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Developments in the Scottish Pig Iron Trade, 1844–1848
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 February 2011
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Between 1844 and 1848 the Scottish pig iron trade occupied a particularly important place not only in British but also in world economy. In 1830 Scotland produced only 37,000 tons of pig iron, or about 5 per cent of the total British output. By the mid-1840's it produced over 300,000 tons annually, or about 25 per cent of die British output. Of this increased output only one third was used in Scotland, while no less than one quarter left the United Kingdom for abroad. Such a rapid progress rested on peculiarly favorable geological and technical conditions.
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- Copyright © The Economic History Association 1955
References
1 A great deal of the information for this article has been obtained from three sources: the Scottish press of the period; a series of price circulars of the firm of William Connal in the Mitchell Library, Glasgow; and the Hamilton MSS at Lennoxlove, Haddington, the Estates Office, Hamilton, and the Register House, Edinburgh. I am indebted to his Grace, the Duke of Hamilton, for access to the last-named source and for the facilities granted to examine them. Detailed acknowledgment is not made when these sources arc used.
Total export figures are from Barclay, J., Statistics of the Scotch Iron Trade (Glasgow, 1850) and from Connal's Price ListsGoogle Scholar.
2 Bell, I. Lowthian, The Chemical Phenomena of Iron Smelting (London, 1872), p. 361.Google Scholar
3 It may seem strange that the Scottish producers who first developed the technological possibilities of the hot blast should be slow to introduce other changes. The reason presumably b that before the hot blast the industry was not in a profitable position and some action had to be taken to prevent it from utter ruin. These conditions no longer existed. Consequently, a different incentive to innovate prevailed. The most conspicuous waste was in gases from the furnaces. These were not utilized even when coal was being used, and the gases were therefore much more valuable. Instead, the ironmasters “recklessly permitted [the gas] to cast its heat power into the surrounding atmosphere.”–St. Day, J. V., “On the Present State of Some Branches of Iron Metallurgy,” Proceedings of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow, VI, 327–29Google Scholar.
4 The importance of Liverpool merchants for some time before they were superseded by Glasgow men was due to already-existing dealings in metals in Liverpool. Dealings started in Glasgow only after the Scottish pig trade was firmly established.
5 Glasgow Herald, quoted in Mining Journal, August 14, 1844.
6 For example, the April 1845 meeting of the ironmasters fixed the price at 110s., but transactions were taking place at 120s. and buyers were still anxious to purchase. Naturally enough when the price fell, the masters were always much more reluctant to lower their price to that of the market. At the July meeting they reduced the price by 10s. to 80s., but the speculators were selling at 57s. 6d. and any quantity could be had for 60s. At the August meeting, however, they had to conform and reduce the price to 65s., the price of the speculators.
7 As yet there was no decline in Lanarkshire, but no further expansion took place.
8 Wilson, however, quickly allowed his Dundyvan works to go out of use and concentrated his energies elsewhere.
9 Before 1846 few iron vessels were built on the Clyde, but from 1846 to 1851 the numbers built were “moderate,” averaging 13,000 tons a year.– Cormack, W. S., “An Economic History of Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering,” (Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Glasgow), p. 50Google Scholar.
10 Macgeorge, A. M., Bairds of Gartsherrie (Glasgow, 1875), P- 92. New works on a different site had, however, to be built at Lugar. It is perhaps significant that with the exception of Dalmellington only the Bairds and Merry and Cunninghame could make the Ayrshire Ironworks pay.Google Scholar
11 Somers, R., Speech on Currency and Banking (Glasgow, 1862), p. 10.Google Scholar
12 Glasgow Saturday Post, January 22, 1848. losses in the grain trade were £400,000; in manufactures, £1,328,000; and in the East India interest, £1,208,000.
13 Formed on February 19, 1847, through the amalgamation of the Blair Iron Company and the Ayrshire Malleable Iron Company–Glasgow Constitutional, March 10, 1S47 ; , Paterson, House of Lords Scotch, Appeals, I, 611Google Scholar.
14 The incidence of the collapse in Glasgow can be seen by examining the list of failures in the city in Evans, D. M., The Commercial Crisis 1847-8 (London, 1849), Appendix, pp. lxxxix–ciGoogle Scholar . The only failure in iron was the Ayrshire Iron Company. The entrepôt trade of Glasgow suffered most heavily and they found themselves unable to dispose of imports profitably due to an excessively high level of import and to disappointments in the possible trade with China.–Second Report of the House of Commons Select Committee on Commercial Distress, 1847–8, Qs. 6192-4. It does not seem possible to think that these losses, though heavy, were severe, nor were they due to the activities of the exchange companies, which, although they originated in Glasgow, did not dominate the life of the city.– Fay, C. R., Great Britain Since Adam Smith (4th ed.; London, 1944), p. 194Google Scholar.
18 Iron warrants (that is, a promise to deliver a certain amount of iron on demand, or on a specified date, the iron held by a third party acting as security) were regarded as good bills, and in the autumn of 1847 there was no difficulty in obtaining discount on them.–Second Report, Q. 6080.
16 Second Report, Qs. 6079-85, 6987, 6298, 7141, 7482-83.
17 Session Papers, CDLXXXIX, 96 (in Signet Library, Edinburgh). Fortunately for the iron-masters and for the whole of Scotland, the Scottish banks came through the railway age comparatively unharmed. Even the British Linen Bank, which had accommodated both the railways and individuals, “lost very little, though in one case they had to wait years before recovering payment.”–Malcolm, C. A., The History of the British Linen Bank. (Edinburgh, 1950), p. 124. For their profits during this period 1842-47, see p. 125, n. 1Google Scholar.
18 Accounts and Papers, 1847 (489) LVIII andGoogle ScholarAccounts and Papers, 1848 (623) LGoogle Scholar.
19 Gartsherrie brands were sold for the American market in June 1848 for 53s. to 54s. a ton while the price of general mixed brands in Glasgow was 42s. 6d. cash.
20 Fortunately, the chief railway expansion in America came in the late 1840's. In 1849 double the mileage of 1847 was completed.–Smith, W. B. and Cole, A. H., Fluctuations in American Business, 1790-1860 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1935), p. 88Google Scholar.