Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

44 BLAST FURNACES. DERWENT IRON AND STEEL WORKS. THE MANUFACTURE OF IRON AND STEEL. THERE were workers in iron three hundred years before the Trojan War; and even the wild hill people of Africa and India have long been adept, the steel trade has not been without its exciting incident. The finest steel in Eng- land was originally macle by Hindoos, and, though of extravagant price, gave little in primitive fashion, at converting iron into steel by the addition of carbon. The art of smelting and casting iron was familiar to the Sussex iron workers before body armour fell into desuetude, and it was at the great furnace at Lamberhurst, on the Kentish border, that the balustrade encircling St. satisfaction as to its quality to Huntsman, the Yorkshire clock-maker. His watch- springs were for ever breaking, but he discovered, and kept secret, a process of steel-making that fulfilled his requirements. His fame spread, but no man could fathom his mode of manufacture, till one winter’s Cathedral was cast, at a cost of . The use of coal, instead of wood, the iron trade Paul’s < £ 11,000. for smelting tended to drift to Staffordshire and the North. Here vast stores of minerals were almost to hand, and coal abundant. Invention and capital were by-ancl-by the helpers of labour, and Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester, and Glasgow developed into great cities, practically on coal, iron, and steel used in the making of the tiniest pen, the sharpest knife, the most formidable ram battleship. There is a touch of ot for ro- mance in every industry, and Photo : By permission of the Wigan Coal and Iron Company, Ltd PLATFORM OF STEEL MELTING FURNACES.