Industrial Biography

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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."

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