On 17th. July Peter King wrote about the use of charcoal made pig iron and
its non-use in foundries. He inferred that coke made iron was the only type
used by iron founders after the 1720s. I apologise for the delay in replying
to this message.
Aaron Walker and John Crawshaw were experimenting in 'founding' in 1741 in
Grenoside near Sheffield, and they were in production in 1742 making small
castings with the aid of Samuel Saint who was employed as a 'slitter of
steel' in Sheffield and had 'sometime before worked a little in the foundry
way'. Eighteen years before your date of 1760! We have no record of where
they obtained their raw pig or scrap iron from during these early days but
there were several charcoal blast furnaces in the locality, the nearest being
the Chappel Furnace at Chapeltown near Sheffield - just a matter of four or
five miles distance
The first coke fired blast furnace built by the Walkers, by now of both
Grenoside and of Masbrough, was erected in 1767 at The Holmes near Masbrough,
so that, by 1770, they had three blast furnaces operating at the Holmes, two
fired by charcoal (for forge use iron) and one by coke (for foundry use).
(See: Chris Morley, The Walkers of Masbrough, 1996 now out of print; and
Chris Morley, The Walkers of Masbrough, South Yorkshire Industrial History
Soc. Journal, No. 1, 1998.)
Wortley Iron Works obtained their charcoal iron from the two Bank Furnaces -
the Nether and Upper Furnaces, and from the Bretton Furnace. The Bank
Furnaces were in great disrepair by 1792 and it is doubtful if they were ever
repaired even though James Cockshutt had agreed to put them into working
order when he signed a 21 year lease upon them in 1792. Bretton Furnace
continued to supply charcoal pig iron to Wortley up until about 1810 - it is
listed in 1795 and again in 1805 as producing 250 tons per annum. It had
certainly ceased operations by 1820. However, Cockshutt had previously found
another supplier. In July 1817 he had signed an agreement with the operator
of the Silkstone Low Mill Furnace following Major Wilson's taking over its
lease from the Cannon Hall estate for a rental of £118. 10s. In 1819 the
Silkstone Low Mill Blast Furnace was included in the estate administered by
the executors of the will of James Cockshutt. The Wilson family were still
paying rent for this furnace in 1823 and in 1825, and it was probably the
'newly erected blast furnace' mentioned in the sales advertisement dated 1824
concerning the Wortley Wire Mills.
Up until the 1850s coke fired pig iron very gradually replaced charcoal fired
iron at Wortley for the majority of its work, however, Wortley Forge was
advertising that they were still using Best Charcoal Iron at the Low Forge
Rolling Mill in 1876 but it is not recorded from where they obtained their
supply. Obviously, during the late 18th. cent , coke fired pig iron was used
whenever it was possible for general castings because it could be bought upon
the open market, but it would have been a bind to have bought special
supplies of it for just a few castings to be used for in-house made spares
and made-in machinery at Wortley. There are records that Wortley purchased
special castings from Newton Chambers & Co., Thorncliffe Ironworks near
Sheffield (from the early 1800s), but they were few and far between and they
were always large castings.
With regard to the type of steel used by Cockshutt, this was a 'Blister
Steel' made by the cementation process from Swedish bar iron. Crucible steel
was unavailable until the late 1750s in any quantity. The Walkers erected
their FIRST crucible steel furnace in 1766 at the Yellands near Masbrough,
although they had been making cementation steel since 1748 at Masbrough and
1750 at Grenoside. Steel made by the cementation method had been produced in
the Sheffield region since 1699 by John Fell. There is no record of Wortley
making or using steel until, possibly, the 1750s, and then the only mention
is in Schubert (page 329, History of the British Iron & Steel Industry).
Chris Morley
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