Book Review
COPPEROPOLIS / Landscapes of the Early Industrial Period in Swansea by
Stephen Hughes 2000 358 pp 339 figures [many are photos]. 4 colour
plates. HB DW price £38.00 post free from: Royal Commission on the
Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, Plas Crug, Aberystwyth, SY23
1NJ
In a previous review (King Copper / South Wales and the Copper Trade 1584 -
1895 by Ronald Rees) I commented on the dearth of books on the Swansea
copper trade since Col Grant-Francis wrote, The Development of Copper
Smelting in the Swansea District in 1881. However, we now have three
excellent books on this topic! Copperopolis is different again, a coffee
table book (2kg!) a monograph and a gazetteer all rolled into one. Printed
on art paper with detailed maps and fine drawings for which the RCAHMW are
renown this is a book to treasure.
During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries 90% of
Britain’s copper-smelting capacity was located within 20 miles of
Swansea. At the same time it was also the world’s largest
copper-smelting centre with copper ores being imported from Cuba, Chile,
the United States and Australia. Swansea was noted for the development
of the “Welsh method of copper-smelting” which consisted of repeated
roasting of copper-ore in a succession of specially designed reverbatory
furnaces.
It takes 3 tons of coal to smelt each ton of copper ore so it makes
economic sense to bring the copper ore to the smelter and with a lack of
coal in the copper rich counties of west Devon and Cornwall, Swansea was
the nearest available supply of coal. The boats bringing the copper ore
could return with a load of coal to stoke the engines which drained the
mines.
The coal industry fuelled other industries like the production of Alum
from coal and salt from sea water. The most famous of these industries
was the Swansea Pottery who produced a fine porcelain for a limited
period, on a totally uneconomic basis. It is now in great demand by
collectors thorughout the world. The larger and longer lived earthenware
pottery industry was of considerable importance to the local economy. The
arsenic industry was a by-product of the copper ores from Devon and Cornwall
and today the remains of Clyne Wood Arsenic Works can be found in the Clyne
Valley Country Park.
Swansea was one time world centre for tinplate production. In 1913, four
out of every five tinplate workers in the UK lived within 20 miles of
Swansea. In 1837 the development of Munz metal was followed by the
process of coating iron sheets with zinc. Known as “corrugated iron”,
these galvanised sheets were exported by the million to the New World
where the frontier towns of the west were springing up.
The first smelter was established by the German, Ulrich Frosse at
Aberdulais 1584, but copper smelting finally ceased in 1924 and most of
the works were demolished. This book then is a fitting commemoration of
the world’s first Industrial Revolution
TO
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