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on the life and achievements of eighteenth-century inventor Henry Cort. Please email site controller Eric Alexander
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Scottish iron
When Henry Cort
visits Scotland in 1784, there is only a handful of ironworks there.
The earliest has been set up by an English
initiative in 1759. Two Birmingham
entrepreneurs, John Roebuck and Samuel Garbett, join with local man William
Cadell to build the Carron works, on a fast-running tributary of the Forth near
Falkirk.
Roebuck also purchases a mill on another
tributary at Cramond near Edinburgh.
For a while the enterprises are run
jointly.
Iron is smelted and fined at Carron. Smelting is done with coke, fining largely
with charcoal (although Roebuck does patent a process
using coal).
Much of the fined iron goes to Cramond to
be turned into nails and hoops.
Both Roebuck and Garbett run into financial
problems with other ventures, and control of Carron passes to Garbett's
son-in-law Charles Gascoigne.
These developments have often been depicted
as deliberate machinations by Gascoigne, but some of his correspondence with
Boulton & Watt suggests otherwise.
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I have been above 12 years a bankrupt,
devoted entirely to the service of creditors. From letter of Charles Gascoigne to Matthew
Boulton, 2 December 1785. |
Gascoigne experiments with new methods of
fining, but is unable to come up with anything worthwhile.
His most significant contribution is the carronade, a small cannon that can fire a large
ball. A succession of naval victories
later ensues.
Meanwhile the Cadells have taken control at
Cramond, which becomes a separate works, importing
much of its raw material from Sweden.
In 1774 they make a determined effort to
expand their customer base.
The Gosport business is one of their
targets. They threaten to sell nails
directly to the Navy in competition.
Attwick and Morgan,
who have been getting their ironmongery from the West Midlands, succumb to this
threat. When he takes over their
business, Cort finds Cramond is the main supplier of nails.
He is not happy with the supply he
gets.
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Cramond seemed to have been unable to get Cort's orders
right. They were regularly late and
also frequently of bad quality. From Patrick
Cadell, The Iron Mills at Cramond (Edinburgh, 1973). |
Cramond retorts that he has failed to
specify his needs properly. Apparently the
dispute is never solved, despite repeated attempts at agreement.
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Respecting our Claim upon Mr Cort for goods furnished him… Mr
Edington has been twice at Gosport on purpose to settling with him – once in
1778 and again in 1779. From letter of 17 December 1779 in archives of Cramond Company
at Edinburgh. |
Edington is present at some of Cort's demonstrations in 1784. Maybe his influence is one reason that Cort's
process fails to gain a foothold in Scotland at the time, despite a promising
initial response.
Meanwhile in 1779 three Scottish brothers,
the Wilsons, have embarked on a new venture,
establishing an ironworks they call Wilsontown in Lanarkshire.
For a while they employ John Mackenzie as
manager. He has left by the time of
Cort's visit.
Two years later he and Edington set up the
Clyde ironworks. From this point iron
production in Scotland starts to take off.
It receives a great fillip when David
Mushet (originally a Clyde employee) discovers the black band ironstone, an ore
containing enough carbon to obviate the need for coke in smelting.
Mushet's son will become instrumental in
the attempts to rehabilitate Cort's name in the
1850s.
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RELATED TOPICS Cort’s promotion
efforts 1783-6 Shropshire
and Staffordshire ironmasters |
henrycort.net
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