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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 iron manufacture
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 modern 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.[1] 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,[2] 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.[3] 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;[4] 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.[5] 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 early 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.[6] 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." [7]
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.[8] 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." [9]
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." [10] 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.[11] 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.[12] 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.[13]
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 Dean--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.[14] 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.[15] 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."
