The History of Ironmaking in England
“During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the manufacture of iron in England was greatly extended. The encouragement, which Edward the Third and his immediate successors had given to the immigration of foreign workmen into England had resulted in the settlement in the country of many Flemish and French ironworkers, whose skill was eagerly sought by many landed proprietors who entered with zeal into the manufacture of iron. Sussex became the principal seat of this industry; it possessed iron ores and forest of timber, the latter supplying the necessary charcoal for fuel, and small streams furnished the requisite power to drive the ‘iron mills.”[1]
The domination of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey in England, where the first applications of the Belgian-French process occurred in England, lasted but a few centuries. The first foundry to cast cannons was at the King’s ironworks at Newbridge, Sussex, in 1496; and soon there were a large number of hearths in operation throughout the County.
“The forests of England in the ironmaking districts had largely been consumed by the ‘voracious’ ironworks, and there were loud complaints that the whole community would be unable to obtain fuel for domestic purposes if this denudation were persisted in. In response to these complaints an act was passed in 1558, the first year of the reign of Elizabeth, which prohibited the cutting of timber in certain parts of the country for conversion into coal or fuel ‘for the making of iron,’ special exception being made for the weald of Kent, the county of Sussex, and certain parishes ‘high in the weald of the county of Surrey.’“[2] “A more sweeping act was passed in 1584, which prohibited the erection of any new ironworks in Surrey, Kent, and Sussex.”[3]
“In the sixteenth century, owing to the scarcity of timber in England, some of the ironmasters of Sussex emigrated to Glamorganshire, in South Wales, where they founded the iron works of Aberdare and other iron works. Remains of the works in the Aberdare valley still exist. At Pontypool, on the Welsh border, a blast furnace was built by Capel Hanbury in 1565, to smelt the Roman cinder which was found there, and about 1620 ‘the Hanburys are said to have built iron works at Llanelly.”[4]
“About the middle of the seventeenth century the British iron industry experienced a serious check through the civil commotion known as the Cromwellian Rebellion which then prevailed. Many of the forges and furnaces in Sussex and in the south of Wales were destroyed, and they were not again rebuilt.”[5] Birmingham, even then a center of iron manufacturing drawing on iron refined in nearby Shropshire and Staffordshire, suffered as the Royalists and the Parliamentarians fought for domination of the country ultimately won by Oliver Cromwell. For example, the smiths of Birmingham manufactured over 15,000 sword blades for the Parliamentarians in 1642.[6] Many skirmishes and battles occurred in the area between 1642 and 1649. One can surmise that perhaps traveling to a relatively tranquil Massachusetts during this period would have appealed to some ironworkers.
“In 1740, however, only 59 furnaces were left in all England and Wales.”[7] “Ten of the furnaces existing in 1740 were in Sussex, but in 1788 only two of these were left, and in 1796 only one is mentioned.”[8] By the 1800s, the iron industry had moved to the west of England completely, and the technology employed had been superseded by puddling and rolling with the use of coal for heat. The Leonards’ technology had played out by the late 1800s, and fyners were no longer employed.
[1] Swank, p. 45.
[2] Swank, p. 50
[3] Swank, pp. 50-51.
[4] James Moore Swank, “History of the Manufacture of Iron in All Ages and Particularly in the United States from Colonial Times to 1891,” Philadelphia: The American Iron and Steel Association, 1892, p. 56.
[5] Swank, p. 51
[6] Samuel Smiles, “Industrial Biography, Iron Workers and Tool Makers,” 12 December 1995 (Project Gutenberg reproduction).
[7] Swank, p. 51.
[8] Swank, p. 52.