the labouring class, illustrating the Lancashire proverb of "Twice clogs, once boots," the sons squandering what the father's had gathered, and falling back into the ranks again. Thus the great Fowles family of Riverhall disappeared altogether from Sussex. One of them built the fine mansion of Riverhall, noble even in decay. Another had a grant of free warren from King James over his estates in Wadhurst, Frant, Rotherfield, and Mayfield. Mr. Lower says the fourth in descent from this person kept the turnpike-gate at Wadhurst, and that the last of the family, a day-labourer, emigrated to America in 1839, carrying with him, as the sole relic of his family greatness, the royal grant of free warren given to his ancestor. The Barhams and Mansers were also great iron-men, officiating as high sheriffs of the county at different times, and occupying spacious mansions. One branch of these families terminated, Mr. Lower says, with Nicholas Barham, who died in the workhouse at Wadhurst in 1788; and another continues to be represented by a wheelwright at Wadhurst of the same name.
The iron manufacture of Sussex reached its height towards the close of the reign of Elizabeth, when the trade became so prosperous that, instead of importing iron, England began to export it in considerable quantities, in the shape of iron ordnance. Sir Thomas Leighton and Sir Henry Neville had obtained patents from the queen, which enabled them to send their ordnance abroad, the conseqnence of which was that the Spaniards were found arming their ships and fighting us with guns of our own manufacture. Sir Walter Raleigh, calling attention to the subject in the House of Commons, said, "I am sure heretofore one ship of Her Majesty's was able to beat ten Spaniards, but now, by reason of our own ordnance, we are hardly matcht one to one." Proclamations were issued forbidding the export of iron and brass ordnance, and a bill was brought into Parliament to put a stop to the trade; but, not withstanding these prohibitions, the Sussex guns long continued to be smuggled out of the country in considerable numbers. "It is almost incredible," says Camden, "how many guns are made of the iron in this county. Count Gondomar (the Spanish ambassador) well knew their goodness when he so often begged of King James the boon to export them." Though the king refused his sanction, it appears that Sir Anthony Shirley of Weston, an extensive iron-master, succeeded in forwarding to the King of Spain a hundred pieces of cannon.
So active were the Sussex manufacturers, and so brisk was the trade they carried on, that during the reign of James I. it is supposed one-half of the whole quantity of iron produced in England was made there. Simon Sturtevant, in his 'Treatise of Metallica,' published in 1612, estimates the whole number of iron-mills in England and Wales at 800, of which, he says, "there are foure hundred milnes in Surry, Kent, and Sussex, as the townsmen of Haslemere have testified and numbered unto me. But the townsmen of Haslemere must certainly have been exaggerating, unless they counted smiths' and farriers' shops in the number of iron-mills. About the same time that Sturtevant's treatise was published, there appeared a treatise entitled the 'Surveyor's Dialogue,' by one John Norden, the object of which was to make out a case against the iron-works and their being allowed to burn up the timber of the country for fuel. Yet Norden does not make the number of iron-works much more than a third of Sturtevant's estimate. He says, "I have heard that there are or lately were in Sussex neere 140 hammers and furnaces for iron, and in it and Surrey adjoining three or four glasse-houses." Even the smaller number stated by Norden, however, shows that Sussex was then regarded as the principal seat of the iron-trade. Camden vividly describes the noise and bustle of the manufacture--the working of the heavy hammers, which, "beating upon the iron, fill the neighbourhood round about, day and night, with continual noise." These hammers were for the most part worked by the power of water, carefully stored in the artificial "Hammer-ponds" above described. The hammer-shaft was usually of ash, about 9 feet long, clamped at intervals with iron hoops. It was worked by the revolutions of the water-wheel, furnished with projecting arms or knobs to raise the hammer, which fell as each knob passed, the rapidity of its action of course depending on the velocity with which the water-wheel revolved. The forge-blast was also worked for the most part by water-power. Where the furnaces were small, the blast was produced by leather bellows worked by hand, or by a horse walking in a gin. The foot-blasts of the earlier iron-smelters were so imperfect that but a small proportion of the ore was reduced, so that the iron-makers of later times, more particularly in the Forest of Dean, instead of digging for ironstone, resorted to the beds of ancient scoriae for their principal supply of the mineral.
Notwithstanding the large number of furnaces in blast throughout the
county of Sussex at the period we refer to, their produce was
comparatively small, and must not be measured by the enormous produce
of modern iron-works; for while an iron-furnace of the present day
will easily turn out 150 tons of pig per week, the best of the older
furnaces did not produce more than from three to four tons. One of
the last extensive contracts executed in Sussex was the casting of
the iron rails which enclose St. Paul's Cathedral. The contract was
thought too large for one iron-master to undertake, and it was
consequently distributed amongst several contractors, though the
principal part of the work was executed at Lamberhurst, near
Tunbridge Wells. But to produce the comparatively small quantity of
iron turned out by the old works, the consumption of timber was
enormous; for the making of every ton of pig-iron required four loads
of timber converted into charcoal fuel, and the making of every ton
of bar-iron required three additional loads. Thus, notwithstanding
the indispensable need of iron, the extension of the manufacture, by
threatening the destruction of the timber of the southern counties,
came to be regarded in the light of a national calamity. Up to a
certain point, the clearing of the Weald of its dense growth of
underwood had been of advantage, by affording better opportunities
for the operations of agriculture. But the "voragious iron-mills"
were proceeding to swallow up everything that would burn, and the old
forest growths were rapidly disappearing. An entire wood was soon
exhausted, and long time was needed before it grew again. At
Lamberhurst alone, though the produce was only about five tons of
iron a-week, the annual consumption of wood was about 200,000 cords!
Wood continued to be the only material used for fuel generally--a
strong prejudice existing against the use of sea-coal for domestic
purposes.*
[footnote...
It was then believed that sea or pit-coal was poisonous when burnt in
dwellings, and that it was especially injurious to the human
complexion. All sorts of diseases were attributed to its use, and at
one time it was even penal to burn it. The Londoners only began to
reconcile themselves to the use of coal when the wood within reach of
the metropolis had been nearly all burnt up, and no other fuel was to
be had.
...]
It therefore began to be feared that there would be no available fuel
left within practicable reach of the metropolis; and the contingency
of having to face the rigorous cold of an English winter without fuel
naturally occasioning much alarm, the action of the Government was
deemed necessary to remedy the apprehended evil.
To check the destruction of wood near London, an Act was passed in
1581 prohibiting its conversion into fuel for the making of iron
within fourteen miles of the Thames, forbidding the erection of new
ironworks within twenty-two miles of London, and restricting the
number of works in Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, beyond the above limits.
Similar enactments were made in future Parliaments with the same
object, which had the effect of checking the trade, and several of
the Sussex ironmasters were under the necessity of removing their
works elsewhere. Some of them migrated to Glamorganshire, in South
Wales, because of the abundance of timber as well as ironstone in
that quarter, and there set up their forges, more particularly at
Aberdare and Merthyr Tydvil. Mr. Llewellin has recently published an
interesting account of their proceedings, with descriptions of their
works,*
[footnote ...
Archaeologia Cambrensis, 3rd Series, No. 34, April, 1863. Art.
"Sussex Ironmasters in Glamorganshire."
...]
remains of which still exist at Llwydcoed, Pontyryns, and other
places in the Aberdare valley. Among the Sussex masters who settled
in Glamorganshire for the purpose of carrying on the iron
manufacture, were Walter Burrell, the friend of John Ray, the
naturalist, one of the Morleys of Glynde in Sussex, the Relfes from
Mayfield, and the Cheneys from Crawley.
Notwithstanding these migrations of enterprising manufacturers, the iron trade of Sussex continued to exist until the middle of the seventeenth century, when the waste of timber was again urged upon the attention of Parliament, and the penalties for infringing the statutes seem to have been more rigorously enforced. The trade then suffered a more serious check; and during the civil wars, a heavy blow was given to it by the destruction of the works belonging to all royalists, which was accomplished by a division of the army under Sir William Waller. Most of the Welsh ironworks were razed to the ground about the same time, and were not again rebuilt. And after the Restoration, in 1674, all the royal ironworks in the Forest of Dean were demolished, leaving only such to be supplied with ore as were beyond the forest limits; the reason alleged for this measure being lest the iron manufacture should endanger the supply of timber required for shipbuilding and other necessary purposes.
From this time the iron manufacture of Sussex, as of England generally, rapidly declined. In 1740 there were only fifty-nine furnaces in all England, of which ten were in Sussex; and in 1788 there were only two. A few years later, and the Sussex iron furnaces were blown out altogether. Farnhurst, in western, and Ashburnham, in eastern Sussex, witnessed the total extinction of the manufacture. The din of the iron hammer was hushed, the glare of the furnace faded, the last blast of the bellows was blown, and the district returned to its original rural solitude. Some of the furnace-ponds were drained and planted with hops or willows; others formed beautiful lakes in retired pleasure-grounds; while the remainder were used to drive flour-mills, as the streams in North Kent, instead of driving fulling-mills, were employed to work paper-mills. All that now remains of the old iron-works are the extensive beds of cinders from which material is occasionally taken to mend the Sussex roads, and the numerous furnace-ponds, hammer-posts, forges, and cinder places, which mark the seats of the ancient manufacture.
CHAPTER III.
IRON-SMELTING BY PIT-COAL--DUD DUDLEY.
"God of his Infinite goodness (if we will but take notice of his goodness unto this Nation) hath made this Country a very Granary for the supplying of Smiths with Iron, Cole, and Lime made with cole, which hath much supplied these men with Corn also of late; and from these men a great part, not only of this Island, but also of his Majestie's other Kingdoms and Territories, with Iron wares have their supply, and Wood in these parts almost exhausted, although it were of late a mighty woodland country."--DUDLEY's Metallum Martis, 1665.
The severe restrictions enforced by the legislature against the use of wood in iron-smelting had the effect of almost extinguishing the manufacture. New furnaces ceased to be erected, and many of the old ones were allowed to fall into decay, until it began to be feared that this important branch of industry would become completely lost. The same restrictions alike affected the operations of the glass manufacture, which, with the aid of foreign artisans, had been gradually established in England, and was becoming a thriving branch of trade. It was even proposed that the smelting of iron should be absolutely prohibited: "many think," said a contemporary writer, "that there should be NO WORKS ANYWHERE--they do so devour the woods."
The use of iron, however, could not be dispensed with. The very
foundations of society rested upon an abundant supply of it, for
tools and implements of peace, as well as for weapons of war. In the
dearth of the article at home, a supply of it was therefore sought
for abroad; and both iron and steel came to be imported in
largely-increased quantities. This branch of trade was principally in
the hands of the Steelyard Company of Foreign Merchants, established
in Upper Thames Street, a little above London Bridge; and they
imported large quantities of iron and steel from foreign countries,
principally from Sweden, Germany, and Spain. The best iron came from
Spain, though the Spaniards on their part coveted our English made
cannons, which were better manufactured than theirs; while the best
steel came from Germany and Sweden.*
[footnote...
As late as 1790, long after the monopoly of the foreign merchants had
been abolished, Pennant says, "The present Steelyard is the great
repository of imported iron, which furnishes our metropolis with that
necessary material. The quantity of bars that fills the yards and
warehouses of this quarter strikes with astonishment the most
indifferent beholder."--PENNANT, Account of London, 309.
...]
Under these circumstances, it was natural that persons interested in the English iron manufacture should turn their attention to some other description of fuel which should serve as a substitute for the prohibited article. There was known to be an abundance of coal in the northern and midland counties, and it occurred to some speculators more than usually daring, to propose it as a substitute for the charcoal fuel made from wood. But the same popular prejudice which existed against the use of coal for domestic purposes, prevented its being employed for purposes of manufacture; and they were thought very foolish persons indeed who first promulgated the idea of smelting iron by means of pit-coal. The old manufacturers held it to be impossible to reduce the ore in any other way than by means of charcoal of wood. It was only when the wood in the neighbourhood of the ironworks had been almost entirely burnt up, that the manufacturers were driven to entertain the idea of using coal as a substitute; but more than a hundred years passed before the practice of smelting iron by its means became general.
The first who took out a patent for the purpose was one Simon
Sturtevant, a German skilled in mining operations; the professed
object of his invention being "to neale, melt, and worke all kind of
metal oares, irons, and steeles with sea-coale, pit-coale,
earth-coale, and brush fewell." The principal end of his invention,
he states in his Treatise of Metallica,*
[footnote...
STURTEVANT'S Metallica; briefly comprehending the Doctrine of Diverse
New Metallical Inventions, &c. Reprinted and published at the Great
Seal Patent Office, 1858.
...]
is to save the consumption and waste of the woods and timber of the
country; and, should his design succeed, he holds that it "will prove
to be the best and most profitable business and invention that ever
was known or invented in England these many yeares." He says he has
already made trial of the process on a small scale, and is confident
that it will prove equally successful on a large one. Sturtevant was
not very specific as to his process; but it incidentally appears to
have been his purpose to reduce the coal by an imperfect combustion
to the condition of coke, thereby ridding it of "those malignant
proprieties which are averse to the nature of metallique substances."
The subject was treated by him, as was customary in those days, as a
great mystery, made still more mysterious by the multitude of learned
words under which he undertook to describe his "Ignick Invention" All
the operations of industry were then treated as secrets. Each trade
was a craft, and those who followed it were called craftsmen. Even
the common carpenter was a handicraftsman; and skilled artisans were
"cunning men." But the higher branches of work were mysteries, the
communication of which to others was carefully guarded by the
regulations of the trades guilds. Although the early patents are
called specifications, they in reality specify nothing. They are for
the most part but a mere haze of words, from which very little
definite information can be gleaned as to the processes patented. It
may be that Sturtevant had not yet reduced his idea to any
practicable method, and therefore could not definitely explain it.
However that may be, it is certain that his process failed when tried
on a large scale, and Sturtevant's patent was accordingly cancelled
at the end of a year.
The idea, however, had been fairly born, and repeated patents were
taken out with the same object from time to time. Thus, immediately
on Sturtevant's failure becoming known, one John Rovenzon, who had
been mixed up with the other's adventure, applied for a patent for
making iron by the same process, which was granted him in 1613. His
'Treatise of Metallica'*
[footnote...
Reprinted and published at the Great Seal Patent Office, 1858.
...]
shows that Rovenzon had a true conception of the method of
manufacture. Nevertheless he, too, failed in carrying out the
invention in practice, and his patent was also cancelled. Though
these failures were very discouraging, like experiments continued to
be made and patents taken out,--principally by Dutchmen and Germans,*
[footnote...
Among the early patentees, besides the names of Sturtevant and
Rovenzon, we find those of Jordens, Francke, Sir Phillibert Vernatt,
and other foreigners of the above nations.
...]
--but no decided success seems to have attended their efforts until
the year 1620, when Lord Dudley took out his p