MINING—IRON
Iron has been worked in Britain from the earliest historical times,
and flint implements have been found at Stainton-in-Furness and at
Battle in Sussex in positions suggesting that ironworks existed in
those places at the end of the Stone Age.[65] Julius Cæsar relates
that iron was produced along the coast of Britain, but only in small
quantities, its rarity causing it to be considered as a precious metal,
so that iron bars were current among the natives as money. The coming
of the Romans soon changed this. They were not slow to see the value
of the island's mineral wealth and to turn it to account. Ironworks
sprang up all over the country: at Maresfield in Sussex they were
apparently in full swing by the time of Vespasian (died A.D. 79), and
in the neighbourhood of Battle fifty years later. Even more important
were the workings in the West, on the banks of the Wye and in the
Forest of Dean. Near Coleford have been found remains of Roman mines
with shallow shafts and adits, while round Whitchurch, Goodrich, and
Redbrook are enormous deposits of 'cinders,' or slag, dating from
the same period.[66] Ariconium, near Ross, was a city of smiths and
forgemen; and Bath (Aquae Sulis) is often said to have had a 'collegium
fabricensium,' or gild of smiths, as one of its members, Julius
Vitalis, armourer of the 20th Legion, dying after nine years' service,
was given a public funeral here by his gild; but it seems more probable
that the seat of the gild was at Chester, and that Julius had come to
Bath for his health.[67]
It is a most remarkable fact that although abundant circumstantial
evidence of the Roman exploitation of British iron exists in the shape
of coins and other relics found upon the site of the works, there is
practically no trace of any such working during the Saxon period until
shortly before the Conquest. The furnaces must have been still in blast
when the Saxons landed; they were a warlike race, possessing a full
appreciation of iron and something of the Scandinavian admiration for
smithcraft, yet there is hardly a trace of their having worked iron
in this country. Few, if any, objects definitely assignable to this
period have been found upon the site of iron works, and documentary
evidence is almost non-existent. There is a charter of Oswy, King of
Kent, given in 689, by which he grants to the abbey of St. Peter of
Canterbury land at Liminge 'in which there is known to be a mine of
iron';[68] and there is the legend that about 700 A.D. Alcester, in
Warwickshire, was the centre of busy ironworks, peopled with smiths,
who, for their hardness of heart in refusing to listen to St. Egwin,
and endeavouring to drown his voice by beating on their anvils, were
swallowed up by the earth;[69] but the rest is silence, until we come
to the time of Edward the Confessor. The Domesday Survey shows that
in the time of the Confessor, Gloucester rendered as part of its
farm 36 dicres of iron, probably in the form of horseshoes, and 100
rods suitable for making bolts for the king's ships,[70] while from
Pucklechurch in the same country came yearly 90 'blooms' of iron.[71]
The same Survey mentions that there were six smiths in Hereford,
each of whom had yearly to make for the king 120 horseshoes, and it
also refers to iron mines on the borders of Cheshire, in Sussex and
elsewhere.
During the twelfth century the industry appears to have expanded. In
the North, at Egremont, we read of the grant of an iron mine to the
monks of St. Bees,[72] and at Denby a similar grant was made about
1180 by William FitzOsbert to the abbey of Byland.[73] In Derbyshire,
towards the end of the century, Sir Walter de Abbetoft gave to the
monks of Louth Park wood at Birley in Brampton and two smithies, namely
one bloomery and one forge, with the right to take beech and elm for
fuel.[74] But it was in the south-west that the greatest development
took place. During the whole of this century the Forest of Dean was the
centre of the iron industry, and played the part that Birmingham has
played in more recent times. All through the reign of Henry II. the
accounts of the sheriffs of Gloucester[75] tell of a constant output
of iron, both rough and manufactured, iron bars, nails, pickaxes, and
hammers sent to Woodstock, Winchester, and Brill, where the king was
carrying out extensive building operations, horseshoes supplied to the
army, arrows and other warlike materials despatched to France, spades,
pickaxes, and other miners' tools provided for the Irish expedition
of 1172, iron bought for the Crusade which Henry projected, but did
not live to perform, and 50,000 horseshoes made for the actual Crusade
of Richard I. Throughout the thirteenth century the Forest of Dean
retained its practical monopoly of the English iron trade, so far at
least as the southern counties were concerned, and during the whole of
that time members of the family of Malemort were employed at a forge
near the castle of St. Briavels turning out enormous stores of bolts
for cross-bows and other war material.[76] But a rival was now growing
up in the Weald of Sussex and Kent. As early as 1254 the sheriff of
Sussex had been called upon to provide 30,000 horseshoes and 60,000
nails, presumably of local manufacture,[77] and in 1275 Master Henry
of Lewes, who had been the king's chief smith for the past twenty
years,[78] purchased 406 iron rods (_kiville_) 'in the Weald' for £16,
17s. 11d.,[79] while a year or two later he obtained another 75 rods
from the same source and paid £4, 3s. 4d. 'to a certain smith in the
Weald for 100 iron rods.'[80]
The Wealden works had the advantage, a great advantage in the case
of so heavy a material as iron, of nearness to London, and soon
obtained a footing in the London markets with the imported Spanish
iron at the expense of Gloucestershire, which at the beginning of
the reign of Henry III. had been sending its iron to Westminster and
into Sussex.[81] It must not be imagined that the northern counties
were neglecting their mineral wealth all this time; they were on the
contrary very active, and were exploiting their iron with vigour and
success. On the lands of Peter de Brus in Cleveland in 1271 there
were five small forges each valued at 10s., and two larger worth £4
each:[82] these sums may not sound very imposing, but it must be borne
in mind that the best land in that district was then worth only 1s. an
acre. Twenty years later the forges belonging to Furness Abbey yielded
a profit of £6, 13s. 4d., as compared with a profit on flocks and herds
of only £3, 11s. 3d., and it is probable that the Abbey had at least
forty forges then working on their lands.[83] The great quantity of
iron obtained at Furness, also, formed the most valuable part of the
booty carried off by the Scots in their raid in 1316.[84] But the large
production of iron in the northern counties was absorbed by their own
local requirements, and this was still more the case with the smaller
quantities smelted in Northamptonshire and Rutland. Derbyshire must
have been another important centre, for as early as 1257 four or five
forges in the Belper ward of Duffield Frith were yielding about £10
each yearly, and in 1314 two forges in Belper accounted for £63, 6s.
8d. in thirty-four weeks, and there was a third, yielding nearly £7,
10s. for only eleven weeks' work,[85] but there is nothing to show
that Derbyshire iron was ever sent south, and from the middle of the
fourteenth century such English iron as was used in London was almost
entirely drawn from the Weald.
In order to understand how Sussex and Kent, where no iron has been
worked for the last hundred years, came to be the centres of a great
iron industry in medieval times, it must be borne in mind that charcoal
was the only fuel used for iron working[86] until Dud Dudley discovered
a method of using pit coal, about 1620, a date which may be considered
to mark the end of the medieval period in iron mining. The earliest
and most primitive method of smelting iron was by setting a hearth
of wood and charcoal on a wind-swept hill or in some other draughty
position, heaping upon it alternate layers of ore and charcoal, and
covering the whole with clay, to retain the heat, leaving vents at
the base for the wind to enter and the iron to come out.[87] A slight
advance on this substituted a short cylindrical furnace of stone for
the containing layer of clay, and an ingenious device for increasing
the draught was used by the Romans at Lanchester, in Durham, where two
narrow tunnels were made on the side of a hill, with wide mouths facing
to the west, the quarter from which the wind blows most frequently in
this valley, tapering to a narrow bore at the hearth.[88] Even under
the most favourable conditions such a furnace would reduce a very small
percentage of the ore to metal,[89] and the use of an auxiliary blast,
produced by bellows, must have been resorted to at a quite early date.
Prior to the fifteenth century such bellows were almost invariably
worked by hand, or rather by foot, for the blowers stood upon the
bellows, holding on to a bar, but during the fifteenth century water
power was introduced in many parts of the country, and the bellows
were driven by water-wheels. Such was apparently the case in Weardale
in 1408,[90] probably in the Forest of Dean about the same date, and
clearly in Derbyshire by the end of the century.[91]
In several early charters granting mineral rights to Furness Abbey,
mention is made of the privilege of using water from the grantor's
streams; but where particulars are given, as in the case of the charter
of Hugh de Moresby made in 1270, the water is always stated to be for
the washing of the ore, and not for power.[92] The ore, or 'mine,' to
use the more common medieval term, was sometimes dug on the 'open-cast'
system, but more usually by a series of bell or beehive pits.[93] It
was then roughly cleansed by washing on a coarse sieve, and was next
subjected to a preliminary burning, or 'elyng,'[94] as it was termed at
the Tudeley forge in the fourteenth century.[95] The burnt ore was then
broken and carried to the furnace. In the sixteenth century this was a
building in the shape of a truncated cone, about twenty-four feet in
diameter, and not more than thirty feet high, in the base of which was
a cupped, or bowl-shaped, hearth of sandstone, and such we may assume
the earlier furnaces also to have been. Alternate charges of mine and
charcoal were fed into the furnace from the top, the iron settling
down into the bowl of the hearth, from which it was taken as a lump or
'bloom.' From the sixteenth century, when by the use of a more powerful
blast a higher temperature was obtainable and cast iron was produced,
the molten iron was drawn off from time to time through a vent at the
bottom of the hearth into a bed of sand. In Sussex and Gloucestershire
it seems to have been usual to form in the sand one large oblong
depression in the direct course of the flow of the iron with a number
of smaller depressions at right angles to the first, the large mass of
iron thus moulded being known as a 'sow,' and the smaller blocks as
'pigs.'
There were in the earlier periods of the industry a very large number
of smelting hearths, consisting practically of an ordinary blacksmith's
forge with a cup-shaped hearth, or crucible, in the bottom of which the
imperfectly molten iron accumulated. Such were the itinerant forges
(_fabricæ errantes_) in the Forest of Dean, of which there were as
many as sixty in blast at the end of the thirteenth century.[96] The
buildings attached to such a forge would naturally be merely temporary
sheds, such as were referred to by the Earl of Richmond in 1281, when
he gave leave to the monks of Jervaux to cut wood in his forest to
smelt iron and to make two small sheds (_logias_) 'without nail, bolt,
or wall,' so that if the smelters moved to another place (as these
itinerant forges did when the ore or the fuel became exhausted) they
should pull down the sheds and erect others.[97] In this instance the
grant of two sheds may imply two smelting-houses, but it seems more
probable that one was the 'bloomery,' or smelting forge, and the other
the smithy, which invariably accompanied the bloomery.[98] With this
simple type of forge the product was a lump of malleable iron, which
was purified by hammering and worked up at the smithy, but the pig
iron produced by the larger high blast furnace required more elaborate
treatment. The sow was carried from the furnace to the forge, 'finery'
or 'strynghearth,' where it was heated on an open hearth and reduced
by the sledge, or by the water-hammer[99] when available, to a large
ingot or 'bloom.'[100] The latter was, as a rule, reheated, divided
and worked into bars, the completion of which was usually carried out
in the seventeenth century at a third hearth, the 'chafery,' but this
appears to have been an elaboration of post-medieval date. The sows
naturally varied in size according to the capacity of the furnace, and
this, it may be observed, was much greater at the end of a 'blowing'
than at the beginning, owing to the fire eating away the hearth,
especially if too large a proportion of intractable 'hot' ore were
used;[101] but the blooms were made of standard weight. At the same
time the weight of the bloom, though constant in any given district,
varied in different parts of the country. In Weardale it seems to have
been about two hundredweight, being composed of fifteen stones, each
of thirteen pounds;[102] and in Furness it was about the same weight,
but contained fourteen stones of fourteen pounds.[103] On the other
hand, we find blooms selling at the Kentish ironworks of Tudeley for
3s. 4d. in the reign of Edward III.,[104] when iron bought for repairs
to Leeds Castle cost about 7s. the hundredweight,[105] which, allowing
for cost of carriage, agrees fairly well with the three quarters of
a hundredweight attributed to the Sussex bloom in the seventeenth
century.[106] As regards the price of iron, it was always high during
the medieval period, but naturally varied with conditions of demand
and supply, cost of carriage, and the quality of the iron. To take
a late instance: in Staffordshire in 1583, 'coldshear,' or brittle
iron, fetched only £9 the ton when tough iron fetched £12.[107] In
Sussex[108] in 1539 iron sold on the spot for from £5 to £7 the ton,
allowing a profit of 20s. the ton, and ten years later £8 at the forge
and about £9, 5s. in London, the cost of carriage to London being 9s.
the ton.[109]
The number of workmen employed at the different works naturally
varied, but the surveyor of the iron mills in Ashdown Forest in 1539
laid down the rule:[110] 'That to melt the sowes in ij forges or
fynories there must be iiij persones, and at the forge to melt the
blomes there must be ij persones. So are there at every forge ij
persones wherof the oone holdeth the work at the hamo^r and the second
kepeth the work hot. M^d that oone man cannot kepe the hamo^r bicause
the work must be kept in such hete that they may not shifte handes.'
At the Bedburn forge in 1408,[111] there were a 'blomer' or 'smythman,'
a smith and a foreman, as well as a 'colier' or charcoal burner. The
blomer was paid 6d. for every bloom smelted, of which the average
production was six in a week, the largest output recorded in any week
being ten blooms. For working up the bloom at the forge, the smith
received 6d. and an extra penny for cutting it up into bars, while
the foreman, who in spite of his name does not seem to have had any
staff of workmen under him, received 2d. a bloom when he assisted at
the smelting, and 3d. at the reworking. Such additional labour as was
required was supplied by the wives of the smith and foreman, who did
odd jobs, breaking up the ore, attending to the bellows, or helping
their husbands, earning wages paid at first on a vague but rather
high scale, but falling afterwards to the settled rate of a halfpenny
a bloom. An allowance of one penny a week was made for ale for the
workmen; and a similar munificent allowance was made 'for drink for the
four blowers' at Tudeley in 1353.[112] At this Tudeley forge in 1333,
the workmen were paid in kind, receiving every seventh bloom,[113] a
payment roughly equivalent to 6d. a bloom, but by 1353 this system had
been dropped, and they were paid from 7½d. to 9½d. a bloom. In addition
to the 'seventh bloom,' we find mention in 1333 of a customary payment
to the 'Forblouweris'[114] of 2¼d. a bloom, and in the 1353 account we
find 'rewards' paid to the master blower and three other blowers; no
other workmen are mentioned by name, and as the whole process of making
the blooms is here referred to as 'blowyng' we may probably assume that
the staff of these Kentish works consisted of four men. The Sussex iron
mills at Sheffield in Fletching in 1549 employed one hammerman and
his assistant,[115] two fyners and their two servants, a founder, and
a filler,[116] the business of the latter being to keep the furnace
charged. Here the founder was paid 8s., and the filler 6s. for each
'foundye,' or working week of six days, and the hammerman and fyners
received between them 13s. 4d. a ton, about three tons being produced
each 'foundye.'
In addition to the actual ironworkers every forge afforded employment
to a number of charcoal-burners and miners. For the most part these
latter, as was the case with the coal miners, ranked as ordinary
labourers, but in the Forest of Dean they formed a close corporation
of 'free miners,' possessing an organisation and privileges of
considerable importance and antiquity.[117] So far as can be judged the
customs of the free miners were traditional, based on prescription,
recognised as early as the time of Henry III., and officially confirmed
by Edward I. By these customs the right of mining was restricted to the
free miners resident within the bounds of the Forest, and they had also
control of the export of the iron ore, all persons carrying the same
down the Severn being bound to pay dues to the miners under penalty
of forfeiture of their boat. The free miners had also the right of
digging anywhere within the Forest, except in gardens, orchards, and
curtilages; the lord of the soil, who might be the king or a private
landowner, being entitled to a share as a member of the fellowship,
almost always consisting of four 'verns' or partners. Besides the
right thus to open a mine the miners had a claim to access thereto
from the highway, and to timber for their works. In return, the king
received from every miner who raised three loads of ore in a week one
penny, which was collected by the 'gaveller' every Tuesday 'between
Mattens and Masse,' and he had also the right to certain quantities of
'law-ore' from the different mines every week, for which the miners
were paid at the rate of a penny a load, and if he was working an
itinerant forge they were bound to supply ore therefor at the same
rate, and finally there was a royal export duty of a halfpenny on every
load of ore taken out of the Forest.[118]
The right of mining within the forest was restricted, as we have
already said, to the resident free miners, and they might only employ
the labour of their own family or apprentices. These rights to their
mines, or shares therein, were definite, and could be bequeathed by
will; and in order to prevent trespass the rule was laid down that no
man should start a fresh working near that of another miner 'within so
much space that the miner may stand and cast ridding[119] and stones
so far from him with a bale, as the manner is.' When disputes arose
between the miners, they were settled at their own court, held every
three weeks at St. Briavels, under the presidency of the Constable,
appeals being made, if necessary, from the normal jury of twelve
miners to juries of twenty-four or forty-eight. These Mine Law Courts
continued to be held until the latter half of the eighteenth century;
but we are not here concerned with their later proceedings and constant
endeavours to maintain restrictions which had long passed out of date;
endeavours which seem to have resulted chiefly in promoting 'the
abominable sin of perjury,' so that it was found necessary to ordain
that any miner convicted thereof should be expelled and 'all the
working tooles and habitt burned before his face.' What those tools
and costume were in the fifteenth century, and until modern times, may
be seen on a brass in Newland Church, whereon is depicted a free miner
wearing a cap and leather breeches tied below the knee, with a wooden
mine-hod slung over his shoulder, carrying a small mattock in his right
hand, and holding a candlestick between his teeth.[120]
Although not so intimately connected with iron working as the smiths,
smelters and miners, the charcoal-burners were auxiliaries without whom
the industry could not have existed, and who in turn derived their
living largely from that industry. The amount of wood consumed by the
iron works was enormous. As an example we may take the case of the two
Sussex mills of Sheffield and Worth for 1547-9.[121] At Sheffield 6300
cords of wood were 'coled' for the furnace, and 6750 cords for the
forge; at Worth the amounts were respectively nearly 5900 and 2750
cords; the cords being 125 cubic feet, this represents an expenditure
of about 2,175,000 cubic feet of timber for these two works alone in
less than two years. Later, in 1580, it was stated that a beech tree
of one foot square 'at the stubbe' would make one and a half loads of
charcoal, and the ironworks at Monkswood, near Tintern, would require
600 such trees every year,[122] while some thirty years later Norden
referred to the fact that there were in Sussex alone about 140 forges
using two, three, or four loads of charcoal apiece daily. Acts were
passed in 1558, 1581, and 1585 regulating the cutting of wood for
furnaces and prohibiting the use of timber trees for charcoal, but
they were evaded, and the destruction of trees continued until in the
eighteenth century charcoal was supplanted by mineral coal, the first
successful use of which for iron smelting, by Dud Dudley in 1620,
marks, as we have said, the termination of the medieval period.