Industrial Biography

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It seems to have occurred to some London capitalists that money was
then to be made in the iron trade, and that South Wales was a good
field for an experiment. The soil there was known to be full of coal
and ironstone, and several small iron works had for some time been
carried on, which were supposed to be doing well. Merthyr Tydvil was
one of the places at which operations had been begun, but the place
being situated in a hill district, of difficult access, and the
manufacture being still in a very imperfect state, the progress made
was for some time very slow. Land containing coal and iron was deemed
of very little value, as maybe inferred from the fact that in the
year 1765, Mr. Anthony Bacon, a man of much foresight, took a lease
from Lord Talbot, for 99 years, of the minerals under forty square
miles of country surrounding the then insignificant hamlet of Merthyr
Tydvil, at the trifling rental of 200L. a-year. There he erected iron
works, and supplied the Government with considerable quantities of
cannon and iron for different purposes; and having earned a
competency, he retired from business in 1782, subletting his mineral
tract in four divisions--the Dowlais, the Penydarran, the Cyfartha,
and the Plymouth Works, north, east, west, and south, of Merthyr
Tydvil.

Mr. Richard Crawshay became the lessee of what Mr. Mushet has called
"the Cyfartha flitch of the great Bacon domain." There he proceeded
to carry on the works established by Mr. Bacon with increased spirit;
his son William, whom he left in charge of the ironmongery store in
London, supplying him with capital to put into the iron works as
fast. as he could earn it by the retail trade. In 1787, we find
Richard Crawshay manufacturing with difficulty ten tons of bar-iron
weekly, and it was of a very inferior character,*
[footnote...
Mr. Mushet says of the early manufacture of iron at Merthyr Tydvil
that "A modification of the charcoal refinery, a hollow fire, was
worked with coke as a substitute for charcoal, but the bar-iron
hammered from the produce was very inferior." The pit-coal cast-iron
was nevertheless found of a superior quality for castings, being more
fusible and more homogeneous than charcoal-iron. Hence it was well
adapted for cannon, which was for some time the principal article of
manufacture at the Welsh works.
...]
-- the means not having yet been devised at Cyfartha for
malleableizing the pit-coal cast-iron with economy or good effect.
Yet Crawshay found a ready market for all the iron he could make, and
he is said to have counted the gains of the forge-hammer close by his
house at the rate of a penny a stroke. In course of time he found it
necessary to erect new furnaces, and, having adopted the processes
invented by Henry Cort, he was thereby enabled greatly to increase
the production of his forges, until in 1812 we find him stating to a
committee of the House of Commons that he was making ten thousand
tons of bar-iron yearly, or an average produce of two hundred tons a
week. But this quantity, great though it was, has since been largely
increased, the total produce of the Crawshay furnaces of Cyfartha,
Ynysfach, and Kirwan, being upwards of 50,000 tons of bar-iron
yearly.

The distance of Merthyr from Cardiff, the nearest port, being
considerable, and the cost of carriage being very great by reason of
the badness of the roads, Mr. Crawshay set himself to overcome this
great impediment to the prosperity of the Merthyr Tydvil district;
and, in conjunction with Mr. Homfray of the Penydarran Works, he
planned and constructed the canal*
[footnote...
It may be worthy of note that the first locomotive run upon a
railroad was that constructed by Trevithick for Mr. Homfray in 1803,
which was employed to bring down metal from the furnaces to the Old
Forge. The engine was taken off the road because the tram-plates were
found too weak to bear its weight without breaking.
...]
to Cardiff, the opening of which, in 1795, gave an immense impetus to
the iron trade of the neighbourhood. Numerous other extensive iron
works became established there, until Merthyr Tydvil attained the
reputation of being at once the richest and the dirtiest district in
all Britain. Mr. Crawshay became known in the west of England as the
"Iron King," and was quoted as the highest authority in all questions
relating to the trade. Mr. George Crawshay, recently describing the
founder of the family at a social meeting at Newcastle, said,--"In
these days a name like ours is lost in the infinity of great
manufacturing firms which exist through out the land; but in those
early times the man who opened out the iron district of Wales stood
upon an eminence seen by all the world. It is preserved in the
traditions of the family that when the 'Iron King' used to drive from
home in his coach-and-four into Wales, all the country turned out to
see him, and quite a commotion took place when he passed through
Bristol on his way to the works. My great grandfather was succeeded
by his son, and by his grandson; the Crawshays have followed one
another for four generations in the iron trade in Wales, and there
they still stand at the head of the trade." The occasion on which
these words were uttered was at a Christmas party, given to the men,
about 1300 in number, employed at the iron works of Messrs. Hawks,
Crawshay, and Co., at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. These works were founded
in 1754 by William Hawks, a blacksmith, whose principal trade
consisted in making claw-hammers for joiners. He became a thriving
man, and eventually a large manufacturer of bar-iron. Partners joined
him, and in the course of the changes wrought by time, one of the
Crawshays, in 1842, became a principal partner in the firm.

Illustrations of a like kind might be multiplied to any extent,
showing the growth in our own time of an iron aristocracy of great
wealth and influence, the result mainly of the successful working of
the inventions of the unfortunate and unrequited Henry Cort. He has
been the very Tubal Cain of England--one of the principal founders of
our iron age. To him we mainly owe the abundance of wrought-iron for
machinery, for steam-engines, and for railways, at one-third the
price we were before accustomed to pay to the foreigner. We have by
his invention, not only ceased to be dependent upon other nations for
our supply of iron for tools, implements, and arms, but we have
become the greatest exporters of iron, producing more than all other
European countries combined. In the opinion of Mr. Fairbairn of
Manchester, the inventions of Henry Cort have already added six
hundred millions sterling to the wealth of the kingdom, while they
have given employment to some six hundred thousand working people
during three generations. And while the great ironmasters, by freely
availing themselves of his inventions, have been adding estate to
estate, the only estate secured by Henry Cort was the little domain
of six feet by two in which he lies interred in Hampstead Churchyard.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SCOTCH IRON MANUFACTURE - Dr. ROEBUCK DAVID MUSHET.

"Were public benefactors to be allowed to pass away, like hewers of
wood and drawers of water, without commemoration, genius and
enterprise would be deprived of their most coveted distinction."--Sir
Henry Englefield.

The account given of Dr. Roebuck in a Cyclopedia of Biography,
recently published in Glasgow, runs as follows: -- "Roebuck, John, a
physician and experimental chemist, born at Sheffield, 1718; died,
after ruining himself by his projects, 1794. Such is the short shrift
which the man receives who fails. Had Dr. Roebuck wholly succeeded in
his projects, he would probably have been esteemed as among the
greatest of Scotland's benefactors. Yet his life was not altogether a
failure, as we think will sufficiently appear from the following
brief account of his labours: --

At the beginning of last century, John Roebuck's father carried on
the manufacture of cutlery at Sheffield,*
[footnote...
Dr. Roebuck's grandson, John Arthur Roebuck, by a singular
coincidence, at present represents Sheffield in the British
Parliament.
...]
in the course of which he realized a competency. He intended his son
to follow his own business, but the youth was irresistibly attracted
to scientific pursuits, in which his father liberally encouraged him;
and he was placed first under the care of Dr. Doddridge, at
Northampton, and afterwards at the University of Edinburgh, where he
applied himself to the study of medicine, and especially of
chemistry, which was then attracting considerable attention at the
principal seats of learning in Scotland. While residing at Edinburgh
young Roebuck contracted many intimate friendships with men who
afterwards became eminent in literature, such as Hume and Robertson
the historians, and the circumstance is supposed to have contributed
not a little to his partiality in favour of Scotland, and his
afterwards selecting it as the field for his industrial operations.

After graduating as a physician at Leyden, Roebuck returned to
England, and settled at Birmingham in the year 1745 for the purpose
of practising his profession. Birmingham was then a principal seat of
the metal manufacture, and its mechanics were reputed to be among the
most skilled in Britain. Dr. Roebuck's attention was early drawn to
the scarcity and dearness of the material in which the mechanics
worked, and he sought by experiment to devise some method of smelting
iron otherwise than by means of charcoal. He had a laboratory fitted
up in his house for the purpose of prosecuting his inquiries, and
there he spent every minute that he could spare from his professional
labours. It was thus that he invented the process of smelting iron by
means of pit-coal which he afterwards embodied in the patent
hereafter to be referred to. At the same time he invented new methods
of refining gold and silver, and of employing them in the arts, which
proved of great practical value to the Birmingham trades-men, who
made extensive use of them in their various processes of manufacture.

Dr. Roebuck's inquiries had an almost exclusively practical
direction, and in pursuing them his main object was to render them
subservient to the improvement of the industrial arts. Thus he sought
to devise more economical methods of producing the various chemicals
used in the Birmingham trade, such as ammonia, sublimate, and several
of the acids; and his success was such as to induce him to erect a
large laboratory for their manufacture, which was conducted with
complete success by his friend Mr. Garbett. Among his inventions of
this character, was the modern process of manufacturing vitriolic
acid in leaden vessels in large quantities, instead of in glass
vessels in small quantities as formerly practised. His success led
him to consider the project of establishing a manufactory for the
purpose of producing oil of vitriol on a large scale; and, having
given up his practice as a physician, he resolved, with his partner
Mr. Garbett, to establish the proposed works in the neighbourhood of
Edinburgh. He removed to Scotland with that object, and began the
manufacture of vitriol at Prestonpans in the year 1749. The
enterprise proved eminently lucrative, and, encouraged by his
success, Roebuck proceeded to strike out new branches of manufacture.
He started a pottery for making white and brown ware, which
eventually became established, and the manufacture exists in the same
neighbourhood to this day.

The next enterprise in which he became engaged was one of still
greater importance, though it proved eminently unfortunate in its
results as concerned himself. While living at Prestonpans, he made
the friendship of Mr. William Cadell, of Cockenzie, a gentleman who
had for some time been earnestly intent on developing the industry of
Scotland, then in a very backward condition. Mr. Cadell had tried,
without success, to establish a manufactory of iron; and, though he
had heretofore failed, he hoped that with the aid of Dr. Roebuck he
might yet succeed. The Doctor listened to his suggestions with
interest, and embraced the proposed enterprise with zeal. He
immediately proceeded to organize a company, in which he was joined
by a number of his friends and relatives. His next step was to select
a site for the intended works, and make the necessary arrangements
for beginning the manufacture of iron. After carefully examining the
country on both sides of the Forth, he at length made choice of a
site on the banks of the river Carron, in Stirlingshire, where there
was an abundant supply of wafer, and an inexhaustible supply of iron,
coal, and limestone in the immediate neighbourhood, and there Dr.
Roebuck planted the first ironworks in Scotland,

In order to carry them on with the best chances of success, he
brought a large number of skilled workmen from England, who formed a
nucleus of industry at Carron, where their example and improved
methods of working served to train the native labourers in their art.
At a subsequent period, Mr. Cadell, of Carronpark, also brought a
number of skilled English nail-makers into Scotland, and settled them
in the village of Camelon, where, by teaching others, the business
has become handed down to the present day.

The first furnace was blown at Carron on the first day of January,
1760; and in the course of the same year the Carron Iron Works turned
out 1500 tons of iron, then the whole annual produce of Scotland.
Other furnaces were shortly after erected on improved plans, and the
production steadily increased. Dr. Roebuck was indefatigable in his
endeavours to improve the manufacture, and he was one of the first,
as we have said, to revive the use of pit-coal in refining the ore,
as appears from his patent of 1762. He there describes his new
process as follows: -- "I melt pig or any kind of cast-iron in a
hearth heated with pit-coal by the blast of bellows, and work the
metal until it is reduced to nature, which I take out of the fire and
separate to pieces; then I take the metal thus reduced to nature and
expose it to the action of a hollow pit-coal fire, heated by the
blast of bellows, until it is reduced to a loop, which I draw out
under a common forge hammer into bar-iron." This method of
manufacture was followed with success, though for some time, as
indeed to this day, the principal production of the Carron Works was
castings, for which the peculiar quality of the Scotch iron admirably
adapts it. The well-known Carronades,*
[footnote...
The carronade was invented by General Robert Melville [Mr. Nasmyth
says it was by Miller of Dalswinton], who proposed it for discharging
68 lb, shot with low charges of powder, in order to produce the
increased splintering or SMASHING effects which were known to result
from such practice. The first piece of the kind was cast at the
Carron Foundry, in 1779, and General Melville's family have now in
their possession a small model of this gun, with the inscription: --
"Gift of the Carron Company to Lieutenant-general Melville, inventor
of the smashers and lesser carronades, for solid, ship, shell, and
carcass shot, &c. First used against French ships in 1779."
...]
or "Smashers," as they were named, were cast in large numbers at the
Carron Works. To increase the power of his blowing apparatus,
Dr.Roebuck called to his aid the celebrated Mr. Smeaton, the
engineer, who contrived and erected for him at Carron the most
perfect apparatus of the kind then in existence. It may also be
added, that out of the Carron enterprise, in a great measure, sprang
the Forth and Clyde Canal, the first artificial navigation in
Scotland. The Carron Company, with a view to securing an improved
communication with Glasgow, themselves surveyed a line, which was
only given up in consequence of the determined opposition of the
landowners; but the project was again revived through their means,
and was eventually carried out after the designs of Smeaton and
Brindley.

While the Carron foundry was pursuing a career of safe prosperity,
Dr. Roebuck's enterprise led him to embark in coal-mining, with the
object of securing an improved supply of fuel for the iron works. He
became the lessee of the Duke of Hamilton's extensive coal-mines at
Boroughstoness, as well as of the salt-pans which were connected with
them. The mansion of Kinneil went with the lease,and there Dr.
Roebuck and his family took up their abode. Kinneil House was
formerly a country seat of the Dukes of Hamilton, and is to this day
a stately old mansion, reminding one of a French chateau. Its
situation is of remarkable beauty, its windows overlooking the broad
expanse of the Firth of Forth, and commanding an extensive view of
the country along its northern shores. The place has become in a
measure classical, Kinneil House having been inhabited, since Dr.
Roebuck's time, by Dugald Stewart, who there wrote his Philosophical
Essays.*
[footnote...
Wilkie the painter once paid him a visit there while in Scotland
studying the subject of his "Penny Wedding;" and Dugald Stewart found
for him the old farm-house with the cradle-chimney, which he
introduced in that picture. But Kinneil House has had its imaginary
inhabitants as well as its real ones, the ghost of a Lady Lilburn,
once an occupant of the place, still "haunting" some of the
unoccupied chambers. Dugald Stewart told Wilkie one night, as he was
going to bed, of the unearthly wailings which he himself had heard
proceeding from the ancient apartments; but to him at least they had
been explained by the door opening out upon the roof being blown in
on gusty nights, when a jarring and creaking noise was heard all over
the house. One advantage derived from the house being "haunted" was,
that the garden was never broken into, and the winter apples and
stores were at all times kept safe from depredation in the apartments
of the Lady Lilburn.
...]
When Dr. Roebuck began to sink for coal at the new mines, he found it
necessary to erect pumping-machinery of the most powerful kind that
could be contrived, in order to keep the mines clear of water. For
this purpose the Newcomen engine, in its then state, was found
insufficient; and when Dr. Roebuck's friend, Professor Black, of
Edinburgh, informed him of a young man of his acquaintance, a
mathematical instrument maker at Glasgow, having invented a
steam-engine calculated to work with increased power, speed, and
economy, compared with Newcomen's; Dr. Roebuck was much interested,
and shortly after entered into a correspondence with James Watt, the
mathematical instrument maker aforesaid on the subject. The Doctor
urged that Watt, who, up to that time, had confined himself to
models, should come over to Kinneil House, and proceed to erect a
working; engine in one of the outbuildings. The English workmen whom
he had brought; to the Carron works would, he justly thought, give
Watt a better chance of success with his engine than if made by the
clumsy whitesmiths and blacksmiths of Glasgow, quite unaccustomed as
they were to first-class work; and he proposed himself to cast the
cylinders at Carron previous to Watt's intended visit to him at
Kinneil.

Watt paid his promised visit in May, 1768, and Roebuck was by this
time so much interested in the invention, that the subject of his
becoming a partner with Watt, with the object of introducing the
engine into general use, was seriously discussed. Watt had been
labouring at his invention for several years, contending with many
difficulties, but especially with the main difficulty of limited
means. He had borrowed considerable sums of money from Dr. Black to
enable him to prosecute his experiments, and he felt the debt to hang
like a millstone round his neck. Watt was a sickly, fragile man, and
a constant sufferer from violent headaches; besides he was by nature
timid, desponding, painfully anxious, and easily cast down by
failure. Indeed, he was more than once on the point of abandoning his
invention in despair. On the other hand, Dr. Roebuck was accustomed
to great enterprises, a bold and undaunted man, and disregardful of
expense where he saw before him a reasonable prospect of success. His
reputation as a practical chemist and philosopher, and his success as
the founder of the Prestonpans Chemical Works and of the Carron Iron
Works, justified the friends of Watt in thinking that he was of all
men the best calculated to help him at this juncture, and hence they
sought to bring about a more intimate connection between the two. The
result was that Dr. Roebuck eventually became a partner to the extent
of two-thirds of the invention, took upon him the debt owing by Watt
to Dr. Black amounting to about 1200L., and undertook to find the
requisite money to protect the invention by means of a patent. The
necessary steps were taken accordingly and the patent right was
secured by the beginning of 1769, though the perfecting of his model
cost Watt much further anxiety and study.

It was necessary for Watt occasionally to reside with Dr. Roebuck at
Kinneil House while erecting his first engine there. It had been
originally intended to erect it in the neighbouring town of
Boroughstoness, but as there might be prying eyes there, and Watt
wished to do his work in privacy, determined "not to puff," he at
length fixed upon an outhouse still standing, close behind the
mansion, by the burnside in the glen, where there was abundance of
water and secure privacy. Watt's extreme diffidence was often the
subject of remark at Dr. Roebuck's fireside. To the Doctor his
anxiety seemed quite painful, and he was very much disposed to
despond under apparently trivial difficulties. Roebuck's hopeful
nature was his mainstay throughout. Watt himself was ready enough to
admit this; for, writing to his friend Dr.Small, he once said, "I
have met with many disappointments; and I must have sunk under the
burthen of them if I had not been supported by the friendship of Dr.
Roebuck."

But more serious troubles were rapidly accumulating upon Dr. Roebuck
himself; and it was he, and not Watt, that sank under the burthen.
The progress of Watt's engine was but slow, and long before it could
be applied to the pumping of Roebuck's mines, the difficulties of the
undertaking on which he had entered overwhelmed him. The opening out
of the principal coal involved a very heavy outlay, extending over
many years, during which he sank not only his own but his wife's
fortune, and--what distressed him most of all--large sums borrowed
from his relatives and friends, which he was unable to repay. The
consequence was, that he was eventually under the necessity of
withdrawing his capital from the refining works at Birmingham, and
the vitriol works at Prestonpans. At the same time, he transferred to
Mr. Boulton of Soho his entire interest in Watt's steam-engine, the
value of which, by the way, was thought so small that it was not even
included among the assets; Roebuck's creditors not estimating it as
worth one farthing. Watt sincerely deplored his partner's
misfortunes, but could not help him. "He has been a most sincere and
generous friend," said Watt, "and is a truly worthy man." And again,
"My heart bleeds for him, but I can do nothing to help him: I have
stuck by him till I have much hurt myself; I can do so no longer; my
family calls for my care to provide for them." The later years of Dr.
Roebuck's life were spent in comparative obscurity; and he died in
1794, in his 76th year.

He lived to witness the success of the steam-engine, the opening up
of the Boroughstoness coal,*
[footnote...
Dr. Roebuck had been on the brink of great good fortune, but he did
not know it. Mr. Ralph Moore, in his "Papers on the Blackband
Ironstones" (Glasgow, 1861), observes: -- "Strange to say, he was
leaving behind him, almost as the roof of one of the seams of coal
which he worked, a valuable blackband ironstone, upon which Kinneil
Iron Works are now founded. The coal-field continued to be worked
until the accidental discovery of the blackband about 1845. The old
coal-pits are now used for working the ironstone."
...]
and the rapid extension of the Scotch iron trade, though he shared in
the prosperity of neither of those branches of industry. He had been
working ahead of his age, and he suffered for it. He fell in the
breach at the critical moment, and more fortunate men marched over
his body into the fortress which his enterprise and valour had mainly
contributed to win. Before his great undertaking of the Carron Works,
Scotland was entirely dependent upon other countries for its supply
of iron. In 1760, the first year of its operations, the whole produce
was 1500 tons. In course of time other iron works were erected, at
Clyde Cleugh, Muirkirk, and Devon--the managers and overseers of
which, as well as the workmen, had mostly received their training and
experience at Carron--until at length the iron trade of Scotland has
assumed such a magnitude that its manufacturers are enabled to export
to England and other countries upwards of 500,000 tons a-year. How
different this state of things from the time when raids were made
across the Border for the purpose of obtaining a store of iron
plunder to be carried back into Scotland!

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